Trumps volatility scrambles prospects of a deal on DACA
The search for a deal on spending and immigration has been pitched into chaos by the controversy over President Trump’s reported use of a vulgarity to describe other nations.
Although the storm over the president’s reference to “shithole countries” has been unusually intense, it is part of a long-established pattern wherein Trump behaves in a volatile way amid delicate negotiations.
During the ultimately failed quest to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, Trump held a White House event to celebrate a House bill, only to later describe that Republican proposal as “mean.”
During an earlier phase of talks about government spending last September, he stunned his own party colleagues by undercutting them and striking a deal with “Chuck and Nancy” — Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — instead.
And, even before the most recent drama, it was not clear what Trump’s bottom-line position actually is on the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
On the campaign trail, he had promised to get rid of it, but the month after his inauguration he said he would “deal with DACA with heart.”
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The president’s zigzags make the already fraught efforts to reach an agreement all the more difficult, according to some observers.
http://thehill.com/homenews/the-memo/369259-the-memo-trumps-volatility-scrambles-prospects-of-a-deal-on-daca
