As the noon deadline arrived Monday, the answer came from way at the back of the Trump playbook, deep in the dog-eared pages worn thin during the Atlantic City gory days of recurring Art of the Deal bankruptcies.

“We’ll pay half!”

For an administration that absorbs regular and appropriate criticism for trying to rewrite history, it went against impulse this week by providing a teachable reminder from the days of the president’s flash-and-crash boardwalk empire. Immediately, 42 million Americans getting food stamps, nearly 40% of them children, understood completely what it was like to be a contractor working for Donald Trump in the ‘90s.

That money you thought you were getting, the money you were counting on?

“We’ll pay half!”

Trumpian playbook

A weekend of intense legal wrangling th

See Full Page