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| Foto: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images |
Ben Shapiro
On Tuesday, President Trump
completely undercut Democratic arguments that he is an insane child, holding a
bipartisan discussion at the White House over the Congressional version of
President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Overall, Trump looked presidential rather than petulant; he even hijacked
Low-Energy Jeb!’s line, stating that he wanted to push a “bill of love” by
week’s end.
Trump did slip up once, when
pressed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) about whether he would support a clean
DACA bill — a bill that would legalize status for the so-called DREAMers
without funding a border wall or providing curbs on chain migration; Trump
endorsed the idea, before walking it back at the behest of Rep. Kevin McCarthy
(R-CA).
All of this was rather hard to
pin down during the actual discussion. Trump lacks fluency with the language of
DACA and legislation more broadly, leading to this awkward exchange:
Watch President Trump and congressional leaders debate immigration policy pic.twitter.com/QSnhJmhfnF— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) 9 de janeiro de 2018
But overall, Trump made clear
that his position was relatively simple: in exchange for DACA, he wanted
funding for his border wall, an end to the visa lottery, and an end to chain
migration; the Congress could then move onto comprehensive immigration reform.
This has to be Trump’s
position; once DACA is off the table, the Democrats have no leverage to give on
anything. They might as well sit around waiting for Trump to fail. But because
of the urgency for DREAMers, Democrats now have an incentive to come to the
table.
In the end, though, Trump
isn’t interested in vetoing anything. He’ll sign whatever Congress brings him,
and this press exchange was meant to highlight just that. He even said as much:
Trump says he will sign ANY immigration agreement Congress gives him— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) 9 de janeiro de 2018
"I'm not going to say 'oh gee I want this or I want that' I will be signing it" pic.twitter.com/M8NccfFYsx
I think my positions are going
to be what the people in this room come up with. I am very much reliant on the
people in this room. I know most of the people on both sides, have a lot of
respect for the people on both sides, and what I approve is going to be very
much reliant on what the people in this room come to me with.
Don’t look for Trump to
provide a ton of leadership here. He’s already signaled his willingness to give
away the store by re-instituting DACA if Congress doesn’t reach a deal by
March.
But demonstrating policy
expertise wasn’t the point of the exercise. The point was to tamp down extreme
talk about his fitness for office. He accomplished that, even if he puzzled his
immigration hawk supporters in the process. And those immigration hawk allies
should know by now that Trump isn’t going to lead on policy — he’s going to be
led. Their best hope for good policy lies with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan
(R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), not in the Oval
Office.
Ben Shapiro, The Daily Wire, 10-1-2018
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