Former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday he was not running for president in 2020 and Democrats should give President Donald Trump the wall to save DACA because "I don't care about his political victory."
"If you had a wall that provided security that wasn't an absolute waste of money — meaning national security and the technical means to protect it, and all these kids had a path to citizenship — I'd be inclined to do that," Biden, 75, told Chris Cuomo on CNN.
"You'd give Trump the political victory in order to get the deal done?" Cuomo asked.
"I don't care about his political victory," Biden responded. "That's not how I view politics, whether or not it's a personal victory or not."
Nearly 700,000 young aliens are affected by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that is scheduled to expire March 5.
Democrats have insisted a permanent fix for DACA be part of any legislation to finance the government — and a stalemate over the issue in the Senate last month led to a two-day government shutdown.
The House passed a temporary spending bill Tuesday to keep the government open until March 23 and fund the Defense Department through September — and President Trump earlier called for another shutdown if Congress could not reach a deal to strengthen the nation's borders.
Biden, who retired in January after more than four decades on Capitol Hill, including 36 years in Congress and two terms in the White House, said the only thing Democrats needed to remain firm on in the DACA debate is preventing Trump from using the young illegals as "a bargaining chip."
"The American people overwhelmingly think the lives of these kids shouldn't be bargained for anything," he told Cuomo. "Just do it.
"Either do it or don't do it, but don't bargain their lives for a wall or for funding for a program.
"That is not the American way."
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