Anti-immigrant White House aides John Kelly and Stephen Miller tag teamed an effort last week to kill a bipartisan DACA deal, worked out in the Senate, that would have provided a fix for Dreamers and added some of the border security Donald Trump has been clamoring for, including $1.6 billion in funding for Trump's precious border wall. It was the essence of compromise and Trump spitefully shot it down after being coached by his nativist aides.
Even a Republican senator—Lindsey Graham—was perfectly clear about who killed the DACA deal. "I don't think the president was well served by his staff," Graham told reporters Tuesday. "I think somebody on his staff gave him really bad advice between 10:00 to 12:00 on Thursday," he said of Trump's 180 on the deal between his morning phone call with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and the early afternoon meeting at the White House.
Graham may have given Trump an out by blaming his staff, but his general target was perfectly accurate: the White House. Apparently by Thursday, Trump had already forgotten his pledge from two days earlier during the televised immigration meeting. "You guys are going to have to come up with a solution [for DACA], and I'm going to sign that solution," Trump told lawmakers.
Despite that promise, the White House spiked the deal and now White House aides are pointing the finger at Democrats for the bind they are in in trying to avert a government shutdown. Asked Wednesday if the buck would stop at Trump if a shutdown ensues, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded: "I'm not sure how it would. [...] If one happens," she insisted, "I think you only have one place to look and that's to the Democrats."
Just to be perfectly clear here, Republicans own the federal government right now. It's incumbent on them to make deals that can get enough votes to keep the government funded in both the House and the Senate. If they can't do that with Republican votes alone, then they must find compromises that bring some Democratic votes along too. That's one of the reasons they're suddenly interested in re-upping the Children Health Insurance Program for some 9 million kids that they've let languish for months on end. Yes, Republican are using the health of American kids as a bargaining chip. In essence, they're pitting poor kids against immigrant kids and daring Democrats to make the choice.
Still, pathetic Paul Ryan may not get the 218 GOP votes for a funding deal he's cobbling together in the House. And even if he does get enough GOP support in the lower chamber, he might not include enough policy compromises to entice Senate Democrats to vote for it.
But bottom line, this entire debacle is the fault of Donald Trump and the nativist aides who steered him away from a deal that would have partially funded his wall. Democrats have insisted for months that in order for them to support a government funding package full of GOP goodies, it would have to include a fix for some 800,000 Dreamers Trump hung out to dry last year when he rescinded their deportation protections.
Now Republicans are trying to put the squeeze on Democrats by including CHIP funding in their proposals. In turn, Senate Democrats aren't saying much because there’s every likelihood that Paul Ryan will fall flat on his face in the House anyway. God knows Boy Wonder is perfectly capable of it.
But make no mistake—every bit of this debacle could have been avoided if Trump had simply made good on his pledge to sign whatever compromise Congress came up with.
As Sen. Graham told reporters Tuesday reflecting on how the DACA deal unraveled last week: "We cannot do this with people in charge at the White House who have an irrational view of how to do this."
Apparently, Mitch McConnell hasn’t gotten that memo yet. On Wednesday, he said was holding off on immigration until Trump indicates what he wants—as if Trump’s pronouncements from one day to the next matter.
Truly, what a shit show. As the Washington Post has urged, if Republicans were worth a damn, they would just ignore Trump and vote on the DACA deal. There’s likely enough bipartisan for it. Unfortunately, that would take leadership, and Ryan and McConnell are all we got.