A look inside the tense White House meeting on immigration
WASHINGTON - When President Donald Trump spoke by phone with Sen. Richard Durbin around 10:15 a.m. last Thursday, he expressed pleasure with Durbin's outline of a bipartisan immigration pact and praised the high-ranking Illinois Democrat's efforts, according to White House officials and congressional aides.
The president then asked if Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., his onetime foe turned ally, was on board, which Durbin affirmed. Trump invited the lawmakers to visit with him at noon, the people familiar with the call said.
But when they arrived at the Oval Office, the two senators were surprised to find that Trump was far from ready to finalize the agreement. He was "fired up" and surrounded by hard-line conservatives such as Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who seemed confident that the president was now aligned with them, according to one person with knowledge of the meeting.
Trump told the group he wasn't interested in the terms of the bipartisan deal that Durbin and Graham had been putting together. And as he shrugged off suggestions from Durbin and others, the president called nations from Africa "shithole countries," denigrated Haiti and grew angry. The meeting was short, tense and often dominated by loud cross-talk and swearing, according to Republicans and Democrats familiar with the meeting.
Trump's ping-ponging from deal making to feuding, from elation to fury, has come to define the contentious immigration talks between the White House and Congress, perplexing members of both parties as they navigate the president's vulgarities, his combativeness and his willingness to suddenly change his position. The blowup has derailed those negotiations yet again and increased the possibility of a government shutdown over the fate of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants known as "dreamers."
This account of the events surrounding Thursday's explosive meeting is based on interviews with more than a dozen White House officials, Capitol Hill aides and lawmakers.
The fight has left congressional leaders unsure of whether they will eventually come to an agreement. Some remain optimistic that Trump can be walked back to the political center and will cut a deal that expands border security while protecting those under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Trump has ordered ended.
"The president is indispensable to getting a deal," Graham said in an interview. "Time will tell."
Last Thursday was a critical moment in the stalled negotiations, revealing the president's priorities even as the discussion fell apart.
Trump complained that there wasn't enough money included in the deal for his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He also objected that Democratic proposals to adjust the visa lottery and federal policy for immigrants with temporary protected status were going to drive more people from countries he deemed undesirable into the United States instead of attracting immigrants from places like Norway and Asia, people familiar with the meeting said.
Attendees who were alarmed by the racial undertones of Trump's remarks were further disturbed when the topic of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) came up, these people said.
At one point, Durbin told the president that members of that caucus - an influential House group - would be more likely to agree to a deal if certain countries were included in the proposed protections, according to people familiar with the meeting.
Trump was curt and dismissive, saying he was not making immigration policy to cater to the CBC and did not particularly care about that bloc's demands, according to people briefed on the meeting. "You've got to be joking," one adviser said, describing Trump's reaction.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was in the room and was largely stone-faced, not giving any visible reaction when Trump said "shithole countries" or when he said Haitians should not be part of any deal, White House advisers said.
At one point, Graham told Trump he should use different language to discuss immigration, people briefed on the meeting said.
As Trump batted back the Democrats, he was urged on by Republican lawmakers. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told Graham and Durbin their proposal would not fly, and he told the group they should instead embrace his more conservative bill. Durbin was not interested, White House officials said.
After Graham left, he told associates that he was disturbed by what he heard in the Oval Office, according to people who spoke with him, and that it was evident the deal's antagonists had gotten to Trump. Graham and Durbin also told allies that they were stunned that the other lawmakers were present - and that Trump's tone seemed so different than it had been days or even hours before, according to people close to them.
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