House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been in the latest round of talks with the Trump administration over a new economic aid package but shown neither the will nor the ability to reach a deal, according to John Carney at Breitbart News. So on Tuesday President Trump called a time-out on the negotiations.

Pelosi’s party had been angry with her for agreeing to the initial round of relief legislation and wanted her to refuse to negotiate in good faith with the hated Trump. She did not initially take that route, but as the Nov. election drew closer, Pelosi adopted the strategy of “no compromise, no negotiation, no deal,” Carney writes.

“The easing of the economic pain of Americans would possibly come at the cost of aiding Trump’s efforts to be re-elected,” Carney continues. “That was a cost that many Democrats would not bear lightly—and because of Pelosi’s intransigence they did not have to. So the Democrats passed an enormous spending bill filled with goodies for their special interest constituencies that had little to do with supporting the economy—a bill they knew was a poison bill for the Republican-controlled Senate and would never be passed.”

By early September it was obvious that Pelosi intended to make no deal before the election. Trump recognized this and, “in a truly Trumpian style,” as Carney put it, Trump “broke off negotiations that were bound to go nowhere. Sometimes the art of the deal involves recognizing when no deal can be made.”