![]() The details of how you get there are still very much in doubt. So this is why I think that they - the end goal is one that Republicans and Democrats can agree on, which is a compromise immigration legislation. Democrats like Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin say that they - that that's too much, that that's not fair. He's - his most current ask from the White House is $18 billion towards the construction of a physical barrier along the border. And part of - one of the things going into the talks this week is there's a feeling among Democrats that every time they get close to maybe a deal, the president moves the marker. INSKEEP: Hasn't the president repeatedly taken off the table and then put back on the table his request for billions of dollars for his border wall as well?ĭAVIS: He has. It's just not clear the political will is there yet. They probably have the votes to do it if there's willingness to get there. In order to get there, it needs to have some combination of those things. And the president himself wants tougher crackdowns on legal immigration, which is maybe a bit further than other presidents have called for. Republicans want tougher border enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border. The problem with compromise is that usually means the base in both of your parties are going to be probably pretty angry by the end result.ĭemocrats want some level of legal certainty for certain people living in the country illegally, the so-called DREAMers. I think we know what a compromise looks like. There's a bipartisan meeting at the White House this week between Republicans and Democrats. But is there really when you get down to the details?ĭAVIS: We're going to know soon enough on immigration. You mentioned, though, immigration and infrastructure, two areas where hypothetically, in theory, there is bipartisan agreement. Getting Democrats onboard to do something like Paul Ryan would like to do to entitlement programs seems pretty unlikely in 2013. The president likewise said he didn't see a path forward unless they could get Democrats onboard. Mitch McConnell has been hesitant to do something like that in an election year. One of the notable things that the president seemed to be walking away from at Camp David this weekend was Speaker Ryan's insistence that they spend the year focused on overhauling social welfare programs. Two of the items coming up that we think we're going to hear a lot about this year are immigration and infrastructure. And this is a broader point here - is that the Republican Party is still trying to figure out what 2018 should be about. They wanted to talk about 2018.ĭAVIS: They do. And they didn't want to rehash 2017, which Wolff's book is about. INSKEEP: And this happened on a weekend when the president was at Camp David, the presidential retreat, with Republican leaders. ![]() The president has chosen a very different path. And when asked persistently to engage, they have just said, I don't have anything to say about him. And also when other members of his party have gotten into disagreements or engaged with Steve Bannon in the past, people like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, they have chosen a different path. And I think we know that because one of the consistent criticisms of President Trump from his own party is that, one, they wish he would tweet less. ![]() ![]() INSKEEP: Is this what the rest of the president's party wants to be talking about?ĭAVIS: No. SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve. NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis is covering this story and much more. INSKEEP: The president applying one of his nicknames as he does to people he regards as political enemies. That's why sloppy Steve is now looking for a job. I guess sloppy Steve brought him into the White House quite a bit, and it was one of those things. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't know this man. The president laid the blame for Wolff's access in the White House on his former senior strategist, Steve Bannon. The president was responding to a book by the writer Michael Wolff who says he believes that every White House staffer he encountered has come to think the president is not up to his job. Over the weekend, the president wrote on Twitter that he is, quote, "like, really smart" and also, quote, "a very stable genius." No president has ever publicly spoken of himself in precisely that way. The other is President Trump's feeling that he must respond. One is the unprecedented questioning of President Trump's mental fitness for office. Two facts make this presidential moment distinct. ![]()
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