No. of Recommendations: 13
A deal was close until Diane Feinstein blew it up
She didn't blow it up. They got to a bipartisan deal. Even your own link says that. She made the Democrats' opening ask, and when that (predictably) didn't get accepted they moved on to deal-making.
That bipartisan deal-making continued, and two days later the "Gang of Six" had reached a tentative agreement around a bi-partisan deal.
What "blew it up," of course, was what often blows these deals up. There's a non-trivial cohort of Republicans that are immigration hardliners - and when Stephen Miller and John Kelley realized that Trump might sign off on a immigration deal, he brought them in to convince Trump to blow up the deal:
When Durbin and Graham arrived at the Oval Office, they were surprised to find immigration hard-liners from the Senate—Republicans McCarthy, Tom Cotton, David Perdue, and Bob Goodlatte—also in attendance. The White House summoned the conservatives at the last minute, according to the Post, because Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief immigration adviser, and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly objected to the bipartisan agreement.
Trump’s mood had darkened since his phone call with Durbin. He rejected Durbin and Graham’s deal, saying it didn’t include enough money for a border wall. And in a discussion of merit-based immigration, the president insulted African countries using vulgar language and suggested that immigrants from countries such as Norway should be admitted instead, according to the Post.
Overall, the meeting was “short, tense, and often dominated by loud cross-talk and swearing,” Democrats and Republicans told the Post—the complete opposite of the Tuesday meeting. Graham and Durbin left feeling shaken. “Tuesday we had a president that I was proud to golf with, call my friend, who understood immigration had to be bipartisan,” Graham lamented during a Senate hearing. “I don’t know where that guy went, but I want him back.”
That's from your link, BTW.
