The Trump wranglers

When President Trump mused last year about protecting immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children, calling them “these incredible kids,” aides implored him privately to stop talking about them so sympathetically.

When he batted around the idea of granting them citizenship over a Chinese dinner at the White House last year with Democratic leaders, Mr. Trump’s advisers quickly drew up a list of hard-line demands to send to Capitol Hill that they said must be included in any such plan.

And twice over the past two weeks, Mr. Trump has privately told lawmakers he is eager to strike a deal to extend legal status to the so-called Dreamers, only to have his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, make clear afterward that such a compromise was not really in the offing — unless it also included a host of stiffer immigration restrictions.

[...]

Each time Mr. Trump has edged toward compromise with Democrats, he has appeared to be reined in by his own staff, which shares the hawkish immigration stance that fueled his campaign.

[...]

On Sunday, Mr. Kelly fielded most of the calls from Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. The president was urged for a second day to step back from the fray, and for a second day he vented to aides that he wanted to do more to get involved.

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And it has raised questions not only about Mr. Trump’s grasp of the issue that animated his campaign and energizes his core supporters, but his leadership.

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Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, suggested that Mr. Trump was in the thrall of extremists on his staff pulling him back from more moderate instincts on immigration.

“His heart is right on this issue; I think he’s got a good understanding of what will sell, and every time we have a proposal, it is only yanked back by staff members,” Mr. Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill on Sunday. “As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we are going nowhere. He’s been an outlier for years.”

  NYT

Outlier? He's direct from the bowels of Hell. Just look at those dead eyes.

[Trump] vented his frustration [on Twitter] as the shutdown threatened to bleed into the workweek, complicating his plans for a trip on Wednesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the run-up to his first State of the Union address on Jan. 30.

Will he actually go to Davos if there's still no agreement? That would be pretty embarrassing for him. Republicans are talking about a vote today to at least continue over a few more weeks, no doubt with a frustrated and volative Trump in mind. If they don't get it done by tomorrow so he can go off to Davos with some pride intact, he's going to blow a gasket.

Yet when Mr. Trump has become engaged, he has sometimes created problems for himself and his party.

Mr. Trump has demonstrated confusion over time about the details of immigration policy.

[...]

When Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she wanted a “clean DACA bill,” Mr. Trump quickly agreed, only to have Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, pipe up to explain that meant accepting a stand-alone bill [...] without any security measures or other conditions the president had cited as priorities.

[...]

At that same session, [Senator Graham said], Mr. Trump had talked about a request of $18 billion for border security, and said he could build a wall for less.

“So what does the White House staff do a couple days later? They pitch a proposal for $33 billion,” Mr. Graham said. “That’s just not credible.”

So now they have him sidelined, taking phony photos of him "working". They better get something done today, that's all I've got to say.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Oh, yeah, he's fuming. 

That's the tweet McConnell slapped down yesterday.