By Jeremy Diamond
Just two days after issuing a call for bipartisanship, President Donald Trump returned Thursday to needling Democrats and turned to the prospect of bouncing them from office in the 2018 election.
The President, in remarks at a Republican congressional retreat in West Virginia, knocked Democrats for a lack of applause during his State of the Union address and sought to shift the onus of reaching an immigration deal on the opposing party.
While Trump initially suggested Republicans may need to compromise to reach a deal with Democrats on immigration, he then turned his sights to the 2018 election as an alternative.
“To get it done we’ll have to make some compromises,” Trump said, “unless we elect more Republicans.”
“If we win more, we don’t have to compromise so much,” he added.
Trump also sought to pushback on Democrats framing of the immigration discussions as working to protect “Dreamers,” a term used to refer to recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, a program that protected undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children.
“Some people call it Dreamers. It’s not Dreamers. Don’t fall into that trap. It’s just much different than Dreamers,” the President said, before referencing a line from his State of the Union speech. “And I said the other night, we have Dreamers, too.”
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