We begin today’s roundup with reaction to the news that Donald Trump will roll back President Obama’s protections for Dreamers. Here is conservative Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post:
Some in the media take seriously the notion that he is “conflicted” or “wrestling” with the decision, as though Trump were engaged in a great moral debate. That would be a first for Trump, who counts only winners and losers, never bothering with moral principles or democratic norms. The debate, if there is one, is over whether to disappoint his rabid anti-immigrant base or to, as is his inclination, double down on a losing hand.
The instantaneous backlash on social media Sunday night was a preview of the floodgates of anger that Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would open. [...]
First, let’s not think Trump — who invites cops to abuse suspects, who thinks ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio was “doing his job” when denying others their constitutional rights and who issued the Muslim ban — cares about the Constitution (any of the “twelve” articles). Trump says, “We love the dreamers. … We think the dreamers are terrific.” But in fact he loves the applause he derives from his cultist followers more than anything. Otherwise he’d go to the mat to defend the dreamers and secure their legal status.
Robin Abcarian at The Los Angeles Times profiles some local Dreamers and their reaction:
Because of Obama’s decision to act unilaterally, nearly 800,000 young people have been able to get Social Security numbers, which has made it possible for them to get jobs and health insurance, to open bank accounts, to get driver’s licenses and financial aid. As a DACA recipient, Buenrostro, 26, has a Social Security number and a work permit that he can renew every two years for about $500 a pop.
“I definitely do not have any intention of leaving,” he said.
The Denver Post takes on the rest of Trump’s immigration plan:
A year ago, candidate Donald Trump made immigration a cornerstone of his campaign messaging. Now President Trump’s best proposal on immigration is inadequate and mean-spirited. [...] At best the bill would have no effect on the national economy, wages or jobs. At worst, it would dampen economic growth for decades.
Turning to the fall agenda, Andrew Rafferty at NBC News highlights the work and problems ahead:
Tax reform and infrastructure top the list of legislative undertakings Republicans still hope to get to this year, on top of must-dos like increasing the debt limit and passing another temporary spending bill to avoid a government shutdown.
“Members are going to come back from recess less inclined than ever before to work with Donald Trump,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked in both Sen. Marco Rubio’s Congressional office and for his presidential campaign. “It’s always been an awkward relationship, and he seems intent on making it a poisonous one, too.”
That may be particularly true for Senate Republicans, whom Trump targeted during the month of August. The president has taken direct or indirect jabs at at least six of them in the weeks since the GOP plan to repeal parts of Obamacare failed by a single vote.
Stephen Collinson at CNN adds:
After an endless summer of crisis, President Donald Trump's September isn't looking much better.
He's confronting a critical moment -- which would daunt the most experienced, popular and statesmanlike President -- with little to no political juice to achieve his aims.
Looming ahead are critical government funding deadlines and the last, best chance at championing a legislative win -- tax reform -- ahead of the 2018 midterm election. But Trump is clashing with Republican leaders, his approval ratings are in the 30s in most polls and more than half of voters are convinced he is bent on tearing the country apart, according to one recent Fox News survey.
Peter Baker at The New York Times:
As Congress returns to town on Tuesday, the president faces weeks of hard negotiations to overhaul the tax code, raise the debt ceiling, keep the government open, finance his border wall, and secure relief and reconstruction money for areas devastated by Hurricane Harvey. On top of that, he plans to throw another polarizing issue on the docket by threatening to scrap President Barack Obama’s program allowing younger illegal immigrants to stay in the country unless Congress acts to save it within six months. [...]
Here’s Michael Tomasky’s take at Newsweek:
So here we are, heading into the fall. Trump and the GOP had a disastrous summer. As summer wound down, we saw these stories every once a while about how they’re looking for an autumnal reset. Steve Bannon’s out. John Kelly is keeping Trump away from Breitbart stories. They’re getting serious about tax reform. It’s all gonna be so different, folks, you have no idea.
Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, proposes a way forward for Congress:
With the impeachment and removal of President Trump a long shot at best, there is another way to provide the country some protection from our unfit president: congressional government. The idea may seem far-fetched in this era of the “imperial presidency,” but there have been times in the nation’s history, especially in the decades after the Civil War but also to a lesser extent during the 1920s, when Congress ran the show on many critical matters and the president dared take no action without the approval of powerful committee chairmen.
The clearest example of this, and the one most relevant to the current situation, was in 1865, when a Republican Congress seized control of federal administration of the defeated South from then-President Andrew Johnson.
There’s no reason Congress could not do the same now. On some issues, it already has. On two important policies — sanctions on Russia and health care — a working majority of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate has already thwarted Trump.
On a final note, this Catherine Rampell piece on Ivanka Trump is a must-read:
Ivanka Trump is for working women the way her father is for the working class: In both cases, the Trumps really just want their money.
President Trump’s daughter built her brand around women’s “empowerment,” by which I mean monetizing the anxieties and insecurities of stressed-out moms. [...]
At best these about-faces on “women’s issues” are hollow marketing, at worst a con. The game is to say whatever needs to be said to part a mark from her money, and then move on.
It’s a trick Ivanka Trump learned well from her father.