Authorities in suburban Chicago are investigating a young woman’s mysterious death over the weekend, a case that’s gained national attention as her mother angrily suggested there was foul play and accused police and others of failing to act fast enough upon learning of the disappearance.

Kenneka L. Jenkins, 19, was found dead inside an industrial walk-in freezer at Rosemont’s Crowne Plaza around midnight Sunday, more than 24 hours after leaving her home on Chicago’s West Side to party with friends at the hotel and conference center near O’Hare International Airport.

“To me, I feel like they helped kill my child: the police department and this hotel,” Teresa Martin, Jenkins’ mother, told local media during a heart-wrenching interview alongside other family members. She said neither the authorities nor the hotel’s staff did enough to address her repeated pleas for help.

It remains unclear how Jenkins died. An autopsy was performed Sunday but proved inconclusive, the Chicago Tribune reported, and officials say it could be several weeks before toxicology results are available.

Rosemont police have released few details, citing an open investigation.

Jenkins’s mother said authorities told her the freezer, though in a vacant part of the hotel complex, was functioning and cold, the Tribune reported. It’s unclear who found Jenkins’s body, however, or whether there were signs of trauma.

A spokesman for the Rosemont police, Detective Joe Balogh, told The Washington Post on Monday that investigators are interviewing others who were with Jenkins at the hotel, and reviewing surveillance footage and various social media posts that have circulated since the incident.

One, a viral Facebook Live video apparently made during the party, appears to show Jenkins and others listening to loud music inside a hotel room. Authorities have indicated the video is a key piece of evidence, telling the Tribune that they have identified most people captured in it.

The clip has fueled speculation online that the young woman’s death was no accident, with skeptics endeavoring to decode the video and surface clues that point to a potential setup.

Jenkins was last seen on the Crowne Plaza’s ninth floor, witnesses told police. When friends were unable to find her before leaving the party, they phoned Jenkins’s mother.

Jenkins’s friends, Martin said, told her the young woman disappeared after they briefly left her alone in the hotel hallway to retrieve her car keys and cellphone from inside the room.

But Martin has since questioned that account, telling local media that the friends’ description of events keeps changing.

Teresa Martin, mother of Kenneka Jenkins, is comforted by her boyfriend as she speaks about her daughter’s death. (Chicago Tribune)

“Why can’t I see my daughter?” she told reporters outside her home. “Why can’t I see how she died?”

Martin said police initially told her Jenkins was intoxicated when she entered the freezer, that “freak accidents like that do occur.” But now she questions whether her daughter, if indeed inebriated, could have summoned the strength and coordination to open the freezer’s heavy door.

Balogh, the police spokesman, told The Post that officers were following procedures while securing the crime scene and interacting with Jenkins’s family at the hotel.

“Anything further regarding what happened, in terms of her mother, we’re not really saying much about that,” he said.

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A small group of White House lawyers this summer urged that President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner step down from his White House role amid a broadening probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russians in the 2016 election, according to multiple people familiar with the discussion.

Some of the lawyers worried that the presence of Kushner, a senior adviser with a broad domestic and foreign policy portfolio, created potential legal complications for Trump, while the probe threatened to limit Kushner’s ability to perform his job, these people said.

Kushner had several interactions with Russian officials in the campaign and transition that have drawn interest from investigators, and some White House lawyers warned that even casual discussions between him and Trump could spark additional scrutiny.

The debate, first reported Monday night by the Wall Street Journal, took place before a July shake-up of the legal team. The idea to press Kushner to leave was ultimately rejected.

In a statement Monday night, White House lawyer Ty Cobb blamed the disclosure of the internal debate on former White House staffers seeking to tarnish Kushner, who Cobb described as “among the President’s most trusted, competent, selfless and intelligent advisers.”

“Those whose agendas were and remain focused on sabotaging him and his family for misguided personal reasons are no longer around,” said Cobb, who was brought aboard in July to specialize in the Russia inquiry. “All clandestine efforts to undermine him never gained traction.”

John Dowd, also a Trump lawyer, confirmed Monday that the subject was raised, but said he heartily disagreed with the idea.

“That’s all I have to say about it,” he said.

Cobb declined to say which former staffers he believed were trying to undermine Kushner. Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, who was dismissed last month, had been a rival to Kushner in the West Wing. Bannon did not respond to requests for comment.

Other people familiar with the Trump lawyers’ debate said Kushner’s presence in the White House created risks that were logical discussion topics for the legal team as it sought to minimize risks for Trump amid a widening investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. The lawyers “would have been dummies” not to consider walling the president off from another person who would become a major subject for the special counsel’s investigation, said one person briefed on the discussion. Kushner had met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and also with an executive from a major Russian bank.

At the time of the lawyers’ debate, Trump’s legal team was preparing for a new revelation regarding Kushner that was about to be shared with Congress. From reviewing internal emails in preparation for answering investigators’ questions, the lawyers knew about a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 that Donald Trump Jr. had arranged after being promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

The lawyers knew that Kushner had attended the meeting, and that he had not disclosed it when reporting his contacts with foreign individuals. The New York Times first reported on that meeting July 8.

Ashley Parker contributed to this report.

Stephen K. Bannon — President Trump’s former chief strategist who left the White House in August — declared war Sunday against the Republican congressional leadership, called on Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, to resign, and outlined his views on issues ranging from immigration to trade.

Bannon, in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) of “trying to nullify the 2016 election.” It was Bannon’s first television interview since leaving the White House and returning as executive chairman to Breitbart News, the conservative website he previously led.

He blamed them for failing to repeal and replace former president Barack Obama’s signature health-care law and made clear that he would use his Breitbart perch to hold Republicans accountable for not helping Trump push through his agenda.

“They’re not going to help you unless they’re put on notice,” he told CBS’s Charlie Rose. “They’re going to be held accountable if they do not support the president of the United States. Right now there’s no accountability.”

Stressing absolute loyalty to Trump, Bannon criticized members of the administration who, he said, had leaked to the news media their displeasure with the way Trump handled the white-supremacist-fueled violence in Charlottesville, which left one dead and more­ ­injured.

“You can tell him, ‘Hey, maybe you can do it a better way.’ But if you’re going to break, then resign. If you’re going to break with him, resign,” he said. “If you find it unacceptable, you should resign.”

He explicitly mentioned Cohn, Trump’s director of the National Economic Council who had criticized Trump’s response in an interview with the Financial Times, and said he “absolutely” thought Cohn should have resigned.

Bannon joined the Trump campaign in August 2016 and emerged as the president’s ideological id, channeling his populist and nationalist impulses. Though he made many enemies in the West Wing, including the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and clashed with John F. Kelly, Trump’s second chief of staff, Bannon remains close to Trump.

Recalling a particularly low moment in the campaign — the emergence of the “Access Hollywood” tape that captured Trump bragging about groping women — Bannon dismissed it as “just locker room talk,” but he said the moment served as an important “litmus test” for loyalty to Trump.

At the time, Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff, urged the then-candidate to either drop out of the race or face a historic loss. And, Bannon said, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), who served as a campaign adviser overseeing Trump’s transition plan, lost a likely spot in the president’s Cabinet because of his response to the ­video.

“I told him: ‘The plane leaves at 11 o’clock in the morning. If you’re on the plane, you’re on the team,’ ” Bannon said, referring to Christie. “Didn’t make the plane.”

On China, Bannon reiterated his calls for the United States to take a tougher stance over trade and appropriating U.S. technology. “Donald Trump, for 30 years, has singled out China as the biggest single problem we have on the world stage,” he said. ‘The elites in this country have got us in a situation. We’re at not economic war with China; China is at economic war with us.”

And he also seemed to criticize the president’s recent decision to rescind protections for “dreamers” — those 690,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as young children — while giving Congress six months to devise a legislative solution. The move, he said, could cost Republicans the House in the 2018 election.

“If this goes all the way down to its logical conclusion, in February and March, it will be a civil war inside the Republican Party that will be every bit as vitriolic as 2013,” Bannon said. “And to me, doing that in the springboard of primary season for 2018 is extremely ­unwise.”

(This post was updated throughout Sunday and last updated at 11:00 p.m. to reflect the latest National Hurricane Center advisory and current conditions in Florida.)

Extremely dangerous Hurricane Irma first crashed into the Florida Keys on Sunday morning and then made a second landfall on Marco Island on Florida’s west coast Sunday afternoon, unleashing violent wind gusts up to 142 mph and storm-surge flooding. The storm was plowing up Florida’s west coast Sunday night and, once it’s over, forecasters feared that this storm will go down as one of the worst in the state’s history.

At 11 p.m., the storm was centered 50 miles southeast of Tampa. Its eyewall – containing the storm’s most violent winds – had passed northeast of Sarasota. The storm center was plowing north at 14 mph into the area between Tampa and Orlando. Through around 2 a.m. Monday, wind gusts of 75 to 100 mph were possible in both cities, where winds had already gusted that high.

Hurricane-force wind gusts were also quite possible on the east coast of central Florida into early Monday, the Hurricane Center said, thanks to Irma’s large wind field.

Around Tampa, once the storm center passes early Monday morning, a storm surge is possible of several feet above normally dry land, potentially inundating low-lying coastal areas.

Irma’s peak winds of 100 mph, with higher gusts, had dropped 30 mph from the morning, making it a Category 2 hurricane (down from a Category 4). Even with slow weakening likely to continue as the storm passes over land, Irma remains very serious and life-threatening. The National Hurricane Center said it is expected to remain a hurricane through Monday morning.

Coastal waters could rise well above normally dry land along Florida’s central Gulf Coast, inundating homes, businesses and roads.

[Everything you need to know about Irma]

Because of the storm’s magnitude, the entire state of Florida is being severely affected by damaging winds, torrential rains and, in many areas, the risk of tornadoes. Tropical storm and hurricane conditions were also predicted to spread into the Florida Panhandle, eastern Alabama, much of Georgia and southern South Carolina by Monday.

The latest

(National Hurricane Center)

As the eyewall moved over Naples late Sunday afternoon, it reported sustained winds of 93 mph and a gust to 142 mph – the strongest recorded from this storm in the U.S.

Josh Morgerman, a hurricane chaser positioned in Naples, described the scene: “Went thru violent, destructive winds. Screaming, whiteout, wreckage blowing by in fog.” Then the calm eye moved overhead.

Aerial video from inside eye of Hurricane Irma. Just minutes earlier 100mph wind gusts were damaging these homes SE of Naples @KATVToddYak pic.twitter.com/BMi7k8k2Wh

— Brian Emfinger (@brianemfinger) September 10, 2017

Before the arrival of the storm center, water was actually retreating from Naples to Tampa due to offshore winds from the east pulling the sea back. But forecasters warned residents that shortly after the storm’s center passed to the north and winds blew back onshore, waters would rush back in rapidly causing severe inundation.

[Hurricane Irma is literally sucking the water away from shorelines]

In Naples, as of 7 p.m., water levels were about four feet above normally dry land but the level was starting to stabilize around 8 p.m. Amazingly, it set its second lowest water level and highest water level all in the course of 8 hours.

In Ft. Myers, waters levels were rising through 10 p.m., but not as dramatically as they had in Naples.

Southeast Florida

In Southeast Florida, spiral bands continued to unleash tropical-storm-force winds. Even into the evening, winds were gusting up to 60 to 75 mph around Miami and West Palm Beach (7 p.m. gust of 75 mph), but they weren’t as strong as earlier.

In the afternoon, sustained winds in Miami and Fort Lauderdale reached 50-60 mph through the early afternoon, gusting as high as 80 to 100 mph. Miami International Airport clocked a gust to 94 mph and an isolated gust hit 100 mph at the University of Miami.

Also during the afternoon the seas had risen several feet above normally dry land. Social media photos and videos showed water pouring through Miami’s streets, in between high-rises, amid sideways sheets of rains.

This is Miami right now. #HurricaneIrma pic.twitter.com/bhVqJ1bmCP

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) September 10, 2017

Late Sunday afternoon, waters were finally starting to slowly recede around Miami.

The Keys

While the core of the storm and worst winds passed the Keys early Sunday morning, the Weather Service warned storm surge flooding was ongoing as winds on the storm’s backside shoved water over the islands. Gusts still reached 50 to 60 mph as of 7:45 p.m.

Early Sunday afternoon, the maximum surge at Cudjoe Key was estimated at 10 feet.

Statewide

About 3 million customers were without power.

Particularly in South and Central Florida, torrential rain was falling, with widespread totals of 6 to 10 inches and pockets up to 10 to 14 inches. Numerous flash flood warnings had been issued.

Not talked about much: #Irma‘s rain. Widespread 6-10″, pockets of 10-14″ in South and Central Florida. pic.twitter.com/dRGTx7mZfD

— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather) September 10, 2017

As the storm’s spiral bands walloped Central and Northern Florida, the potential for tornadoes arose in the swirling air, and the Weather Service issued watches and scores of warnings.

Storm warnings in effect and predicted surge height and winds

Hurricane warnings cover all of Florida except the western Panhandle, where a tropical storm warning was in effect.

A storm-surge warning was also issued for much of the Florida Peninsula (except for a small section from North Miami Beach to Jupiter Inlet), and even extended up the Georgia coast into southern South Carolina. The Hurricane Center said that this would bring the risk of “dangerous” and “life-threatening” inundation.

(National Weather Service)

European model simulation of maximum winds gusts every 6 hours Sunday to Monday from Hurricane Irma. (WeatherBell.com)

Irma’s ultimate destination will be along the west coast of Florida. This means the conditions will deteriorate rapidly from Naples to Tampa Bay throughout Sunday afternoon. However, Irma’s path will take it parallel to the west coast of Florida, keeping the entire region engulfed in the dangerous northeast quadrant of the storm, where winds are strongest. Sustained hurricane force winds and gusts over 100 mph should arrive in Naples Sunday afternoon and up to 75-100 mph in St. Petersburg/Tampa Bay between 10 p.m. and midnight or so.

Hurricane force winds will make their way up Florida’s west coast, peaking in Naples this evening and in the St. Petersburg/Tampa area after midnight. Via NWS

Exceptional storm surge flooding possible in Naples south including Marco Island

Map shows reasonable worst case scenario #Irma pic.twitter.com/8DQBX7lNi5

— Greg Diamond (@gdimeweather) September 9, 2017

Orlando/Central Florida 

Time frame for worst conditions: Sunday night through Monday morning.

Hazard threats: Wind, rain, and tornadoes.

Inland areas won’t escape the effects of Irma. The storm is extremely large in size, with tropical-storm-force winds extending outward over 200 miles from the center. The wind speeds in central Florida and the Orlando area will start to pick up by late Sunday afternoon, with sustained winds of 40 to 60 mph and gusts of 70-plus mph lasting from late Sunday night through Monday morning.

Heavy rain will also cause problems, with a general six to 12-plus inches of rain expected by the time the storm is over. The threat of tornadoes will increase by Sunday night, as well, as the storm’s center tracks north along the west coast of Florida.

Jacksonville/Daytona Beach 

Time frame for worst conditions: Sunday evening through Monday afternoon.

Hazard threats: Rain, tornadoes, wind.

The northeast portion of Florida will be spared the worst of Irma but won’t escape unscathed. Sustained tropical-force winds of 40 to 55 mph will overspread the area from Daytona Beach to Jacksonville by Sunday evening, with the worst winds (gusts up to 70 mph) occurring overnight. Heavy rain will be a story line here as six to 10-plus inches of rain is expected to fall in a relatively short period.

As with other parts of the state, the tornado threat will peak overnight on Sunday as Irma’s storm center tracks northward.

Storm-surge values will be elevated (two to four feet) but should result in only minor to moderate coastal flooding.

Potential effects on Georgia and the southeastern United States

Georgia/Atlanta/South Carolina

Time frame for worst conditions: Monday morning through Tuesday morning.

Hazard threats: Wind, rain and, at the coast, storm surge

Hurricane warnings extend well into Georgia, covering over half of the state. Parts of southern South Carolina also are under a hurricane warning, with Irma poised to maintain its hurricane-force strength for several hours after landfall.

Sustained tropical force winds of 25 to 45 mph will spread over Georgia from south to north starting late Sunday night. The strongest sustained winds (40 to 50 mph) with gusts of 60-plus mph will move in on early Monday morning, lasting through Monday evening. This includes Atlanta, which is under a tropical-storm warning, where sustained winds of 25 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph will occur from about 10 p.m. Sunday night to about 5 p.m. Monday afternoon. This could lead to downed trees and outages.

Heavy rain is also expected, with storm totals of six to 10 inches forecast, the bulk of which should fall Monday.

At 3:35 p.m. Sunday, Irma had made its second U.S. landfall of the day over Marco Island, where a wind gust of 130 mph was reported.

Earlier, the storm officially made its initial U.S. landfall at Cudjoe Key at 9:10 a.m. as a Category 4 hurricane. Winds over the Keys raged, gusting to at least 94 mph in Key West (before the wind instrument failed) and up to 120 mph in Big Pine Key. Witness video showed the rising storm surge flooding Key West streets.

Before its encounter with the Keys, Irma made landfall on the north coast of Cuba as a Category 5 hurricane just after 9 p.m. Friday, with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph. It became that country’s first Category 5 hurricane since 1924. Fueled by the extremely warm ocean temperatures, Irma reintensified to the maximum hurricane classification level after weakening slightly on Friday afternoon.

As it scraped Cuba’s north coast early Saturday, it produced a sustained wind gust of 118 mph, and a gust to 159 mph was reported at Falla, Cuba, in the eyewall of the hurricane.

Irma’s eye approaches the north coast of Cuba on Friday night. Via NASA

On Friday, before making landfall along Cuba’s north-central coast, Irma passed north of Haiti and then between Cuba’s northeast coast and the Central Bahamas.

Thursday evening, the center of the storm passed very close to the Turks and Caicos, producing potentially catastrophic Category 5 winds. The storm surge was of particular concern, as the water had the potential to rise 16 to 20 feet above normally dry land in coastal sections north of the storm center, causing extreme inundation.

3 hours in #Irma northern eye wall. pic.twitter.com/Mnp9Ykrhv9

— Bill Karins (@BillKarins) September 8, 2017

A devastating storm surge and destructive winds had also probably battered the southeastern Bahamas, near Great Inagua Island.

The NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this infrared image of #HurricaneIrma at 2:37am ET, Sept. 8, 2017, near Great Inagua Island pic.twitter.com/Z6NoHVulht

— NOAA Satellites PA (@NOAASatellitePA) September 8, 2017

Through early Thursday, the storm had battered islands from Puerto Rico to the northern Lesser Antilles.

While the center of Irma passed just north of Puerto Rico late Wednesday, a wind gust of 63 mph was clocked in San Juan early Wednesday evening, and more than 900,000 people were reported to be without power. In Culebra, Puerto Rico, a small island 17 miles east of the main island, a wind gust registered 111 mph in the afternoon.

On Wednesday afternoon, the storm’s eye had moved over Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, and its southern eyewall raked St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Early Wednesday afternoon, a wind gust to 131 mph was clocked on Buck Island and 87 mph on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the hurricane passed directly over Barbuda and St. Martin in the northern Leeward Islands, the strongest hurricane recorded in that region and tied with the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane as the strongest Atlantic storm to strike land.

As Barbuda took a direct hit, the weather station there clocked a wind gust to 155 mph before it went offline.

The storm also passed directly over Anguilla and St. Martin early Wednesday, causing severe damage.

Irma’s place in history

Irma’s peak intensity (185 mph) ranks among the strongest in recorded history, exceeding the likes of Katrina, Andrew and Camille — whose winds peaked at 175 mph.

Among the most intense storms on record, it trails only Hurricane Allen in 1980, which had winds of 190 mph. It is tied for second-most intense with Hurricane Wilma in 2005, Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane.

The storm maintained maximum wind speeds of at least 180 mph for 37 hours, longer than any storm on Earth on record, passing Super Typhoon Haiyan, the previous record-holder (24 hours).

Late Tuesday, its pressure dropped to 914 millibars (the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm), ranking as the lowest of any storm on record outside the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in the Atlantic basin.

The storm has generated the most “accumulated cyclone energy,” a measure of a storm’s duration and intensity, of any hurricane on record.

Irma’s landfall pressure of 929 millibars in the Florida Keys was the lowest for any U.S. landfalling hurricane since Katrina (920 millibars) and for a Florida landfall since Andrew (922 millibars). It ranks as the seventh-lowest pressure of any U.S. landfalling storm.

When Irma crashed into the Keys early Sunday as a Category 4, following Hurricane Harvey’s assault in Texas, it marked the first time on record that two Category 4 storms had made landfall in the United States in the same year.

Capital Weather Gang hurricane expert Brian McNoldy contributed to this report. Credit to tropical-weather expert and occasional Capital Weather Gang contributor Phil Klotzbach for some of the statistics in this section.

President Trump prepared for the pivotal meeting with congressional leaders by huddling with his senior team — his chief of staff, his legislative director and the heads of Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget — to game out various scenarios on how to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling and provide Hurricane Harvey relief.

But one option they never considered was the that one the president ultimately chose: cutting a deal with Democratic lawmakers, to the shock and ire of his own party.

In agreeing to tie Harvey aid to a three-month extension of the debt ceiling and government funding, Trump burned the people who are ostensibly his allies. The president was an unpredictable — and, some would say, untrustworthy — negotiating partner with not only congressional Republicans but also with his Cabinet members and top aides. Trump saw a deal that he thought was good for him — and he seized it.

The move should come as no surprise to students of Trump’s long history of broken alliances and agreements. In business, his personal life, his campaign and now his presidency, Trump has sprung surprises on his allies with gusto. His dealings are frequently defined by freewheeling spontaneity, impulsive decisions and a desire to keep everyone guessing — especially those who assume they can control him.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), flanked by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), left, and Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) speaks Wednesday at the Capitol after President Trump overruled Republicans and his treasury secretary to cut a deal with Democrats. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

In April, Trump thrust Canada and Mexico — as well as many of his advisers and Cabinet officials — into a state of panic during a frenetic, if brief, period when he threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. In May, speaking in front of NATO’s sparkling new headquarters, Trump alarmed European allies when he chastised them for “not paying what they should be paying” and refused to embrace the treaty’s cornerstone — that an attack on one represents an attack on all. And in September, as the crisis with North Korea escalated, Trump abruptly threatened to withdraw from a free-trade agreement with South Korea.

Foreign diplomats euphemistically describe the president as “unpredictable,” and even those with good relationships with the United States say they are “cautiously optimistic” that Trump’s behavior will continue to benefit their nations.

On the issue of the debt-ceiling extension and short-term government funding, a GOP aide familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said many Republicans viewed Trump’s decision as “a spur-of-the-moment thing” that happened because the president “just wanted a deal.”

“He saw a deal and wanted the deal, and it just happened to be completely against what we were pushing for,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment. “Our conclusion is there isn’t much to read into other than he made that decision on the spot, and that’s what he does because he’s Trump, and he made an impulsive decision because he saw a deal he wanted.” 

From the outset, the meeting did not go as Republican leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had hoped. They began by pushing for an 18-month extension of the debt ceiling, with Mnuchin lecturing the group of longtime legislators about the importance of raising the debt ceiling, according to three people familiar with the gathering who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“It was just odd and weird,” one said. “He was very much a duck out of water.”

The treasury secretary presented himself as a Wall Street insider, arguing that the stability of the markets required an 18-month extension. 

At one point, Schumer intervened with a skeptical question: “So the markets dictate one month past the 2018 election?” he asked, rhetorically, according to someone with knowledge of his comment. “I doubt that.”

At another, Pelosi explained that understanding Wall Street is not the same as operating in Congress. “Here the currency of the realm is the vote,” she told reporters in a news conference Thursday, echoing the comments she had made privately the day before. “You have the votes, no discussion necessary. You don’t have the votes, three months.”

The Republican leaders and Mnuchin slowly began moderating their demands, moving from their initial pitch down to 12 months and then six months. At one point, when Mnuchin was in the middle of yet another explanation, the president cut him off, making it clear that he disagreed.

The deal would be for three months tied to Harvey funding, Trump said — just as the Democrats had wanted.

On Friday morning, at a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, numerous lawmakers vented their frustrations to Mnuchin and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. One of them, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), stood up to say he thought Trump’s snub of Ryan — who had publicly rejected Democrats’ offer hours before Trump accepted it — was also a snub of Republicans at large.

“I support the president, I want him to be successful, I want our country to be successful,” Zeldin said in an interview afterward. “But I personally believe the president had more leverage than he may have realized. He had more Democratic votes than he realized, and could have and would have certainly gotten a better deal.”

Democrats remain skeptical about just how long their newfound working relationship with Trump will last. But for Republicans, the turnabout was yet another reminder of what many of them have long known but refused to openly admit: Trump is a fickle ally and partner, liable to turn on them much in the same way he has turned on his business associates and foreign allies. 

“Looking to the long term, trust and reliability have been essential ingredients in productive relationships between the president and Congress,” said Phil Schiliro, who served as director of legislative affairs under Obama. “Without them, trying to move a legislative agenda is like juggling on quicksand. It usually doesn’t end well.”

Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.