One of Trump's worst weeks

Donald Trump has suffered some pretty bad periods in his two-year presidency. But this last week has probably been the worst. Not only was he forced to surrender and agree to end the government shutdown without any promise of money for his cherished border wall, but he was attacked by his most conservative supporters who accused him of being weak, AND a key player in the Trump presidential campaign, Roger Stone, was arrested and indicted for allegedly dodgy links with Russians and WikiLeaks as part of the Russia collusion investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. Stone was a close associate of Trump's and if he is convicted of some deal with WikiLeaks involving the leak of emails about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party which had been stolen/hacked by Russians, it is bound to be bad news for the president's own survival. The White House summarily dismissed the Stone arrest as having nothing to do with the Trump administration. But who's kidding? I bet Trump himself is not feeling remotely sanguine about his old friend's indictment. But his worst moment came when he had to declare that he, after all, was going to sign the federal budget so all the 800,000 workers who had been on unpaid furlough could get their back pay. Whatever way you look at this, it was the one thing he had pledged he wasn't going to do, UNLESS he got his $5.7 billion for the border wall. But then there he was agreeing to do the opposite. He got nothing for his surrender except political humiliation. It's tough being president, Mr President, even when you think you are the cleverest and smartest person in town. He was outmanouevred by Nancy Pelosi, and even though Trump has threatened to return to his border wall demands over the next three weeks he is not going to get the money he needs. If he then declares a national emergency or forces another shutdown he will become one of the most unpopular presidents in US history. How he will hate that! The irony is that during the 35-day shutdown the US economy lost $6 billion, the same amount Trump wanted for his wall. What a cruel world it is but in the game of politics, there are very few happy days. None at all for Donald Trump.