DONALD V. DONALD:

After the president ordered cameras out of the Cabinet Room that day, the group delved into the details. Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump's homeland security secretary, and her staff passed out a four-page document on the administration's "must haves" for any immigration bill -- a hard-line list that included $18 billion for Trump's promised border wall, eliminating the diversity visa lottery program and ending "extended family chain migration," according to the document, which was obtained by The Washington Post.

But one person seemed surprised and alarmed by the memo: the president.

With Democrats and Republicans still in the room, Trump said that the document didn't represent all of his positions, that he wasn't familiar with its contents and that he didn't appreciate being caught off-guard. He instructed the group to disregard the summary and move on, according to one of the lawmakers in the room, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

"It's like the wedding where someone actually stands up and objects to the wedding," the lawmaker said. "It was that moment."  [...]

Trump is a self-proclaimed dealmaker who has struggled to close critical deals as president -- an unreliable negotiator who seems to promise one thing only to renege days, or even hours, later. He boasts of being "flexible" and has few core ideological convictions, yet often seems torn between his desire for a bipartisan "win" and the pull of the nationalist populism he ran on. In politics, he resembles at times an amateur jazz musician -- moody and improvisational, but without the technical chops to hold a piece together. [...]

"Negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O," Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained on the Senate floor Saturday, some 12 hours into the shutdown.

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