President Donald Trump said Sunday that an immigration deal is ‘probably dead’ at this stage because Democrats ‘don’t really want’ one.
In a tweet, Trump blamed the opposing party for a stall in talks that came after his widely-publicized claim that he doesn’t want people from ‘s***hole’ countries relocating to the United States.
‘DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military,’ he said.
A follow-up message proclaimed: ‘I, as President, want people coming into our Country who are going to help us become strong and great again, people coming in through a system based on MERIT. No more Lotteries! #AMERICA FIRST’.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that an immigration deal is ‘probably dead’ at this stage because Democrats ‘don’t really want’ one
A bipartisan group of senators said they had reached an agreement on Thursday only to hear from the president by way of his spokeswoman at a news a conference that the proposal was unsatisfactory to the White House.
Later, the president said in tweets that Democrats seem ‘intent on having people and drugs pour into our country’ and the agreement they offered was a ‘big step backwards.’
‘Wall was not properly funded, Chain & Lottery were made worse and USA would be forced to take large numbers of people from high crime…countries which are doing badly,’ he said. ‘I want a merit based system of immigration and people who will help take our country to the next level. I want safety and security for our people. I want to stop the massive inflow of drugs.’
Trump is also demanding that the Democratic party give him the boost in military spending he’s been requesting as part of the negotiations to protect Dreamers and keep the government funded beyond Jan. 19.
Accusing Democrats of ‘not being interested in life and safety,’ Trump said on Friday, ‘Sadly, Democrats want to stop paying our troops and government workers in order to give a sweetheart deal, not a fair deal, for DACA. Take care of our Military, and our Country, FIRST!’
Shortly after the White House rejected the senator’ immigration deal, a claim that Trump had referred to Haiti and other African nations as s***hole’ countries emerged.
The comments were supposedly uttered by Trump at a Thursday session that was attended by Republican senators and one Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois.
‘He said these hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly,’ Durbin said on Friday.
Republicans in the room have said they do not ‘recall’ the president making those claims. None of them denied outright that Trump had made derogatory statements about certain immigrants, though. One suggested that he did, and he confronted him.
Alluding to the dispute, Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a Friday afternoon statement, ‘ I said my piece directly to him’ in the meeting. ‘The President and all those attending the meeting know what I said and how I feel.’
The reported remarks created chaos for Trump at home and abroad.
Hatian-American Republican Rep. Mia Love of Utah, said the comments ‘unkind, divisive [and] elitist’ and demanded that Trump apologize.
UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said, ‘If confirmed, these are shocking and shameful comments from the President of the United States. Sorry, but there is no other word one can use but racist.’
Asked point blank if he’s a racist on Friday by veteran reporter April Ryan after he signed a Martin Luther King Jr. Day proclamation, Trump exited the room swiftly without commenting.
Trump aggressively pushed back on the original claim, which had appeared in the Washington Post, on Friday morning in a lengthy set of tweets that explained why he wouldn’t accept the save Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival recipients from deportation.
He said, among other things, in the tweets that the deal he was presented did not include enough funding for his border wall and did not make radical enough changes to the visa system.
Six senators had boasted on Thursday had a deal in place that would solve the issue of what to do with hundreds of thousands of people brought to the U.S. illegally as children and whose legal status granted under the Obama administration is about to expire.
When Huckabee Sanders was asked about the deal at the White House press briefing she told reporters, ‘There has not been a deal reached yet.’
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that there was no deal yet to help the ‘Dreamers,’ immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, despite a handful of senators boasting that a deal had been made
Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, was one of six senators who signed on to a statement saying that a deal had been etched out between the two parties in the upper chamber
Even after Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the deal was a no-go, the senators involved were touting it on social media
President Trump told a bipartisan group of lawmakers to keep working on an immigration after a group of senators thought they had one done. He also made headlines by quipping in the meeting, ‘Why are we having all these people from s***hole countries come here?’ a comment first reported by the Washington Post
But minutes after the briefing, Sens. Dick Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, and Cory Gardner, Republican from Colorado, tweeted a statement saying there was indeed a deal.
‘Several of my colleagues and I have reached an agreement that reflects the discussion we had this week with @realDonaldTrump on a solution for Dreamers and border security,’ Gardner wrote, sharing a statement that was co-signed by five of his colleagues.
The group of senators working together included Gardner and Durbin, along with Republicans Sens. Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham, as well as Democrats Michael Bennet and Bob Menendez.
‘We have been working for four months and have reached an agreement in principle that addresses border security, the diversity visa lottery, chain migration/family reunification, and the Dream Act – the areas outlined by the President. We are now working to build support for that deal in Congress,’ the statement said.
However, a spokeswoman for President Trump told DailyMail.com that what Huckabee Sanders said from the podium stands.
CNN reported that Durbin and Graham had met POTUS at the White House, along with a handful of other senators on Thursday, and Trump told the lawmaker to keep working.
More shockingly, when those in the meeting breached restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of the deal, the president mocked those parts of the world.
‘Why are we having all these people from s***hole countries come here?’ the president said, according to reporting from the Washington Post.
After news of the insult broke, White House Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah issued a long-winded statement on immigration, but not a denial.
‘Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,’ Shah said, according to CNN.
‘The President will only accept an immigration deal that adequately addresses the visa lottery system and chain migration – two programs that hurt our economy and allow terrorists into our country,’ he continued. ‘Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation.’
‘He will always reject temporary, weak and dangerous stopgap measures that threaten the lives of hardworking Americans, and undercut immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through a legal pathway,’ the spokesman added.
At the briefing, Huckabee Sanders warned that the Democrats best not play politics over immigration and risk a government shutdown.
‘Democrats should stop making our brave troops and essential government functions political pawns in their swamp games,’ she said. ‘They should stop their obstruction and work with Republicans to fund the government.’
She also told reporters that she believed a deal would get done.
‘We are confident and we feel we’re going to get there,’ the press secretary said as she exited the podium for the day.
The White House meeting was also attended by Republicans including Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue, along with Reps. Bob Goodlatte and Kevin McCarthy, according to Sen. John Cornyn.
Cornyn indicated to CNN that the gang of six’s proposal wouldn’t be enough to get an immigration bill over the finish line.
‘I think the message has now been delivered that we need to get everybody at the table and we’ll take the best of their ideas,’ Cornyn said.
Goodlatte, who serves as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, unveiled an immigration bill Wednesday afternoon that would also deal with DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the name of the policy that gave Dreamers legal status.
Huckabee Sanders was asked by a reporter about that plan too, questioning whether it would act as a ‘poison pill’ for being too conservative.
She said no.
‘I think that’s why it’s called a negotiation,’ the press secretary replied.
‘Everybody puts everything on the table they want. You figure out what you’re not willing to give up, which we’ve laid out. And you try to come out with everybody winning and that’s what we’re hoping to do,’ she said.