Pelosi is counting on the democrats taking back the White House in 2020.
Last week, Democratic Sen. Mark R. Warner (Va.) offered President Trump some advice on how to end the current border wall standoff. “Always try to find a solution in which both sides come out ahead,” Warner told the president. It’s good advice. Trump is taking it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) are not.
On Saturday, Trump did exactly what Warner suggested, offering Democrats a win-win compromise. In addition to his 230-mile physical barrier, Trump said he would support three years of legislative relief for 700,000 recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, as well as a three-year extension for 300,000 other immigrants whose temporary protected status is expiring — 1 million people in all. These extensions, Trump said, would give Congress time to “work on a larger immigration deal, which everybody wants — Republicans and Democrats.” His offer, Trump said, was “straightforward, fair, reasonable and common sense, with lots of compromise,” adding that “both sides in Washington must simply come together . . . and find solutions.”
The Democrats’ response? Pelosi called the offer “non-starter” even before Trump delivered his speech. Schumer declared it “one-sided and ineffective.” That’s ridiculous. Obviously, Trump’s proposal is only an opening bid. But instead of making a counteroffer and negotiating in good faith, Democrats are demanding unconditional surrender. That extremism is playing politics with not only the lives of the DACA and TPS recipients, who would benefit under Trump’s plan, but also the lives of the 800,000 federal government workers who are about to miss their second paycheck.
Trump is being the adult in the room. He has stopped talking about invoking a national emergency. He’s showing flexibility on the definition of a wall, the number of miles, the amount of money — and adding immigration sweeteners. To demonstrate his support for immigration, he even held a naturalization ceremony in the Oval Office to personally swear in new citizens from Iraq, Bolivia, Jamaica, the United Kingdom and South Korea, telling them “our whole nation embraces you with open arms and joyful hearts.”
But it seems Democrats’ objective is not to find a way out of the stalemate; it is to humiliate the president. Since Trump heeded Warner’s advice, maybe the senator should go to his own leadership and tell them the same thing: The only way this standoff ends is with a win-win solution. Trump is willing to let Democrats claim victory, as long as he can, too.