During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised his racist and xenophobic supporters that he would immediately issue an executive order overturning President Obama's executive order that protected "Dreamers" from being deported. The Dreamers are undocumented immigrant children who were brought to this country by their parents.
He did not keep his promise by immediately overturning the DACA program, but eight months into his presidency he has felt the pressure from his odious base to finally do something. He realized that he had screwed up by making that promise, and begged his aides to find a way out for him. He wanted a way out because he realized the following:
* The Dreamers grew up in this country, and for many of them it is the only country they know.
* The Dreamers have either served in the U.S. Military or have gotten college degrees (or in the process of getting a degree).
* None of the Dreamers have a criminal history. They work hard and pay taxes (about $2 billion a year).
In other words, they are exactly the kind of immigrants this country needs -- immigrants that contribute to the well-being of this country. And the American public knows that. Poll after poll has shown that a substantial majority of the public supports DACA (which prevents the Dreamers from being deported).
None of Trump's aides could come up with a way out of the dilemma Trump created for himself. There was no way to save DACA and keep the racist xenophobes in his base happy. So Trump kept his mean-spirited promise to kill DACA, but did it in an amazingly gutless way.
First, he tweeted the following:
Translation: I screwed this one up. Please bail me out, Congress! My base is forcing me to do this.
That was a shameful and cowardly way out -- tossing the ball to Congress. But his cowardice went even further. He couldn't even stand before the nation and do his own dirty work. Instead, he sent his idiot Attorney General to do it for him -- a racist who was only too happy to do it.
This whole mess is shameful -- and once again, Trump has shown he doesn't have the guts or intelligence to be an effective leader for this country.