White House Skewers Republican Graham
Graham
There is a lot not to like about Republican senator Lindsay Graham but he has sometimes emerged as a voice of reason and this is one of those times.
Yesterday Graham described the current shutdown as complicated by the White House staff having an agenda different from the president’s.
Trump says one thing and staff says another, Congress has no clear signal for what to do.
Here is what the White House said about Graham, one of their own, today:
“As long as Senator Graham chooses to support legislation that sides with people in this country illegally and unlawfully instead of our own American citizens, we’re going nowhere,” said Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman. “He’s been an outlier for years.”
Graham will be a key part of any shutdown solution and is from the president’s own party yet they go the extra mile to cut him down.
A story in today’s Times suggests that Trump has spoken favorably in the past about the so-called “dreamers” only to have his staff walk him back or take another tack entirely.
Trump differentiates between illegals and dreamers yet his top staff does not.
President Trump (or his staff?) precipitated the current shutdown by unilaterally ending DACA.
Trump’s staff, Kelly and Miller, are happy to lump together and conflate immigration policy with illegal immigration issues when it whips up the base.
Miller
The problem with that approach is that it makes the real issues even more difficult to solve.
Going after Graham is “friendly fire” plain and simple, something that John Kelly should be familiar with.
Kelly