Everything in Washington comes down to this: It’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vs. President Donald Trump.
Trump offered a window into his state of mind on Tuesday evening, lashing out at Democrats for refusing to accept his mantra of „NO COLLUSION and NO OBSTRUCTION!“
„The Dems were unhappy with the outcome of the $40M Mueller Report, so now they want a do-over,“ Trump tweeted.
At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the speaker will join another longtime Trump antagonist, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and key committee chairs to discuss the President’s bipartisan $2 trillion infrastructure plan.
It will be a momentary truce amid an expanding, multi-front war between Pelosi’s House Democrats and the White House, which is fast bringing America to the cusp of a constitutional crisis.
Pelosi’s legendary grip on her Democratic troops is facing perhaps its most significant test over her reluctance to swiftly initiate impeachment hearings against Trump, even as he mounts a suffocating effort to thwart Democratic investigations.
On Tuesday alone, Trump’s former White House counsel Don McGahn ignored a subpoena to testify to a House committee on the President’s orders, prompting furious Democrats to hold a theatrical „empty chair“ hearing.
Pelosi’s subordinates sent new subpoenas to one of Trump’s most trusted confidants — his former communications director Hope Hicks — and to Ann Donaldson, McGahn’s plugged-in former chief of staff.
And the President launched an appeal against a federal court ruling on Monday that ordered his accountants to hand over years of financial records to a House committee.
While they are seeking to identify a patch of common ground in the political no man’s land, Pelosi and Trump will struggle to conceal their efforts to use ongoing budget negotiations and their showdown over scandals to achieve irreconcilable political goals.
All that Pelosi does — from her handling of impeachment demands to gambits on health care and social services — is to position her party for 2020 in the hope of making Trump a one-term president.
Trump, meanwhile, faces one of his biggest domestic tests as President as he tries to shape looming budget and debt cliffs to bolster his reelection and attempts to fulfill campaign promises like building his wall, while he tries to grab back Pelosi’s House majority and send her into retirement as he embarks on a second term.
A tense relationship
Given their ceremonial roles, Pelosi and Trump cross paths quite often — and are usually civil to each other.
