President Donald Trump just shivved his own party's congressional leadership heading into the biggest month of legislative business this year.
Trump baffled congressional Republicans, and even some in his own administration, by quickly siding with Democratic leaders on a deal to fund the government and raise the federal debt ceiling for the next three months. It was a deal that his own party, led by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), opposed, including in a public statement just hours before a closed-door White House meeting between the president, fellow congressional leaders, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
For all his famed negotiating skills, Trump emerged from the meeting having handed Democrats a legislative triumph. But according to sources close to Trump, the president was more than willing to cut the deal because he has grown tired, if not resentful, of Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.
Multiple West Wing sources told The Daily Beast how the president was looking to strike a quick and easy deal—and that his speed reaching this specific arrangement was in part ensured by his resentment towards Republican leaders, who Trump views as hostile, insufficiently loyal, and impotent. It was well-known within the White House that President Trump, going into the meeting, was ”not looking to do [Ryan and McConnell] any favors," as one White House official put it.
Simply put, the president made a ”deliberate decision not to care about Ryan's feelings" and did what he wanted, another White House adviser said.
”I think it was calculated, in his unique way. Republicans can't get anything done, so maybe the other side will," a senior Trump administration official said of the deal, which will forestall a government shutdown until mid-December and allow the government to continue borrowing money until around the same time.