Conservative radio talk-show host Steve Deace on Thursday ripped President Donald Trump for an alleged deal to protect illegals brought to the United States as children, cautioning Democrats to tread carefully and quoting Confucius about men sleeping with dogs.
"I would urge them, based on the last two years, to tread very carefully with Donald Trump," Deace, the Iowa radio host, told Brooke Baldwin on CNN, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
"As Confucius says, 'Men who lay down with dogs wake up with fleas."
Trump said Thursday that he was "fairly close" to a deal with congressional leaders to protect as many as 800,000 young people affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that began in 2012 under executive order by former President Barack Obama.
Schumer and Pelosi announced an agreement late Wednesday after dinner with the president at the White House — saying that it excluded a wall on the southern U.S. border, a key Trump campaign pledge — but Republican leaders said Thursday that the meeting was only the start of discussions on border security.
Deace said the alleged deal proved that Trump was returning to his longtime Democratic roots.
"I don't blame a guy who spent his entire life as a Democrat, supporting Democratic causes, being a product of the Democrat media, sitting there in Democratic New York City," he told Baldwin.
'Water eventually returns to its own level, so I'm not shocked by this," he added. "He's much more at home with people like this.
"What Trump is proving is you can go home again."