September 14, 2017 02:45 PM UTC

Trump Makes Another Big Deal with Democrats

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• by: Colorado Pols

President Trump keeps tipping his hand.

In the parlance of poker, you might also say that Congressional Democrats have “spotted his tell.”

Politico reports on the framework of a new immigration plan for DREAMERs negotiated by Trump and Democratic leadership:

President Donald Trump and Democratic congressional leaders reached a tentative agreement Wednesday night to provide a pathway to citizenship for young immigrants known as Dreamers — but after a conservative backlash, the president and his aides sent conflicting signals about how firm the agreement was.

After a meeting with Trump at the White House on Wednesday night, Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi said they had come to terms with Trump on a plan that would provide protection for Dreamers in exchange for beefed-up border security — but, notably, no additional funding for a border wall.

“We all agreed on a framework: Pass DACA protections and additional security measures, excluding the wall. We agreed that the president would support enshrining the DACA protections into law,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor Thursday.

The news triggered an outcry from the right, which accused Trump of abandoning his tough-on-immigration campaign stance. So Trump and his aides rebutted Democrats’ claims that an agreement had been struck — while at the same time acknowledging the outlines of a deal.

One week after negotiating a debt limit/disaster relief formula with Trump, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi did it again — this time on a legislative framework for DACA protections. House Speaker Paul Ryan says that there is no such deal, but that’s not the narrative coming out of the White House.

Trump supporters are absolutely furious that he would even shake hands with a Democrat, but those critics are missing something if they are just blindly painting Trump as a partisan traitor. Even though they are in the majority, Congressional Republicans haven’t been able to come to any agreement with Trump on much of anything. Republicans seem to be struggling to understand the new political reality of Washington D.C. and the new guy in the White House.

Meanwhile, Democrats might have cracked the code…

We all know that President Trump fancies himself to be a master negotiator, in large part because he tells us whenever he gets a chance. Being adept at negotiating deals is a fundamental part of Trump’s persona — and not just the act he displays in public. Trump desperately wants to show that he can “win” at being President, and he doesn’t really care who he has to work with in order to make that happen [cough, Russia, cough].

Schumer and Pelosi have smartly figured out that Trump wants to get to “yes” as quickly as possible — that he won’t get hung up on policy details at the risk of losing the sale. Trump also loves to get attaboys in the press, as he did earlier this month on the debt limit bill, and it’s hard to generate praise when nothing is getting accomplished in general.

Republicans could follow this same blueprint for dealing with Trump, but they can’t even come to an agreement amongst themselves.