On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Senate Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) stated that he has learned lessons from his unsuccessful attempts to strike a deal with then-President Donald Trump on DREAMers back during Trump’s first term and he knows “you have to work directly with President-Elect Trump to get an agreement, and you’ve got to be sensitive to his priorities, as well as your own.”
Durbin stated [relevant remarks begin around 22:05] that he hasn’t talked with Trump’s transition team about the President-Elect’s comments on DREAMers, but he expects they’ll talk to him about nominees and he’ll bring the issue up then. Host Dana Bash then asked, “You actually got pretty close on this issue, back, I believe it was 2018. Are there lessons learned from that going forward?”
Durbin answered, “Oh, I learned some of them, but I’m not going to repeat them all at this moment. I will tell you that you have to work directly with President-Elect Trump to get an agreement, and you’ve got to be sensitive to his priorities, as well as your own. But I think what he said last Sunday is there’s room for conversation. I want to be there.”
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