Wednesday, September 13th 2017, 11:20 pm
Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer announced that they've reached an agreement with President Trump to address the fate of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA).
"We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that's acceptable to both sides," the two leaders said in a joint statement after their dinner with Mr. Trump on Wednesday evening.
"We had a very productive meeting at the White House with the president," the statement said.
But the White House did not mention any such deal in its account from an anonymous official, and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed the Democrats' point that the agreement excludes the wall. The Trump administration announced the end of DACA earlier this month, and Mr. Trump has given Congress six months to act.
"President Donald Trump had a constructive working dinner with Senate and House Minority Leaders, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi as well as administration officials to discuss policy and legislative priorities," a White House official said. "These topics included tax reform, border security, DACA, infrastructure and trade. This is a positive step toward the president's strong commitment to bipartisan solutions for the issues most important to all Americans. The administration looks forward to continuing these conversations with leadership on both sides of the aisle."
Matt House, communications director for Schumer, tweeted that Mr. Trump was clear he still wants a wall — just that he won't require wall funding to be attached to a bill for Dreamers.
Several moderates the president met with earlier in the day expressed a similar take on the president's intended direction, CBS News' Walt Cronkite reports.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-New Jersey, Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Oregon, Rep. Tom Reed, R-New York, and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, told CBS News the basic parameters of the president's immigration deal with include provisions similar to the Dream Act, and include increased funding for border security, but not for a wall, which the president would pursue separately. The president was in favor of skills-based immigration vetting, and particularly a bill Sen Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, and Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia, have introduced, although Democrats pushed back on that concept somewhat.
Mr. Trump's seeming agreement with Democrats comes after he sided with Democrats over his own party on a debt limit extension last week, shocking Republican leaders and even some in his own White House staff. The president's conversations with Democrats, along with his clearly expressed frustration with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, seem to indicate he will continue pursuing Democrats to get things done in the future.
Gottheimer, co-chairman of the Problem Solvers Coalition, also told CBS News Mr. Trump asked the coalition to form a bipartisan commission on tax reform and infrastructure, and asked them to work on those issues with Gary Cohn, the president's top economic adviser.
Schumer and Pelosi said they also talked with Mr. Trump about stabilizing health care markets, with Republicans unable to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, as Mr. Trump had pledged to do.
"We also urged the president to make permanent the cost-sharing reduction payments, and those discussions will continue."
CBS News' Nancy Cordes and Walt Cronkite contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for latest updates.
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September 13th, 2017
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