Graham and Dick Durbin thought that they had a DACA deal with Trump—classic case of smart men, foolish choices.
By Heather Digby Parton / Salon January 18, 2018, 9:28 AM GMT
Poor Lindsey Graham. The "maverick" senator from South Carolina had spent the last two years expressing his scorn for Donald Trump, calling him "unfit" and "a kook." Then, sometime in the late summer, Graham apparently reconciled himself to the fact that Trump wasn't capable of growing or "pivoting" into the job, so he took it upon himself to cultivate the mercurial manchild, perhaps in the vainglorious belief he could influence Trump to become a mainstream conservative and stamp out the rapidly burning fuse that was going to blow up the presidency and likely the entire Republican Party.
Graham played golf with his president, he complimented him on his swing, he flattered his intelligence and he even agreed to throw some red meat at the base on Trump's behalf by taking up the ridiculous crusade to jail Hillary Clinton. He cajoled and he petted and he whispered the sweet nothings that the president needs to hear to make him feel powerful. Graham thought Trump trusted him and looked to him for guidance. He thought he could speak for the president in negotiations.
He was wrong -- and it was proven in classic Trump fashion last week. Like so many of Trump's close confidantes before him, Graham was stabbed in the back by the man he thought he was guiding. He was outmaneuvered by other "guides" who understand the dark impulses that drive their leader much better than Graham ever will.
Graham and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., along with a few others, have been working for months on a bipartisan immigration deal that would save the young DACA recipients from being deported by Trump's ICE agents after his abrupt cancellation of their program. In a televised meeting last Tuesday, this group all believed they had received guidelines from the president. By Thursday, they came up with a tentative compromise deal. Graham and Durbin called Trump at 10 a.m. He sounded enthusiastic and told the two senators to come up to the White House at noon to talk about it.
When the bipartisan duo got there, the room had been stacked with hardline anti-immigration right-wingers, led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, whom staffers had hurriedly called to get to the meeting and help run interference.
According to The Washington Post, Chief of Staff John Kelly (a well-known anti-immigrant zealot from way back) got in the president's ear and worked him up so much that when Graham and Durbin showed up to find they'd been sandbagged, he was already fuming. That's when he went off about not wanting any more immigrants from "shithole" countries. Graham and Durbin tried to fight for their deal, but they had been outplayed.
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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/lindset-graham-got-played-trump-daca
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