Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.

 

Checkmate! Whoever on Team Trump came up with the idea to go live on national TV during Tuesday’s bipartisan congressional White House meeting on immigration with President Donald Trump deserves the Political-Play-of-the-Week award. No one knew. It was a complete surprise. The Democrats and mainstream media were ambushed, kidnapped and bacon-wrapped for roasting on national reality TV.

In past similar meetings mainstream media are usually invited in for introductory statements from President Trump and others. Then they are asked to leave. Sometimes reporters will fire off a question or two that the president either answers or ignores. But last Tuesday was all different. This time the cameras and reporters stayed. For nearly an hour Americans got to see their president in action interacting with everyone in the Cabinet Room which was standing room only.

The recent release of the controversial ‘Fire and Fury’ book by Michael Wolff claiming President Trump to be ‘unfit for office’ and other similar claims is why this immigration meeting went live on national TV with two leading Democrats sitting next to the president. Yes, this meeting was a staged event by the White House.

Even super-liberal U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) was sitting at the conference table and she was asked directly by President Trump for her unvarnished opinion on pending immigration matters — like allowing undocumented children brought to the USA illegally by their parents to stay in America. These children are grownups now and they are known as the DACA kids. Trump’s proposed southern border wall with Mexico was also discussed at length. The president insisted that any DACA agreement must include funding for the southern border wall and the elimination of the chain immigration of family members and the visa-lottery program.

Long-time conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh summed up this ‘first-of-its-kind’ TV coverage with these words.

“It was a brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed rebuttal to this stupid Wolff book. The pictures tell the tale. Trump is in the room dominating it, controlling it. He is cooperative. He is open. He’s tolerant. He’s understanding. He’s in total control of over 45-minutes of televised meeting on immigration. He is totally informed on the issues. He’s going back and forth with the Democrats on whatever mundane aspect of it they bring up. He is in total command of his position on this,” Limbaugh commented. “He was firm and he didn’t waver and he did it while being very amiable. It was not accidental that seated on Trump’s right was Dick Durbin and on his left was Steny Hoyer – two prominent Democrats from the Senate and the House. They were captured by the cameras paying total, rapt attention to Trump when he spoke, and they looked totally respectful. So after you watch this, how would react to anything in the Wolff book characterizing Trump as just the opposite of this. And this was the purpose to this today. It was not about immigration. It was to counter the Wolff book … to render it meaningless and to have it seen for what it is: A pack of lies.”

When this live broadcast began longtime liberal CNN political commentator and Trump-critic Gloria Borger said she was taken aback and had to ask her co-workers if this transparency and openness was real.

“I mean, this wasn’t just cameras in the courtroom. This was cameras in the jury room during deliberations,” said Borger. “I have covered Washington for a very long time and I have not seen anything like this. And I think the president deserves credit for this … .”

Those cameras, microphones and reporters caught them all actually working together through mutual respect, dignity, discussion and debate rather than grandstanding, calling each other ugly names or walking out in protest. President Trump and his team used this meeting to play the media like a fiddle. Not seated at the conference table but standing to the side observing were the president’s Chief-of-Staff John Kelly, Senior Policy Adviser Steven Miller and Marc Short, the White House’s legislative director.

The New York Times reporter covering this meeting — Michael Shear — realized at the time why this meeting went live on national TV. In a subsequent story in the New York Times about the meeting it was questioned why Team Trump felt the need to show a president actively involved in the process of legislation. But why not show a president engaged in negotiated problem solving reaching out to the Democrats to work together with Republicans?

Sitting at the conference table that day was also U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) , one of the president’s harshest Republican critics who described the occasion as “the most fascinating meeting I’ve been involved with in 20-plus years in politics.”

At the center of this immigration drama are the estimated 800,000 DACA kids often referred to as the ‘Dreamers.’ There are those entrenched liberals and die-hard Democrats that firmly believe that President Trump somehow will be removed from office sometime in 2018 – now they are the real ‘Dreamers.’

 

About the Author Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.