Trump hands out lumps of coal to enemies on Christmas Eve

President Trump unveiled his naughty list on Christmas Eve, the latest outburst of frustration from a president who is under siege on multiple fronts.

In a string of Monday morning tweets, Trump railed against Democrats who oppose his border wall, accused the Federal Reserve of tanking the economy, attacked the news media, bashed allies who “take advantage” of the U.S., rebuked his former Defense secretary and anti-ISIS envoy for resigning in protest and mocked Republican Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) as “little.”

Sitting “alone,” he said, in the White House after canceling his Christmas visit to his Mar-a-Lago club in South Florida, Trump punctuated his broadside with a statement of defiance. 

“AMERICA IS RESPECTED AGAIN!” he tweeted. 

{mosads}Trump’s tweets comes on the third day of a partial government shutdown, which started over the president’s demand for $5 billion in funds for his long-desired border wall before Democrats take control of the House in January.

The president accused Democrats of acting out of spite by rejecting his request, saying “virtually every Democrat we are dealing with today strongly supported a Border Wall or Fence” before he was president.

“I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security,” he wrote. “At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!”

Democrats have shown few signs they are willing to cave, bolstered by the fact they are set to take over one chamber of Congress and by Trump’s recent vow that he would be “proud” to shut down the government over border security.

While the president’s stance has emboldened some conservative allies, other Republicans have grown exasperated with what they believe is a gambit that has little chance of success.

“This is my fifth shutdown,” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) told reporters at the Capitol, according to CNN. “I’m beyond frustrated.”

“[Former President Lyndon Johnson] said sometimes you just have to hunker down like a jackass in a hail storm and just take it. That’s about where we are,” he added.

Trump published another confusing tweet, in which he appeared to push back on critics who say he could have secured up to $25 billion in border security funding in an immigration deal that he rejected earlier this year.

“The Wall is different than the 25 Billion Dollars in Border Security. The complete Wall will be built with the Shutdown money plus funds already in hand. The reporting has been inaccurate on the point,” he wrote.

There have been few signs of progress in Washington toward resolving the funding impasse. The Senate adjourned Saturday without securing an agreement and many lawmakers went home for the holidays, even as Trump stayed back in the nation’s capital.

The president is set to meet Monday afternoon with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to discuss border security, but otherwise nothing is known about his schedule until this evening, when he plans to make phone calls to children tracking Santa Claus through NORAD.

The barrage of attacks on Monday likely reveal the depths of Trump’s vexation with a set of growing problems plaguing his presidency, several of which were triggered by a series of his decisions over the past several days.

Stock markets plunged again on Monday amid investor uncertainty that some market-watchers blame on uncertainty emanating from the Trump administration.

{mossecondads}Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has reportedly come under fire from Trump over the slide, rattled bankers on Sunday by releasing a statement stating the nation’s largest financial institutions had enough money to lend to individuals and businesses.

Trump has placed the blame for falling stock prices solely on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates. 

“The only problem our economy has is the Fed,” Trump wrote, before likening the central bank to “a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch.”

“He can’t putt!” the president tweeted.

Trump’s message appeared to have the opposite of its intended effect, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 650 points in its worst Christmas Eve on record.

Throughout his first year-plus in office, the economy had been a bright spot Trump could point to as evidence his approach is working. But some Trump allies fear that a slowing economy could deal a fatal blow to the president ahead of his 2020 reelection.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) issued a sharply worded statement after markets closed blaming Trump for the turmoil.

“It’s Christmas Eve and President Trump is plunging the country into chaos,” they said. “The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war on the Federal Reserve – after he just fired the secretary of Defense. Instead of bringing certainty into people’s lives, he’s continuing the Trump Shutdown just to please right-wing radio and TV hosts.”

Trump also took aim at outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis, whose resignation letter angered the president and pushed him to speed up the Pentagon chief’s departure.

U.S. allies “take advantage of their friendship with the United States, both in Military Protection and Trade,” Trump said.

“General Mattis did not see this as a problem. I DO, and it is being fixed!” he added.

The exit of Mattis and Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), alarmed Republicans in Congress who disagree with Trump’s abrupt decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and Afghanistan. Critics fear he will have fewer aides willing to stop him from making what they believe are harmful foreign policy moves.

Corker, the retiring chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Sunday accused Trump of making “devastating” decisions in the Middle East. 

To Trump, however, McGurk “was the Obama appointee responsible” for the “horrific Iran nuclear deal” that was approved by “Little Bob Corker.”

McGurk, who served under former President George W. Bush, was selected in 2015 by former President Obama as the point person for the global anti-ISIS coalition, but Trump chose to keep him on and he served in that role for nearly two years under the current administration.

Trump on Monday also tried to assure his critics over the Syria withdrawal by claiming that Saudi Arabia agreed to spend the “money needed to help rebuild Syria.”

“See? Isn’t it nice when immensely wealthy countries help rebuild their neighbors rather than a Great Country, the U.S., that is 5000 miles away. Thanks to Saudi A!” he added. 

Saudi Arabia in October transferred $100 billion in stabilization funds for Syria. The desert kingdom initially pledged the funds in August, but only wired the payment after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi that set off worldwide outrage.

Trump also vented his anger over a CNN report that he expressed frustration with acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker because the guilty plea of Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal attorney, made him look bad. 

“I never ‘lashed out’ at the Acting Attorney General of the U.S., a man for whom I have great respect. This is a made up story, one of many, by the Fake News Media!” Trump wrote.

-Updated 1:55 p.m.