Your favorite president: President Deals

The 800,000 federal workers who are expected to miss their second paycheck in the coming days are the most extreme example yet of a negotiating tactic President Trump has used repeatedly since taking office.

He creates — or threatens to create — a calamity, and then insists he will address the problem only if his adversary capitulates to a separate demand.

Trump has described this approach as creating leverage and negotiating, but Democrats and other opponents have said it amounts to “hostage taking.”

“It’s sort of like bartering with stolen goods,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday.

[...]

He imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from a host of nations, saying it was necessary to force changes in other countries’ trade practices. He threatened to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement if Canada and Mexico didn’t agree to a new trade deal, a move that potentially could have crippled both of their economies.

[...]

It is a well-worn tactic from Trump’s business career, but this is the first time the livelihoods of so many U.S. workers and households have hung in the balance as a result of it.

“It’s a Trumpian way of negotiating,” longtime friend Larry Kudlow told a radio interviewer last year before joining the White House. “You knock them in the teeth and get their attention. And then you kind of work out a deal.”

  WaPo

Unfortunately, his aim is bad, and he knocked 800,000 unsuspecting, innocent people in the teeth.

[C]onsumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level of Trump’s presidency, and a growing number of federal workers are expressing exasperation at being required to continue working without pay.

Many have visited food banks and are accepting free meals, while others have begun selling possessions online and are bracing for mortgage payments due next week.

[...]

Presidents typically rely on the federal workforce to keep the government open, seeking to protect them from partisan fights. But Trump has told advisers he thinks the shutdown gives him the leverage he needs to force the appropriation of money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He thinks Democrats will back down before he is forced to.

How's that going?

Trump often talks about leverage and power in private meetings with aides. He has said he uses these tactics to make sure “everyone else has to come to the table,” according to a person who has heard his comments and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s strategy.

How's that going?

“Trump is running the shutdown as a reality television producer,” said Dan Eberhart, a prominent Republican donor. “The problem is he was hired to run a government, grow an economy and protect a country, not be a successful producer.”

One foreign diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal how some foreign leaders perceive Trump, said the U.S. president at first unnerved European leaders and scared them with his rhetoric. “Now you just know what he’s going to do and you kind of shrug it off. You can’t totally ignore him because he’s the president of the United States. But he doesn’t scare people like he used to.”

[...]

Trump did not initially plan on forcing the government shutdown. McConnell and Ryan thought they had persuaded him to sign a government spending bill that did not include money for a border wall just days before government agencies would run out of money.

But he reversed course two days before funding was scheduled to lapse, under pressure from conservative activists, and decided to employ his leverage strategy for the first time with Congress. Several White House officials said there was no game plan for what to do next, and they had to come up with a plan after the shutdown began.

“This guy is not really good at thinking his way out of the problem,” said Timothy Naftali, a clinical associate professor of public service at New York University. “He just ups the ante and hopes the pain he causes others pushes them beyond their pain threshold.”

[...]

The shutdown has caused even more GOP angst, but Republicans have largely followed the president’s lead, with a majority saying his latest offer to Democrats is sufficient to win their support.

Yeah, how'd that work out?

Trump’s critics think he will use this same tactic again in a few months, when lawmakers must decide whether to raise the debt ceiling or risk having the government default on its debts.

Something to look forward to.



Bingo.

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