President Trump said on camera he would proudly shut down the government to get his border wall, he did shut it down, and a majority of Americans blame him for the longest shutdown in U.S. history. But Trump is convinced he has the leverage, The Washington Post reports, and as often is the case with Trump, it's leverage of his own making.

Trump "creates — or threatens to create — a calamity, and then insists he will address the problem only if his adversary capitulates to a separate demand," the Post says, counting at least eight times he has used this technique in office, with mixed success. "Trump has described this approach as creating leverage and negotiating, but Democrats and other opponents have said it amounts to 'hostage taking.'" On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) compared it to "bartering with stolen goods." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) explained why Trump's hardball tactic won't bring Democrats to the table:

Using self-generated leverage — in this case, 800,000 unpaid federal employees and a million immigrants whose protections he's moved to strip — to force concessions "is a well-worn tactic from Trump's business career, but this is the first time the livelihoods of so many U.S. workers and households have hung in the balance," the Post says, and the first time he's used it with Congress. Democrats are standing firm in part because they don't want him to use it again with must-pass funding bills and the debt ceiling.

Ironically, Peter Baker says at The New York Times, "among the hostages has been his own presidency," because "his single-minded pursuit of a border wall" has frozen the rest of his agenda. Peter Weber

After Attorney General William Barr's summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report was released on Sunday, MSNBC's Ari Melber noticed something interesting.

"This is four pages and there's not a single full sentence in here that's quoted the Mueller report," he said. "Every quote from the Mueller report itself is a partial sentence." Many of those partial sentences, like the one saying it was not established that "members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities," are "quite important," Melber said, but it's "really striking that Barr basically said, 'I'm going to do this through the weekend. Mueller spent 22 months on it. I can do it in under 48 hours, and go beyond the Mueller report's findings.'"

Barr, Melber said, is "relaying one finding on no election collusion/conspiracy. That's big, and then he's going beyond the other finding that there is evidence of obstruction. The president is not exonerated, but he's also not accused of a crime, and the House is where that would usually be dealt with." The House, he continued, is "kind of being muscled out in an attempt by the new attorney general to say, 'I'm gonna issue my own conclusion on that,' and he's dong that with these four partial sentences."

It doesn't take a lawyer or a Washington insider to start wondering if "these four sentences, partial, are the very best [Barr] could find in the entire Mueller report about Donald Trump, and they are what's in the early letter," Melber said. Watch the clip below. Catherine Garcia

Not long after the news alerts were sent out about Attorney General William Barr sending his summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report to Congress, another email landed in the inboxes of President Trump's supporters, this one asking for money.

With the subject line "NO COLLUSION OR OBSTRUCTION," the Trump fundraising email states that as long as donors give $5 or more "by 11:59 p.m. TONIGHT," their gift will be "QUADRUPLE MATCHED," The Guardian's Ben Jacobs reports. It starts with a false statement — that Mueller's report is a "COMPLETE EXONERATION" — and blasts Democrats, accusing them of working with "the Fake News Media for 2 years orchestrating this Nasty Witch Hunt."

Trump needs money in order to "fight back BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER BEFORE," and that's why he is offering the quadruple match "for my best supporters only, the ones who stood by my side through the entire Witch Hunt." Everyone who donates through this solicitation will be placed on a list, which the email states will be delivered to Trump by his campaign team. Catherine Garcia

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team considered issuing a subpoena for President Trump to be interviewed, and discussed this with Department of Justice officials, a person with knowledge of the matter told CNN on Sunday.

They ultimately decided not to pursue a subpoena "based on the perception of the evidence and merits of the issues," CNN reports. Mueller's office spent months trying to get Trump to sit down for an interview, and finally submitted written questions to Trump last fall, asking him about things that happened prior to the 2016 election. He responded in November.

Mueller submitted his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election on Friday, and on Sunday, Attorney General William Barr sent a short letter to Congress giving his interpretation of the findings, saying Mueller did not find the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and he could not make a decision on whether Trump obstructed justice. Catherine Garcia

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on Sunday agreed with the White House that the newly-released summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report is a victory for President Trump — at least when it comes to allegations of collusion with Russia.

Toobin offered his analysis on CNN after Attorney General William Barr said that Mueller didn't find that Trump or his associates conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Toobin said that the report is a "total vindication of the president and his staff on the issue of collusion."

When it comes to whether Trump obstructed justice, though, this is "somewhat more complicated," Toobin observed. This is because the summary notes that while the investigation "does not conclude Trump committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." It was Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that reached the conclusion that there was not sufficient evidence on obstruction, Toobin explains.

"That is still a vindication, but it's quite a different one than Mueller's total vindication of the president on the issue of collusion with Russia," Toobin said. He later added that although it may turn out that Barr and Rosenstein's conclusion on obstruction was the correct one, the fact that this came from "the president’s appointees" makes it a "very different thing from an independent conclusion." Watch Toobin's analysis below. Brendan Morrow

Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not definitively conclude that President Trump or his associates during his 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russian election interference, Attorney General William Barr's letter to Congress briefing them on the matter revealed on Sunday.

That revelation has already led to the White House declaring Mueller's findings a "total and complete exoneration" of Trump.

However, the report also did not make a conclusive decision on whether or not Trump obstructed justice during the investigation. Instead, it will be up to Barr "to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime."

So, on the obstruction front, Trump still does not appear to be completely in the clear. Tim O'Donnell

President Trump declared victory on Sunday over the findings of Special Counsel Robert Muller's investigation into 2016 election interference, which he called an "illegal takedown."

Trump spoke with reporters after Attorney General William Barr told Congress that Mueller did not find that Trump or his associates conspired with Russia to influence the election. Mueller did not reach a conclusion about whether the president obstructed justice, saying the investigation did not exonerate Trump of this crime. Barr said that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded there was insufficient evidence.

Trump called the investigation a "complete and total exoneration," saying that "it's a shame that our country had to go through this" and that "it's a shame that your president had to go through this." He also called the investigation an "illegal takedown that failed" and said that now "hopefully somebody is going to be looking at the other side." Watch Trump's comments on the Mueller report below. Brendan Morrow