Is The “Full Trump” Coming In 2017?

Is the “Full Trump” coming in 2018?

The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

We can fix DACA in a way that beefs up border security, stops chain migration for the DREAMers, and addresses the unfairness of the diversity lottery. If POTUS wants to protect these kids, we want to help him keep that promise.

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) December 29, 2017

This is what we are hearing from Axios:

“If you ask some close to President Trump what worries them most about 2018, it’s not Robert Mueller’s probe. It’s that establishment guardrails of 2017 come down — and Trump’s actual instincts take over.

Next year will bring “full Trump,” said one person who recently talked to the president.

Trump has governed mostly as a conventional conservative — on tax cuts, his Supreme Court pick, and rolling back regulations. Most of his top advisers are fairly conventional conservatives, so that makes sense. …”

Read the whole thing.

We’ve been hearing conflicting things. There seems to be a consensus that infrastructure is a go. We’ve heard that the True Cons are teaming up with the Wall Street Dems to take another crack at weakening Dodd-Frank. We’ve heard talk of getting tough on China. We’re heard that Paul Ryan wants to go after entitlement reform, but Mitch McConnell doesn’t because it is a sure loser in the Senate. There seems to be a consensus that some form of welfare reform is a go that will target Medicaid and food stamps (i.e., gibs in an election year after doing tax cuts).

Pat Buchanan and others are speculating about a possible war with Iran. Trump keeps obsessing over military options to deal with North Korea’s missile program. It feels like there is a greater danger of war breaking out in 2018. I keep coming back to the $65 billion slush fund in the NDAA. Where is that money going to go now that the wars in Iraq and Syria are over?

The moment of truth is coming on the Trump administration and immigration. Is there going to be a DACA amnesty? If so, will it include funding for the border wall, the end of chain migration and the diversity lottery? This is pretty much the only package deal that could be sold to the Republican base without causing an explosion in outrage. Are the Democrats going to give Trump the border wall funding in exchange for DACA? Would they rather have the issue? Critically, what is the True Cons caucus in the Senate – Jeff Flake, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse, Cory Gardner – going to do for President Trump in exchange for the corporate tax cut?

There is a lot of fakery going on with DACA:

• If Trump really wanted to end DACA, he could just take a knee, declare victory and let that be the end of the issue which is what he promised would happen on Day One.
• Alternatively, if Trump wanted to end DACA without getting politically blamed for it, he could have let the Texas lawsuit take it out at SCOTUS.

I’ve already pointed out the grandstanding going on here.  Do you remember when House Republicans sued the Obama administration over DACA? Do you remember when Senate Republicans voted unanimously against DACA on the eve of the 2014 midterms? Do you remember when the pitch in 2014 was that the Republicans needed the Senate to STOP Obama’s DACA amnesty? That’s how we got Ben Sasse, Cory Gardner, Thom Tillis and James Lankford in the first place.

In 2014, the argument was we needed Sasse, Gardner, Tillis and Lankford to stop DACA, and now the argument in 2018 from these very same people is that we need the DREAM Act for these amazing young people. Charles Koch must be pulling their strings really hard. Anyway, the future of the Republican Party hinges on what this crowd decides to do over the next three months.

If all they got to show voters for their time in Congress is this wildly unpopular tax bill which they did for the donor class, it is going to be Cuckageddon in 2018.

Note: There is a strong possibility that John McCain keels over and dies or resigns before he gives up the ghost in the next three months. Who replaces him?