Dealmaking mirage

If the absence of any signature legislation is an indication, the dealmaking skills that propelled Trump’s career in real estate and reality television have not translated well to government.

  WaPo

He didn't make deals even when he was a dealmaker. He just sold his name and pushed people around.

Tony Schwartz, a longtime student and now critic of Trump who co-wrote the mogul’s 1987 bestseller “The Art of the Deal,” said Trump’s dealmaking modus operandi is, “I am relentless and I am not burdened by the concern that what I’m doing is ethical or truthful or fair.”

[...]

“That’s a brutal environment in which misdirection and bullying and making one offer and changing it later are all common practice.”

[...]

“The expectation that you will stand by what you said you would do is higher in politics than it is in the cutthroat world of real estate,” Schwartz added.

But barely.

“We’re not getting the job done,” Trump said last Monday at his Cabinet meeting. “And I’m not going to blame myself, I’ll be honest.

Yeah. We know. "They are not getting the job done."

Indeed, Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) emerged from a September dinner with Trump thinking they had a deal with the president to back legislation protecting undocumented immigrants, known as “dreamers,” who were brought to the United States as children.

But in October, the Trump administration released a list of hard-line principles that effectively derailed any such deal.

In so many cases, it's a matter of who talks to him last.

The president boasted this past week of being able to easily pass tax legislation this fall, even though a bill has not been introduced.

He also bragged about easily repealing Obamacare. He brags about everything.

“I think we’re going to have the votes for taxes,” Trump said Friday in an interview with the Fox Business Network. “And I will say, the fact that health care is so difficult, I think, makes the taxes easier."

Brilliant. What a grasp he has on politics.

“Our Republican colleagues are going to have to realize, if they want to get something done, they can’t follow his erratic path,” Schumer said. “They have to lead him, not follow him.”

You can't lead him. You just need to lock him out.

“Trump is motivated by the same concern in all situations, which is to dominate and to be perceived as having won,” Schwartz said. “That supersedes everything, including ideology.”

[...]

Schwartz said playing to Trump’s ego, as Graham has with his golf compliments, is an effective way to manage him. His advice to those seeking to make deals with Trump: Find the most persuasive way to portray one’s agenda as a personal victory for the president, and be the last person to talk to him.

Bingo.

And so Trump has been forced to remind the country that elected him, sort of, that he does in fact possess a keen intellect. “I went to an Ivy League college. I was a nice student. I did very well. I’m a very intelligent person,” he stated, by way of correcting the false accounts of many people who have worked with him and concluded otherwise.

Trump has had to issue this reminder on numerous occasions: “I went to the Wharton School of Business. I’m, like, a really smart person.” (July 2015); “I’m, like, a smart person.” (December 2016); “Trust me, I’m, like, a smart person.” (January 2017); plus, of course, this classic from July 2016:

“Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged. …”

  Daily Intelligencer

He's disadvantaged because he's got the mind of a spoiled two-year-old. I'm not sure in what way he's "like" a smart person. If you have to keep telling people you're smart, you're probably not.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.