The New York Times: Conflicting messages from President Trump and his aides over whether he would support a compromise immigration bill sent House Republicans into fits of confusion on Friday, further diminishing the bill’s fortunes ahead of a showdown vote next week.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan is planning to hold votes on two immigration measures: a hard-line conservative bill, which is almost certain to fail, and new legislation worked out by Republican immigration moderates and House conservatives, which Mr. Ryan promoted Thursday as a “very good compromise.”
But a day of White House drama left Republicans unsure of where the president stood, and uncertainty will not help legislation that would bring sweeping change to the United States’ immigration system. On Friday morning, Mr. Trump seemed to casually dismiss the delicate compromise.
“I’m looking at both of them,” Mr. Trump said on “Fox and Friends.” “I certainly wouldn’t sign the more moderate one.”
Senior aides in the White House quietly insisted that the president had misspoken, but it took hours for the White House to say that out loud.
Finally, early Friday evening, Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, issued a statement pledging Mr. Trump’s support for the compromise bill as well as for the hard-line measure, which is sponsored by Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia. Mr. Shah said the president’s opposition referred to an effort by moderate Republicans to use a so-called discharge petition to force the House to vote on narrower legislation to protect the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers.
“The president fully supports both the Goodlatte bill and the House leadership bill,” Mr. Shah said. “In this morning’s interview, he was commenting on the discharge petition in the House, and not the new package. He would sign either the Goodlatte or the leadership bills.”
It is unclear how much damage Mr. Trump’s comments had done — and whether Republicans will be satisfied with the assurance that the president does support the compromise.
“If he won’t sign it, we’ve got a major problem,” said Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida before the White House’s clarification. He is one of 23 Republicans who signed the discharge petition in an attempt to force immigration votes in the House.
