Dem Sen Kaine: Trump ‘Either Lying or He is Completely Delusional’ on DACA

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said President Donald Trump was “either lying or he is completely delusional” when he said Democrats were not willing to make a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy.

Partial transcript as follows:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I can tell you this, and I say this to DACA recipients, that the Republicans are with you, they want to get your situation taken care of. The Democrats fought us. They just fought every single inch of the way. They did not want DACA in this bill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILER: Is that going to work? do democrats risk losing the support of Americans who overwhelmingly want this fixed?

KAINE: Brianna, I’m going to be really blunt here, that quote of the president, he is either lying or he is completely delusional. Why is there DACA? Because a Democratic president, President Obama, supported by Democratic legislators, put it in place in 2012. Why is DACA threatened? Because a Republican President, Donald Trump, supported by Republican legislators, announced in September that the program was going to be ended. One person can fix DACA. If President Trump believes in DACA all he has to do is retract his executive order from September where he broke a promise to DREAMers and said he was going to end the program. I was the chief negotiator on the Democratic side of a bipartisan DREAMer bill one month ago where we—

KEILER: But that’s not on the table, Senator.

KAINE: No, it is on the table.

KEILER: reinstating the executive order.

KAINE: It is on the table. Both are on the table. If the president cares about DREAMers or if Republicans care about DREAMers, he can reinstate the executive order tomorrow with the stroke of one person’s pen. And the the table was protect DREAMrs and give President Trump $25 billion, every penny that he asked for, for border security. he turned the deal down. Read the deal. President Trump opposes DREAMers or he could protect them in the stroke of the pen in the next five minutes if he wanted to. So we’re going to keep looking for a solution, but the key is we do not have the support of the White House, we don’t have the support of Republicans. We either have to change their mind or we have to get more Democrats in office. That’s the way we’ll protect DREAMers.

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