This morning on MSNBC, talking with Hallie Jackson about Trump's acceptance yesterday in an Oval Office meeting with GOP and Dem leaders of "Chuck and Nancy's" first offer, a 3 month raise of the debt ceiling coupled with $ 8 billion for short term Harvey relief, to the utter shock of Mitch and Paul, who had suggested a debt ceiling deal good for 18 months and then 12 months.
With the GOP in control of the White House and the Congress, the debt ceiling, a GOP device for extorting concessions from Dems, is pretty much the only leverage the Dems have to resist GOP power.
That and the divisions between mainstream, "moderate," and hard right Republicans.
Anyway, about that meeting.
The meeting came after congressional Democrats turned the screws on the president and GOP leaders, who need Democratic votes to raise the debt limit and avert a default.
Democratic leaders said Wednesday morning that they'd offer Trump their votes for a package delivering aid to victims of Hurricane Harvey and raising the debt ceiling only until mid-December.
GOP leaders, eager to avoid multiple contentious votes on the debt ceiling, want to raise the debt ceiling through late 2018.
“Given Republican difficulty in finding the votes for their plan, we believe this proposal offers a bipartisan path forward to ensure prompt delivery of Harvey aid as well as avoiding a default, while both sides work together to address government funding, DREAMers, and health care,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement.
The move by congressional Democrats was intended to preserve their leverage later this year on other issues, even though in the past, Democrats, including both Schumer and Pelosi, have said the debt ceiling should not be a topic of negotiation.
But Democratic leaders were emboldened because Republicans needed significant Democratic support on the spending and debt legislation, which is expected to split congressional Republicans.
Over the last few days, people have been urging an idea Booman has been talking about for some time, that the intransigence of the GOP right has the GOP leadership pretty well fed up and is perhaps leading to its marginalization, with the GOP leadership increasingly open to working with Dems to do a number of things the right wingers don't actually want.
[Speaking of BooMan, here's his take.]
And over the same period of time it seems that Trump's dissatisfaction with what he sees as the GOP leadership's failure to get anything done for him, coupled with his apparent "love for the Dreamers" and strong support for FEMA and emergency Hurricane relief, along with his much touted desire to get something real going for infrastructure, may lead Trump to start looking for deals with the Dems that the GOP leadership and moderates will swallow.
As Ryan and McConnell did this deal, though before the meeting with Trump they had publicly denounced the Dem position in very hostile and contemptuous terms.
[Morons at MSNBC decided to cut off Nancy Pelosi's presser just as she got to talking about the White House meeting and the debt ceiling deal.
I switched over to CNN.
Nancy Pelosi reports the president said he would sign a legislative restoration of DACA, a priority for the Dems who want it ASAP.
Another one of those issues that split the GOP.]
And now he's calling Nancy to chat and she's suggesting tweets for him.
Pelosi urged Trump to tweet DACA reassurance
President Donald Trump on Thursday sought to reassure young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children concerned about their future after speaking with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, two sources tell CNN.
Pelosi told House Democrats at a closed-door she spoke to Trump via phone Thursday morning and urged him to reassure those protected in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, two sources said.
Trump initiated the phone call Pelosi, they said.
She "asked him to tweet this to make clear DREAMers won't be subject to deportation in 6 month window," according to one of the sources. She did not provide specific wording, just a general idea.
The call follows a meeting at the White House on Wednesday during which Trump made a deal with Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, on a short-term debt limit extension that had been opposed by House Republican leadership.
"For all of those (DACA) that are concerned about your status during the 6 month period, you have nothing to worry about - No action!" Trump tweeted Thursday morning.
Craig Melvin says Trump says he's committed to continuing to work with Democrats.
The Breitbart boys get it.
Trump’s Deal with Democrats Is a Warning to Republicans — Establishment and Conservative Alike
Trump has long warned that he would work with Democrats, if necessary, to fulfill his campaign promises.
And Wednesday’s deal is a sign that he intends to follow through on that threat.
(He clearly intended it as such: though Republican leaders also signed off on the deal, Trump specifically name-checked the Democrats in his speech in North Dakota a few hours later, pointing to the agreement as a sign that Washington was starting to work again.)
By working with Democrats, Trump can bypass the Republican leadership, GOP moderates, and personal foes like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
However, it also means that he can cobble deals together between liberal Republicans and the Democrat minority, leaving conservatives out in the cold.
The only way to stop him is for Republicans to unite.
By showing he can deal with Pelosi and Schumer, Trump may have found the one way of making them do so.
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