Chuck Shumer and Nancy Pelosi were quick to run to the press to announce an alleged deal on immigration after meeting with President Trump at the White House over dinner yesterday.
And according to their joint report of the meeting, details on DACA were agreed to without any inclusion of a border wall.
That’s when the White House responded abruptly: Um…not so much.
While Trump has been insisting on working deals directly with Senate and House Democrats, he’s not giving away the farm.
In his ‘Art of the Deal’ fashion, Trump could be using strategic triangulation to force Schumer and Pelosi to make key concessions in order to get what they want.
And building a wall may be among them.
This fight won’t be over soon since anything Trump and the Dems agree to still has to pass muster in the Republican Senate and House.
We’re not holding our breath.
Here’s more from Washington Examiner…
The White House hailed a “constructive working dinner” Wednesday night between President Trump and top Democratic congressional leaders, who claimed afterward they agreed to exclude the border wall from a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Trump and administration officials met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the latest in a series of overtures from the president to the other side of the aisle.
A White House official told reporters afterward the “topics included tax reform, border security, DACA, infrastructure and trade.” But Pelosi and Schumer focused on DACA, former President Barack Obama’s executive action shielding from deportation illegal immigrants who came to the United States before age 16, which was recently rescinded by the Trump administration.
“We had a very productive meeting at the White House with the President,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement. “The discussion focused on DACA. We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides.”
“While DACA and border security were both discussed, excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders shot back shortly afterward.
