Flirting with Democrats

Terry H. Schwadron

Sept. 15, 2017

We made a deal over DACA, said Democrats Chuck Schumer, Senate minority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, House minority leader, after supping Chinese food with the President. And we agreed to leave funds for the Wall out of it, they said. Or an outline to do so.

Hours later, the President said no, there was no deal, but then said he would sign a bill to allow 800,000 individuals admitted to the country under the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals executive order to remain in the country. But there would be Big Border Security, and yes, the DACA folks should stay in the country, and there will be a Wall under different legislation.

By later in the day, the President was willing to say that he had checked with Republican leadership in Congress, reporting that they were fine with upping border security with no Wall right now. After all, the Wall is pretty expensive and, with hurricanes, tax cuts, infrastructure needs, we may not be able to afford it right now. But Speaker Paul Ryan said there had been no agreement.

OK, we’re left temporarily confused by the competing announcements, other than convinced once again that the only thing that seems to matter in Washington is taking credit or winning, not taking care of business.

That is “winning” unless you look at Breitbart News, which had a fistful of stories screaming “Amnesty Don,” and threatening the end of the Trump party over perceived abandonment of a Wall proposal. That is not negotiable, they say, even though it seems that it was negotiable.

I’m sure it will work itself out, that Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will restate things another half dozen times to make the versions sound closer, and both Democrats and Republicans will be able to take victory laps, along with DACA immigrants.

Dear Democrats, next time you think you have a deal, ask the President to announce it, so that you all don’t look like dopes.

But my question is different: If the goal here was legislation to enshrine the DACA executive order by former President Obama, why did we have to go through a full anti-immigrant attack, threats to deport nearly a million people who had arrived as children under 16, and the unhumane sense of putting families at risk? Was the need to “satisfy” a campaign promise so great that the President needed to announce he was against immigrants before turning around to say he was for them? How does this end up satisfying either a campaign pledge or any sense of being a human being towards neighbors?

Why did the President send Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions out into the spotlight to make the case for the illegality of DACA orders only to turn around days later and express happiness about efforts (or an agreement) for a quick way to make the effects permanent? Did the President think we had forgotten that he is the President and might just try to ignore him? What has the President gained by this legislative negotiation two-step?

For that matter, why did the President give Congress six months to take up the DACA issue, then announce that he would revisit it if Congress did not resolve it, then sit down with Pelosi and Schumer and, apparently just make a deal with Democrats to take care of the dispute within a day or two?

The President is not only mercurial, under-prepared for issue resolution and in need of constant personal reassurance and admiration, but impatient to boot. No wonder we can’t resolve issues with North Korea or Iran, or health care and the range of domestic issues on the legislative table.

What we see in the DACA discussion, then, is exactly what we are seeing in other areas.

Even as he lobbies for quick action on the tax cut “proposal,” there is no piece of legislation actually on the table. Are we still talking about cutting corporate taxes to 15%, even after his own Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Speaker Paul Ryan have said we can’t pay for a cut beyond something in the low-20’s percent. The President is insistent on saying that the tax cuts will not favor the wealthy, despite every analysis that shows that it would. But in the meantime, he is “negotiating” for support for something that doesn’t exist. What am I missing? I’m sure he is not actually listening to tax cut foes to learn another approach to incent economic growth.

In the end, we have the outlines of a deal to solve one big immigration question concerning the Dreamers. We have confirmed that we have an impatient President who wants things decided at his table, but won’t deal with the details. We have bewildered Republican leaders whose voices are being ignored, and suddenly happy Democrats who are delighted to be included. We have angry Trump supporters who think their Dream is being short-changed.

Stay tuned.

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