'Dealmaker in chief' largely absent
By Kevin Liptak, CNN White House Producer
Updated 8:08 PM ET, Sun January 21, 2018
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump may be presiding over the first government shutdown ever to occur when one party controls Washington, but in his own telling he is just beginning to master the ways of the capital.
"I had to stay here in DC, which I'm becoming pretty proficient at," he told wealthy donors in a video played at the Florida fundraiser he was supposed to attend on Saturday evening, but couldn't ...
... On Sunday, there was little to indicate Trump was taking a leading role in helping break the stalemate between Democrats and Republicans. He did not appear in public. He hasn't taken a meeting at the White House since Friday. And his only tweet of the day, calling for an end to the Senate filibuster, was roundly rejected by Republican congressional leaders.
It was a remarkable position for a President who entered office vowing to use skills honed in the real estate world to broker deals for the country. Instead of negotiating his own way out of the quagmire, Trump seemed content to watch lawmakers and his staff haggle from his third-floor perch at the White House, which he did not leave on Sunday ...
http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/21/politics/donald-trump-shutdown-negotiation/index.html
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