TRUMP CAVES? President Reportedly Expected to Announce Shutdown Deal That Does Not Include Wall Funding

President Donald Trump is expected to announce from the White House Rose Garden a temporary measure that will reopen the government that has been shut down for a record-long 35 days.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that he would not reopen the government without funding for the wall, a demand Democrats stubbornly refused.

Before the announcement — expected imminently — John Roberts reported for Fox News that President Trump “would accept a temporary spending measure called the continuing resolution as long as it contains some sort of down payment, some sort of prorated payment on the wall.”  That wall down payment does not appear to be part of this agreement.

Congressional negotiations have been underway with discussions with White House officials, all of which resulted in rumored compromise scenarios. Matt Drudge was the first to report an agreement with a headline that read:

“SOURCE: SHUTDOWN AGREEMENT REACHED… ANNOUNCEMENT SET FOR 1 PM…GOVT TO REOPEN ‘TEMPORARILY.’”

In December of last year, President Trump said to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer during a televised Oval Office meeting that he would proudly own the government shutdown. Recent polling has reflected that, showing a strong majority of Americans blame Trump for the shutdown.

Before the shutdown started, Vice President Mike Pence told Congressional leaders that the president would sign a short term CR to keep the government open while they continued to debate border security funding. But after significant pressure from right-of-center media figures like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, President Trump backtracked on that alleged agreement which led to the shutdown.

Early on Friday The Washington Post reported over 14,000 IRS workers neglected to go to work due to lack of payment. And flights were delayed in major American Airports due to a shortage of Air Traffic Controllers, some of whom refused to arrive at work due to the shutdown.

Over the course of the week, the State of the Union speech was in question as the result of the shutdown. Speaker Pelosi effectively revoked a previous invitation to President Trump to address the House while the government was shut down, offering to re-invite once this issue was resolved.

It is not yet clear if this temporary agreement means that Trump will be giving the SOTU speech next Tuesday as was initially planned.

What we do know is that this three-week agreement is a short-term measure that gives Congressional leadership and the Trump administration a tight window to resolve a complicated immigration issue — on which both sides have taken hardened positions.

Correction: A previous version of this story said Trump had announced the shutdown deal. He has yet to officially make his announcement.