Well, markets don’t seem particularly enamored with Donald Trump’s weekend wall bombast as communicated via a deluge of characteristically ridiculous tweets and two literal propaganda videos.
Mick Mulvaney didn’t help matters. His interview with Face The Nation was hapless, although under the circumstances, he did the best he could. Here’s Mick trying to explain the “wall” versus “fence” debate:
That’s from the same interview during which he reiterated that Trump would in fact be willing to shut the government down again on February 15 if he doesn’t get what he wants and as we’ve been pretty keen on emphasizing, the right-wing echo chamber is raising the odds of that outcome materializing by lambasting the President for reopening the government without wall money.
But it looks like the market is particularly concerned about a Wall Street Journal interview published Sunday evening that finds Trump assigning some subjective odds to the chances of a deal being struck over the next three weeks. The first sentence of the article pretty much sums things up:
President Trump said Sunday he doesn’t believe congressional negotiators will strike a deal over border-wall funding that he could accept and vowed that he would build a wall anyway, using emergency powers if need be.
Assuming you bothered to read any further than that, you’d find Trump saying that he “personally think[s] it’s less than 50-50, but you have a lot of very good people on that board.” That’s a reference to a panel of 17 lawmakers who will desperately try to discern what exactly it is that Trump wants.
He also said another shutdown is “certainly an option”, indicated it’s unlikely he would accept anything less than $5.7 billion and said that even if, by some miracle, he were to get the money, he wouldn’t be inclined to grant citizenship to Dreamers.
Of course you could argue that all of that is just posturing and that as such, those soundbites are meaningless, but if you put any stock in what comes out of his mouth, all of the above certainly suggests the three-week CR will mark little more than an interlude in what will ultimately be remembered as a months-long impasse.
In light of all this, global equities were generally on the back foot coming off the weekend and headed into a five-day stretch littered with marquee events.
(Bloomberg)
Worst. President. Ever.
There is still James Buchanan.
Who would be a welcome improvement.
Even the dead mummified version of him.
C’mon fellow travelers, according to some the Orange Snow Cone is 2nd only to Abe himself! Besides, two years is not nearly enough time to get your game together (see Michael Jordan 1988-1990) and it’s just nothing but timing. All will be better when he finally passes that hairball that’s clogging his brain, or, is that his intestines?
=b (ASCII thumb…)
Google tells me that means thumbs up. I have the same opinion.
SAD! After the Commerce Secretary’s fiasco on the shutdown last week, it’s clear there are no ‘Adults’ left in the White House.
Everyone knew her as ‘Nancy’…
The next incredulous point of concern…We are negotiating with the Taliban for peace in Afghanistan?? At what point did the Taliban ever get to the point where we could believe one word they say?? Are we just turning the country over to them to rape and pillage and murder everyone who isn’t a supporter?? Are all the Allied soldiers who have died over there to have died in vain?? Once out, if they go crazy in taking over the country, what’s the chance anyone will march in to teach them a lesson?? Nil. The next Caliphate??
‘Good Morning, Vietnam’ :'(
how many mexicans are on ‘the board’? afterall mexico is going to pay for the wall, djt said so!
Who’d have thought I’d ever have anything in common with Ann Coulter, though for completely opposite reasons.
and that lunatic says they only put him in office to build his stupid wall — yokes on them!
WALL! NOW! WALL! WALL-WALL! WAHHHHHHHLLLLL!