Well, the deal to end the shutdown is no deal. But then it couldn’t have been.
President Donald Trump can’t “make a deal” with Democrats if the only folks in the room for the deal’s drafting were Republicans – Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Vice President Mike Pence and, later, Sen. Mitch McConnell. Which of those folks do we think was speaking for the Democrats?
What’s more, the “deal” – presented by Trump in a national address Saturday afternoon – is no deal because it was no different from what he agreed to a couple of times before but changed his mind when conservative talk show hosts lit into him.
Trump’s “deal” proposed extending “temporary” protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and individuals with temporary protected status in exchange for border wall funding.
But those folks already have that “temporary” status thanks to a court order.
Trump’s proposal also includes $800 million for urgent humanitarian assistance and $805 million for drug detection technology to secure ports of entry, as well additional border agents, law enforcement officials and new immigration judge teams to deal with cases of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Much of that – without $5.7 billion for a wall, though there is money for other forms of border security – already is in the seven bills Democrats passed in the House in recent weeks. They expect to pass two more bills next week. To get that work started, Mitch McConnell just has to let the bills – which also would restart government – get a vote in the Senate.
And let’s not forget: Early last year Democratic senators worked on a deal with Republicans that offered $25 billion in border funding – a chuck more than the $5.7 billion Trump has shut the government down for – in exchange for a permanent path to citizenship for some 1.8 million Dreamers. That was the deal Trump first suggested, then agreed to, then backed away from.
Anything less than a path to citizenship for Dreamers is going to be a nonstarter for Democrats. In fact, it’s a non-starter for 87 percent of Americans, according to a new CBS News poll.
The ball is still in Trump’s – and McConnell’s – court.
Shutdown tone deafness is bipartisan
When President Trump announced in a public letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday that he was revoking her use of a military aircraft to Europe and Afghanistan, he put the security of the Speaker and about 20 others from Capitol Hill at risk.
It was widely seen as just another turn in the tit-for-tat between the president and Pelosi, who requested on Wednesday that Trump postpone his Jan. 29 State of the Union address in light of the continuing partial government shutdown and the security concerns brought to bear with a gathering of almost all of our nation’s elected, military and judicial leaders in one place while so many Secret Service and homeland security workers are furloughed.
Trump countered that with government workers not receiving their paychecks, he was asking her to delay what he branded a “public relations event.” And he invited the Speaker – who is second in line to the presidency should anything happen to the president and vice president – to fly commercial if she still wanted to go.
Given the State Department’s heightened warnings once the trip was leaked, Pelosi decided early Friday to delay the visit.
Meanwhile, Melania Trump flew on a government plane to Mar-a-Lago.
Don’t you wonder whether the pilot was working without pay?
Another Korean confab set
Forgive us if we’re being too cynical in saying that we’ve seen this movie before.
We’ll call it “President Trump meets – again – to compare hair-dos with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un.”
This time, the hair affair will be in late February. On the agenda is “continuing a high-level diplomatic dialogue.” That dialogue began last June, and while it eased “little Rocket man” tweets, it did nothing to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
You’ll recall that the first meeting ended with smiles and Trump’s insistence that Pyongyang would take “fast action” to begin denuclearization.
The first step was supposed to be detailed inventory from North Koreans of their nuclear assets, complete with locations and so on. We would compare the list to what American intelligence agencies have gleaned over the past three decades.
But the list didn’t happen. North Koreans told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the inventory was just a targeting list should Trump order a pre-emptive strike.
Did Trump get “tough” – his favorite word?
No. As a matter of fact, Vice President Mike Pence has loosened the conditions, telling NBC News that North Korea did not have to turn over its inventory to get a second meeting with Trump. And that second meeting – like the first – will get Kim Jong-un exactly what he craves: An indicator that he’s important enough to meet with the supposed leader of the free world.
We should just call it what it is. A weird hair confab.