Trump is terrified of Ann Coulter
by digby
Earlier this week, Ann Coulter appeared on a widely circulated Daily Caller podcast and issued a warning to her “alpha-male” president:
“They’re about to have a country where no Republican will ever be elected president again. Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people, amused the populists for a while, but he’ll have no legacy whatsoever.”
Apparently, he was so hurt by her comments that he unfollowed her on twitter:
As of Thursday morning, Trump follows 45 people on Twitter, and Coulter is not one of those people. An account that follows and alerts Trump’s Twitter activity made a post highlighting that he unfollowed her.
Sad!
His buddies in the Freedom caucus backed her up. It scared him so much he decided that he’s going to hold his breath until he turns blue:
President Donald Trump will not sign the current Senate-passed funding measure that would avert a government shutdown, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday.
What was once a deal to avoid a holiday government shutdown got torpedoed Thursday after conservatives and Trump unleashed fury that the agreement doesn’t fully fund a long-promised border wall.
It was a closing burst of wrath in the final days of the Republican-majority House. If Trump cannot secure the $5 billion he is demanding for the wall now, it’s unlikely he will see a spending bill that meets his requirement for at least two years as Democrats assume control.
Stewing at the White House, Trump ranted on Twitter that he’d been down a similar road earlier this year, only to find himself again in the same position.
He summoned House Republicans — who thought they’d struck a deal to avert a shutdown — for noontime talks at the White House.
“President Trump just met with Republican Members of the House. Not surprisingly, they all feel strongly about border security — stopping the flow of drugs, stopping human trafficking and stopping terrorism. We protect nations all over the world, but Democrats are unwilling to protect our nation. We urgently need funding for border security and that includes a wall,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said following the White House meeting.
The White House is following Office of Budget and Management guidelines on notifying federal employees whether they’ll be furloughed in case of a government shutdown, a senior administration told CNN’s Jim Acosta.
“Prudent management requires that agencies be prepared for the possibility of a lapse. OMB guidance states that two business days before a potential lapse, agencies need to notify employees of their work and pay status under a lapse — that is, if they are furloughed or excepted. Agencies were directed by OMB to start that notification this morning,” the official said.
The last-minute scramble came after several days of whiplash, which began last week when Trump said in a meeting with Democrats that he would be proud to oversee a shutdown if it meant securing funds for the wall.
Later, the White House signaled he was softening on that stance, indicating the President was open to a compromise that fell short of providing the $5 billion Trump is demanding.
That provided an opening for Republican lawmakers to begin proceedings on a measure that would provide funding for nine federal agencies through February. That bill passed the Senate on Wednesday evening.
But on Thursday morning, the future of that plan was thrust into question after Trump tweeted his frustration at having to swallow another spending measure that doesn’t include funds for the wall.
The plan making its way through Congress would provide funding through February 8 — after Democrats assume control of the House, making this the likely last chance Trump will have of securing a plan that provides funds for the wall.
“When I begrudgingly signed the Omnibus Bill, I was promised the Wall and Border Security by leadership. Would be done by end of year (NOW). It didn’t happen!” he wrote after a phone conversation with House Speaker Paul Ryan. “We foolishly fight for Border Security for other countries – but not for our beloved U.S.A. Not good!”
Trump remained ambiguous Thursday on whether he will sign a measure temporarily funding the government in order to avoid a year-end shutdown, as he lamented a lack of funding for his desired border wall.
He is due to depart Friday afternoon for an extended holiday stay at his Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida. The White House has refused to say whether he would still travel there if the shutdown occurs. Included in the federal agencies affected would be the Secret Service, whose agents and officers would still work to protect the President and his family, just on an unpaid basis.
A senior White House official told CNN Friday it’s possible that Trump will decide not to back down on the wall fight as a result of growing pressure from the Freedom Caucus and conservatives.
The Dow is down 645 points as I write this.
Ann Coulter has the president of the United States by the … neck and she’s squeezing him hard. Is it any wonder that despots, tyrants and psychopaths all over the world are challenging the United States?
He’s weak and he’s stupid and this chaos is the result.
Happy Holidays. Oy vey.
If you find what we write here every day to be valuable, I hope you’ll consider putting some change in the Hullabaloo holiday stocking. Your support buys me the time to spend my days wading through the muck of the day’s political stories to bring you highlights and analysis that I hope you will enjoy and find informative.
If you’ve already donated, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you haven’t and would like to help support this blog for another year, the paypal buttons are on the sidebar and below as is the snail mail address.
And I wish all of you Very Happy Hollandaise!
cheers — digby
Digby’s Hullabaloo
2801 Ocean Park Blvd.
Box 157
Santa Monica, Ca 90405