Trump accidentally lashes out at GOP and threatens government shutdown

Congressional Republicans are once again learning Trump is an unreliable, often deceptive negotiator. Less than 24 hours after agreeing to the terms of a package to fund the government through the end of September, Trump took to Twitter to complain about the bill he and his party had put together — and threatened to veto it.

Funding for the government expires at midnight on Friday, March 23. If Trump vetoes the bill, that means another government shutdown.

“I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded,” Trump tweeted, complete with unusual capitalizations.

Trump’s complaints about what he thinks the bill is missing — and his misplaced blame of Democrats — is certainly bizarre. His party controls Congress and crafted the bill. And his party decided to strip DACA protections from the bill when Democrats would not agree to fund Trump’s wall.

DACA is the program started by President Obama that had protected nearly 1 million immigrants brought to the United States as children from deportation. Trump, in furtherance of his anti-immigrant agenda, rescinded it last year. Trump, and many Republicans, claimed to want to find a legislative solution, yet never did.

If he really is disappointed that DACA is not in the funding bill, he has only Republicans to blame.

In fact, Speaker Paul Ryan admitted Thursday that Republicans were holding DACA recipients, or Dreamers, hostage to Trump’s demands to pay for a border wall. A border wall that, during the campaign, Trump adamantly and repeatedly swore Mexico would pay for.

Earlier this week, Trump agreed to the terms of the funding bill, but only after Ryan was forced to trek to the White House and hold Trump’s hand through the process of understanding the bill.

But as most Americans already knew, Trump’s word on an issue is not worth much. According to the Washington Post, Trump surpassed telling 1,000 lies in the middle of 2017, only a few months into his term.

With this veto threat, Trump threatens to shut down the federal government, all because a program he unilaterally ended didn’t get fixed and a wall he promised Americans would not pay for didn’t get funded.