A group of MSNBC political analysts feared President Donald Trump has become a "cornered badger" on political issues looming on the horizon.
During a Sunday discussion about the "wall," the panel recalled the president's "pride" in shutting down the U.S. government to score his $5 billion.
"So, what we've been hearing is rumors that maybe the president is going to accept to kick the can down the road and deal with the border wall funding in January," claimed Victoria DeFrancesco, University of Texas professor. "The idea of a wall really isn't necessary, in terms of quote/unquote fixing immigration. What's needed is to rethink our asylum policy, how we can make it more efficient, how we did get more judges down there to hear the asylum cases, but the border wall is a waste of money. Trump knows it, but he also said he would do it. He's going to have to find a way to wiggle out of it. If I were a betting woman, I would think he'll kick it to January and keep kicking it down the road."
MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton noted that undocumented immigrants crossing the border is actually down, but "you wouldn't know it from the hysteria" doled out by the president on Twitter. Democratic strategist Emily Tisch Sussman was in emphatic agreement.
"I feel like what we're seeing right now is when someone's thrashing right before they start going under, He's just thrashing anything he possibly can so that he can try to get some sort of win out of this," said Sussman. "He knows he is in an un-winnable political position. If he does kick the can down the road, he would have to face a house led by Democrats, most likely by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Part of the impact of having Democrats coming in controlling one house of Congress is there's no longer a blank check for whatever Trump says, whatever the cost he says, whatever program he wants."
She noted that the Republicans are giving Trump the final opportunity to score a key campaign promise before he kicks off his 2020 reelection campaign.
"Look, he couldn't get the border wall down when he controlled both houses and now he's going to say he wants $5 billion for something we don't need and is going to furlough hundreds of thousands of employees to get it done and those employees include ICE Agents, TSA traveling during the holidays, include border control, include his own Secret Service agents who will be protecting him at Mar-a-Lago if he goes down and takes a vacation during a shutdown. So the optics of that are terrible. He must be hearing that on the inside as well," Sussman continued.
There are over 850,000 nonessential federal employees who could be sent home without pay mere days before the Christmas holiday.
Watch the full discussion below:
