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Throughout Donald Trump’s first term as president, people around him to came to realize that if their voice was the last one he heard, their preferred position was likely to prevail. It’s easy to understand why.
Trump has never been interested in the substance of policymaking, and he’s never had much of a governing vision, so officials learned that when the White House reached a fork in the road, the president tended to agree with whomever he spoke to last.
Five months into the Republican’s second term, this dynamic hasn’t changed at all. The Washington Post reported:
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday told staff that it was reversing guidance issued last week that agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants — a decision that stood at odds with President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations of anyone without legal status.
According to the Post’s report, which hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials started the week with a telephone meeting with field offices, directing agents to “continue conducting immigration raids at agricultural businesses, hotels and restaurants,” despite the opposite guidance last week.
If you’re thinking that this bouncing ball has been tough to follow, you’re not alone.
Last week, White House border czar Tom Homan said the administration would intensify its campaign of targeting undocumented immigrants at U.S. worksites, adding that enforcement operations “are going to massively expand.” A day later, Trump went in the opposite direction, conceding that his mass deportation agenda was hurting farmers and the domestic hospitality industry and vowing “changes.”
Soon after, the White House said the administration’s policies wouldn’t change. Soon after that, the administration’s policies did change, and ICE was directed to pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry and at hotels and restaurants.
Four days later, the pause — a reversal of an earlier White House policy — was itself reversed.
Officials haven’t offered an explanation for the erratic swings, though if recent history is any guide, it’s likely that someone swayed the president in one direction last week, before a different member of his team gained access to his ear and swayed him in the opposite direction soon after.
In a Monday post on Trump’s meandering policy, I asked, “What will the White House’s agenda look like in another day or two?” Little did I know that just 13 minutes later, the administration would direct ICE to disregard the guidance agents had received late last week.
In a functional and well-run administration, mercurial shifts like these don’t happen. On Team Trump, however, they happen far too often, on far too many issues.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.