Shutdown brawl between Trump, Dems has devolved into ‘cafeteria food fight’: Morgan Ortagus

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Trump signals openness to deal to reopen government with 'down payment' for border wall

Tensions between President Trump and top Democrats on Capitol Hill are reminiscent of a high school rivalry, national security analyst Morgan Ortagus argued Thursday night.

After a Republican-backed bill that included funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall received less support in the Senate than the Democrats' bill, Trump was the first to blink in his feud with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. -- saying he'd postpone his State of the Union address until after the shutdown ends.

During Thursday's "Special Report" All-Star panel, Ortagus -- as well as Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano and Axios reporter Jonathan Swan -- weighed in on the latest in the standoff between Trump and congressional Democrats.

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“I think when the American people are looking at this, this has devolved into a cafeteria food fight with the Democrats in Congress saying, ‘But he started it.’ And I think that’s why people are so frustrated. I think whatever moral argument that [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats felt they had around Christmas or even two weeks ago, for me, has really evaporated in all of this because there is no point. We’ve had many resolutions come to the table that you’re not seeing Democrats negotiate with the president and this standoff is hurting real people,” Ortagus told the panel.

The national security analyst urged both sides to “get over themselves” and said “it’s time” for Democrats to come to the table.

Ortagus added that anyone working for Trump’s reelection campaign should be “elated” with how Democrats have conducted themselves in recent weeks.

“Any thought that you had that Democrats might moderate and nominate someone like [former Vice President Joe] Biden [for president in 2020] and trying to be responsible ... If this is the behavior that we’ve seen in the last two weeks going into 2020, the president’s reelection campaign must feel great,” Ortagus said.

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Judge Napolitano expressed his shock that six Senate Republicans joined Democrats in voting for a bill without funding for the wall and detailed the difficulty ahead for the Trump administration in pursuing a physical barrier on privately owned land.

Swan told the panel that both sides were “feeling pressure” but that the leadership has “dug in” on their positions, invoking Pelosi’s assertion that walls are “immoral.” He added that Democrats providing money for border security -- but not a wall -- was “not going to cut it” because that’s “everything except for whatTrump really wants.”