The Daily 202: DACA decision highlights chasm between Trumps compassionate rhetoric and reality
By James Hohmann September 5 at 6:55 AM
THE BIG IDEA: By their fruits you will know them.
At the Republican National Convention last summer, Donald Trump said he’d “do everything in my power to protect our LGBT citizens.” Then he rescinded protections for trans students in public schools and issued orders to bar transgender people from the armed forces.
Trump pronounced the House’s health-care bill “mean,” but that did not stop him from whipping votes for the measure and holding a rally in the Rose Garden to celebrate its passage.
At a February news conference, Trump was asked about fears in the Hispanic community that he might get rid of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. “We’re going to show great heart,” the president promised. “DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me. … You have these incredible kids, in many cases … They were brought here … We are going to deal with DACA with heart … because, you know, I love these kids. I love kids! I have kids and grandkids.”
Today the Trump administration is expected to announce plans to end the DACA program, which has allowed nearly 800,000 undocumented people who were brought to the United States as minors to live and work in the country without fear of deportation. The government will reportedly delay enforcement for six months to give Congress time to find a legislative solution that lets the “dreamers” remain in the country legally. “The president and his senior advisers continued to deliberate Monday afternoon, and aides cautioned that Trump could still change his mind ahead of the announcement,” David Nakamura reports.
-- During Richard Nixon’s first year in the White House, his attorney general sought to reassure anxious African American activists by telling them that they should not worry too much about the president’s rhetoric. “You will be better advised to watch what we do instead of what we say,” John Mitchell said.
In the present administration, that’s true now more than ever.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/09/05/daily-202-daca-decision-highlights-chasm-between-trump-s-compassionate-rhetoric-and-reality/59ae0e5a30fb04264c2a1c9c/?utm_term=.86f42702731c&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1
