the Fox News presidency
Did Trump cave to Fox News over the shutdown?
As goes Ann Coulter, so goes President Trump?
After the White House signaled earlier this week that Trump would likely back away from his demand for $5 billion in border wall funding to prevent a partial government shutdown, the president on Thursday afternoon said the demand is back on. He's refusing to sign a stopgap spending bill that would prevent a shutdown because it doesn't have the border wall funding he has demanded.
This comes after Trump was being hammered within conservative media for seeming open to passing the bill without wall funding in it. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter was particularly harsh on Wednesday, suggesting Trump may have "scammed the American people" and theorizing his campaign pledge to build the wall was a lie. Trump, clearly, saw her comments, as he unfollowed her on Twitter shortly after.
She was hardly alone. As pointed out by CNN's Oliver Darcy, Breitbart declared Wednesday that Trump had caved on the wall, while Drudge Report ran with the headline "Trump in Retreat." Rush Limbaugh was similarly frustrated, saying per The Hill that if Trump signs the stopgap spending bill, he "gets nothing and the Democrats get everything."
On Fox News, the assessment wasn't any less dire. The hosts of Fox & Friends on Wednesday described the "stunning turn of events," with host Steve Doocy saying, "Democrats will win everything they want," per The Daily Beast. This was the sentiment all over the network, and a panelist during an Outnumbered segment Thursday concluded, "The president is getting steamrolled," per Mediaite.
This all seems to have really gotten to Trump. CNN's Kaitlan Collins reported earlier on Thursday that the president was becoming "very sensitive" to criticism in the conservative media. His decision not to sign the Senate bill came hours later.