The morning Wheeling Intelligencer carried the first half of this AP story:

Trump Vows He Will ‘Never Ever Back Down’ on Wall

As they often do with Trump articles from the Associated Press, the Intelligencer dropped half of the article. Here is the first paragraph that was dropped by the Intelligencer:

Trump asserted weeks ago that he would “own” the shutdown, and polls show that he is taking most of the blame from Americans. But he now blames his political foes. He targeted Pelosi and Schumer Monday on Twitter, arguing that the shutdown “has become their, and the Democrats, fault!”

The front page of this afternoon’s Wheeling News-Register published a different AP story and used this headline:

Trump Says Solution To Shutdown Is ‘So Simple’

As I found in yesterday's post, this was not the AP headline used by most other news sources. They used the suggested AP headline:

Trump declares he’ll ‘never back down’

To support its headline, here’s the AP article’s opening two paragraphs:

With the government mired in shutdown week four, President Donald Trump rejected a short-term legislative fix and dug in for more combat, declaring he would "never ever back down."

Trump rejected a suggestion to reopen the government for several weeks while negotiations would continue with Democrats over his demands for $5.7 billion for a long, impregnable wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Turn, however, to today’s Wheeling News-Register editorial to get a much different perspective (an alternate reality?) on what has been happening:

This has become a test of wills between Democrat leaders and Trump. And while the president has offered to compromise on various aspects of his proposal, Pelosi and company maintain a hard, take-no-prisoners stance.

I give up – what part of “never ever back down” suggests compromise?

*“Never ever” and “never back down”? As you read this, popular culture scholars are probably debating whether Trump is referencing Taylor Swift or Tom Petty? My money is on Swift.