On Wednesday morning, White House cooks were flipping steaks and unboxing popcorn machines ahead of the yearly congressional picnic. Within the hour, the picnic was scrubbed, the steaks on ice, and the popcorn machines trucked away.

A day earlier, President Donald Trump enthusiastically told House Republicans in the Capitol basement he was behind them "1,000%" in their attempts to pass an immigration bill. On Friday he dismissed the effort as a waste of time.

Speaking to reporters as the humanitarian crisis worsened, Trump brushed away a question about his options: "You can't do it through an executive order," he said on the North Lawn. Five days later, he sat at his desk in the Oval Office attempting to do just that.

"You're going to have a lot of happy people," he said optimistically as he applied his sawtooth signature.

The result was pandemonium.

In defense of his policy, Trump felt emboldened to repeat mistruths and outright lies, day after day, during extended and mostly improvised television appearances.

The aide most identified with Trump's hardline stance, Stephen Miller, has drawn barbs from colleagues who accuse him of overseeing what amounted to a chaotic mess.



https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/23/politics/donald-trump-immigration-week-chaos/index.html

Trump to the press: We can't correct this we don't have the votes and it can't be done by executive order.

Next day he signs executive order, which was also overkill since a simple phone call to Sessions would have ended this.