During Monday's edition of New Day, a discussion ensued about President Trump's most recent "tweet storm" where he addressed the hot button issue of DACA. CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins said that the President's meetings with Fox News hosts over the weekend plus "hard-liner" Ann Coulter's "recent media tour calling Trump a disappointment" as the rationales for the tweet storm.
CNN political analyst John Avlon mocked the President's guest list as "three Fox News hosts, two ex-cons, and a pillow salesman" while panelist Brian Karem dismissed the Trump base as "very, very, very much not involved in what is going on in the United States."
The segment began with a report from Collins, who summarized the tweet storm in addition to romanticizing the President’s previous statements advocating for a “bill of love” when it came to a DACA fix.
Collins then attempted to explain the “outbursts”: “Sources tell CNN that the President’s tweet storm came after he had conversations with a number of allies associated with Fox News over the weekend who told him that his base believes he’s softening on immigration. Multiple people pointing to hard-liner Ann Coulter’s recent media tour calling Trump a disappointment.”
Coulter, a vocal supporter of President Trump, has criticized him for signing the “omnibus” bill which included funding for several Democratic priorities while failing to include any funding for his signature campaign promise: the border wall. In the past week, Coulter has referred to President Trump as a “shallow, lazy ignoramus” and titled her most recent column “3-D Chess: It Only Looks Like Trump is Throwing Away His Presidency!”
President Trump did meet with two Fox News personalities over Easter weekend, Sean Hannity and Judge Jeanine Pirro, along with former Fox News Co-President Bill Shine. He also met with Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, Boxing Promoter Don King, and My Pillow inventor Mike Lindell. After Avlon openly mocked the lineup, he asked panelist Jeff Toobin if this was “Jeffersonian level.” For the record, the “ex-cons” Avlon speaks of are Kerik and King, both of whom have spent time behind bars.
During one of his tweets, President Trump talked about how “Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release.” Perhaps the part of that tweet that offended the left the most was the “NO MORE DACA DEAL!” Those in liberal circles consider such a statement blasphemous.
Karem laughed off the idea that illegal immigration compounds the opioid epidemic in the United States, referring to it as “disingenuous” and saying that the President’s rhetoric aims to “feed a base that’s very, very, very much not involved in what is going on in the United States.”
The segment concluded with Camerota pointing out that the President’s tweet came six minutes after a segment on Fox & Friends Weekend (which she used to co-host). This particular segment talked about caravans coming across the border.
The media continues to make it clear how much they despise the President’s use of Twitter. Not only do they despise the substance of the tweets, they loathe the tweets in general.
See transcript below. Click "expand" to read more:
CNN's New Day
04/02/18
06:03 a.m.
KAITLAN COLLINS: After a few days of relative silence from our tweeter-in-chief, he unleashed a series of particularly fiery ones yesterday on Easter saying that there would be no deal for those Dreamers hoping to get legal status and also threatening to pull out of NAFTA if Mexico does not do more to curtail those border crossings. President Trump spending the Easter holiday weekend venting about immigration in a series of combative tweets, the President saying he wouldn’t make a deal for Dreamers, claiming that undocumented immigrants are pouring into the U.S. because they want in on the act.
TRUMP: A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of DACA. And we’re going to have to really see.
COLLINS: The President seemingly confused about the parameters of the Dreamer program. It protects undocumented immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. as children but it only applies to those who have lived in the U.S. since 2007; meaning that no one crossing the border now would be eligible.
TRUMP: They had a great chance, the Democrats blew it.
COLLINS: President Trump also blaming Democrats for failing to broker a deal to protect Dreamers, despite the fact that it was Mr. Trump’s decision to end the Obama-era program in the first place. Mr. Trump’s talk in stark contrast to these earlier promises.
TRUMP: A very, very tough subject. We are going to deal with DACA with heart.
(New clip)
TRUMP: It should be a bipartisan bill. It should be a bill of love. Truly, it should be a bill of love, and we can do that.
COLLINS: The President’s outbursts prompting criticism from members of both parties, including Ohio Governor John Kasich, who tweeted “A true leader preserves and offers hope, doesn’t take hope from innocent children who call America home.” The President also lashing out at Mexico, threatening to pull out of NAFTA if Mexico doesn’t curtail the flow of undocumented immigrants.
TRUMP: Mexico has got to help us at the border. They flow right through Mexico, they send them to the United States. Can’t happen that way anymore.
COLLINS: Mr. Trump using that argument to again stress the need for his border wall. Sources tell CNN that the President’s tweet storm came after he had conversations with a number of allies associated with Fox News over the weekend who told him that his base believes he’s softening on immigration. Multiple people pointing to hard-liner Ann Coulter’s recent media tour calling Trump a disappointment.
(....)
06:10:32 a.m.
JOHN AVLON: And what’s also extraordinary is the impact of the last person in his ear, as we have said. Right? This weekend, Mar-a-Lago, look at the cast of characters here.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: We have a graphic. Here’s who the President hung out with this weekend, who we know do, I mean, not only do they have his ear, they make a point of explaining to him where they think he should go.
AVLON: Right. And this is three Fox News hosts, two ex-cons, and a pillow salesman. Jeff Toobin, is this Jeffersonian level?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Sounds just like my weekend.
JIM SCIUTTO: Remember all of the talk of the team of rivals, right? You know, in the Obama Administration. The thing is, though, that’s just the weekend. If you look at his cabinet, right, the cabinet is shrinking to a group of folks that he feels comfortable with, one, but also that are frankly a more agreeable group. Right? The folks who challenge this President in his cabinet, they don’t last long. That’s an echo chamber in the White House.
TOOBIN: And nothing matters more to him and to his, and to those folks than immigration. Immigration is the issue. You know, build the wall, Mexico’s going to pay for it. That’s, that’s the core issue. That’s what Ann Coulter has been criticizing him for. And you know what never gets talked about these days, anymore, is that there are 800,000 human beings, there are people whose lives are in serious jeopardy of major, major disruption because these DACA people, these young people who have lived their entire lives in America, their status remains completely in limbo. And Donald Trump, he clearly doesn’t even understand the program after all this.
CAMEROTA: Let’s talk about that because I’m so glad that Jeffrey brought...Hold on, Brian because I’m so glad that Jeffrey brought this up because we can now connect the dots, okay, between the seeds that are planted, the bee that he gets in his bonnet from different places, and policy. Okay? So here is the tweet, let me...I’ll work backwards. Here is the tweet that the President sent out and we can fact check it. “Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. ‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to the Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!” In all caps, exclamation point. Okay, John. If we’re going to fact check that, catch and release is not a law but it is a policy that obviously Donald Trump and Demo, and Republicans have long objected to. There’s not room for everybody who’s caught. They are released. Sometimes they come back in, sometimes they commit crimes. Okay? Then if you check it, they must go to the nuclear option. That’s not what Republicans are talking about. No more DACA deal. He’s the person who said he was going to protect the Dreamers.
AVLON: Right, well, I mean, he’s been all over. I mean, obviously, he’s the one who suspended that executive order, then he said the Democrats were the ones who are risking the deal. Now, it’s tied up in the Ninth Circuit as Jeff Toobin well knows. So, this is a President who doesn’t have his hands around the policy but the fact he decides to go on offense and talk about a nuclear option against Dreamers on Easter morning says a lot about where his head and his heart is.
BRIAN KAREM: Well and it’s not even, to the point, catch and release. I mean, that goes back to the Reagan era. This is not new. And it’s not news. And by the way, on Easter Sunday, you’re going to tweet this out. And what, last year at this same time, he’s tweeting out how immigrants, there’s 40 percent less illegal immigration coming across since he came into office. So what happened? Suddenly, there was a swarm of them. And then you talk about the problem of drug, drug addiction because of illegal immigrants and that’s just bogus. You have a drug problem in the United States because there’s a demand for the drugs not because there’s, you know, there’s better weed grown in the United States than Mexico. And it’s coming across and the opioid epidemic has nothing to do with illegal immigration. It’s all disingenuous. It’s all to feed a base that’s very, very, very much not involved in what is going on in the United States.
CAMEROTA: Well the other part is that actually this tweet was six minutes after a Fox & Friends Weekend segment where they talked about caravans coming across the border. So, in the next hour, we will play you that segment and show you how the President cobbled together what he wants policy made out of it.
