What Prompted Trump’s Outburst?

Jonathan Bernstein: “It may have been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s earlier accusation that he’s conducting a ‘cover-up.’ Or it may have had to do with his inability to come up with an actual infrastructure plan or to get any support for the idea from his within own party.”

“Pelosi had unsurprisingly out-maneuvered the president by agreeing to a very large bill on the condition that Trump would specify how to pay for it. Since Republicans are unwilling to raise taxes and don’t want to take responsibility for cutting popular programs, that put him in a bind. A functioning White House policy staff might have managed to come up with something anyway, but there’s not much evidence that such a shop exists. Nor is Trump capable of exerting the kind of internal leadership that could get something like that done.”