Trump Cut Ryan's Pecker Off This Morning-- In Public

Ryan's a jellyfish and maybe he never had a pecker anyway, but if he did, Trump put it in a pecker guillotine earlier today-- while Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin looked on in stunned silence and Miss McConnell excused himself and went to the little boys' room for a few moments and some smelling salts. Ryan had just accused Schumer and Pelosi of "playing politics" with Harvey emergency relief when Trump insisted he take out his thing and put it in the smallish guillotine Bannon had made him for just these kinds of ocasions. Peter Baker didn't mention anything about what happened to Ryan's severed pecker in his NY Times report today. He wrote that Señor Trumpanzee "struck a deal with Democratic congressional leaders on Wednesday to increase the debt limit and finance the government until mid-December, undercutting his own Republican allies as he reached across the aisle to resolve a major dispute for the first time since taking office. The agreement would avert a fiscal showdown later this month without the bloody, partisan battle that many had anticipated by combining a debt ceiling increase and stopgap spending measure with relief aid to Texas and other areas devastated by Hurricane Harvey. But without addressing the fundamental underlying issues, it set up the prospect for an even bigger clash at the end of the year. In embracing the three-month deal, Mr. Trump accepted a Democratic proposal that had been rejected just hours earlier by Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. Mr. Trump’s snap decision at a White House meeting caught Republican leaders off guard and reflected friction between the president and his party. After weeks of criticizing Republican leaders for failing to pass legislation, Mr. Trump signaled that he was willing to cross party lines to score some much-desired legislative victories." When reading this, it's important to keep in mind that Trump is certifiably insane and completely unstable. So... everything with two grains of salt.

As if to reinforce that point, Mr. Trump aligned himself with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leaders, in embracing legislation to authorize younger illegal immigrants to stay in the country. A day earlier, Mr. Trump had rescinded a program enacted by President Barack Obama protecting such immigrants on the grounds that it went beyond a president’s authority, but called on Congress to legalize the program.

“We had a very good meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to a speech on taxes in North Dakota, without mentioning that Mr. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, had also attended. Regarding the immigration program, Mr. Trump said, “Chuck and Nancy would like to see something happen, and so do I.”

Republican leaders looked grim but resigned afterward and attributed Mr. Trump’s deal to a need for unity after Harvey struck Texas and as Hurricane Irma barrels toward Florida. “Look, the president can speak for himself, but his feeling was that we needed to come together to not create a picture of divisiveness at a time of genuine national crisis, and that was the rationale,” Mr. McConnell said.

But conservatives were clearly miffed. In a terse statement, Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, declared, “The Pelosi-Schumer-Trump deal is bad.”

Congressional aides said privately that Republicans went into the meeting at the White House proposing an 18-month deal on government spending and the debt limit, only to run into resistance from the Democrats. They then proposed a six-month deal as a compromise, but Democrats insisted on a three-month agreement. Mr. Trump then surprised the Republicans by agreeing to the Democratic formulation.

The agreement came after the House overwhelmingly approved nearly $8 billion in disaster aid in response to Harvey, taking quick action to help victims of the devastating flooding in Texas. The aid measure passed 419 to 3. The “no” votes were Republican.

McConnell will have to deal with that bill in the Senate, where he will be under pressure to tack on an increase to the debt ceiling before sending it back to the House where the dickless Ryan will sob to his aides about how cruel life is to him and then pass it and send it along to Señor Trumpanzee to sign.

So what was behind Schumer's and Pelosi's deal with Trump? Baker wrote that "pressed for a three-month increase along with the hurricane aid to give Democrats leverage later this year when other matters, including a longer-term government funding deal, could be negotiated between the two parties. By ensuring that all the pending issues converge at the end of the year, Democrats hope a longer-term agreement on fiscal matters could include immigration, health care and any number of other issues." Ryan freaked out and called their plan unworkable but Trump-- cavalierly-- ignored his concerns. As Baker said, poor Ryan has to deal with the Freedom Caucus loons. "Aside from the particulars of a debt-limit increase, just the idea of raising the government’s borrowing capacity in tandem with providing Harvey aid has drawn opposition from conservatives, who have pushed for any debt limit measure to be coupled with fiscal changes intended to rein in spending. 'Attaching the debt ceiling to it is using a catastrophe in Texas as leverage to pass something that certainly there should have been an alternative plan to pass,' said Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. Representative Mark Walker of North Carolina, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, expressed frustration at what he views as a missed opportunity to address the nation’s debt. 'We’re grateful that in Texas the floodwaters continue to recede,' he said on Fox News. 'But here in the swamp, it looks like they continue to rise.' Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action for America, a conservative group, said the White House and congressional leaders were putting conservative lawmakers-- including those from Texas-- 'in a pretty difficult political situation' by essentially daring them to vote against a measure containing both Harvey aid and an increase to the debt limit."

“Linking those two things together is not something that any conservative wants,” Mr. Holler said. But, he added, “there doesn’t seem to be a will in Congress or in the administration at this point to tackle some of those major drivers of our debt and deficit problem.”

Conservatives must also grapple with whether to support the Harvey aid even though the House bill does not include spending cuts to pay for it. The Club for Growth, a conservative group, had urged House members to vote against the Harvey bill if it was not fully offset by spending cuts, and the group also objected to the prospect of linking the debt limit to the hurricane aid.

“A debt ceiling increase is nothing more than Congress bailing itself out-- at taxpayer expense-- because Congress routinely fails to balance the budget,” the group wrote. “So adding the debt ceiling increase to the disaster relief bill is just throwing bad policy on top of bad policy.”

Jonathan Swan reported for Axios that a "Republican close to leadership" told them that 'Dems bluffed their way into total victory. They win the politics of DACA and leverage on debt in the winter. The fate is sealed-- DACA will be reauthorized without strings, Schumer has inserted himself into all negotiations in the winter, including tax, spending and immigration.'" Pelosi and Schumer issued a joint statement to the media: "In the meeting, the President and Congressional leadership agreed to pass aid for Harvey, an extension of the debt limit, and a continuing resolution both to December 15, all together. Both sides have every intention of avoiding default in December and look forward to working together on the many issues before us. As Democratic leaders, we also made it clear that we strongly believe the DREAM Act must come to the floor and pass as soon as possible and we will not rest until we get this done."

Señor Trumpanzee's own statement reinforced their perspective: "We had a very good meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer [Trump notably did not mention Ryan or McConnnell]. We agreed to a three-month extension on debt ceiling, which they consider to be sacred, very important, always we'll agree on debt ceiling automatically because of the importance of it. Also on the CRs and also on Harvey, which now we're going to be adding something because of what's going on in Florida, but we had a very good meeting. We essentially came to a deal, and I think the deal will be very good."