When Trump has waded into this government funding/immigration fight, he's managed to muddy the waters rather than make them clearer. Last Friday, when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer left his meeting with Trump , he said he believed a deal to avoid a government shutdown was in the offing. That's clearly the role Trump saw for himself in the these shutdown negotiations. The reason Trump didn't offer his ideas for a way out of the shutdown is that he didn't have ideas for a way out of the shutdown. Trump was a bystander in the government shutdown talks because he simply had very little to offer.

Source: CNN January 22, 2018 16:18 UTC