This is the picture of Peña I mentioned, that the CBC is going with for this story. You need to imagine that Peña has just been told that Trump is taking his symbolic invitation seriously, and the bombastic idiot will be arriving shortly! 
No way. He’s supposed to be a great deal maker. The best. Yet, on his first meeting with the Mexican president the central plank of his campaign will be shot down in flames. Mexico will never pay for any wall under any circumstances, and Trump can go to Hell. How will that boost his poll numbers?
Because:
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Nothing Trump says ever bears any relation to reality. His acolytes will judge him based on what he tells them about the meeting. It will be terrific. The best. Peña will be described as a great terrific guy who spent half the meeting complimenting Trump’s genius, and the rest of it cowering beneath Trump’s terrific deal-making.
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The mere fact that he formally met with a foreign head of state will give Trump gravitas with the larger base that he needs to start taking him seriously. I think this is really the big one – the image he wants.
As long as he doesn’t totally mess up. But since it’s a private meeting, and it’s not clear if there will be anything public happening in Mexico, he might be OK.
This should be very interesting.
ISTM, Nieto only comes out ahead if he is either (1) disrespected by Trump and takes it with dignity; or (2) disrespects Trump. If he just has a congenial meeting without significant news, then having taken the meeting is a big loss for him. Trump has a nearly identical set of victory conditions, except perhaps he doesn’t come out so far behind if the meeting is banal since it shows he can meet with a foreign leader without it leading to nuclear war.
So both men prefer that the other one do something disrespectful, but will disrespect the other as a last resort. Some kind of…standoff, I guess.
As I said earlier, it’s potentially a big deal for Trump because it gives him a chance to project an image which is much less anti-Mexican than what he’s been projecting until now, and possibly without conceding anything of substance.
I don’t know how many actual Mexican-American votes he can win over with this, but the bigger target is people who are not themselves Mexicans but are uncomfortable with bigots.
Because Trump will simply lie. He’ll say that Pena agreed to build the wall, and also personally come and mow Trumps’ lawn. When called on the lie, he’ll simply lie some more. His followers will love it.
Frankly I doubt Trump will flat out lie got a wall building agreement. He’s going to be very vague and say he had a great discussion and that Nieto was open to some of his ideas. Even his fans aren’t going to think a candidate is in any position to actually close an agreement with a foreign country.
I wonder if there would be any benefit to Clinton taking up Peña Nieto on his offer and paying him a visit. I think it might help her, if for no other reason than to avoid giving the impression that her strategy at this time is to run out the clock.
We all know that The Donald is a master of M&A. Perhaps Peña Nieto will propose a merger and point out that building the wall further south would be shorter and cheaper.
This election season is so weird…
Our thoughts and prayers are with the Mexican people today.
Surprising ballsy considering the situation.
Has he gone yet? When is he due back for his big speech? Oh, and WTF?
It’d be great if the “ok” sign he’s always making meant “fuck you” in Mexico.
Say, he knows that he can’t get candy by beating a Peña Nieto with a stick, right…?
Whoa…! Don’t light a Match…!
Given all that he is to The People of Mexico, couldn’t we call this holiday “The Day of the Zed”…?
Post-conference press release:
President Pena Nieto and Mr. Trump had a frank and open exchange of views. And they already had the black eyes when they got here.
While there’s no doubt Trump would lie, we won’t be able to prove it because it’s a closed meeting. But Trump has a history of being vague enough to let his audience fill in the blanks.
“You won’t believe what my detectives found in Hawaii!” (About Obama’s birth certificate–nothing else need be said.)
Before he did finally say that Obama was the co-founder of ISIS, Trump hinted that there was something else Obama knew, or did, or something.
Mrs. Khizr Khan wasn’t “allowed” to speak at the DNC. I don’t know, you tell me.
And his followers love it.
We’ll see. I highly doubt that we will see significant movement in the polls because of this highly desperate move. The fact that Trump can lie about it isn’t going to move the needle above the ~38% he’s currently, and has been, polling at.
And difficult for Clinton to respond? Really? The ex Secretary of State, with her old boss still in the White House and still on her side… she’s going to find it difficult to respond?
Again, I doubt that. The response has already begun and it’s making its way through channels. Obama to Mexican Ambassador: “You make sure that Nieto understands that Trump is a private American citizen, with no backing of this administration, so he can feel free to be as rough on him in a diplomatic fashion as he cares to be. Also, those concessions he wants from us? Tell him…”
Trump isn’t going to come out of this looking like a President, he’s going to come out of it looking like an idiot. And it’s irrelevant if his supporters believe his lies or not - they are nowhere near numerous enough to win this election as poll, after poll, after poll, states.
Thinking about the logistics. Apparently going to Mexico was a spur of the moment decision on Trump’s part. Because he is a party nominee, aren’t a bunch of security personnel required to accompany him? If so, how where they able to make all these arrangements so fast?
You got to hand it to him for putting this trip together. We don’t need no stinking script!
I am just so amazed he was able to pull this off.
Can’t wait to hear Trump’s blonde bimbo’s take on the meeting…
“Trump has informed us that the wall construction will begin the Monday after the election, fully paid for by the Mexicans. It will only need to be three feet high as Mexico has promised that no one would try and climb it”
The Mexican press reports…
When asked how the US would deport 11,000,000 illegal aliens if there was a wall, Trump responded, " Believe me, it have lots of gates and passages, lots of gates, lots of passages, gates and passages, lots of them, you’re going to love it, it will be beautiful."