A political panel on CNN's New Day Tuesday morning took several shots at President Trump, referring to him as "erratic" and "impulsive", blaming him for the failure to broker a DACA deal, and criticizing his tweeting habits.
The panel, consisting of co-anchors Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota as well as CNN Political Analyst David Gregory and CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, began by discussing a tweet put out by President Trump painting the narrative of chaos in the White House as “Fake News.”
CNN Political Analyst David Gregory said that “it’s just indisputable that you have not just an erratic, impulsive President but the fact that he can’t keep people in their roles, you know, a shoddy security system and this issue of security clearances because of the nepotism in the West Wing has gotten out of hand.” Cuomo suggested that the President’s tweets justify the media “being too negative on President Trump,” arguing that “he should be tweeting about what just developed in North Korea.”
The panel then began to pick apart another one of the President’s early morning tweets, this one dealing with the issue of the DACA. According to Cuomo, “he also tweets about DACA and misstates the proposition of the state of play saying it’s all about the Democrats, they don’t want to make a deal.” Cuomo went on to accuse President Trump of “misstating the DACA deal” while Toobin went so far as to say that “the President created the whole DACA crisis in the first place”, adding that “if he hadn’t overturned President Obama’s executive order, the DACA people would be, you know, at rest.”
Only a disingenuous person would say that President Trump “created the whole DACA crisis in the first place.” President Obama deserves 100 percent of the credit for the creation of DACA, the executive order he signed during an election year after repeatedly telling immigration activists he did not have the authority to unilaterally act on immigration without working with Congress.
The executive order shielded roughly 800,000 illegal immigrants brought to the country as children from deportation and allowed them to apply for work permits. President Trump really ruffled the feathers of the open borders crowd, consisting of the left and some on the “right” when he announced his decision to give Congress a six-month window to codify DACA into law; in other words make it legal and Constitutional. Congress failed to act in time for yesterday’s six-month deadline but the Courts have stepped in, effectively allowing the executive order to remain in place for the time being.
President Trump did express openness to codifying DACA, even offering a path to citizenship to more than double the number of illegal immigrants initially covered by DACA. However, the left refused to agree to his demands for a border wall, an end to chain migration, and abolition of the Diversity Visa; and negotiations between the two parties ultimately fell apart. The panelists seemed to agree that President Trump should have agreed to DACA while receiving a lot less in return, with Cuomo arguing that he should have agreed to Dianne Feinstein’s proposal of a “clean DACA bill.”
According to Gregory, “the President could have got funding for a border wall, solved the DACA process, and he could have had that, a signature campaign promise but...walked away from that because it didn’t go even farther than some of the conservative hardliners wanted on this issue of family immigration and all the rest.” The President definitely has a different perspective than the talking heads on CNN, believing that opposition from the open borders hardliners, who far outnumber the “conservative hardliners”, led to the failure of a DACA deal.
Throughout the entire segment, the panelists argued that the President should have focused more on the developments in North Korea, which they argue that he deserves a lot of credit for. They seemed disappointed that his Twitter page kept it pithy when it came to North Korea, saying “We’ll see what happens.” Towards the end of the exchange, Cuomo pondered “why is he focusing on things that he can’t prove and that only further divide?”
Their obsessive coverage of the President’s tweets can’t help but make one wonder whether President Trump had it right when he said that the media secretly wants to see him re-elected in 2020 because he has helped their ratings skyrocket.
CNN New Day
03/06/18
08:07 AM
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Let’s bring in CNN Political Analyst David Gregory and CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin. So David Gregory, man of few words in the latest tweet, we’ll see what happens about North Korea. But he had a lot of words this hour about something else that’s on his mind, about what’s going on in the White House. So I’ll read this to you and you can compare and contrast.
CHRIS CUOMO: Sell it.
CAMEROTA: The new Fake News narrative is that there is chaos, all caps, in the White House. Wrong, exclamation point. People will always come and go. I want strong dialogue before making a final decision. I still have some people that I want to change, always seeking perfection. I could psychoanalyze that but I’m going to move on. There is no chaos, capital, only great energy.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: The whole capitalization subject is such a great part of...I apologize, this was a question for Brother Gregory.
DAVID GREGORY: But I was thinking the same thing. I mean, even, even with the Auto Correct, where sometimes when you text it capitalizes for no good reason. I don’t think this is the same issue on Twitter.
CAMEROTA: I mean, listen, don’t you think that if he feels that way, if there’s only great energy in the White House, tell that to your staffers who keep talking to reporters and telling them how demoralized they feel by the chaos.
GREGORY: Right. You know, the best way to, to show that it’s not chaotic is to actually act that way and to have a West Wing that is more functional than this one is without leaking, without an erratic President. So taking to Twitter to deny chaos doesn’t do anything to quell this, only keep it going. And I just think, you know, it’s just indisputable that you have not just an erratic, impulsive President but the fact that he can’t keep people in their roles, you know, a shoddy security system and this issue of security clearances because of the nepotism in the West Wing has gotten out of hand. So he may love to sell the idea that we get great results through, you know, creative energy. I don’t think that’s going to fly.
CUOMO: And also look, it’s just a great window into one of the ongoing points of frustration for Americans which is, boy, are you being too negative on President Trump? Let’s look at just this moment in time, okay? He should be tweeting about what just developed with North Korea.
CAMEROTA: Well, he’s missing an opportunity to take credit for it, which lots of people are giving him.
CUOMO: And it matters because it’s a potentially existential crisis, okay? So, there’s some sign of progress there, he does two words. He obviously doesn’t care about it. Why? Because length is strength to him so he is going to talk more, more in-depth about what actually matters. He cannot disprove the chaos, he can only add to it by what he’s doing. The facts are demonstrable that he has a problem with who he picks, how he manages them, and the results. He’s not going to deal with that. And then he also tweets about DACA and misstates the proposition of the state of play saying it’s all about the Democrats, they don’t want to make a deal. One, you got a judicial proceeding. Two, his party was split and that’s putting it gently about what to do about this. So, who is creating the criticism of the President? He is, by going out too far on chaos. That is true and he’s denying, misstating the DACA deal and underplaying North Korea. He’s relying on us to pump up what the Administration just did when that’s his job.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: And let’s just talk about DACA for a second because, you know, these young people are still at risk. I mean, that’s a very important point to make. You know, this, there was a March 5th deadline that the President himself created. I mean, it is worth remembering that the President created the whole DACA crisis in the first place. If he hadn’t, if he hadn’t overturned President Obama’s executive order, the DACA people would be, you know, at rest. However, the Courts have now said it is not clear that the President withdrew DACA correctly but there is no doubt the President has the right at some point to get rid of DACA. So DACA is on borrowed time. We don’t know exactly how much time they have left but the DACA issue is not settled in the courts by any means. DACA is still going to be withdrawn at some point and the question now is does anything replace it? And that’s really on the President and the majority party far more than it’s on the Democrats.
CUOMO: He should be reminded he was the one who agreed with Dianne Feinstein when she said let’s just do DACA in a clean bill, save these kids and adults and then we’ll deal with the other things. He said “I’m good with that” and some heads exploded around him from the GOP and that’s what got here. It’s not about progress. It’s about political perception.
TOOBIN: Because the Republicans want to tie DACA to the border wall, to increased border enforcement. And you know, that’s a political dispute that, you know, that has to be resolved but no one should think that the Courts have solved the DACA problem. The DACA, you know, the fate of the dreamers is still very much up in the air.
GREGORY: And we should just remember too that the President could have got funding for a border wall, solved the DACA process, and he could have had that, a signature promise but does, but walked away from that because it didn’t go even farther than some of the conservative hardliners wanted on this issue of family immigration and all the rest.
08:14:15 AM
CUOMO: All right and just indulge me for one second just because I believe that this is a good moment we’re having here that is just a clear illustration of what drives the news cycle the way it does and it starts, it emanates from the President. All right? His first tweet of the morning was about the chaos. Okay? It is getting, it was first but it’s also getting pickup at a rate that is greater than the three that followed. What were they? The next one was DACA’s on the Dems, which isn’t true. He had a deal on the table, he didn’t take it. The next one was we’re getting it done, jobs and security, in reference to a Drudge Report thing about the USA becoming the world’s largest oil producer. Literally, it’s just one line about it. And then the next one is about North Korea, and in response to Drudge again...Drudge is one of the few outlets that he follows. Kim Jong-Un hosts Seoul envoys first time since taking power. We will see what happens. You know, Jeffrey, you see where the emphasis is from him. For any other President, it would all be North Korea this morning. They said it couldn’t be done. Obama couldn’t get it done. He didn’t do the sanctions that we did. He couldn’t work the policy the way we are. He couldn’t get the South involved the way I did. Now, we’re going to have history. I may be in the same room with Kim Jong-Un, this was seen as impossible before my election. Why isn’t he making that case? Why is he focusing on things that he can’t prove and that only further divide?
