Why Trump Doesn’t Care About House Republicans

Originally published by Slate

Last week, President Trump spoke about his intention to eliminate birthright citizenship via executive order. It didn’t get a great reception. Trump’s ability to eliminate an established constitutional protection through presidential writ was immediately rejected not just by constitutional experts but by Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan as well.

“Well, you obviously cannot do that,” Ryan said in a radio interview one week before Election Day. “You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order.”

The president didn’t waste much time throwing his ally of convenience to the wolves. “Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about!” Trump tweeted. “Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border!”

There was much more to this spitting match than an academic dispute over the president’s constitutional authority. The kerfuffle exposed a point of tension between House Republican leaders, who are scrambling to preserve their majority (or at least limit the Democrats’ majority), and the president, who is using immigration as a wedge issue, primarily to keep the Senate and thereby save himself face.

Since the moment he got word that a “caravan” of poor migrants fleeing violence in Central America was heading (very, very gradually) toward the United States border to request asylum, the president’s messaging has been laser focused on a dystopian, racist, and lie-ridden portrayal of immigration horrors to come. He has directed the Defense Department to send troops to the border, as a stunt, and warned that the migrants might throw rocks at the troops. He has tweeted racist ads implying that the so-called caravan is filled with violent criminals and argued (“argued”) that this is what Democrats want. He says, with no evidence, that terrorists have embedded themselves within the caravan, while his henchmen on cable news take the alarmingly racist next step of suggesting the caravan will bring smallpox and leprosy into the country.

There are two compelling explanations for why cranked-up immigration fearmongering is the president’s exclusive closing message. The first, and most obvious, is that it’s the only thing the president knows how to do. He does not know how to persuade undecideds, only how to rile up his base, and conspiratorial shrieking about nonwhite immigrants is the president’s “signature issue.”

But if we’re feeling generous and granting Trump strategic motives, the second explanation is the president is using immigration to ensure he’ll have a branch to hold onto if the blue wave crashes over him.

That branch is the Senate. Recognizing a few weeks ago that the prospects for the House were slim, the president turned his focus almost explicitly to the Senate. Senate Democrats are defending a lot of deep-red turf this year, and ensuring maximal Republican base turnout should be enough to allow Republicans to keep, and quite likely increase, their control of the chamber. The immigration kookery, though, may well be having the opposite effect in House battlegrounds. This explains why Paul Ryan, rarely one to chastise the president in public, would be willing to challenge his birthright-citizenship position just before Election Day. As Politico reported, Ryan called the president on Sunday urging him, per Politico’s paraphrase, to “please, please talk up the booming economy in the final hours before Election Day.” Trump told Ryan he’d prefer sticking to immigration.