i m sorry? that s what you just said about secretary duke, testimony you gave is the president s opinion of her as well? yes, he s happy with the job she s done as acting secretary. george? it was said that the immigration principles being floated out there would be harmful to daca and it should be kept separate from any discussion about legal immigration. what is the white house response to that? are you guys committed to attaching legal immigration we want to make sure whatever we put forward is a responsible immigration reform and not one piece of this process dealt with separately. we need to make sure we re addressing all of the problems so we re not dealing with this again in 2, 4, 5, 6 years but putting forward a thorough a full plan and that s what you ll see coming from the administration in very short order. fred? thanks, two questions.
house speaker john boehner is trying to shame has his republican colleagues into taking action on immigration reform. this was his characterization last night of some of the resistance he s facing on the sensitive issue. here s the attitude. oh, don t make me do this. oh, this is too hard. the speaker and other leaders offered a set of immigration principles in january, but rank and file members balked at moving ahead. indianapolis is ground zero, the national rifle association conference is there. bigger and glitzier than
yanks of the invitation? i m not as optimistic as the set up. i read it slumply. when the president asks for a meeting, you accept it. i think that s still true, even with this current republican congress and current congressional leadership. i don t foresee necessarily it resulting in any legislative breakthrough unless i m missing something. the republican leadership put together immigration principles, for instance, not too long ago and was force to do walk away from it, happening a couple years after that. so it doesn t look like we ll have a fairly productive legislative colonel darn in the year ahead, but later today senate mine orth leader mitch mcconnell said it was not going to happen this year. it doesn t look like it s going to be much. i think the key think is they said they could work together. the question is, is there any mutually agreed upon issue? david, in that laundry list
investigations that are still in progress and could yield more information down the line. let s talk about immigration. reform on that front seems to have stalled again. here is speaker boehner on thursday. will s widespread doubt whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws. it is going to be difficult to move any immigration legislation million that changes. so the speaker was citing a lack of trust in the obama administration. but is that the only reason for this roadblock to immigration reform? no, it is not. certainly speaker john boehner came out last week with immigration principles that he believes the republican party could rally around. though were immediately attacked by conservative outside groups like freedom works and heritage action and these are grassroots organizations that have a lot of clout with primary voters, very conservative members of the republican base who they believe do not want immigration reform
warning. what s the subtle warning? well, president obama is taking a carrot and stick approach. the carrot is the republicans look very nice, i can work with you on this but on the other hand he s leaving the door open to executive action. he s been hinting recently in interviews that should congress fail to act on immigration, there may be some options available to him that he can take as president. and the one that republicans are very worried about is that he might slow or halt deportations for large groups of undocumented immigrants. he s already done this for dreamers or young, undocumented immigrants. they are concerned that they may issue a similar waiver because he s been pushing for immigration activists to do so. so there is this implication, yes, i may be patient to work for you but just so you know there may be options. sabrina, i want to bring you in. you say that republicans kept the language of the immigration principles pretty vague.