Politico Article: The education of Donald Trump

As he [Trump] sat in the Oval Office last week, Trump seemed to concede that even having risen to fame through real estate and entertainment, the presidency represented something very different.

“Making business decisions and buying buildings don’t involve heart,” he said. “This involves heart. These are heavy decisions.”
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Perhaps the defining and unanswered question of the Trump presidency is what he truly believes in... No single day was more telling about the ambiguity of Trumpism than April 12. It was that day that Trump not-so-quietly reversed himself on at least four of his campaign promises. He canceled a federal hiring freeze imposed in his first week. He flipped on labeling China a currency manipulator. He endorsed the Export-Import bank that he had called to eliminate. He declared NATO relevant, after trashing it repeatedly on the campaign trail.

“I said it was obsolete,” Trump said. “It is no longer obsolete.”
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As Trump is beginning to better understand the challenges—and the limits—of the presidency, his aides are understanding better how to manage perhaps the most improvisational and free-wheeling president in history. “If you’re an adviser to him, your job is to help him at the margins,” said one Trump confidante. “To talk him out of doing crazy things.”
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White House aides have figured out that it’s best not to present Trump with too many competing options when it comes to matters of policy or strategy. Instead, the way to win Trump over, they say, is to present him a single preferred course of action and then walk him through what the outcome could be – and especially how it will play in the press.

“You don’t walk in with a traditional presentation, like a binder or a PowerPoint. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t consume information that way,” said one senior administration official. “You go in and tell him the pros and cons, and what the media coverage is going to be like.”
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MTAtech said:

[h=1]This is a telling article about the dysfunction in this White house.
The education of Donald Trump
[/h] The White House remains on a collision course between the president's fixed habits and the demands of his new job.

Some snippets:

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joG said:

Is there anyone here that is surprised that Trump is like Trump has always been? That he is just as unprepared as was evident? One would have to be a fool to be disappointed.

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MrPeanut said:

Is he completely locked down by the republican party yet? He has flipped on a lot of things, and the article seems to say that people have figured out how to handle him. I think populist Trump may be nearly gone at this point, with the exception of rhetoric.

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MTAtech said:

Trump was never populist. He has always been opportunist -- and seized upon the populist rhetoric to get elected. He never believed anything populist and the article indicates that Trump doesn't believe in much of anything at all except "winning" which doesn't include us winning, just his own ego.

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MTAtech said:

Still, 96% of Republicans that voted for him said they would do it again.

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ThoughtEx. said:

If I read this right, this guy is basically saying someone else goes over all the options, makes a decision and then writes it up pretty and walks Trump through it and as long as it plays well with the Press Trump signs off. Maybe we should just get the guy who actually does the work to be President...

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reinoe said:

Why are you harping on this 96% thing? Shouldn't you be outraged that the DNC lost an unlosable race? Why would Republicans have regrets given the opposition? If Republican choices are incurable brain cancer and treatable but unpleasant Ebola, people will choose ebola every time. Get over it.

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MTAtech said:

Your narrative is based upon the fictional narrative that HRC was the government equivalent, in your words, "incurable brain cancer." She wasn't. Not long before, she was named the world's most admired woman who actually understands issues, policy and facts. She would have continued Obama's legacy, which was pretty damn impressive.

But what happened (enabled by a media that did a poor job of undercutting the lies) was that constant personal attacks designed to falsely label her dishonest and in bed with Wall St., convince a segment of the voting public that they should instead vote for the guy who would later put to rest all doubt that he was dishonest, a profiteer, was going to put the same Goldman Sachs execs in high office that he ridiculed during the campaign -- and has proven by his numerous reversals that he knows nothing about the issues or polices.

Why I bring up the 96% that would still vote for him is knowing what we know now -- that Trump reversed almost all the positions he was elected on; double-crossed the down-on-their-luck rural voters by supporting a plan to shaft them out of health insurance; exhibits worse crony-capitalism and pay-for-play than he accused HRC; is using his office to line his pockets, etc., 96% of them would still vote for him over the lady who the worst thing about her was that she had her own email server.

Really, the differences should now be crystal clear. HRC would have not spent her time trying to take health care away from 24 million Americans but would have worked to add subsidies to the ACA to bring down deductibles and premium costs. Trump went there on the campaign trail and promised to 'bring their high-paying jobs back.' HRC went there and told them the truth -- that those jobs aren't coming back and she intends to retrain them for other industries that she will help promote. The coal miners weren't interested in the truth. They'd rather vote for the guy who told them what they wanted to hear. Now, after everyone knows that those jobs aren't coming back, these folks would still vote for this guy?

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reinoe said:

How sad. Can we just chalk you up to a person who will believe anything the MSM tells you? Who cares if Hillary was the most admired woman in the world? There could not be anything more irrelevant. Maybe Hillary should be campaigning to be president of the world instead of president of the U.S.

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MTAtech said:

You narrative is that the MSM can't be trusted. That narrative is absurd. The news that your side listen -- the Alex Jones and Breitbart sites are the fake news. The mainstream media, like the NY Times and the Washington Post, expend a great deal of effort with sometime called journalism, which is objective -- and that's why Trump and his cult don't like the MSM. They fact-check this president and report on all the statements that he spews that are factually incorrect -- that some call lies.

Meanwhile, you were lead to think by right-wing propaganda that HRC is the devil and thus you lead to voted for the con man who promised the working person much and then is double-crossing them.

While Obama quickly focused on enacting policies to stem and reverse the losses, such as the stimulus and the auto bailout, Trump hasn't done much except blame the wrong cause for a problem. What do I mean? He focuses on coal jobs, when coal jobs have been declining since 1950 -- and blames environmental regulation for that decline. The decline in coal jobs is largely due to improved technology and the rest is coal isn't the competitor to oil and gas the way it used to. Now, we have 75,000 coal jobs. The country lost 60,000 retail jobs just last month but Trump still thinks the focus should be on coal.

The Trump Admin falsely thinks that policies such as undoing environmental regulations and giving tax breaks to rich people and corporations are going to increase the number and quality of jobs. Those policies never have before and won't now.

But at least we didn't elected the lady with an email server.

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Barack Obama should not pick Hillary Clinton as his vice-presidential nominee, former president Jimmy Carter has told the Guardian.

"I think it would be the worst mistake that could be made," said Carter. "That would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates."

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reinoe said:

Here's what far right conservative extremist Jimmy Carter had to say about Hillary Clinton in 2008...
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Pacific Blues said:

What I love is how Trump keeps getting schooled by foreign leaders. A ten minute conversation with China's Xi Ping and Trump changes his position on Korea. A couple of phone calls from Justin of Canada and Enrique of Mexico and he changes his decision on NAFTA.
Man, what a trump.

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MTAtech said:

That was 2008. This was 2016: Jimmy Carter endorsed Hillary Clinton

If you are going to throw what someone once said in someone's face, it goes both ways.

Trump said just last year that he had a health care plan, that would cost a fraction, be better and cover everyone. Well, where is that plan? The one that he endorsed last most was nothing like that.

He said NATO was obsolete. NATO hasn't changed but Trump now says it isn't obsolete.

Trump immediately froze federal hiring and then within days, reversed himself.

Trump called China a currency manipulated. China didn't change. Then Trump backpedaled.

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reinoe said:

I am not interested in what Jimmy Carter had to say on Jun 26th 2016 when all opposition to her had been vanquished and nobody else was left standing and thus his opinion was irrelevant. When Jimmy Carter had a chance to make a recommendation when it mattered he urged Obama not to choose Hillary Clinton.

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MTAtech said:

You are the one who introduced Carter into this discussion. Now, when other things that Carter said undercuts your point, his words are suddenly unimportant.

Bringing Carter into this in the first place just indicates that even liberals' views about HRC were influenced by the right-wing attack machine, whether they knew it or not.

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