Sad Christmas in the White House, President Trump unleashes a "tweet storm"

"I am alone in the White House (poor me) waiting for the Democrats to come back and compromise on desperately needed Border Security. Sometimes the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more than the Border Wall we are talking about. Crazy!", US President Donald Trump posted on Twitter on the morning of December 24.

This was part of Trump's "tweet storm" on the day before the big Christmas for Americans. While American families were busy preparing for Christmas parties, Trump spent most of his time attacking opponents and dissenters from Democrats, Republican Senator Bob Corker to the Federal Reserve (Fed), according toAtlantic.

Trump was virtually alone in Washington DC that day, as nine agencies in his federal government were shut down with no clear date for reopening. Democrats in Congress were furious at Trump's attempt to hold the government hostage to get funding for a wall on the border with Mexico.

Meanwhile, many Republicans are upset with his sudden decision to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan, a move that has led to the resignations of Defense Secretary James Mattis and the anti-IS coalition envoy Brett McGurk. Stock markets are red-hot over concerns about a US government shutdown and Trump is reportedly consulting with advisers about firing Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell.

The investigation into Russia's collusion with the Trump campaign continues, and with a string of high-level departures in recent weeks, the US president's executive branch is more fragile than ever. The message that both Democrats and Republicans have delivered in recent television interviews is that "Trump is alone against the world."

But acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney insists this is the style President Trump prefers, no matter how unconventional it may be. “This is what Washington looks like when you have a president who is not willing to bend to please everyone,” said Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget who has been running the White House since Chief of Staff John Kelly resigned earlier this month.

In the Sunday News program ofFoxOn December 23, Mulvaney said that all the turmoil in the White House over the past week had been carried out according to plan. He blamed congressional Democrats for the government shutdown, reaffirmed the need for the border wall and said that Trump's relationship with Defense Secretary Mattis had long been troubled.

When participating in the This Week program of the stationABCMulvaney later said that President Trump is realizing he is incapable of firing Fed Governor Powell, and said that his 2016 comment about Trump being a "terrible guy" was just a "joke."

But Mulvaney seemed to be the only one who defended Trump in a series of political commentary shows on Sunday. The US president did not receive the same defense from Republicans, while Democrats fiercely attacked his demand for a border wall.

"I must say that the President does not share my view that the postwar Pax Americana has been of great benefit to America, to my constituents and to all of us," Republican Senator Pat Toomey said on the radio.NBC, echoing Mattis's wording in his resignation letter.

Toomey said there were "fundamental differences" between Trump and Democrats and a large part of the Republican Party, and called for the US Senate to have a more active role in foreign policy under Trump.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Governor John Kasich, also a Republican, said Trump's decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a "terrible mistake." House Republican Chairwoman Liz Cheney supports Trump's desire to build a border wall, but "strongly opposes" the moves to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan, calling them "disastrous."

"By abruptly withdrawing troops from Syria, President Trump is handing a big Christmas gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei," Senator Chris Coons summed up the reaction of Democrats to Trump's recent statements. "When any foreign policy decision by Trump is praised by Putin and Senator Rand Paul, it is definitely a bad idea."

Senator Dick Durbin also "spoke for" many other Democrats about the decision to leave Defense Secretary Mattis. "My heart breaks to hear that Mattis has been pushed aside. We relied on him to prevent the President from doing his worst."

According to commentator Scott Nover, when alone in the White House, Trump must have watched these TV shows and realized how big the wave of criticism aimed at him was. But the US President seemed unconcerned with the attacks and continued to defend his views with his most powerful weapon, which is Twitter.

In a "tweet storm" with a total of 23 status lines from December 23 to noon December 24, he condemned the Democratic Party for not supporting his border wall plan, declaring that senators were wrong to say that he did not value alliances, but that he just did not like countries "taking advantage of our friendship with the United States".

"We are massively subsidizing the militaries of many wealthy countries all over the world, while those countries take complete advantage of the United States, and the American taxpayer, on trade. General Mattis doesn't see this problem, but I do, and I'm fixing it," Trump wrote on Twitter.

Nancy Pelosi, who is about to become the speaker of the US House of Representatives, and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer had to issue a joint statement, opposing the President's statements just before Christmas.

"It's Christmas and President Trump is plunging the country into chaos," the joint statement said. "The stock market is in turmoil, while the President is waging a personal war on the Fed, just after he fired his Secretary of Defense."

Two Democratic leaders said that instead of bringing peace to the people, Trump is pursuing his own agenda to "please right-wing radio and television shows." They asserted that the President "wants a government shutdown" but does not know how to get himself out of it.

Commentator Nover said the statements by Pelosi and Schumer are a sign that Trump is unlikely to get the compromise he wants from Democrats in the short term. "Trump has told voters that he knows the system best and can fix it himself. It is becoming increasingly clear that if he wants to fix anything, he will have to do it himself in the near future," Nover wrote.

Thanh Nguyen