The president’s backers know he didn’t run as a traditional Republican
At this point, if Mr. Trump really wants to operate as a political independent, and attract the support of politically independent Americans to bolster the effort, picking a fight with Republican leaders probably will only help him. In recent Journal/NBC News polling, the share of independents who had a negative view of the GOP outstripped those with a positive view by a hefty 31 percentage points.
.. Democratic leaders probably have the license to cooperate with Mr. Trump on raising the debt ceiling, funding government and improving infrastructure, and on some trade matters. But the party base figures to rise up against the kind of large-scale tax cut and defense-spending increases Mr. Trump envisions and revolt if he doesn’t agree to extend legal status for “Dreamers,” immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children.So cooperation with Democrats has distinct boundaries. But nobody should be surprised Mr. Trump is choosing to test those boundaries at this point.
Trump’s ‘Never Mind’ DACA Tweet
The president signals his enthusiasm for amnesty. Why would immigration activists give an inch?
I argued during the GOP nomination battle that Trump is a phony on immigration. He camouflages this fact in provocative (and sometimes noxious) rhetoric about Mexicans and a border wall — a wall that would be physically impossible to build as he described it and that Mexico was never going to pay for. (Have you noticed our coming budget battle is over his insistence that American taxpayers foot the bill?) But if you listened carefully, there was always an amnesty subtext. Recall his truly absurd claims that he would round up and deport 11 million people and then bring most of them back with legal status.
Trump wants to be all things to all people: the restrictionist ideal of his rabid base as well as an amnesty enthusiast in the mold of a New York City Democrat.
The DACA sleight of hand proves the point. On the hustings, restrictionist Trump promised to rescind DACA as soon as he took office (and some people actually believed him). Of course, he did not do so . . . because he doesn’t think it should be rescinded; he thinks it should be law. But he wants credit for ending it — for being both against and for it. –
.. If DACA were narrowly drawn, strictly to benefit the immigrants whom Democrats and the GOP establishment portray as the typical DREAMer
.. There are two reasons it is not. First, it is not narrowly drawn; rather, it designed to shoehorn a broader array of illegal aliens into legal status. Second and more significantly, because Democrats (and many pro-amnesty Republicans) are insufficiently sympathetic to the demands of Americans for better security and tighter immigration controls, there must be tradeoffs if the ruling class is to be motivated to negotiate.
.. Art of the deal, huh?
Trump Faces Deal-Making Challenges as Congress Returns
“Legislatively, September may be the longest month of the year, with several must pass items that face an uphill climb,” said Doug Heye, a longtime Republican strategist. The president’s decision to push the immigrant program to Congress “only makes that harder, on an issue that for years Republicans have struggled to make any headway on. The question is whether this was a strategic decision by the White House.”
His self-proclaimed deal-making skills could also be put to the test in foreign policy as he decides how to respond to North Korea’s nuclear saber-rattling while separately seeking to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada and broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. And he may alienate America’s traditional European allies if he tries to scuttle Mr. Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran by declaring Tehran out of compliance over their objections.
.. As he pressures North Korea to curb its nuclear program, he has belittled South Korea for “appeasement” and threatened to tear up its trade deal with the United States. As he lobbies lawmakers to back his legislative priorities, he has castigated Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and other Republicans crucial to passage.
.. Mr. Trump’s allies argue that he had a better summer than the Washington conventional wisdom would suggest and that he has a path forward. They contend that after the fights of early August, the president took on the mantle of a national leader with a vigorous and visible response to Hurricane Harvey, and that cleaning up the devastation may prove both a rallying point and a strategic leverage.
.. “It may sound counterintuitive, but the president heads into September with a bit of wind at his back,” said Michael Dubke, who served as his White House communications director. “Harvey was handled well, tax reform is back on track, the debt ceiling showdown will be pushed to a later date and while there are no good choices in North Korea, the president’s national security team is second to none.”
.. It’s not a mistake to disagree when you disagree; it is a mistake to suggest that somehow this president, who was elected just as the Constitution prescribed, and has the responsibility to lead the country, that somehow we need to not work with this president.”
.. On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Trump will host a group that has been dubbed the Big Six to discuss his tax overhaul —
- Mr. McConnell;
- House Speaker Paul D. Ryan;
- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin;
- Gary D. Cohn, the president’s national economics adviser;and
- Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and
- Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the Republican chairmen of the tax-writing committees.
.. Allies said Mr. Trump’s approach to negotiations, however, is to hold out for the best deal possible until the last moment, so it is too soon to judge.
.. “My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward,” he once wrote. “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after. Sometimes I settle for less than I sought, but in most cases I still end up with what I want.”
.. But those who have studied his career in real estate and business said that it has been marked by as many failed deals as successful ones.
- He bought an airline that failed.
- He bought a football team in a league that collapsed.
- He filed for bankruptcy protection multiple times.
“If you look at his record, there are a lot of deals that didn’t work out,” said Michael D’Antonio, a Trump biographer. “So if you think about the true record of performance, he is very good at promotion and creating the idea that he is a deal maker, but not very good at making actual successful deals.”
.. some Democrats argue that Mr. Trump’s very weakness may yet prove to be a boon. Since legislating entirely with fellow Republicans has yet to yield the results Mr. Trump had hoped, he may have more incentive to work with Democrats on areas where they could find agreement, particularly
- infrastructure and the
- tax code.
Democrats would also like to work on legislation stabilizing the Obama health care markets.
Obama calls President Trump’s decision to end DACA ‘wrong,’ ‘self-defeating’ and ‘cruel’
“Whatever concerns or complaints Americans may have about immigration in general, we shouldn’t threaten the future of this group of young people who are here through no fault of their own, who pose no threat, who are not taking away anything from the rest of us. … Kicking them out won’t lower the unemployment rate, or lighten anyone’s taxes, or raise anybody’s wages.”
.. “[For] years while I was president, I asked Congress to send me such a bill. That bill never came. And because it made no sense to expel talented, driven, patriotic young people from the only country they know solely because of the actions of their parents, my administration acted to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people, so that they could continue to contribute to our communities and our country,” Obama said in his statement. “We did so based on the well-established legal principle of prosecutorial discretion, deployed by Democratic and Republican presidents alike, because our immigration enforcement agencies have limited resources, and it makes sense to focus those resources on those who come illegally to this country to do us harm. Deportations of criminals went up.
.. “To target these young people is wrong — because they have done nothing wrong. It is self-defeating — because they want to start new businesses, staff our labs, serve in our military, and otherwise contribute to the country we love. And it is cruel. What if our kid’s science teacher, or our friendly neighbor turns out to be a ‘dreamer?’ Where are we supposed to send her? To a country she doesn’t know or remember, with a language she may not even speak?”