Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and the Trump presidency for the new Spectator USA website.

I'm joined today by Jacob Heilbrun, who is editor of the national interest and one of our best loved spectator USA contributors.

And we're going to be summing up Trump's start to the year. Well, as always with Trump,

Jacob, it's been quite a news cycle churning few days to begin 2019 from Donald Trump. and the biggest story it seems to me and to

most of the media I think is the shutdown which goes on and on and it's a disagreement between

the Democrats and Trump over the border over the wall funding for the wall and partly in

other other border security elements.

And it seems to be reaching boiling point and neither side is willing to budge.

What's your take on it?

I think Donald Trump has blundered badly in this shutdown.

And it wasn't inevitable that he would,

but now that he's backing off of the emergency declaration

in the face of remonstrances from the House Freedom Caucus

as well as some Republican senators, he really doesn't have much of a hand

left to play. And what he's been searching for all along is a fig leaf that he can use to extricate

himself from this. He wants to create the appearance, not the substance of a wall. Now, I think the pressure is going to mount

on the Republican Party, and the most interesting figure will be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Well, the Republicans, in shutdowns before, both parties, kind of, the reason they're doing it is because they think they can win the political argument.

And, I mean, it seems to me that the Democrats might not be on such strong ground as they think they are in that people don't necessarily blame the president for a shutdown.

They could quite as easily blame the Democrats who are balking at Trump's proposal.

And he might actually be winning the media argument.

I disagree as often with you, Freddie, in a conciliatory, gentle but firm spirit.

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