The resolution seemed destined to provide only a brief reprieve from the political acrimony that has paralyzed Washington in recent weeks as it would only last three weeks. Though at a lunch briefing with reporters and columnists on Friday, Pelosi said she felt optimistic that there would not be a shutdown again, owing to the likelihood that Trump will have recognized how politically damaging the current standoff had been.

“The point was to make sure he doesn’t see this is an option that he can cavalierly use,” she explained. “So I think it makes it less likely.”

Pelosi was also critical of Republican lawmakers for letting the situation get to its current point. In particular, she singled out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who had insisted it was pointless to move any government funding measure through the Senate if Trump had not committed to signing it—including reintroducing a clean funding bill that the Senate had overwhelming backed in December.

“I know he is a professional,” Pelosi said of McConnell. “So it is particularly painful to see him kowtowing to the president of the United States. And I said to him, ‘Do you just want to abolish the Congress or maybe just the United States Senate? Because that is effectively what you’re doing.’”

Asked what McConnell said in response, Pelosi replied: “What does he ever say? Nothing.”

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