Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer on Friday reiterated that President Donald Trump dropped his demand for the border wall in exchange for getting a deal done with the Dreamers.
Schumer, a guest on the podcast "Pod Save America," detailed his White House meeting with Trump and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, where they haggled over new legislation to protect the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients.
Schumer claims that by going "right back at him as a New Yorker," Trump dropped his demand for the border wall, repeating the assertion that he made after the meeting.
"And then he said he wants the wall in return. And we said, 'No, no wall Mr. President,'" Schumer said. "He tried that for about 15 minutes but he's not going to push me around verbally or any other way. And he finally said, 'OK, we won't do the wall. We'll do some other kind of border security.'
"They haven't negotiated much since then and he got a load of blowback from the right wing," said Schumer, citing criticism Trump got from conservative voices Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter along with the website Breitbart, which slugged the president "Amnesty Don."
"We're trying to get those negotiations going again, and I do think he wants to help the Dreamers, but I also think there's not many people around him who wanna get that done," Schumer said.
"But negotiating with him, what I find is I go right back at him as a New Yorker and he sort of seems to enjoy that," Schumer said.
Schumer was asked about the rumor that Trump likes talking to him more than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
"That's a low bar. Not that I say anything bad about Mitch, but he's a little quieter than me, shall we say," Schumer said. "I'm a New Yorker and I talk right at him. And I tell him where I think he's wrong."