This was national security intelligence of epic proportions: Muslims, probably from Syria and Iraq and who knows where else, had traveled to Central America, made the arduous journey north into the United States, and finally crossed over, all the while keeping their prayer rugs in tow, only to clumsily leave them on the American side of the border. Now they were busted: An unknown reporter with the conservative Washington Examiner, citing a single unnamed rancher in New Mexico, had blown the story wide open—and the president was reading it.
There were no pictures of the prayer rugs in the Examiner story, a slight curiosity in the age of smartphone cameras. But Trump was not dissuaded, and for good reason. There had been photographic proof before; in the summer of 2014, Breitbart.com published a blockbuster: “MUSLIM PRAYER RUG FOUND ON ARIZONA BORDER BY INDEPENDENT AMERICAN SECURITY CONTRACTORS.” That article showed images of a “prayer rug,” prompting Texas’s lieutenant governor to give notice soon thereafter about Muslim paraphernalia being found on his side of the Rio Grande. He was taken seriously, even though the prayer rug looked a lot like an Adidas soccer jersey. (Upon further examination, it was, in fact, an Adidas soccer jersey.4)
Trump’s tweet was an affront to America herself: The president of the United States was warning citizens that Muslim prayer rugs were being found north of the border, a brazen bit of fearmongering aimed at gaining political advantage amid a legislative fight he was losing in humiliating fashion. The source he consulted before disseminating this information was not the FBI or the CIA or Homeland Security, but a single-sourced Washington Examiner piece with no names attached and no photos of the prayer rug in question.
There were no recriminations from his fellow Republicans for this wildly irresponsible statement. And frankly, even the complaints Democrats lodged seemed to slide quietly into the ether. Everyone had grown accustomed to the president casually floating conspiracy theories like a cabin-secluded uncle on a family email chain. This was just another time America would roll its eyes and move on. Besides, there was a race war at the Lincoln Memorial to worry about.
The tweet showed just how desperate Trump had become.
His shutdown was now the longest in U.S. history and there was not a flicker of light to be found in the tunnel. Democrats were holding fast, insisting that they would not negotiate while federal workers were held hostage; and Republicans on Capitol Hill were increasingly agitated, inwardly angry with themselves but outwardly seething at McConnell and McCarthy for having allowed the president to embarass the party like this.
As a last gasp, Trump offered a deal to Democrats: He would grant work permits to certain migrants for three years in exchange for wall funding. But Democrats had no reason to bite: They had all the leverage, and what the president was suggesting fell short of his own previous offers to extend permanent protections for DACA recipients. Accepting something less to end the shutdown, and thus allowing him to claim victory, made no sense politically or policy-wise.
When Pelosi unceremoniously rejected Trump’s offer, the dam broke inside the GOP. Senators confronted McConnell and told him in no uncertain terms that the shutdown needed to end; they were spinning their wheels in service of the president’s ego while eight hundred thousand federal workers and their families were panicking over the prospect of another missed paycheck.
The majority leader got the message. Assuring the White House that they had no cards left to play, McConnell convinced Trump that they could save face by reopening the government for three weeks. It would give both parties a negotiating window over border security and test whether Democrats were sincere about coming to the table once the government opened up. The president, beleaguered and showing the scantest hint of remorse over the fiasco, agreed.
On January 25, thirty-five days into the shutdown, Trump stood in the Rose Garden and announced a deal to reopen the government for three weeks. “We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier,” he said. “If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on February 15, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency.”
The president was determined to project strength. But there was only weakness to be seen. Everyone watching knew the score. Trump had blinked, caved, folded, buckled, lost. The only person who seemed aloof to this reality was the master negotiator himself, the man who ran for president touting his reputation as a winner, a dealmaker, a driver of hard bargains, only to be repeatedly outsmarted by his oppositon once in office.
Later that night, watching television in the White House residence and growing enraged by the universal assessments of his defeat, Trump tweeted, “I wish people would read or listen to my words on the Border Wall. This was in no way a concession. It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, it’s off to the races!”
It was a most forgettable day for the president. That morning, Trump had awoken to news that Roger Stone, his political trickster and hatchet man, was the latest victim of Robert Mueller’s investigation. Arrested in the predawn hours at his Florida home, Stone was indicted by a federal grand jury on seven counts. They included obstructing the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and lying about his communications with WikiLeaks and Trump campaign officials. Stone was also charged with intimidating a witness who was in contact with WikiLeaks’s leader, the Kremlin-backed Julian Assange, during the 2016 campaign.
Stone was being accused of the dirtiest word in Republican politics: collusion.
Between the indictment of his longest-serving associate and his humiliating defeat at the hands of Pelosi, the president could be excused for feeling low. But his spirits were lifted in no time. The calls came in that night, from Meadows and McCarthy and several other sycophants, cheering Trump and telling him that everything would be fine.
It was just another day in the Republican Party. If anyone was spooked, or distraught, or disgusted, they did their best to hide it.
Some lawmakers were less practiced than others.
Sitting in his new office that Friday afternoon, shortly after the president’s Rose Garden speech, Senator Mitt Romney appeared at a loss. He had devoted his life to order and discipline; the only trace of untidiness was the stack of unpacked boxes near his desk. Romney had dealt with Trump enough to know the inborn chaos he wrought, but nothing had prepared the senator for spending his first three weeks in Washington watching the president self-destruct.
It was a job he could have had, Romney thought to himself. A job he should have had. A job he would have done with diligence and dignity.
But there was no time to dwell on that. The freshman senator from Utah had work to do. Standing his ground—and standing up to Trump, when the circumstances warranted—would be easier said than done. Sending tweets and writing op-eds was easy; defying the president, in the face of grinding pressure from party leaders and major donors and voters back home, would be far more difficult. Romney had to tread carefully. Having sold himself as something of a white knight, swooping into Congress to restore balance to the Republican universe, he had two targets on his back: one for the Trump supporters poised to punish his disloyalty, the other for Trump adversaries eager to highlight his hypocrisy the instant he capitulated to Trump.