DW Opinion

President Trump Should Embrace His Pen And Phone Era

Time to double down.

Ben Domenech

After the shellacking Capitol Hill Republicans got on Tuesday, we're fully in President Trump's pen and phone era. He should embrace it.

He's certainly entertaining the other possibility. When the president called in to Fox News on the night of the election, he was asked a typical Washington question: will you be able to work with the new opposition majority?

Trump sounded a bipartisan note, saying that he'd be, of course, open to working with Democrats on some issues, not others – but he specifically cited immigration as an area where something could be done: "I can work with them on a lot of things. I mean, we can work with them on immigration, I think. Immigration is a big deal. I've always felt we should be able to work on immigration."

The president can obviously go down that road if he wants, but the lessons from his predecessors illustrate the advantages of taking a different path. When Barack Obama got the rebuff of the 2014 election, when Republicans won the Senate and expanded to their largest House majority since 1928, he essentially said: Who cares? Go pound sand.

Because it was Obama, the media praised him for the "pen and phone" approach to sidestep even having to work with these dirty Republicans. He signed DACA and DAPA extensions, preventing 4.5 million illegal immigrants from deportation. He pushed the Clean Power Plan and signed radical climate policies, did end runs around Congress to prop up Obamacare, pushed through wage hikes for federal bureaucrats, and signed executive orders on all manner of leftist priorities. He didn't stop being president just because he had to deal with Republicans down the street – he ignored them.

For Trump, this note of election night goodwill should be just that – a note. This new Democratic Congress shows all the signs of going on a vengeance tour against all of his Cabinet, his family, and his friends outside government for having the audacity to support him. These aren't people you should be working with on issues like immigration – they hate everything Trump's done on it, particularly on enforcing laws and securing the border. What kind of deal would you cut with people who don't believe the border should even exist?

Of course, you could argue Trump was already headed in this direction, even with technical control of Congress. His frustrations, particularly with Senate Leader John Thune, led to very little getting done in the past year – and now, with a majority that just wants to destroy him and his administration, he can do even less.

Gridlock is a typical, recognizable element of Washington, and there's no reason to expect anything different over the next two years. President Trump shouldn't fall for the temptation of a legacy-making step that undermines the whole reason voters sent him back to the White House in the first place.

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