Trump 2.0: Theyre Sending Their Best! - Josh Marshall
By JOSH MARSHALL Published SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 9:19 AM
The word this morning is that leaders Pelosi and Schumer say Trump agreed to make DACA law as part of a deal that upped funding for “border security” but not for a wall. But Trump came out and said there’s no deal. So it’s all a mess and a big dispute. I think if you look closely, that’s not quite what happened.
Let’s begin with some critical first principles: Trump remains the same narcissist and predator he’s always been. He will never change. But Trump is also profoundly needy. He craves attention, affirmation and praise. He rails at the “failing New York Times” but there may literally be no public institution whose approval and attention he’s craved more in his whole life. If Democrats can leverage his desire for praise and “wins” to save 800,000 Dreamers they should grab the chance. And I think they can and will do so with eyes wide open.
Here’s my read of what happened last night.
The Democrats came out of the meeting last night saying they’d agreed to make DACA law as part of a bill that would include border security but not a wall. The White House put out a different statement that didn’t say quite the same thing but very conspicuously did not mention the wall.
Was this a “deal” or “agreement”? The Dems didn’t say they had a “deal”, which I take to mean they’d hashed out the specifics and terms. They said they’d agreed to do this kind of legislation: DACA plus Border Security minus Wall. This is basically a semantic difference. The words (deal or agreement) can mean anything you want them to. The key thing in my mind is that if you look closely, I don’t see where they’re really disagreeing on what happened. If Trump or the White House had come out this morning and said, “No way. The price for DACA is the Wall,” that would be a major disagreement. They have not done that.
This is confirmed in my mind by Trump’s morning tweets which are arguing the case for DACA (bizarre! but what’s new? It’s Trump) and talking up the wall but not as a condition but as something that “will continue to be built.” Indeed, he actually restates the terms of what Pelosi and Schumer call the “agreement.”
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-2-0-theyre-sending-their-best
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