Donald Trump just stepped in it

Mitch McConnell is a savvy negotiator, but Nancy Pelosi is even better at it. That’s why Pelosi was able to defeat McConnell yet again on the matter of bailing out individual states. McConnell tried to win the narrative by criticizing blue states, but Pelosi seized on McConnell’s cravenness, and she won the narrative. So now there will be state bailouts in the next financial stimulus package.

This means it’s time for Donald Trump to take the most ridiculous position he can think of with regard to the bailouts, in the hope of getting something out of it for himself. He’s decided to float the idea of forcing states to cave on his racist immigration agenda in exchange for the money. You can see why this isn’t going to work.

Trump just walked right into another quid pro quo scandal. Democrats have spent the past ten months accusing him of a quid pro quo in his Ukraine scandal, and he swore it wasn’t true. But now he’s on stage attempting another quid pro quo in plain sight. That’s not going to help him seize the narrative when it comes to state bailouts. Trump just stepped in it.

Now we’ll see what gambit Mitch McConnell decides to try. Again, the state bailouts are going to happen. That’s a given. The question is whether McConnell can trick us into believing the bailouts won’t happen, unless we cave to him on some arbitrary demand. Trump’s gambit was a swing and a miss. McConnell is better at this than Trump, but McConnell is playing with a weak hand on the bailouts at this point.