By: The Editorial Board ~ The Wall Street Journal ~ December 31, 2018
With the partial government shutdown now into its second week, Donald Trump appears to have no good exit strategy. That’s not surprising since he had no entry strategy. Sounds like it’s time for the President to follow the escape route offered by Senator Lindsey Graham and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, among others, and offer a larger immigration bargain.
As it stands Mr. Trump is in a box canyon of his own design. He can capitulate to the Democratic offer of $1.3 billion for border security and be accused of surrender by his supporters. Or he can continue the budget stalemate and endure escalating political damage as the press blames all and sundry ills on the shutdown of 25% of the government.
Some Republicans, mainly in the House Freedom Caucus, think Mr. Trump can win an extended game of chicken with Democrats. They think most of the public won’t suffer from a partial shutdown. And it’s true that Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi, who takes over the House on Thursday, would rather not have the budget fight interfere with her first weeks back in power. She’d prefer to get on with pushing the Democratic agenda, and the public usually blames both sides in a shutdown.
But Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are also under enormous political pressure not to give Mr. Trump a dime for something he could call his border “wall.” Even Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia Governor and Clintonista who may run for President in 2020, hit the Sunday TV circuit to say “Democrats should not give an inch” on the budget. Mr. Schumer has already rejected a White House offer between $1.3 billion and Mr. Trump’s public demand for $5 billion.
Enter Mr. Graham, who said Sunday that he’d like Mr. Trump and the Democrats to negotiate a trade of border money in exchange for legalizing the so-called Dreamers. Those are the adults who were brought to the U.S. as children and are in legal limbo after Mr. Trump rescinded Barack Obama’s diktat offering them temporary legal status. The courts have stayed Mr. Trump’s rescission order, but sometime this year they will rule on the merits. Mr. Trump has a strong legal case.
Such an offer would reset the terms of the budget fight so it’s about something more than money and the wall. Mr. Trump would be offering Democrats something they claim to want, and they’d look small and cynical if they failed to consider it. Democrats would have to explain to Dreamers and their families why they prefer to deny Mr. Trump a half victory rather than improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of anxious young adults.
Mr. Trump would take some heat from the restrictionist right that would call any legalization “amnesty.” But these are the same voices denouncing him for not getting funding for the wall. They can’t have it both ways. House Democrats aren’t going to give Mr. Trump money for the wall unless they can tell their voters they won something too.
“President Trump is not going to walk away from this fight without border security funding, money for the wall, for lack of a better way of saying it,” Sen. Graham told CNN on Sunday. “And Democrats have a chance here to work with me and others, including the President, to bring legal status to people who have very uncertain lives.”
Perhaps Democrats will simply be too bloody-minded to compromise on the Dreamers, too eager to visit an early defeat on a President they loathe. But then at least Mr. Trump can explain to voters that he took the high road while Democrats refused. And if the Dreamer case breaks his way in court, and hundreds of thousands are in danger of deportation, Democrats will be responsible for their fate.
Source:The Editorial Board ~ The Wall Street Journal ~ December 31, 2018
