Democrats are reportedly open to working with President-elect Donald Trump on fixing illegal immigration and the economy, Politico’s Lisa Kashinsky and Elena Schneider reported Thursday.
Trump’s landslide win is forcing Democrats to recalculate their previously combative attitude toward nearly all of his former initiatives.
Democrats “can no longer” ignore Trump’s popularity, according to the report, and are “plotting more cautiously open approaches to Trump.”
Trump appeared to want to solve the nation’s problems with Democrats, but following Trump’s win in 2016, the country remained politically divided because of the Democrats’ refusal to accept the election results. Democrats drummed up a number of hoaxes and tried twice to impeach him.
The attacks on Trump continued even after the 2020 election. His political foes tried to imprison him, bankrupt him, assassinate him, remove him from the ballot, and make him politically irrelevant by introducing a partisan committee to investigate January 6.
Democrats appear to be open to taking a different tack to Trump’s second administration, shellshocked after their sweeping losses in November.
Politico reported:
As they reckon with the ramifications of Trump’s resounding win, his mixed messaging on key issues is fueling uncertainty among Democratic leaders about how to adjust their approach to the president-elect as they prepare for him to return to power under markedly different political circumstances than in 2017 — when the energy and mandate, for Democrats, appeared clearer. Instead, in 2024, Trump’s unpredictability and the depth of their own losses is clouding their conversations about how to revamp their party’s broader messaging.
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In Washington, some Democratic lawmakers are opening lines of communication with billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk, who will soon be co-chief of gutting government spending. Others have praised some of Trump’s more mainstream Cabinet picks, with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who won reelection in a swing state the Republican carried, on Thursday expressing support for his nominee for transportation secretary, former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.). And they have attempted to find areas of commonality with one of Trump’s most controversial Cabinet selections, secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who was a Democrat for almost all of his life.
Meanwhile, in the states, governors threatening to “fight to the death” if Trump attempts to infringe upon their constituents’ rights are also pledging publicly and in private conversations with the president-elect to find ways to work with him on infrastructure and immigration. Attorneys general preparing to fight mass deportations in court are simultaneously vowing not to stand in the way of lawful immigration enforcement. And while Denver’s Democratic mayor, Mike Johnston, said he would be willing to go to jail to stop Trump from carrying out actions he believes are illegal, Eric Adams, his counterpart in New York City, sat down on Thursday with the incoming administration’s so-called border czar.
“The political reality is just different than 2017. He won the popular vote and the Electoral College, and a bunch of House [Democratic] members woke up after the election in Trump districts,” Ian Russell, a Democrat consultant, told Politico. “It’s not that Democrats are going to roll over, but you’re seeing Trump handled as a more conventional political opponent as opposed to the Donald Trump who we’ve been doing battle with for the last decade.”
“We’re not going to be the party of ‘no,’” North Carolina Rep. Robert Reives said “Question is: Does he really want to work on the issues, and is he willing to accept the help from Democrats?”
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.