VIDEO - On MSNBC, Coons said, "I'm worried about how to solve real problems and my gut is at the end of the day, that is what people are looking for in a next national leader as well."
Sen. Coons joined MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt to discuss the path forward on DACA.
“What appeals to our base for some primary several years from now is not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about how to solve real problems and my gut is at the end of the day, that is what people are looking for in a next national leader as well. So, for my colleagues who are hoping that they might be on the ticket in 2020, I don’t think simply moving further and further to left is the best way to accomplish that. I think showing we can solve big problems is the way to encourage people to believe that Democrats belong in control of the Congress and back in the White House,” said Sen. Coons.
“If he can just let the Senate be the Senate, let us work together for two weeks and find a solution, I think in the end, he might be on the path to sign into law something that gets the border security investment that he wants and he ran on, and a solution to the DACA problem that he says he also wants.”
On reopening the government:
Well, I think a piece of it was that you had 15 and then 20 and then 25 senators, Democrats and Republicans, spending hours together over the last few days being direct, being honest, listening to each other about how we move forward.
Part of it, yes, was talking about how do we get a pathway towards resolving DACA, the Dreamer status, how do we allow the young people part of the community to have a path toward citizenship and invest in border security. But the bigger conversation was about how do we fix the Senate and do appropriations bills on time, where we don’t have a whole menu of programs like community health centers or children’s health insurance or disaster relief or defense funding that’s been waiting and waiting for month after month which is where we were last Friday. After the weekend spent together, we had more trust than expected and that allowed us to agree it was worth risking reopening and then working hard together on a solution.
On next steps:
I’m hopeful that President Trump is saying to them, folks, I may have run as a hardline anti-immigrant candidate but to govern as president, I need to bring people together and find a bipartisan solution. And I hope he’s preparing them for the fact that if we get a bipartisan bill out of the Senate, the President will embrace it. That may not be what is happening. My new year’s resolution was to be hopeful. It’s a very rosy picture. But they may inspire the President to do the opposite. To engage in a hard-edged way that will make this debate much more difficult.
Just two weeks ago, we saw that division, the same President on Tuesday bringing in a bipartisan group, said we need to solve this issue and -- I think he said I want to sign a bill of love. And then Thursday Trump, after talking to the hardliners in a famously vulgar exchange, trashed the whole thing and created the crisis that led to this weekend’s shutdown. If he can just let the Senate be the Senate, let us work together for two weeks and find a solution, I think in the end, he might be on the path to sign into law something that gets the border security investment that he wants and he ran on, and a solution to the DACA problem that he says he also wants. But if he divides the Senate again, it will be very difficult for us to make progress.
On Trump:
I pray and hope that he wants to be a successful President and I think to be successful he has to have a Congress that takes up and tackles big issues rather than a divisive President who merely inflames the worst instincts in the American people.
On the Democratic Party:
I know what the people of Delaware asked me to do overwhelmingly, which is to come here and try to find solutions. I spent a huge amount of time this weekend meeting with and listening to individual senators, Republicans and Democrats, and then with a larger and larger group of Republicans and Democrats.
What appeals to our base for some primary several years from now is not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about how to solve real problems and my gut is at the end of the day, that is what people are looking for in a next national leader as well. So, for my colleagues who are hoping that they might be on the ticket in 2020, I don’t think simply moving further and further to left is the best way to accomplish that. I think showing we can solve big problems is the way to encourage people to believe that Democrats belong in control of the Congress and back in the White House.
On an immigration bill:
As you know all too well, five years ago a group of us worked for an enormous amount of time, I was a more junior senator, I was on the Judiciary Committee, and we had a three-week long markup and passed a big immigration reform bill, it got 68 votes, Republicans and Democrats. Went to the House and they never took it up. It just died.
And by the way, ironically back then dealing with DACA, dealing with Dreamers was seen at the easiest of all of the hard issues. So, that this is now the hardest issue suggests just how far the politics have moved. It will be very difficult for Speaker Ryan to put a bill on the floor without the majority of his caucus unless he has support from the President. And with support from the President, he can do this. And if he doesn’t, he can’t. So, the President will decide two or three weeks from now, does he want to lead the country and solve big problems.
Millions of people voted for him believing that is who he would be as President and at times he has shown some skill in that. And at times he’s shown the exact opposite.