President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are engaged in the bitter opposite of negotiations over the partial government shutdown, now in its 28th day, as they seek to cow one another into an embarrassing capitulation.
Following Pelosi’s suggestion that Trump reschedule his State of the Union address, the president on Thursday denied her a military plane for an unannounced trip to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The tit-for-tat plunged their relationship — never warm — into a freeze from which any compromise on a budget stand-off that’s left 800,000 federal workers without paychecks seems distant.
