On Thursday, Sen. Dan Sullivan wanted to start paying federal employees, but only those with the blessing of President Trump and the Republican Party—the members of the Coast Guard.

“I talked to the president on Wednesday,” Sullivan said on the Senate floor Thursday. “He said he was 100 percent behind this bill, the way he was behind that other bill to provide back pay to everybody else who has been affected by the partial government shutdown.”

Sullivan claimed that a bill to pay everyone and open the government should not be passed by Congress because Trump opposed it, neglecting the obvious—that Congress could override a veto and end the senseless Trump shutdown. That would require the unthinkable admission that the shutdown was senseless.

The past two years have shown that Sullivan will think whatever Trump wants him to think, believing that the way to win re-election in 2020 is act like Sen. Obsequious and blame everything on the Democrats.

On Trumps’s cue, Sullivan fell into line in December and became a devoted Build the Wall man, though he doesn’t like to use the term, which was invented by Trump advisers as a memory device so Trump would remember to mention immigration.

Then on Friday, Trump caved.

That made it safe for Sullivan to think differently.

While the bill Sullivan backed Friday to open the government was not the one Sullivan backed Thursday, “for the sake of our federal workers and their families, I welcome the news and support this bill.”

Sullivan made a short video in which he mentioned other federal workers than just the Coast Guard—TSA, FAA, NOAA, etc.

“They need to be paid for their work. And over the last few weeks that is something I’ve been advocating for in bills, on the Senate floor, to get the Coast Guard and other federal employees paid for their work.”

Let’s keep the record straight. On Thursday, Sullivan was arguing to pay the Coast Guard and no one else. In fact, he opposed paying “other federal employees” on Thursday.

Sullivan added “other federal employees” on Friday, only when he got the go-ahead from Trump.