One side benefit of today’s cave is that it’ll temporarily separate the MAGA men from the MAGA boys in terms of the purity of their devotion to Trump. Bill Mitchell?

https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1088933207809163264

Seb Gorka?

The Democrats have 3 weeks to prove if they will keep their word on border security.

And @realDonaldTrump gets to hold a State of the Union on The Wall.

GENIUS. pic.twitter.com/dcHUha4Vki

— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) January 25, 2019

Bill O’Reilly?

Political chess game continues. President Trump reopens government – a good thing. Gives Dems three weeks to make a border security deal. Reasonable. Advantage Trump today.

— Bill O'Reilly (@BillOReilly) January 25, 2019

Sean Hannity? C’mon. He’s the Pope of MAGA-ism. It’ll take a lot more than Trump caving on the wall for him to lose faith.

“Some of you say ‘he didn’t get any money for the wall,’” Hannity observed. “No he didn’t, but he’s going to.”

As Hannity acknowledged the national problems that emerged as a byproduct of the shutdown, he claimed that he heard of backchannel conversations among Democratic congresspeople, asking leadership to say yes to Trump’s offer to deal on DACA dreamers. The Fox host said those Democrats were instructed to remain silent in public, and that Trump can take the country back into a shutdown if Congress cannot make a deal on border security and immigration reform.

“The left wing media will say its a win,” Hannity said as he laid out his thoughts on what will happen once Trump declares a national emergency.

I’m sure he’s right that some Dems would eagerly agree to a “DREAM for wall” deal. It’s an obvious avenue of compromise and they’re not all Ocasio-Cortez radicals on abolishing ICE. Remember, no less than Steny Hoyer, Pelosi’s number two, said recently that there’s a place for barriers at the border. Pelosi’s weird view that building a wall would be “immoral” is a byproduct of trying to appease the left and needing to pretend that blocking Trump is about something grander than partisan spite. There may even be some amnesty shills who think a wall in exchange for DREAM is a deal worth doing. Wasn’t it … Luis Gutierrez who offered just a year ago to help build the wall himself if Trump would compromise by protecting DREAMers?

Even the left has no specific objection to a wall. They object to it in principle because they favor open borders but there’s nothing about the wall per se that makes them more hostile to it than they are to, say, more funding for ICE. Stopping the wall has become a political fetish for them because building the wall has become one for Trump. They won an election, they’re feeling their oats, and their reward is getting to tell Trump to fark off. So, sure, while some Dems are ready to deal, Pelosi isn’t. The left isn’t. The many Democrats across the country who deeply despise Trump aren’t. And pro-compromise Democrats in Congress know that and are fearful of crossing them. So what does it matter if they want a deal? It’s like saying that most Republicans in Congress want comprehensive immigration reform. That would also be true and it’d also be a nonstarter because they know they’d get slaughtered in primaries if they followed through.

Hannity knows that, though. He knows Congress isn’t giving Trump funding for the wall over the next three weeks. And I’m sure he knows that even if Pelosi’s arm was twisted and Democrats put the wall on the table in exchange for DREAM, Trump would balk for fear of taking another beating from Coulterites. Which is why, if you listen to the audio at Mediaite from his show this afternoon (I can’t find an embeddable clip, sorry) you’ll find him talking up the idea of Trump declaring a national emergency and using Pentagon money for the wall. That’s the only way this can end with Trump saving face so that’s the only way this can end, period. I don’t know why we’re wasting three weeks to get there.

I wonder who’s going to tell Sean, though, that it ain’t just “left wing media” that thinks Pelosi won today. Hoo boy:

I’m happy federal workers will be paid but @realDonaldTrump just allowed Nancy to walk all over him. It’s President Trump, not President Pelosi. Act like it. #BuildThatWall

— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) January 25, 2019

Your exit question: Which right-wing media star delivered this ultimatum to POTUS to fund the wall — and when?

All right, here’s where we are. The president must insist on the complete border wall funding now, or guess what? I’d argue it’s never coming.

Right, that’s Hannity … 16 months ago. The MAGA men will always give Trump an extension on when exactly he needs to start work on the wall. And although it doesn’t seem like it this afternoon, as the election gets closer so will the MAGA boys.