Lawmakers have reached a deal
to avoid another government shutdown,
but President Trump says he's not happy with it.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
If there's one thing we've learned about Donald Trump
in the two years he's been president,
it's that you can't negotiate with him,
which is ironic considering that was his whole thing
he was supposed to be --
a great dealmaker who could bring everyone together.
Although, even during the campaign,
there were hints that he didn't really know
what he was talking about.
-With Congress, you have to get everybody in a room,
and you have to get them to agree,
but you have to get them to agree what you want,
and that's part of being a dealmaker.
You have to get people in, grab them, hug them, kiss them,
and get the deal done,
but it's got to be the deal that you want.
-What are you talking about?
I mean, we all know you didn't write "The Art of the Deal,"
but did you not even read it?
I mean, I'm just imagining Trump chasing Chuck Schumer
around the Oval Office trying to hug him.
"Come here, Chuck!
We got to make a deal, Chuck!"
[ Applause ]
Now...
if Trump kissed Mitch McConnell, on the other hand,
he might finally turn into a prince.
[ Laughter ]
Also, what you're describing is not a deal.
What you're describing is a Benny Hill sketch...
which is, I guess, why you have the same hair.
This keeps happening.
For two years, Trump has said in public
that he wants to make a deal, but then, in reality,
he has neither the ability to negotiate, nor the interest.
For example, you might remember
that after Trump unilaterally subjected the country
to the longest government shutdown in history,
forcing workers to go without paychecks,
he claimed the one thing he had gotten in his deal
with the Democrats was an agreement
to negotiate over the wall, although, as usual,
he was very hung up
on what words we should use to describe the wall.
-I have seen and heard from enough Democrats and Republicans
that they are willing to put partisanship aside.
They have said they are for complete border security,
and they have finally and fully acknowledged
that having barriers, fencing, or walls,
or whatever you want to call it...
-How can you negotiate for something
when you don't even know what it is?
You know, people say Trump doesn't work very hard,
but he's clearly spent a lot of time sitting in his office,
typing the word "wall" into a thesaurus.
"Call it whatever you want.
Barriers, fencing...
fortifications...
enclosures...
parapets."
So, that was Trump's big announcement after the shutdown,
that lawmakers from both sides would get together
and come up with a deal that would avoid
another government shutdown by the end of the week.
So how's that going? Well, on Monday night,
Trump was asked for an update on the negotiations
during an interview on Fox News
and said he wasn't following the negotiations
because he was spending his time doing interviews on Fox News.
-Mr. President, word broke late today, early this evening
that there might be some tentative deal struck
to avert a government shutdown.
What can you tell us?
-Well, I can tell you that a lot of things have changed,
and we'll see what happens.
I can't go into the exact deal.
I just heard it very quickly, coming over to see you.
It was between the deal and you, and I had to choose you.
-He literally said,
"I had a choice between running the government
and going on Fox News, and I chose Fox News."
No quote has ever summed up Trump's presidency
better than that.
Also, anyone can get on Fox News.
It's not some exclusive high-end night club.
Last week, they put this guy on TV to talk about healthcare.
-I have eternal healthcare, and it's free.
Doctors can give you a little temporary reprieve,
but they cannot save you from physical death.
The doctors who treat you, they die, too.
-That guy wasn't even in New York.
They just brought a camera to his shack in the woods.
So, Trump made a big show of championing the bipartisan talks
after he caved in the shutdown fight,
and now he says he's not even paying attention to them,
which might explain why when he found out that the deal
didn't have any money for a concrete border wall yesterday,
he said he wasn't happy with it.
Although, he didn't even really seem to know
what he wanted or what he was upset about.
-Sir, will you sign Congress' border deal?
-I have to study it. I'm not happy about it.
It's not doing the trick, but I'm adding things to it,
and when you add whatever I have to add,
it's all going to happen.
-He has all the specificity of a "Real Housewives" promo.
"When you add whatever I have to add, it's all going to happen."
[ Applause ]
I mean, I hope he's never the only eyewitness to a crime.
"Yeah, it was a person somewhere between 3 and 10 feet tall.
Two legs. Oh, and clothes! He had clothes on. Or she."
Trump talks about the wall like he just ran into one.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Every few months -- Every few months,
we have to go through this exhausting ritual
where we pretend the President actually knows
what he's talking about, even though it's clear he doesn't.
The negotiations over the wall
are just like the negotiations over healthcare in 2017
when Trump kept saying he wanted Democrats
to work with him on the GOP healthcare bill
but also made clear he had no idea
what was in the GOP healthcare bill.
-We had to go with the healthcare first,
and we're doing well.
I think we're going to have some great surprises.
We are looking at a healthcare
that would be a fantastic tribute to our country,
a healthcare that will take care of people finally
for the right reasons and also at the right cost.
This will be a plan where you can choose your doctor.
This will be a plan where you can choose your plan,
and you know what the plan is.
This is the plan.
"I call it... the plan, plan, plan."
Every time he talks about something complicated,
it's like an episode of "Seinfeld"
where George is trying to get fired.
"I have a plan, Jerry!" "What's the plan?"
"It's a plan where you can choose your plan!"
"And you think you'll get away with this plan?"
"That's the plan!" "Well, that's a hell of a plan."
[ "Seinfeld" theme plays ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Yesterday, Trump tried to argue
that the wall was already being built, which is not true.
And he even claimed he was making old sections of the wall
look beautiful by repainting them.
-We're getting a beautiful-looking structure,
because it was crazy what they were putting up.
In fact, I happen to think that the walls
that they were building were so unattractive and so ugly,
that walls got bad names, okay, if that means anything.
-No, it doesn't. It doesn't mean anything to us.
Walls didn't have bad names.
Walls had no names.
Before you showed up, we never talked about walls at all.
And we certainly never chanted about them.
Trump then continued to insist that the wall was being built
while simultaneously complaining that he was mad that Congress
wasn't giving him money to build the wall.
And it was impossible to follow.
See if you understand what he is talking about here.
-I can tell that you that -- Am I happy at first glance?
I just got to see it.
The answer is, no, I'm not. I'm not happy.
But am I happy with where we're going? I'm thrilled.
Because we're supplementing things
and moving things around,
and we're doing things that are fantastic.
-In the span of 20 seconds, he went from saying
he was not happy to saying he was thrilled
to saying he was doing things that are fantastic.
If we just let him keep talking,
he'll say he's building the wall, he built the wall, everyone loves the wall,
and he's moving to the southern border
to live in a one-bedroom apartment with his best friend, The Wall.
We're going to film it for a TV show and call it "Wall and Grace."
[ Cheers and applause ]
We are in this situation because Trump sold his supporters
an obvious lie he had no intention of keeping,
and now he's desperately trying to save face.
For example, now he's just lying
and saying the wall is already getting built.
In fact, he even said recently that his supporters should start
chanting "finish the wall" rather than "build the wall."
But judging from his rally in Texas on Monday,
his supporters didn't exactly hear the news.
-We're building the wall. A lot of it has --
I mean, the chant now should be "finish the wall"
as opposed to "build the wall."
'Cause we're building a lot of wall.
-Build that wall! Build that wall!
Build that wall! Build that wall!
-Even your supporters know that you haven't started the wall.
Because they know, if you had,
Fox News would have a camera pointed at it 24/7,
and the foreman on the job would be the fourth Fox and Friend.
[ Laughter ]
In fact, after that chant -- after that chant,
Trump tried to tell the crowd that they were wrong.
-You really mean "finish that wall,"
because we've built a lot of it. It's "finish that wall."
-He's like the world's [bleep] hypnotist.
"You're a chicken." "What are you talking about?"
"Stop talking. Chickens don't talk."
This is the lesson of Trump's presidency so far.
You can't negotiate with someone
who inhabits a different reality than you do.
Trump spends all day digesting lies from Fox News.
Fox News, in turn, reinforces his alternate reality.
In fact, Fox News has been insisting for weeks
that even though Trump didn't get any money for his wall,
in the end he'll find a way to win.
-Anyone out there, by the way,
thinking President Trump caved today,
you don't really know the Donald Trump I know.
He right now holds all the cards.
-I think the President's probably going to say,
"You know what? I'm going to take that number right there.
$1.4 billion for 55 miles of border wall."
And then I bet he's got something up his sleeve.
-If Trump ever has anything up his sleeve,
it's a cheeseburger that somehow got stuck there.
He just hasn't found it yet.
"What the hell is -- Ohh! Hello, friend!"
Trump sold his voters an obvious lie
that he had no intention of keeping,
and now he's concocting more lies to justify the original lie.
He's never going to get his wall.
He doesn't even have a plan for getting his wall.
If you ask him to describe his plan, he'd say...
-You know what the plan is. This is the plan.
-This has been "A Closer Look."