Last week President Trump sat down with left-wing Democratic Party politicians Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and tried to work out a deal on the border wall. Mr. Trump, a former businessman, fashions himself a great deal-maker, so he should have had them eating out of his hands. But this is what he said later:
We’re working on a plan for DACA. People want to see that happen. You have 800,000 young people brought here—no fault of their own. We’re working on a plan.… We’re gonna get massive border security as part of that and I think something can happen… The wall will come later. We’re right now renovating large sections of the wall. Both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, I think they agree with it, but I think we’re fairly close, but we have to get massive border security. 92% of people agree on DACA, but what we want is very very powerful border security. Ryan and McConnell agree with us on DACA. We’re very much on board.
Later Schumer and Pelosi issued a joint statement saying the following:
As we said last night, there was no final deal, but there was agreement on the following: We agreed that the President would support enshrining DACA protections into law, and encourage the House and Senate to act. What remains to be negotiated are the details of border security, with a mutual goal of finalizing all details as soon as possible. While both sides agree that the wall would not be any part of this agreement, the President made clear he intends to pursue it at a later time, and we made clear we would continue to oppose it.
So, if this deal is signed, Schumer and Pelosi get what they want—amnesty for the offspring of illegals—and Trump gets a promise for “massive border security,” but no wall. It would be like going to a car dealership and handing over $20,000 for a new car, and the dealer gives you some candy for your kids and says, “You can talk to us about the car later, but we’re never going to give it to you.”
We have seen this before. Trump was conned by Ryan and McConnell. Give us some time, they said, and we will deliver Repeal and Replace. Well, it didn’t happen. (It’s strange, though, how quickly they’re moving on DACA.)
So far Trump has backed down on all of his big campaign promises. He promised to “build a wall—and Mexico is gonna pay for it.” It didn’t happen. He promised to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” It didn’t happen. He promised to “drain the swamp.” It didn’t happen. He promised to “lock her up.” It didn’t happen. Two times may be a coincidence, but four times is a trend. The tough businessman from New York now looks like a wimp.
Admittedly, he’s had to face an onslaught that no previous President has had to face. The mainstream media attack him 24/7. A Special Prosecutor is looking into his finances and those of his friends and family.His own party treats him like a pariah. He’s been plagued by spiteful leaks from within the executive branch. His best advisors have left his cabinet and he’s been left with people who do not have his or the country’s best interests at heart. It would be tough for anyone to succeed under those circumstances.
On the other hand, many of these problems are of his own doing. No one forced him to put his daughter and son-in-law in his cabinet. No one forced him to make Reince Priebus his Chief of Staff. He could have fired and replaced all of the Obama and Bush appointees on Day One, but he didn’t. He could have fired James Comey on Day One. No one forced him to work with RINOs Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, but he did. He did all those things on his own.
Which brings us to the wall. More than 30 million Mexicans and Central Americans have come to the US and taken up residence illegally. It is an invasion that is changing America into a corrupt, third-world country. Trump promised to stop it, but now he wants to give amnesty to the offspring of the illegal immigrants. (The media say these offspring number 800,000, but they always use smaller numbers to make the problem look manageable.) During his campaign last year, he said repeatedly, “No amnesty.” At a rally in Phoenix in 2016, he said, “We will break the cycle of amnesty and illegal immigration…There will be no amnesty.” But just the other day, he tweeted, “Does anyone really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs”?
Why is he doing this? Talk radio hosts have speculated about possible reasons. He wants to be loved by the media. The Republicans in the House and Senate pushed him into it by their refusal to work with him. He thinks Special Prosecutor Mueller will be easy on him if he works with the Democrats. Even if all of these theories are true, they portray a man who is not confident in himself or his message.
If Trump assumes the media will leave him alone now, he needs to think again. Richard Nixon, a left-leaning Republican who doubled the size of the government’s expenditures on social programs, was despised by the media and ultimately brought down by them. George W. Bush, on the recommendation of Karl Rove, took the Democrats’ issues “off the table” by giving them everything they wanted, but the media still referred to GW as “Bush-Hitler” and blamed him for everything from global warming to the housing bubble collapse. Likewise, the media will never like Donald Trump and will call for his impeachment even if he pardons every illegal alien in America. At the same time, he will lose all of his supporters. (They are already burning their MAGA caps.)
So, if Trump cannot work with the Republicans or Democrats in Congress, what should he do? Doesn’t he have to use DACA as a bargaining chip to get the wall?
No.
The previous President—Barack Obama, remember him?—could not work with Congress, and what did he do? He said, “I’ve got a pen and a phone.” Trump also has a pen and a phone.
Regarding the wall, here’s what he can do without Congress: Declare a two-mile wide swath of land on the Mexican border to be federal land. Take $10 billion dollars out of the Defense budget (border security is a defense issue) and use that money to build the wall. Build a metal fence ten yards back from the Mexican border. A mile back from the fence, build a gigantic wall. In between is a no-man’s land. The border patrol people only need to patrol the mile-wide no-man’s land. Anyone caught in there, will be fingerprinted and sent back to Mexico immediately. No one will be let into the US. And there’s no reason to cut a deal on DACA.