GOP Congressman Says Negotiating With Trump Like ‘Compromising With The Devil’ For Democrats
Donald Trump has reportedly been left angered by the Democrats’ rejection of his proposal to end the shutdown. On Saturday, Trump floated a proposal which would extend three years’ protection to the so-called Dreamers — immigrants without proper documentation who entered the U.S. as children — and TPS recipients. But Democrats rejected the plan outright, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling the proposals “unacceptable,” a “non-starter,” and “hostage taking,” according to BBC.
Trump took to Twitter to slam Democrats for rejecting his plan, saying they “turned down my offer yesterday before I even got up to speak.”
Now Peter King, the Republican U.S. representative from Long Island, says that Trump should not be surprised by the Democrats’ rejection because they were never going to negotiate with him in the first place. Appearing on John Catsimaditis’s radio show, King said that any agreement with Trump would have angered the Democratic base of supporters.
“Any compromise with President Trump is going to look like a surrender. And Nancy Pelosi made it very difficult when she said that a wall is amoral. Because once you say something is amoral, how can you possibly compromise?” King retorted to the rejection, according to the Hill.
He then went on to say that for the Democrats, negotiating with Trump was akin to “compromising with the devil.”
“The fear is, among the Democratic leadership, if they make any agreement with President Trump it’s like compromising with the devil. They are the most extreme, left-wing progressive element now in their party. And it has a disproportionate influence on the party. And it’s really at a time to say no to the progressive left wing.”
House Republican: Democrats think a deal with Trump is "like compromising with the devil" https://t.co/VQrAiVs0Tz pic.twitter.com/CHYt77h5ID
— The Hill (@thehill) January 20, 2019
With the Democrats rejecting Trump’s proposal, there is no end to the government shutdown in sight. Pelosi’s stern statement rejecting Trump’s plan called it “a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives.” It is highly unlikely that the Democrats will budge from their original position and the ball seems to be in Trump’s court. Democrats have said that any negotiations about the wall will only take place once Trump re-opens the government.
King, who claimed that Democrats won’t negotiate with Trump no matter what, nonetheless urged them to give him the money he needs for the wall. He said that even if the Democrats decide not to approve the entire $5.6 billion, they should at least give Trump something for the government to reopen.
“The easiest [compromise] would be for the Democrats to give President Trump $3 to $4 billion for the wall… Republicans give the Democrats the Dreamers,” he said. “It should all be on the table.”
