Treason, Shutdowns and Laziness Create New Trump Messaging Dilemma

In just two days, President Donald Trump has called for a new government shutdown and suggested that not applauding the good news he relayed to the nation during his State of the Union was tantamount to treason.

To make matters worse, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said Tuesday that Trump extended potential amnesty to 1.8 million illegal immigrants because some of them were too “lazy” to sign up for a temporary amnesty offered by former President Barack Obama.

“The difference between [690,000] and 1.8 million were the people that some would say were too afraid to sign up, others would say were too lazy to get off their asses, but they didn’t sign up,” Kelly said.

The amnesty in question is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) plan, which covers individuals brought to the U.S. as children by their parents. Obama created DACA with an executive order in 2012. Trump rescinded Obama’s order in September 2017.

More recently, Trump’s proposed deal with Democrats in Congress would extend DACA-style protection permanently to 1.8 million people. Democrats have shown zero interest in the Trump proposal to date.

Kelly angered some people, who said he demeaned immigrants with bullying and offensive language. His language sparked multiple questions at Tuesday’s White House briefing, the first in more than a week, from CNN’s Jim Acosta and Cecilia Vega of ABC News.

“Just on the face of it, isn’t that just a wildly offensive comment about these undocumented immigrants who are waiting for some kind of solution to come out of this city?” Acosta asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary.

“I think that’s something you would have to decide for yourself,” Sanders said, obviously not wanting to talk about Kelly’s remark.

The shutdown remark brought an even bigger headache to Sanders and the White House on Tuesday. Trump was meeting with law enforcement officials to discuss the MS-13 gang problem in the U.S. That’s when he said he would “love” to see another shutdown over immigration policy if current loophole prevents deporting members of the group whose slogan is “Kill, Rape, Control.”

“If we don’t change it, let’s have a shutdown,” said Trump. “We’ll do a shutdown and it’s worth it for our country. I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of.”

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The president said the word six times in all, as if hoping to cause a ruckus. He did — as reporters asked Sanders why he would try to provoke another 2018 shutdown.

Perhaps most curious of all, Trump flew to the Cincinnati, Ohio, area Monday to promote tax cuts and the economy.

There were problems right away as the stock market did its largest point drop in history as Trump was speaking. But the president found a way to make things worse. Trump wandered off, as he often does, into unrelated topics. This time, it was about his first official State of the Union, given on January 30.

Trump noticed, as did millions of other Americans, how stone-faced the Democrats remained during his speech.

“They were like death and un-American. Un-American,” said Trump. “Somebody said, ‘Treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not?”

Sanders said the president was “clearly joking.”

Still, it’s only Wednesday, and conservatives and Republican leaders are rattled. Gone is the disciplined White House that hunkered down during the shutdown and messaged on point, throwing the Democrats off their stride. Now Trump’s enemies are being fed new ammunition.

To make matters worse, Trump has to lead the Republicans on a difficult quest to keep both chambers of Congress in the November midterms.

“In a midterm election year with so much at stake, discipline and focus are not luxuries, they are requirements.”

“In a midterm election year with so much at stake, discipline and focus are not luxuries, they are requirements,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican consultant and chairman of the Travis County GOP in Texas. “It is clear that the media will blow up every single minor controversy for maximum effect, and by now the White House recognizes that.”

Mackowiak says Trump needs to get back to the discipline he showed earlier in 2018.

“The president needs to be more focused and disciplined in all communications,” Mackowiak said in an email to LifeZette. “In politics, you are either on offense or you are on defense, and this White House spends far too much time on defense.”

PoliZette White House writer Jim Stinson can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.