White House officials made the unusual decision Tuesday to allow cameras to film a nearly hour-long immigration meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. They probably wish they hadn't.
For a moment, Democrats thought they had struck an unexpected deal with President Trump. Trump had previously insisted that any deal protecting "dreamers" — undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children — should also https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-border-wall-gets-18-billion-price-tag-in-new-request-to-lawmakers/2018/01/05/34e3c47e-f264-11e7-b3bf-ab90a706e175_story.html (include border security and/or a border wall). But he now says that he would support a “clean” bill protecting dreamers, and then take up comprehensive immigration reform later.
“What about a clean DACA bill now, with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive immigration reform procedure?” asked Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Trump responded: “Yeah, I would like to do that. I think a lot of people would like to see that.”
The problem? Trump didn't know what “clean DACA bill” meant. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) quickly interjected and made clear that Trump believes a “clean” bill would include border security. Except that's not at all what a clean bill is; that's a compromise bill. A clean bill, by definition, only has one component to it.