Byron York of the Washington Examiner details the fevered response to President Trump’s latest high-profile actions.
The entire politico-media complex had a nervous breakdown last week over President Trump’s position on DACA.
Lawmakers, journalists, and activists jumped to all sorts of conclusions when Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced that over dinner at the White House Wednesday night, they reached an “agreement” with the president over the future of 800,000 illegal immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
There was reason to be skeptical — after all, the story was coming from just one side. But skepticism was in short supply, and even some of those who realized the information was sketchy couldn’t keep themselves from speaking up. Some Trump supporters instantly assumed the president had sold them out. Some Trump opponents instantly mocked Trump supporters for ever believing his promises. Democrats wondered what Schumer and Pelosi were doing with the hated president.
Many spoke without enough knowledge to draw any conclusions, or even early conclusions. …
… But on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, when hair was on fire across Washington and social media, there was no deal and nothing had been decided, except that everyone said they wanted a deal, which is what negotiators always say.
In other words, the whole episode changed pretty much nothing. Anyone who followed Trump during the campaign knows he is headed toward some sort of accommodation for DACA recipients. And anyone who follows the Trump administration and Congress knows there will be showdowns on Capitol Hill over the wall and other border security and enforcement measures. That is where the DACA issue stood before the freakout of Wednesday night and Thursday morning, and that is where the issue stood afterward.
All that panic for nothing.
