Donald Trump plays to the gallery

Donald Trump grabbed the limelight in a confrontation with two Democrat leaders and threatened to shut down the government today unless he got his $5 billion to start building a border wall. This was Nancy Pelosi's first on-camera set-to with the president as she prepares to take over as Speaker in the House of Representatives next month. Trump did his hard-ball act, literally taunting Pelosi with his threat to bring government to a halt. But she was having none of it, giving Trump an icy response. Reporters watched in astonishment as Trump waved his arms and became increasingly heated. With control of the House being taken over by the Democrats in January, this little bunfight between the president and the two leading Democrat politicians - the other one was Senator Chuck Schumer, Minority Leader of the Senate - has given us an alarming insight into how Trump's relationship with the Democrats is going to go over the next two years. He is never going to give up his border wall because he promised he would build one during his presidential election campaign. Pelosi is never going to cooperate. So it's a political logjam. Just like it was when Obama was in power and he faced recalcitrant Republicans. There's another confrontation in the wind. Trump told all his cabinet members to cut back on their budget for 2020 by five per cent to help reduce the deficit. But Jim Mattis over at the Pentagon was so taken aback he rushed to the White House and explained to the president why cutting the defence budget down to $700 billion in 2020 would set back his plans to boost the size of the armed services and buy lots more lovely weaponry. Trump was easily persuaded and then went mad, presumably because he didn't have his budget management adviser with him. He apparently told Mattis not only that he could keep his five per cent but then increased the overall budget for 2020 to $750 billion, a staggering increase of $50 billion, more than enough to meet the defence secretary's dreams. Pelosi I'm sure will object. It seems highly unlikely that Mattis will get $750 billion. But perhaps Trump was playing a high stakes game, knowing the Democrats would never countenance such a steep rise for the Pentagon, and just putting any old figure out there. If so, that's a bit tough for Mattis. Mind you, if Mattis were to get $750 billion in 2020, Trump would probably tell him to use his largesse to pay for the border wall.