Just pass DACA now

The art of bargaining with self-styled master dealmaker Donald Trump: realize that if his lips are moving, so are the goalposts. Any American who caught a key threeminute snippet of Tuesday’s meeting between the President and congressional leaders of both parties wound up more confused than when they started.

At immediate issue is a priority shared by Democrats, most Republicans and, supposedly, Trump: saving from imminent threat of deportation some 800,000 people brought here by their parents as minors. Time is of the essence. Per the President’s own executive order, DACA expires March 5.

Inquiring minds, including California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, wonder why, given widespread agreement and a looming deadline, the parties can’t just fix the problem.

So Feinstein asked Trump why Congress couldn’t pass a stand-alone DACA bill. He agreed — before, two blinks later, his right flank, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, said whoa.

No no, McCarthy said; Dreamers could only be saved from deportation if, at the very same time, Congress imposed robust border security. And ended chain migration.

Trump not only agreed with that, too; he added new conditions: Eliminate the visa lottery system, which he blames for terror attacks. And move wholesale toward “merit-based” immigration.

In other words, gum up what everyone agrees upon, and what must be solved by March, by cramming in a number of complex and contentious topics, which almost surely can’t be solved by March.

So to Trump, a bill to save the Dreamers should simultaneously be accompanied by nothing and almost everything. How is anyone supposed to negotiate with this man?