It’s hard to read Chuck Schumer’s announcement yesterday that a border wall is “off the table” and non-negotiable as anything but an effort to sabotage any deal with the Trump White House on immigration. Consider the state of play, all of which Schumer knows full well:

Trump will sign basically anything that he can claim includes “The Wall.”

Trump would be effectively admitting defeat if he signs something that he can’t claim includes “The Wall”: Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fully understands, especially after his humiliating defeat, that if there is no Wall, there is no DACA. We must have safety and security, together with a strong Military, for our great people! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2018

If Trump is on board with an immigration deal with the Senate, that will give cover for it to pass the Republican-controlled House.

Most of the Republican voters who care about restricting immigration will take their cues from Trump if he says he got a wall from Schumer, and will be happy and encouraged regardless of what else is in the bill.

Most of the Democratic voting base will be furious at Democrats that they did something to make Trump happy – especially on his signature issue – regardless of what else is in the bill. The “Resistance” will treat this as the equivalent of a deal with Hitler.

The optics of a smiling Trump signing a bipartisan immigration deal will play well overall for Trump and Republicans, and will help defuse some of the most polarizing arguments against Trump.

Schumer expects to have more leverage to extract better terms in 2019, given that the Democrats are universally expected, at a minimum, to gain seats in the House in November.

As Jonah Goldberg argues, given that The Wall is such a symbolic lightning rod while being far from the most effective form of border control, a president who was focused on results would consider using it as a bargaining chip to get a better deal. I don’t doubt that Trump would do this on other issues, but he’s left himself little room to do so without having to go back to his voters a beaten man by Schumer, something that runs against every Trumpian instinct. Now that both Schumer and Trump have declared the wall non-negotiable, one of them has to cave or there’s no deal – a situation that was completely predictable when Schumer made his announcement.


It’s not irrational for Schumer to play hardball here and prefer to have immigration as a political wedge issue to striking a deal, although of course the consequence of that may be that a bunch of “Dreamers” get deported in the interim (if Trump and his team are serious, that is; Schumer may be gambling that they are not). But unless he reverses course, there should be no pretense that Schumer is trying to make a deal when he has taken the single step most likely to prevent one.