U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence at Donald Trump’s Rose Garden press conference was so very conspicuous it has become a serious back story in the government shutdown drama that goes on and on and on.

The Senate majority leader once all but guaranteed that there wouldn’t be a partial shutting down of the government. Indeed, he and the president reportedly agreed on a deal approved by the Senate unanimously to fund the government until early February.

Except the measure didn’t have money for The Wall that Trump wants to build along our southern border. Trump got a gut full from right wing talkers, so he changed his mind.

Yep. He stabbed the majority leader in the back.

Which makes me wonder if McConnell and Trump are at each other’s throats yet again.

He wasn’t standing with the president as Trump talked about the meeting he had with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. He hasn’t spoken publicly for several days about the status of the shutdown, other than to say the Senate would not take up the House bill that Pelosi promised to send to the Senate.

Aren’t he and Trump big-time pals these days? Don’t they stand together in favor of The Wall and opposed to any measure that doesn’t include money to build it?

He should have been in the Rose Garden. Mitch McConnell is missing in action. Given that no one seems able to talk sense to the president, then maybe McConnell is planning a mutiny.