He started by ranting by caravans of immigrants heading this way that are going to flow across our border because they want to get in on DACA, and then went on to yet another attack on Amazon.
Let's unpack this lunacy. There are no multiple "caravans" - there is ONE caravan that is organized by the same group every year to draw attention to the plight of migrants. This year, I believe it is coming from either Guatemala or Honduras. They will be stopped at our southern border and will ask for asylum. Most - possibly all - will not be granted asylum, and they will have to turn around and go home. And the group will try again next year. The only reason it's an issue now is that Fox & Friends - which has clearly become Trump's primary source of information - caught wind of it and reported on it. Trump's tweet came out less than 30 minutes later.
As far as these people wanting "jump on board" with DACA - I'm not sure whether he is deliberately lying in order to get a rise out of his base, or if he is really this ignorant about the program he himself canceled. The time to "jump on board" DACA ended about 11 years ago - in order to be a DACA recipient, you have to have been brought into the country before you were 16 AND have lived here continuously since 2007. No one entering the country today would be eligible for the program. How could he not know this? And yet, Twitter was alive today with Trump supporters and Russian bots that were echoing Trump's misguided opinion about what DACA is.
He also blamed the Dems for killing DACA and resisting immigration reform, insisting that the Senate should use the "nuclear option" and eliminate the 60-vote requirement so that the legislation he wanted would pass. Sorry, that dog won't hunt for several reasons. The first is that Trump is the one who canceled DACA. You can argue all you want about whether it was legal or not, but the fact remains that Trump is the one who canceled it, probably thinking he could negotiate a better deal. No amount of spin can lay that on the Dems, and we've quickly learned how bad he is at negotiations.
Second, the GOP controls the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. It's not the opposition party's fault if they can't get anything done.
Third, invoking the "nuclear option", which would mean all bills in the Senate need only a simple majority, would not fix the problem. McConnell's not going to do it because he knows what it means to be in the minority. Plus, the last immigration bill Trump wanted got only 39 votes in the Senate - there is no universe in which 39 out of 100 would be a majority.
As far as Amazon is concerned, just about everything he said about Amazon, taxes, and the USPS is a lie. He's only attacking them because Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post - two separate businesses - and WAPO has been like a bulldog when it comes to covering Trump. And although he likes to call them 'fake news", their reporting eventually turns out to be true.
But here's the kicker. If you go to Amazon and do a search for Trump-branded products, you'll find that the Trumps sell a lot of stuff on Amazon. Trump is actually attacking a company that sells his own products. Who does that? |
