After striking a conciliatory tone on immigration reform in a meeting with lawmakers Tuesday, President Trump returned to tougher line on Wednesday, insisting that any legislation reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program must also include funding for a border wall.
“It’s got to include the wall,” Trump said at a news conference with the prime minister of Norway. “Any solution has to include the wall because without a wall it doesn’t work.”
That was a hardening from Trump’s comments a day prior, when he told a group of lawmakers from both parties and both houses that he would sign almost any bill they agreed to pass. “I’m not going to say, ‘Oh, gee, I want this or I want that.’ I’ll be signing it, because I have a lot of confidence in the people in this room that they’re going to come up with something really good,” Trump said on Tuesday as the press listened. At one point during the meeting, he said he would be for “comprehensive immigration reform.”
A source with knowledge of the closed-door session of that meeting Tuesday confirms the White House statement noting the parties agree to negotiate a bill incorporating border security (i.e. some form of wall), ending chain migration, ending the visa lottery program, and fixing the DACA program. The president’s open-ended promise to sign onto any bill, in other words, wasn’t as broad as it may have seemed in front of the TV cameras. Read more... |
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Immigration Hawk Revolt?—Even with the assurance that any DACA fix won’t get signed without tough border measures, many conservatives are concerned about Trump’s Tuesday comments. Radio host Mark Levin called it a “complete surrender” while Ann Coulter called Tuesday the “lowest day in the Trump presidency.
“I don’t want to use the word ‘betrayal’ yet, because we haven’t reached the end of the line here and I don’t think that would be the right thing to do,” said Fox News host Laura Ingraham on her radio show Wednesday. “But I think it’s really important for the president to hear from all of us.”
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told THE WEEKLY STANDARD he couldn’t tell whether Trump was a “genius-level operator” or a “megalomaniac.” Read more... |
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FISA Watch—Is the White House nervous that Congress won’t reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? The FISA law, among other things, governs how the feds can surveil foreign nationals. But the law’s section 702 provision has become controversial because of the possibility of incidental monitoring of American citizens speaking with foreigners under legal surveillance. Congressional leaders were sounding confident earlier this week that FISA reauthorization, with some modifications to the original act, was almost certain to pass.
But there were signs of trouble on Wednesday, the day before a planned vote on an amendment from two House critics of the FISA law. The White House issued a statement Wednesday evening expressing opposition to the amendment. “The Administration strongly opposes the ‘USA Rights’ amendment to the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act, which the House will consider tomorrow,” reads the statement, from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “This amendment would re-establish the walls between intelligence and law enforcement that our country knocked down following the attacks of 9/11 in order to increase information sharing and improve our national security. The Administration urges the House to reject this amendment and preserve the useful role FISA’s Section 702 authority plays in protecting American lives.”
The White House has not responded to a request for further comment. |
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| Mark It Down—“Certainly I'll see what happens. But when they have no collusion, and nobody's found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely that you'd even have an interview.” —President Donald Trump, on whether he would commit to being interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller, January 10, 2018 |
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| Mueller Watch—The Washington Post reports that Robert Mueller has hired a “veteran cybersecurity prosecutor” to the special counsel team. “Ryan K. Dickey was assigned to Mueller’s team in early November from the Justice Department’s computer crime and intellectual-property section, said a spokesman for the special counsel’s office,” reporter Matt Zapotosky writes. “He joined 16 other lawyers who are highly respected by their peers but who have come under fire from Republicans wary of some of their political contributions to Democrats.” |
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South Korean President Moon Jae-in praised President Trump for his role in relations with North Korea Wednesday, after an unexpected round of diplomatic talks resulted in the hermit kingdom pledging a delegation to next month’s Olympic Games.
“I give President Trump huge credit for bringing about the inter-Korean talks, and I’d like to thank him for that,” Moon said.
Moon said that Trump’s hard-nosed diplomatic stance and unwillingness to tolerate a nuclear Korea may have convinced Kim Jong-un that easing tensions was in his own best interest. Read more... |
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Government Corruption Story of the Day—From the Washington Post: “A high-ranking Obama Commerce Dept. official commuted by taxi—and billed the government”
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2018 Watch—Could bestselling author J.D. Vance jump into the U.S. Senate race in Ohio? Henry Gomez at BuzzFeed reports yes, and he would run as a Republican against incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown. Gomez also reports Jim Renacci will be dropping his bid for governor to run for the GOP nomination after receiving encouragement from the White House.
The Republican frontrunner in that race, Josh Mandel, dropped out of the race this week citing his wife’s health issues. |
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