A President Not Sure of What He Wants Complicates the Shutdown Impasse<br />“His inclinations are hawkish on immigration, but he seems to like to be agreeable to people<br />and nod his head when he’s at a meeting and people are saying things, and try to make a deal.”<br />Mr. Krikorian said that he did not subscribe to the “Svengali theory” of the White House<br />that cast Mr. Miller as a puppet master on immigration, but that it often fell to him and Mr. Kelly to explain the nuances of certain terms or proposals to a president unfamiliar with them.<br />“There’s a real sense that there’s a disconnect between the president and his staff on immigration issues, and people on all sides are seeking to exploit<br />that disconnect,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who advised Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, one of Mr. Trump’s rivals, in his 2016 bid for the White House.<br />“This is what happens when you have a president who is not clear<br />and consistent on what he will accept: It emboldens all parties to take positions that they won’t compromise.”<br />Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, suggested<br />that Mr. Trump was in the thrall of extremists on his staff pulling him back from more moderate instincts on immigration.<br />When Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she wanted a “clean DACA bill,” Mr. Trump quickly agreed, only to have Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, pipe up to explain<br />that meant accepting a stand-alone bill to legalize a group of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, without any security measures or other conditions the president had cited as priorities<br />And twice over the past two weeks, Mr. Trump has privately told lawmakers he is eager to strike a deal to extend legal status to the so-called Dreamers, only to have his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, make clear afterward<br />that such a compromise was not really in the offing — unless it also included a host of stiffer immigration restrictions.
