This week in OnPolitics: Deal or no deal

Happy Friday, OnPolitics readers. Let’s take a moment to flash back to the mid-2000s, when a phenomenon swept over the nation: a game show during which contestants chose cases in search of the one holding $1 million. Basically, you narrowed down your options and decided whether you would take a deal from “the banker.”

It’s all a game of probability. If there’s a good possibility that you can do better than the deal you’re being offered by the banker, then you push forward. And vice versa: If you don’t think you can do better, you take what’s being offered.

Which leads us into this week’s roundup, for what we hope are obvious reasons.

Deal: Take a chance on me

President Trump is *this close* to a deal with Congress over providing protections for DREAMers. How close are we talking? Close enough that the president appears to be willing to put a hold on one of his biggest campaign promises, The Wall, if they can get it done.

“The wall will come later,” the president said Thursday.

Of course, the president and Democrats can’t agree on what they agreed on, so we don’t know exactly what is and isn’t on the table. But some Trump supporters are burning mad and Ann Coulter is calling for impeachment, so you can take a guess at where everyone at least thinks this is heading.

No deal: If you’ve got no place to go

Another (temporary) win for the Trump administration: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court blocked a decision that would have expanded the number of refugees exempted from the president’s controversial travel ban. Basically, back in June, SCOTUS ruled that travelers with “bona fide” relationships with U.S. persons or entities could travel to the country for now. A lower court last week decided that definition included grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Still, the bigger case is still ahead, when the court will hear the broader constitutional challenge against the ban.

Deal: Gonna do my very best and it ain’t no lie

We’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about Frank Gaccio. Young Frank wrote to the president and asked to mow his lawn. The White House took Frank up on his offer this week. The 11-year-old came with his father on Friday to water plants in the Rose Garden and rev up the lawn mower. He was so focused on the task at hand that when Trump himself tried to tell Frank he was doing a good job, Frank just mowed right past him. You can’t help but admire the dedication.

 

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