There was a historic immigration deal being negotiated between the GOP, led by Trump, and the Democrats as late as last week, with both sides angling for a wish list that included funding for the Southern border wall and some kind of legal relief for those under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

That morphed over the last two days into a new story for the press to clutch their pearls over because, as we’ve all been told 800,000 times, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says President Donald Trump used a dirty (possibly racist) word to describe some of the countries of origin of the immigrants that come to America. The press, of course, less interested in the actual potential deal and more interested in if Trump is a foul-mouthed hater, filled the news cycle with the dirty word in question and today Durbin got rewarded with a new nickname.

Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018

I can’t comment on whether or not Trump uttered the word in question — or some variant thereof, which seems to be the new debate. I simply don’t know. I wasn’t there. (The choice of words, if Durbin is telling the truth, is cringeworthy but probably not outright racist. But then, I’m from the South so I’ve grown accustomed to beltway people, many of them lefties, telling me what a “blankety-blank” place Georgia is, and how my accent makes me sound stupid, etc., without seeing anything wrong with it. I’m not sure how this is different. But I digress.)

The truth is, no one really cares if Trump said what they think he said. His rhetoric is not the point. The point is the distraction from the deal, and there are lots of layers in this Distraction Cake, enough to keep the press filling their bellies and chryons for some time to come.

Trump is absolutely correct that Durbin, intentionally or not (but who are we kidding?), sabotaged the proceedings. How do you let Dicky back in the door if you can’t trust him not to run to the press with details of what he’s hearing. Add to that those details will be presented in the worst possible light and you can all but guarantee Dicky won’t be asked back to the adult’s table.

That left Trump declaring that Democrats really don’t want a deal on DACA. 

DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2018

If DACA dies, Democrats have someone to blame for the uncertainty and probable panic from the DREAMers as their immigration status changes when the next DACA time limit expires in March. And that is very likely what Dicky was after.

Which means, and I hope I’m wrong (but I don’t think I am) that Democrats don’t really care much about the actual people relying on DACA as much as they care about playing politics with President Trump and trying to make him look like a racist, while also branding the GOP as silent co-conspirators.

Clever. Morally reprehensible, but clever.

Maybe we can add “Tricky” to the front of Durbin’s new nickname.