Months of mounting frustration with the lack of progress in the Republican-led Congress drove President Donald Trump to cut legislative deals with top Democrats, according to White House officials, raising the prospect of future collaborations on subjects from immigration to a tax overhaul to spending bills.

In the past week, Mr. Trump has held two private sessions at the White House in which the Democratic congressional leaders walked away with either a deal or a path to one—largely on their own terms. Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans were stunned by the shift from the president—whose chief interest is in jump-starting the stalled legislative agenda, say White House officials.

In one recent White House session, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was listening to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin beseech congressional leaders to raise the debt ceiling to steady U.S. markets, and the California Democrat grew impatient.

“Wall Street is one thing. You’re used to that world,” Mrs. Pelosi told Mr. Trump and Mr. Mnuchin. “Here the vote is the currency of the realm. It’s all about having the votes.”

In an interview Friday, Mrs. Pelosi said of the White House and Republican leaders: “They don’t have the votes.” She added: “Here we are in the minority…and we’re dealing from strength because they don’t have the votes.”

Mr. Trump has made clear that he is willing to use those Democratic votes to get legislation passed after splits in Republican ranks stymied his promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, White House officials said.


In meetings, he has been apt to criticize legislative leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), for taking a summer recess with so much unfinished business, and to complain of betrayals by GOP lawmakers whose votes he thought were locked in, White House aides said.

One senior White House official described an Oval Office meeting in which Mr. Trump said to him: “What’s wrong with you Republicans?” The official said of Mr. Trump: “Every time I’m in there, he’s like, ‘The Senate can’t get anything done. Why isn’t Mitch working? Why did they go home?’ ”

Mr. Trump now is courting Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Mrs. Pelosi to see if he can propel tax, budget and immigration plans before Congress turns its attention to the 2018 midterm elections.

It’s unclear whether these new partnerships will endure. He once called Mr. Schumer a “clown” and Mrs. Pelosi “incompetent.” Still, “his No. 1 priority is to get the best deal: China, North Korea, Iran, Congress, Republican, Democrat—he’s about deals,” said Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary. “That’s it.”

Immigration has divided the Republican and Democratic parties a lot more than it has united them. That equation was scrambled this week when President Trump had dinner with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and emerged with the outlines of a deal on Dreamers. The WSJ's Gerald F. Seib breaks down the odds of bipartisanship on immigration. Photo: Getty

For Mr. Trump, his bipartisan approach risks unraveling his political coalition. Conservatives who powered Mr. Trump’s victory say they are worried that he might forsake them. Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, said that “many of the president’s supporters are beginning to wonder whether our King has been captured.” Inside the White House, officials are suspicious of Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer, whose priorities are far different from what Mr. Trump promised in the campaign.


That became clear at a dinner Wednesday at the White House. Over Chinese food, Mr. Trump, Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer talked about legislation to shield undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and would face deportation.

At one point, Mr. Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, spoke up, cautioning that the two Democrats were talking up a specific piece of legislation called the Dream Act that would offer the immigrants a path to citizenship—a position the White House hasn’t embraced, White House aides said.

Still, the president opened the door to the idea while also making clear that he prefers a narrower program that covers fewer people and doesn’t offer citizenship. The two sides are now negotiating to see if they can bridge differences.

The next day, the president told reporters he wasn’t considering “citizenship” or “amnesty,” but was “looking at allowing people to stay here.”


The president’s shift to courting the opposition has been in the making for months. In July, after Senate Republicans failed to pass a health-care bill without any Democratic backing, Mr. Trump called up Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy adviser to former President Barack Obama who had urged the president prior to his inauguration to reach out to Democrats. Dr. Emanuel was surprised by the call; it was the first he had heard from Mr. Trump in four months, he said.

In the call, Dr. Emanuel urged Mr. Trump to consider a more bipartisan approach. “I spoke to the president explicitly about reaching out to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” Dr. Emanuel said. “You can’t just let this great country drift.”

As a businessman, Mr. Trump donated to Democrats. He came to Washington without any deep partisan ties. Mr. Trump, who puts stock in personal relationships, has had a particularly uneasy alliance with Mr. McConnell, whose reserve is legendary.

Mr. Trump made his first move when Congress returned from its August break and he met with congressional leaders to discuss ways to keep the government funded and its borrowing limit suspended until mid-December.


Mr. Schumer had spent August rallying Democratic support for a short-term extension deal, which he had concluded would allow his minority caucus to gain leverage for a broader deal in December.

When he raised the proposal in a Sept. 6 meeting in the Oval Office with Mr. Trump and other congressional leaders, he had a cache of votes to offer Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump stunned House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and Mr. McConnell, who wanted a longer-term agreement, when he took the deal.

“They’re the only two people who came to the meeting with a deal to be made,” a White House aide said of Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer. “This is on the other guys,” the official said, in a reference to Mr. McConnell and Mr. Ryan.

On Friday, Mr. McConnell’s spokesman cited his past comments that “we are committed to advancing our shared agenda together, and anyone who suggests otherwise is clearly not part of the conversation.”

A Ryan spokeswoman didn’t immediately comment. Mr. Ryan told reporters after Mr. Trump accepted the Democratic proposal that the president was seeking a “bipartisan moment” as the administration sought to respond to hurricanes that battered Texas and Florida.

After that funding deal was struck, Mr. Trump telephoned Mr. Schumer and Mrs. Pelosi to celebrate the deal. During her talk, Mrs. Pelosi raised concerns about the president’s decision to end DACA. “I know you did not mean to instill fear, but that is what is happening,” she said she told Mr. Trump.

“What can I do?” Mr. Trump replied, according to Mrs. Pelosi.

“What you always do—put out a message of assurance to people,” Mrs. Pelosi said she told him.

A tweet from Mr. Trump appeared shortly afterwards aimed at young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, saying for everyone concerned about their status in the coming six months, “you have nothing to worry about—No action!”

Mr. Schumer has another advantage in his dealings with Mr. Trump: a decades-long relationship with the president, who since 1996 has donated $8,900 to Mr. Schumer’s campaigns. Born in neighboring New York City boroughs, they often crossed paths and shared a number of mutual acquaintances.

“They get each other,” said Stu Loeser, a former New York-based spokesman for Mr. Schumer.

Following a February luncheon at the White House with congressional leadership, Mr. McConnell told reporters: “I enjoyed listening to the president and Sen. Schumer talk about the people they knew in New York.”

Relations turned frosty when Republicans pushed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Schumer and Mr. Trump spoke only occasionally until the past week, when Mr. Schumer visited the White House twice and parlayed over policy.

The president also has sought to reach out to other Democrats. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D., Texas), who was among the eight Democrats who attended a bipartisan meeting on tax policy at the White House on Wednesday, said it was the first time in Mr. Trump’s eight-month presidency that he had been invited to a “substantive meeting” with him.

Previously, Mr. Cuellar said, he had rebuffed the White House’s invitations to attend bill-signing ceremonies because he “didn’t want to be used as a prop.”

Some Democrats remain skeptical about their sudden partnership with the White House, which hasn’t been without its awkward moments.

During Wednesday evening’s dinner at the White House, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross interrupted the immigration discussion to ask, “What does the president get out of this?” Mrs. Pelosi, the only woman at the dinner of 11, sought to answer the secretary’s question but was drowned out by cross-talk.

Mrs. Pelosi spoke up louder. “Does anybody listen to women when they speak around here?” she asked.

She wasn’t interrupted again.

—Janet Hook,

Louise Radnofsky

and Michael C. Bender contributed to this article.