Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
President Trump once again played host to Democratic leaders Wednesday night. House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi and her Senate counterpart Chuck Schumer were there.
By the end of the night, rumors swirled over a possible deal to protect DACA recipients.
But on Thursday morning, President Trump responded, tying action on DACA to building his long-promised wall between the U.S. and Mexico:
"Ultimately, we have to have the wall," the president said, speaking from Fort Myers, Florida. "If we don't have the wall, we're doing nothing."
Pelosi sounded more optimistic Thursday morning, expressing her confidence that Trump and Democrats can find "common ground" on the issue.
While there is no clear "deal" in place, Politico congressional reporter Burgess Everett says a framework seems to have been put in place.
There's been a lot of talk of "is the president denying that there's a deal?" To me, he's really confirmed the broad contours of it, but he really wants to emphasize over and over that he's not giving up on the wall.
The statement that the Democratic leaders put out last night says "we're excluding the wall from this."
A ton of criticism came from the right for the president because this was a key campaign promise — he talked about how tall the wall would be, how beautiful it would be, and now he's backing away from it and also enshrining something that President Barack Obama did into law if this comes to fruition.
Press the blue play button above to hear about more about the political fallout from Trump's Wednesday night dinner meeting. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.