GOP rep: Trump’s negotiating style somewhat like a ‘pinball machine’

A Republican congressman is comparing President Trump’s negotiating tactics to “a pinball machine” because his moves don’t typically travel in “a straight line.”

“It’s totally not on a straight line,” Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) told The Washington Post. “It’s zigzagging, something like a pinball machine. But he does move [the ball] down.”

{mosads}King’s comments come after Trump hosted a bipartisan group of lawmakers for a televised meeting on guns last week. During the gathering, Trump expressed support for certain gun control measures, including raising the minimum age requirement to purchase weapons like the AR-15 to 21. 

But skeptics were quick to point out that while the president took a diplomatic tone in the meeting, he took a similar approach to immigration, an issue that has also screeched to a halt in Congress.

“I’m sorry to say, I found the president to be totally unreliable when it came to the DACA issue,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told the Post, referring to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects certain immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

“It really suggests that his effectiveness is compromised as long as his word is unreliable,” Durbin added.