DEMS/ICE/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump has gone on the attack against Democratic lawmakers who have called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, seeking to seize political advantage on an issue that has put him on the defensive for weeks and offer a winning message for Republicans facing a forbidding midterm election…The president encouraged Democratic candidates to embrace demands to dissolve the agency, saying that doing so would doom the party at the polls…The president spent part of his weekend at his New Jersey golf resort tweeting his support for the agency and its involvement in implementing his ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy, which resulted in more than 2,000 children separated from their families along the southwest border and prompted an outcry from Democrats and many Republicans. Mr. Trump also signaled during the interview that he would not back away from a brewing trade war between the United States and its allies, skewering trading partners and saying that he would wait until after the midterm elections to sign a new North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.”
–Emily Cochrane, “Trump Attacks Democrats on Calls to Abolish ICE,” The New York Times online, July 1, 2018