“Look, I don’t think it’s a positive, honestly,” Mellman replied. “Executive action, I think, would not be a positive for those candidates.”

“But the reality is, there’s a lot more at stake here,” he added, claiming that comprehensive immigration reform is a vital task and must be accomplished one way or another.

“But as a strict matter of politics,” Wallace pressed. “If you’re going to do it, you’d rather have it after the midterms rather than before?”

“I would,” Melmann admitted. “But I do politics, not policy.”