What did Donald Trump do today?

He celebrated 197 miles of border wall he hasn't built.

Trump traveled to Arizona today for campaign events in a state he now desperately needs to win. The official reason for the trip, though, was to deliver remarks on "the Commemoration of the 200th Mile of New Border Wall" on the Mexican border—which puts the travel costs on the taxpayers rather than the Trump campaign.

Three and a half years into the Trump administration, the fenced portion of the U.S.-Mexico border is three miles longer—not 200. The rest has been repairs or renovations to existing barriers.

Those three miles, though, are in Trump's signature style. At his insistence, the easily-climbed bollard fence is painted black, so that it will retain heat in the summer. (This will increase the total cost of border fencing by $500 million or more.) 

Other issues have arisen with Trump's "big, beautiful" fence. Large sections of it will require floodgates to be kept wide open for much of the year. Fences put up in the remote areas favored by drug smugglers, furthest from active patrols, are easily destroyed by household tools—or, of course, ladders.

Immigration was Trump's signature issue in 2016, even though he has a long history of hiring immigrants legally and illegally. He promised that Mexico would pay for it, although immediately after taking office he begged the Mexican president not to publicly contradict him on this. American taxpayers have picked up the bill instead. 

But at this point it's not clear why Trump thinks Americans still see immigration as a pressing issue. Only 2% of Americans cited immigration as the biggest problem facing the country in a recent Gallup poll. At the top of that poll of the things that Americans were most worried about were economic issues (19%), poor leadership in government (21%), the coronavirus response (20%), and racism (19%). 

How is this a problem?

• Presidents who accomplish things people would actually be impressed by don't need to embellish.

• It's wrong to take credit for things you didn't do.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He lied about DACA.

DACA is the government program that gives certain children, brought illegally to the United States by their parents, the lowest priority for deportation. It also allows people given this designation—many of whom do not remember their native country, or speak its language—the ability to work legally, get driver's licenses, and otherwise lead a relatively normal life.

Today, Trump tweeted this:

It's true that some DACA recipients are "no longer very young," although it's not clear why Trump thinks this matters. Every other part of this is false—in particular the part about "some" being "tough, hardened criminals." This is a callback to the first days of his 2016 campaign, when he said that Mexican immigrants were rapists and drug dealers. 

By definition, DACA recipients cannot have been convicted of a felony, or a "significant misdemeanor" (including charges related to domestic violence, sexual abuse or exploitation, unlawful possession or use of a firearm, drug sales, burglary, or drunk driving). Three minor misdemeanors (like, for example, public intoxication or littering) also completely disqualify an applicant, and even one can result in a DACA recipient's status being revoked.

Trump himself is "no angel," having been credibly accused of felonies ranging from sexual assault to tax fraud, which would likely result in his being discretionarily excluded from DACA participation if the Department of Homeland Security were aware of the accusations. Among the people in his orbit who would also be barred from DACA by virtue of being "tough, hardened criminals" include:

• Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager (convicted of 17 felonies)
• Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer and "fixer" (convicted of campaign finance violations related to Trump's attempts to pay hush money to his sexual partners, and of making false statements to the U.S. Senate)
• Rick Gates, Trump's campaign co-chair (convicted on two felony counts of making false statements and conspiracy against the United States)
• George Papadopoulos, Trump's campaign national security advisor and Russia contact (convicted of one felony count of making false statements)
• Michael Flynn, Trump's disgraced national security advisor and campaign surrogate (convicted of making false statements during the Russia investigation)

Other Trump-connected individuals whose criminal trials are ongoing or whose convictions haven't yet been finalized—which would be enough to prevent them from renewing DACA status, especially if they were incarcerated during their trial—include:

• Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, "associates" of Trump's current lawyer Rudy Giuliani who were involved in the Ukraine bribery scandal, currently facing charges related to illegally funneling foreign money to U.S. political campaigns
• Roger Stone, currently on trial for seven counts of witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and perjury related to his role as a conduit between the Trump campaign and Wikileaks, which Russia was using to illegally help Trump get elected

Trump's position on DACA has varied wildly during the course of his term, to the point that he has occasionally forgotten what it is entirely during negotiations with Congress about it. One political reality he appeared to forget today was that DACA recipients are much, much more popular than he is.

Why should I care about this?

• It's wrong to accuse people of crimes they have, by definition, not committed.

• Bigotry is as bigotry does.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got completely spun around on what his trade policy is.

Trump is attending the annual G7 meeting in France this weekend. Today, in the space of a few hours, he managed to take about every position possible on his self-inflicted trade war. In the process, he provoked the United States' closest allies and trading partners to publicly warn him that he was losing touch with reality on the subject.

At a breakfast meeting, a reporter asked Trump if he was having second thoughts about the latest round of tariffs on Chinese goods that he's asking American consumers to pay. This was the exchange:

Q Mr. President, any second thoughts on escalating the trade war with China? 

TRUMP: Yeah, sure. Why not? 

Q Second thoughts? Yes? 

TRUMP: Might as well. Might as well. 

Q You have second thoughts about escalating the war with China? 

TRUMP: I have second thoughts about everything.

Trump added that "Actually, we’re getting along very well with China right now. We’re talking. ...But we are talking to China very seriously." In fact, trade negotiations have completely halted.

Later in the day, Trump was overruled by his own staff. Larry Kudlow, Trump's economic advisor (and an anti-tariff zealot before joining the Trump administration) went on CNN to say that Trump actually meant to say exactly the opposite:

Well, look, if I can reinterpret that–I mean, he spoke to us, he didn’t exactly hear the question. Actually what he was intending to say is, he always has second thoughts and he actually had second thoughts about possibly a higher tariff response to China. So it was not to remove the tariff. He was thinking about a higher tariff response.

Kudlow didn't explain why higher tariffs would be needed if "we’re getting along very well with China right now."

Trump has forgotten or suddenly switched his position on defining issues any number of times, and in most of those cases has been quickly brought to heel by his staff or lobbyists. Since taking office, Trump has briefly endorsed Australian-style socialized universal health care, amnesty and citizenship for DACA recipients, and reinstating the assault weapons ban, only to be reminded by staff what his "real" position is.

Today's demonstration prompted the leaders of at least two major US allies to speak out publicly against Trump. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bluntly contradicted Trump's claim that a trade deal with Japan had been reached. Boris Johnson, the new British Prime Minister, tried a different tack, ever-so-gently telling Trump in a "sheeplike" fashion to knock it off.

Why is this a problem?

• It's a very bad sign if the United States' closest allies are publicly expressing this level of concern about its president.

• Past a certain point, the "he misheard you" or the "you misheard him" excuse doesn't work.

• A president who can't remember, can't decide, or otherwise doesn't know what his position is on major issues isn't healthy enough to serve.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He announced an immigration "plan" that would have excluded the many immigrants he is related to.

In a speech today, Trump unveiled an immigration plan put together by his son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner. (Kushner, who failed the normal background check needed to get a White House security clearance, is the heir to a real estate fortune whose work experience is limited to jobs given him by companies bought with family money.)

It wasn't well received—particularly by Republicans.

White House policy proposals like this aren't usually intended to be adopted verbatim as laws, although the "plan" was remarkable even by those standards for what it leaves out. For example, it makes no mention of DACA, the overwhelmingly popular program that protects children brought to the United States illegally from arbitrary deportation. 

Its centerpiece is a so-called "merit-based" system for evaluating immigration applications, and a limitation on the number of family members that can be included as part of an application. As many people noted, it's unlikely that either of the immigrants Trump has married would have passed a "merit" test based on their job prospects and financial support at the time they came to the United States—unless someone pulled strings. And both Trump's mother and paternal grandfather—and his current wife's elderly parents—benefited from what Trump now calls "chain migration," using connections to family members who had previously emigrated to establish themselves.

Trump's personal priorities where immigration are concerned have also made news recently. More undocumented workers, known to be ineligible to work in the United States when they were hired, came forward to reveal wage theft by Trump businesses. A number of Trump businesses are being investigated for their use and abuse of illegal labor. And as a Washington Post article revealed today, employees are telling reporters about his obsessive "micromanaging" of designs for his border fence.

The bollards, or “slats,” as he prefers to call them, should be painted “flat black,” a dark hue that would absorb heat in the summer, making the metal too hot for climbers to scale, Trump has recently told White House aides, Homeland Security officials and military engineers. 

And the tips of the bollards should be pointed, not round, the president insists, describing in graphic terms the potential injuries that border crossers might receive.

So what?

• Policy affecting immigration, national security, and security for American workers should be crafted by people who know something about those things.

• It's wrong to apply one standard to yourself and your family, and another to everyone else.

• Obsessive fixation on violent images isn't a sign of good mental health.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He offered a "compromise."

On the 29th day of the government shutdown that has 800,000 federal workers going unpaid and consequences mounting, Trump held another televised address to make the case for his border wall. The centerpiece of it was an offer to temporarily protect refugees already lawfully residing in the United States, and people brought into the country as children. In other words, an extension of both the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programs.

In today's attempt, Trump said that to renew these programs would be "straightforward, fair, reasonable, and common sense."

Trump canceled DACA in September of 2017, saying at the time that it "violat[ed] the core tenets that sustain our Republic," that it was "unlawful and unconstitutional," and that it had fomented an invasion of gang members and a "humanitarian crisis."

It was a discussion of the TPS designation for Haitians living in the U.S. after fleeing a series of natural disasters that led to Trump's famous "shithole countries" remark.

To be fair to Trump, his sudden willingness to see these programs as "reasonable" and legally valid is less of a change than it may seem. He has often been confused about his own stance on DACA, endorsing it even after he'd rescinded it. 

Instead, his immigration position at any given moment has been more about placating a small part of his voting base. His suddenly renewed enthusiasm for the border wall—for which he didn't even request funds in his budget proposal—is generally attributed to his fear of being criticized from the right by extremists like Ann Coulter.

Coulter, for her part, was no more impressed than Democrats with Trump's offer.

Why does this matter?

• Presidents who make their policy based on what they actually think is right and best for the country don't offer to bargain it away.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He had an interesting theory about Latino voters.

Trump had no official business on his schedule today, and so was free to spend it on Twitter. He did not address the revelation that he has been keeping his own national security and intelligence staff in the dark about what he's discussed with Vladimir Putin, but he did talk about the shutdown that is keeping the Russia stories from dominating the headlines. 

Specifically, he said that "Many Hispanics will be coming over to the Republican side" because Democrats were not willing to trade border wall funding for protection for DACA recipients.

DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was an immigration policy created by President Obama. It allowed undocumented children brought to the United States to live and work without fear of deportation to countries they had little or no connection to, so long as they maintained a clean criminal record. It was credited with reducing crime and poverty and improving mental health among affected populations.

Trump himself abolished the program in 2017. 

It's not the first time that Trump has linked a government shutdown to DACA. In December of 2017, he accused Democrats of using a looming shutdown as leverage to force a deal to protect DACA recipients. (In reality, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress at the time.) Now, he appears to be upset that Democrats are not willing use DACA as a bargaining chip.

What's wrong with this?

• Generally speaking, people don't give a hostage taker credit for being willing to negotiate over what he'll get in return for the hostages he's taken.

Normally, WTDT limits itself to looking at exactly one thing Trump does on any given day. Today, we present a broader look at this day in the life of Donald Trump. It is not a comprehensive list of newsworthy things Trump did and said today. In fact, it's not even really all that close.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He had the 547th day of his presidency.

The schedule.

Trump's public schedule for today was essentially empty, although (paradoxically) it included entries for unscheduled interviews and appearances on the White House lawn this morning. Other than that and his daily intelligence briefing, which he frequently skips or ignores if his briefers are too boring, it was empty. This is not uncommon for the 72-year-old Trump, whose work week and work day started out short and have gotten shorter.

The interview.

Trump's first public appearance was in an interview with Fox News' Steve Doocy, the most memorable moment of which was his open admiration for Kim Jong-un and how his "people" seem to respect him: "Hey, he is the head of a country and I mean he is the strong head. Don't let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same."

Kim Jong-un orders the murders of people he thinks don't respect him enough, including blood relatives. Trump has spent much of the past week defending Kim when reporters brought up the subject of his purges or other human rights abuses.

Immigration.

During the interview, Trump also managed to cause chaos in Congress with his surprise declaration that he would refused to sign the more moderate of two immigration-related bills that were moving forward. A little later in the day, a tweet that seemed to support some of the elements of the bill he'd just rejected only further confused matters.

The author of the second bill, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) hinted that perhaps Trump would change his mind again after some discreet requests for clarification. This prediction that Trump had meant the opposite of what he said turned out to be correct--or, in any event, the White House changed his story after the fact in a press release that afternoon.

This is not the first time that Trump has gotten confused about what his policy positions are. Immigration bills seem particularly challenging for Trump to keep straight.

Throughout the day, Trump doggedly repeated his lie that Democrats--and an unspecified law they supposedly passed at some point--were to blame his own administration's sudden and publicly-announced policy change requiring that migrant children be separated from their parents at the border. This is completely false and has been roundly debunked: no law requires that children be separated from their parents during immigration processing.

As "on-message" as Trump has been with this lie, he has been contradicted by three elements in his own administration, including two just today.

• His own Justice Department. Attorneys for the DOJ charged with defending the policy in court have not been able to cite the imaginary law Trump talks about, and so have made their case based on the reality that, as president, Trump is entitled to dictate how federal law enforcement act.
• Ryan Patrick, U.S. Attorney. Appearing on NPR's Morning Edition this morning, US Attorney Ryan Patrick confirmed in plain terms that the decision to begin seizing children was "a policy choice by the president and by the attorney general."
• Himself. Later in the day, White House officials began confirming on background what Trump's behavior has implied: that he intends to use the fact that so many Americans are horrified by this treatment of children as a political bargaining chip.

Manafort.

Shortly after the interview, in a nearby federal courthouse, a federal judge ordered Trump's campaign chair Paul Manafort to jail for violating the terms of his pre-trial release. Manafort has been indicted for trying to tamper with witnesses while out on bond.

There is overwhelming evidence that Manafort himself conspired with the Putin regime before and during his time running Trump's campaign. and it is generally believed that if he began cooperating with the Russia probe, it would be disastrous for Trump's presidency.

Trump's subsequent actions and reactions to the Manafort news took a familiar pattern:

• Overt lie. Trump said this to reporters: "Like, Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign."
  
  Manafort was the chair of Trump's campaign. Nobody besides Trump was more in charge of Trump's campaign.
• Specific lie. Shortly afterwards, Trump said, "He worked for me, what, for 49 days or something? A very short period of time."
  
  Manafort worked for Trump for 144 days, most of it as the highest-ranking person in the entire campaign, until evidence of his connections to Russia and Russian-controlled puppet governments became too embarrassing.
• Tweet. A few hours later, Trump tweeted out a complaint about the "sentence" Manafort had received (he has neither been sentenced nor convicted), and suggested that this was the sort of treatment that only mob bosses were supposed to get. (Although it's not what he's currently under indictment for, Trump might not have made that comparison if he really understood the kind of work Manafort did for much of the last two decades.)
  
  He also complained that Manafort had been jailed while James Comey and Hillary Clinton had not. Neither Comey nor Clinton have been accused of crimes, indicted for them, or violated any pre-trial release conditions.
• Obstruction. A few hours later, Trump's "TV lawyer" Rudy Giuliani was dispatched to muddy the Manafort waters further. In an interview with the New York Daily News, Giuliani unsubtly hinted that Manafort's time in jail could be brief: "When the whole thing is over, things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons."

The gaggle.

After the Fox News interview, Trump wandered in the vicinity of the White House driveway, talking to reporters. This unscheduled press gaggle was a lengthy recital of the complaints, rants, misdirections, and outright lies that characterize his unscripted moments as president:

• He congratulated himself on his electoral college victory. ("With all of that being said, I won Wisconsin, I won Michigan, I won states that a Republican hasn't won in many, many decades, years. [Hillary Clinton] didn't do a good job and you never gave me credit for doing a great job. But the fact is, I did a great job.") By one (incomplete) count, Trump has found a way to praise himself for winning the electoral college about 21 times this year alone.

• He blamed the media for accurately quoting him.

  Q What did you mean just now when you said you wished Americans would sit up at attention when you spoke --
  
  THE PRESIDENT: I'm kidding. You don't understand sarcasm. Who are you with?
  
  Wait, wait, who are you with? Who are you with?
  
  Q CNN.
  
  THE PRESIDENT: You're with CNN! Hey, you are the worst.

• He repeated an already discredited lie. ("[Kim Jong-un] gave us the remains of our great heroes. I have had so many people begging me -- parents, and fathers, mothers, daughters, sons -- wherever I went, "Could you please get the remains of my boy back?" They're giving them back. Nobody thought that was possible.")
  
  No part of this is true. Everyone has known all along that an exchange of remains was possible, because it's happened: North Korea has sometimes repatriated the remains of American troops in the past, in return for other concessions. Trump and Kim agreed in principle to resume the exchange, but no remains have changed hands yet and there has been no suggestion that any exchange will be happening soon.
  
  But mostly, Trump is just repurposing a lie he got caught in earlier in the week, that "parents" of Korean War veterans numbering in the "thousands and thousands" had "begged" him to bring their children's remains home. A typical parent of a Korean War veteran would be about 110 years old today.

• He lied about whether someone other than himself had declared him innocent of "collusion." ("I think that the report yesterday, maybe more importantly than anything, it totally exonerates me. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. And if you read the report, you'll see that. ...Now, here's the good news: I did nothing wrong. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. The IG report yesterday went a long way to show that.")
  
  In over 500 pages, the DOJ's Inspector General's report said no such thing.
• He lost his temper. Trump declared that there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea. Pressed by reporter Weijia Liang to explain what he meant by that, since North Korea is still a hostile nuclear power and has publicly stated its intent to keep its current arsenal, Trump extended his hand towards Liang's face and snapped, "Quiet!" He then turned to another person and said, "She's so obnoxious."

The afternoon.

The White House has hemorrhaged staff at a record pace since Trump took office, with two more vacancies in senior positions announced. All evidence to the contrary--like the fact that the White House was taking the unusual step of recruiting at a Capitol Hill job fair today--Trump continues to insist that there is no problem retaining White House employees, and that even if there were, everyone would want to work for him.

Later, Trump signed two bills into law: H.R. 4910, which requires the National Park Service to "furnish outer burial receptacles" for veterans buried in national cemeteries, and H.R. 3663, which renames a VA building. In 17 months in office, Trump has seen only one substantial bill reflecting his policy agenda passed, in spite of his party's control of Congress.

What is the problem with all these many things?

• This was actually a pretty typical day in the presidency of Donald Trump.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got angry and confused about border issues.

Trump's evening Twitter rant today focused on immigration. In two consecutive tweets, he lashed out at "Dems," saying that Congressional Democrats had "refused to take care of DACA" but bragged that he'd gotten $1.6 billion in funding for border wall construction.

(Officially, Trump still maintains that he will somehow, someday make Mexico pay for the wall. In reality, he has been reduced to begging Mexican leaders not to publicly contradict him on that point. They have not obliged.)

Trump, who single-handedly canceled the executive order authorizing DACA, has often tried to portray himself as the savior of Dreamers and Democrats as their enemies. (Roughly 9 in 10 Americans want legal protections for children brought by undocumented parents to the United States.)

But earlier this year, Trump rejected a $25 billion offer for wall funding from Senate Democrats, and later also slammed the door on a bipartisan deal that would have gotten him the same amount in American taxpayer money for the wall. The money would have been in exchange for Trump signing a law offering protection for DACA recipients. 

Why is this a bad thing?

• A president who can't close a deal that would give him everything he says he wants is a pretty terrible dealmaker.

• It's wrong to blame other people for your own failures.

• The most likely reason that Trump is refusing to take "yes" for an answer is that he doesn't really care about either his border wall or DACA recipients.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He forgot how Congress works--twice.

Trump's predictable weekend tweetstorm was more intense than usual, augmented by the fact that Trump was forced by the political optics of golfing half an hour from a mass murder site to give up his usual weekend pastime. Most of the tweets dealt with his need to push back against yesterday's confirmation of a sophisticated Russian attack on the election to benefit him. But he did touch on the legislative crises in Congress, once again blaming Democrats for being unwilling to vote for legislation he's willing to sign.

Just like they don’t want to solve the DACA problem, why didn’t the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn’t want to, and now they just talk!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018

Effectively, Trump argued that because Democrats didn't pass certain laws when they had the majority nine years ago, it wasn't necessary to pass any such laws now.

As Trump is sometimes able to recall, most legislation requires 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a potential filibuster. The Democrats' coalition (which included two independents and a party-switched Republican) only had 60 votes in the Senate for a few working weeks of the 2009-2010 Congress, and even then, legislation cannot be instantaneously drafted or forced through.

As for the current session of Congress, Trump actively sabotaged a bipartisan plan this week to provide for DACA recipients, although doing so remains overwhelmingly popular with Americans. Trump has suggested that he will take some sort of action in the wake of the Parkland mass shooting, but has refused to give any specifics or even say if his solution involves gun legislation at all.

Why does this matter?

• It's insane for a president to think that because a problem existed before it was his responsibility, it's not his responsibility now.

• It's wrong to blame other people for your own shortcomings or bad acts.

• A plan you can't provide any specifics for is not a plan.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He put a price on the heads of DACA recipients.

Late this evening, Trump took to Twitter to demand what he could have had several days ago: American taxpayer funding for his much-discussed but never-quite-built border wall. Negotiating on behalf of Senate Democrats last week, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York had offered Trump a funding package that would include money for the wall in exchange for Trump's agreement to support a legislative solution for DACA recipients. 

In the end, with Trump holed up in the White House--unable to take his usual 3-day Florida weekend but apparently unwelcome in the negotiations--the shutdown was at least temporarily ended with a promise of a straight vote on DACA in the coming weeks but no border wall funding. It also restored six years of funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which Trump--but virtually nobody else--opposed as part of this bill. 

Schumer made clear in remarks to media today that taxpayer money for the wall was no longer on the table. But Trump seems unwilling or unable to accept the notion that Schumer could retract his end of a "deal" he never made with Trump, and lashed out in a tweet: "if there is no wall, there is no DACA!"

87% of Americans--as close to unanimity as it's possible to get in American politics--support legislative protection for Dreamers, who were brought to the United States as children and who have voluntarily participated in the DACA program. 

Why does this matter?

• Being a great negotiator--or even just an okay one--means understanding that you can't just demand everything you want.

• It's bad if a president ignores an overwhelming public consensus on a policy issue for leverage to get something a lot less popular.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He held a meeting on immigration and articulated a few policy positions--none of which were his.

On the surface, the bipartisan meeting Trump held with congressional leadership was almost startlingly normal by recent standards. With TV cameras rolling for almost an hour, Trump held a freewheeling discussion with Democrats and Republicans on DACA and immigration reform. Not all of the optics were as good: Trump rambled at the start and returned repeatedly to vivid imagery about "arms and legs" being lost in the NYC truck attack.

Responding to California Sen. Diane Feinstein's request for a "clean DACA bill"--that is to say, a standalone bill re-establishing protections for undocumented children brought across the US border--Trump responded, "Yeah, I would like to do it." Feinstein immediately asked Trump to confirm his agreement, and he did so--then said that "phase two," after DACA, would be "comprehensive immigration reform." 

None of this would be remarkable, except that enshrining DACA in law and passing comprehensive immigration reform are Democratic priorities, and almost exactly the opposite of any policy that Trump had articulated up to this point. (DACA only needs a legislative solution because Trump rescinded President Obama's executive order establishing it.) Visibly alarmed, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) interrupted and tried--with some success--to get Trump to instantly reverse his reversal. 

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with presidents changing their minds, or reaching across the aisle--but as conservative Republicans noted afterwards, it was not entirely clear that Trump knew what his position was supposed to be. 

Trump being uncertain about what his position on major policy issues is nothing new. Even during the most intense part of his failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he often seemed confused about what he was trying to do, at times endorsing a European-style single payer system. 

Perhaps the only moment of clarity in the whole meeting came after it was over, when the White House press office produced an official transcript of the event that left out the portion of the discussion where Trump unambiguously agreed with Feinstein's proposal for a clean DACA bill, and Trump--presumably having been reminded of the "correct" position--tweeted out his demand that any DACA bill include American taxpayer funding for his proposed border wall. In that tweet, Trump insisted that he had been "very clear" about all this in the meeting.

Why is this a problem?

• It's bad if a president doesn't know what he is supposed to believe on major policy issues.

• If the intent of this meeting really was to show that Trump is mentally alert and capable of acting presidential, it probably didn't work.

• It's bad if presidents have to stage public demonstrations of their mental alertness and capability.

Sunday Week in Review

What else did Donald Trump do this week?

Love. On Tuesday, Trump predicted that Hispanic Americans would "fall in love" with him because Democrats were "doing nothing for DACA," the Obama-era policy that made children brought to the United States by noncitizen parents a low priority for immigration enforcement.

Trump is the one who ended DACA.

Lies. Trump's phenomenal unwillingness to tell the truth--or possibly his inability--is well established. But he also made news this week for a revelation that he had been lied to. According to a New York Times article published this week, Uttam Dhillon, a lawyer with the White House counsel's office, deliberately misled Trump about his legal authority to fire James Comey. Dhillon was (correctly) worried that such an action would be seen as obstruction of justice, exposing Trump to legal jeopardy and investigation. He falsely told Trump that he needed "cause" to fire Comey.

In fact, the director of the FBI can be fired by the president at any time and for any reason, or no reason. In the end, the deception didn't work: Trump simply ordered deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to write a report Comey, and then used it (without Rosenstein's knowledge or agreement) as the "cause" he thought he needed. 

It is a very serious breach of legal ethics to mislead a client, and even more so when the client is the presidency itself. But keeping information from Trump in order to keep him from endangering himself is a long-established practice among his employees. 

Lawyers. Since taking office, Trump has lashed out furiously at attorney general Jefferson Sessions, the FBI, and career officers in the Justice Department. The root of his anger seems to be his belief, on taking office, that their job was to legally protect him rather than apply the law to him. When Sessions recused himself from supervision of the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election--meaning that he could not protect Trump from it--Trump reportedly asked "Where's my Roy Cohn?"

Cohn was a lawyer best known for his work as Sen. Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army-McCarthy hearings, during which Cohn was accused of various illegal unethical and illegal activities, including evidence tampering. Later in life, Cohn went to work for Trump, who described him as "vicious to others in his protection of me."

Wikileaks. During the campaign, Trump famously shouted "I love Wikileaks!" in response to their release of e-mails stolen by Russia from servers run by the Democratic National Committee. This was one of several different points of connection between the Trump campaign, Russia, and the site.

The love affair was renewed today when Wikileaks tweeted a link to a full-text copy of Fire and Fury, the book that provoked Trump to demand that he be recognized as a "very stable genius." Releasing the text of a book Trump loathes may not seem like a friendly act, but as a means of driving down sales, Wikileaks' foray into piracy will help Trump much more than it will hurt him.

The tactic of politically motivated piracy was perfected by the Kim Jong-Un regime in North Korea, which used cyber-attacks against Sony Pictures in retaliation for its anti-Kim comedy The Interview, including releasing free copies of Sony movies online.

Irony. It is quite common for the White House to request screenings of current movies, but the Trump White House's request to see the movie The Post is a little odd. The movie, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, is the story of the Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham and their decision to publish the internal government report known as the Pentagon Papers. President Nixon ordered a secret (and illegal) campaign to discredit Daniel Ellsberg, the analyst who released them. Nixon sued the Post and the New York Times to prevent the publication of the report, but also carried on a public feud with reporters, who he regarded as his "enemy."

Trump has spent much of the last week promoting some sort of event, apparently a mock awards ceremony, in which he will talk about his issues with the "fake news media."

Why do these things matter?

• Trump's 17% approval rating with Latino voters suggest that they have not yet started blaming other people for something he did.

• It's bad if the president needs to be tricked out of committing serious crimes.

• A president who thinks the attorney general is his personal criminal defense lawyer is incompetent.

• A president who needs the attorney general to act as his personal criminal defense lawyer is a disgrace.

• Roy Cohn and Julian Assange are poor role models for the President of the United States.

• Things are not "fake news" just because a president doesn't like them being talked about.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He took at least seven different positions on an agreement he made with Democrats last night on the subject of a legislative replacement for DACA.

Last night, after a dinner meeting, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that they had reached an agreement with Trump to enshrine DACA protections into law--without agreeing to fund the border wall that Trump promised at every rally during the campaign. "We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides," Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement.

What followed this morning takes some explaining.

1. Within minutes, Sarah Huckabee Sanders downgraded the "agreement" to a "discussion" and explicitly denied that the border wall had been taken out of the picture.
   
   This morning at 6:11, Trump more or less confirmed Sanders' tweet, saying that there was no deal yet and that "massive border security" would have to be a part of any deal.
   
2. Then at 6:20, Trump suggested that "The WALL" really meant any border construction, including routine maintenance and rebuilding.
   
3. Then at 6:33, Trump called for something that sounds almost exactly like DACA: "Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really!....." (Trump apparently meant this rhetorically, and was not intending to call attention to the fact that he had just ordered exactly that.)
   
4. On the plane to Florida, Trump corrected a reporter who asked if he favored "amnesty." He replied, "The word is 'DACA.'" (Previously, Trump had called DACA an "illegal amnesty.")
   
5. On landing, Trump stressed the absolute centrality of "the wall" to any negotiation: "Very important is the wall. We have to be sure the wall isn’t obstructed. Very important is the wall. We have to be sure the wall isn’t obstructed because without the wall I wouldn’t do anything."
   
6. Then in the following sentence, he stressed that "the wall" was not relevant to this particular negotiation: "It doesn’t have to be here, but they can’t obstruct the wall if it’s in a budget or anything else.” (Trump does not control what goes into budget legislation.)
   
7. Then he walked back his apparent offer of amnesty: "We’re not looking at citizenship. We’re not looking at amnesty."

To summarize, Trump made an agreement that was not a deal but a discussion. It hinged on the construction of "massive" new physical sections of wall, or the renovation of existing border fences, or on nothing to do whatsoever with walls. Trump is against DACA, which he regards as an illegal amnesty, but is for keeping DACA recipients around in a status exactly like DACA, which he regards as a synonym for amnesty, which he's opposed to. Instead, he wants a special work-permitted, non-citizen, non-deportable status, which is exactly what DACA was, which he ended last week.

So what?

• A president who knows (or cares) what his position is on a subject doesn't get this visibly confused about it.

Sunday Week in Review, DACA edition

What else did Donald Trump do this week?

He rescinded the DACA program, taking almost every possible position on the subject before doing so (and after).

On Tuesday, Trump formally ordered the beginning of the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era policy that allowed undocumented Americans brought into the country as children to get work permits and a limited degree of protection from deportation. That moment marked just one of a wide variety of positions he has taken on the subject, including several in this past week. What follows is a partial list of some of the confusion Trump suffered from on the issue recently.

He opposed it during the campaign... Trump's position on the subject during the campaign had the virtue of clarity: he was against it. His campaign kickoff speech addressed it directly: "I will immediately terminate President Obama's illegal executive order on immigration, immediately," he said in July of 2015, and never wavered from that position during the campaign.

...and declared "We're going to work something out" after being elected. His position immediately after being elected was equally unambiguous--in the other direction. "I want Dreamers for our children also," he told Time. "We’re going to work something out. On a humanitarian basis it’s a very tough situation. We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud. But that’s a very tough situation."

Obama's program was an "illegal amnesty..." Before taking office, Trump referred to the program as an "illegal amnesty." It isn't an amnesty, and most constitutional scholars believe it is a legal extension of the president's authority to set priorities for law enforcement--but the thrust of Trump's argument seems to have been that he should not be allowed to have that kind of discretion.

...which he may extend. Almost immediately after issuing his order, Trump tweeted that if no legislative solution arose in the next six months, he would "revisit" the matter. Since Trump is on record as saying that anything short of a law would be unconstitutional, it's not clear under what authority he would "revisit" anything. Repeated attempts by reporters to get clarification from the White House yielded little new information, but even as Trump signed the orders, members of his administration told the New York Times they were afraid he "might not fully grasp the details" of what he was doing.

He has "love" and "heart..." In damage-control mode after the announcement, Trump's language towards DREAMers abruptly warmed. "I have a great heart for the folks we're talking about, a great love for them... I have a love for these people and hopefully, now Congress will be able to help them and do it properly."

...for "rapists" and "drug dealers" and gang members. That stood in contrast to Trump's usual language on undocumented immigrants, who he usually paints as violent criminals. (In a nod to continuity, at the same time that Trump was expressing his "great heart" for DREAMers, he also added that "In some of the cases they're having DACA and they're gang members and they're drug dealers too. But you have some absolutely incredible kids. I would say mostly." In fact, membership in a criminal gang or a felony conviction would have ended DACA eligibility.)

He was forced to act by a pending lawsuit... Trump cited a pending lawsuit against the program as a reason why he was forced to rescind it. There was in fact such a lawsuit, although it lost one of its members to a change of heart on humanitarian grounds right before Trump's action. Nine states had agreed to challenge DACA.

...and was free to act in spite of a pending lawsuit. Within a few days of Trump's revised order, fifteen states and the District of Columbia had sued to force Trump to rescind it. The White House did not offer any comment on why avoiding one lawsuit was more urgent than avoiding the other, or at what point Trump became lawsuit-averse.

It is "unconstitutional" not to act. Trump delegated the announcement of the policy to Attorney General Jefferson Sessions, who called DACA an "unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch."

..and he will not act. The official talking points memo makes clear that "Individuals who will no longer have DACA will not proactively be referred to ICE and placed in removal proceedings unless they satisfy one of the Department’s enforcement priorities."

He has "no second thoughts..." The day after signing the order, Trump declared that he had "no second thoughts."

...and wanted a "way out." The day before signing the order, Trump was canvassing his aides asking for a "way out" of what he now perceived as a political dilemma.

Why are these things a problem?

• It's bad if a president takes literally every conceivable position on a major policy issue in the same week he enacts it.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He promised DACA recipients he wouldn't take action against them until their statuses begin expiring six months from now.

The reassurance came at the behest of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who seemed bemused at how easy it was to get Trump to tweet this. Her surprise is understandable: a promise not to prioritize DACA recipients for deportation is, at bottom, all the program is. Trump's argument for rescinding DACA--to the extent he knows what it is--is that the president has no such authority to decide which undocumented immigrants to deport first. 

In effect, Trump is promising to continue to engage in what he says he believes is an unlawful and unconstitutional abuse of power for up to thirty more months. (Recipients whose status expires in the next six months can apply for a two year extension, under Trump's proposed extension of what he called President Obama's "illegal amnesty.") 

Of course, Trump's extension of DACA is very likely lawful, just as the program itself is: no significant legal challenge was even filed against it until Trump (who had campaigned against it, and was therefore unlikely to defend it) had been elected. Trump has not tried to reconcile his official stance on the subject with the fact that he will allow it to remain in force for at least the first 1,139 days of his administration.

What's the problem with this?

• Whether or not something is lawful and constitutional does not depend on which president is doing it.

• Policy driven this transparently by political considerations is rarely good policy.