A chance to make fools of gobsmacked RATs.
How did this make fools of them? Trump threw down a gauntlet by tweeting that there wasn't much worth talking about and he saw no chance of a deal coming out of it. They picked up the gauntlet and called his bluff.
If anyone looked foolish in this it's Paul Ryan, with his 46 seat majority in the House, and Mitch McConnell, with his two seat majority in the Senate, whining about how if there is a shutdown then it's the Democrats fault.