President Trump told a bipartisan group of lawmakers that he wants a bill to allow young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally to remain, saying such a measure should be "a bipartisan bill of love," and that "we can do it."
Trump also said he was open to a larger measure overhauling immigration laws, but that it made most sense to first settle the Obama-era Deferred Action On Childhood Arrivals issue, also known as DACA. Authority allowing for the so-called DREAMers covered by the measure to remain in the country expires March 5.
The president met with lawmakers for nearly an hour, and the session was unusual in that a small pool of reporters was allowed to remain for the duration, an apparent effort to rebut one of the premises of the best-selling book Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House, which portrays the president as in over his head and possibly mentally unfit for office.
Trump talked about how the current system in Congress doesn't lend itself to getting anything done. The president said there was so much anger and hostility in Congress that lawmakers should consider bringing back earmarks, the pork-barrel spending that GOP leaders outlawed, seen by many as one of the prime components of the "swamp" Trump campaigned against.
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