President Trump knows the country will not reopen on May 1 or anytime like it. But instead of apologizing to the public for raising their hopes about packing church pews on Easter Sunday, he now laments on TV about the hard decision he has to make, the hardest in his life, and how he is evaluating the pros and cons, and praying to God for assistance and guidance.
To me, this is nothing new. I have watched him milk his “decisions” to see what he could get for himself by procrastinating. He would make both sides think he was on their side. He might even tell each of the parties being affected that he would come down in their favor, but they had to wait, he had to do this right.
Meanwhile, Trump would get favors and concessions from parties awaiting his decision. Then, in the end, when he absolutely had to, he would ceremoniously and very gravely say what he decided to do. It was always what he had already decided.
But Trump’s procrastination was not always so calculated.
I racked my brain trying to think of truly difficult decisions Trump has had to make and, believe it or not, I could not think of many. I remember having to decide whether or not to throw an electrical contractor off Trump Tower, costing millions. The alternative was to let this contractor stop us in our tracks by not properly manning the job.
We consulted the professionals but, in the end, the path had to be determined by Trump. Trump didn’t decide; I did, in response to him saying, “what do you want me to do?”
This made sense to me because the real decision was being made by Trump and it was the right one — to leave it up to me. I gave him cover.
But that was just money. Another time, we had a bomb threat. Someone called the main office and said there was a bomb in the Atrium at Trump Tower.
Trump got me and I called the police. I got ahold of some of the building people, too. The police asked a lot of questions then we took them through the Atrium, where they conducted a thorough search.
From their demeanor, it was clear they were not concerned. They said they were not recommending evacuation and that it was most likely a hoax, but that the decision to evacuate was up to Trump.
I reported everything back to Donald. We talked about evacuating and the risks in that and the strong police suspicion that it was a fake. I knew all along Trump was not going to empty the building.
I asked again and instead of giving me an answer, he said, “you decide.”
How dare he put me in this position? I didn’t want that responsibility. I told him what he wanted to hear: Keep it open. If I had thought for one second that there was any risk to life, I would have insisted on evacuating.
For many years, I grappled with the question of whether he would have emptied the building if that’s what I had recommended. Did he really abdicate his responsibility and put the lives of the people in the building in my hands? No, It was his decision. I was a scapegoat. I played that role many times.
This time, it’s not about whether to keep a property open when lives might be at risk. It’s about whether to reopen a nation, and how many people could be killed in the process. He has his experts. He will hide behind them and at the same time contradict himself by saying he made the decision on his own.
And he will find a scapegoat. Trump will always get to have it both ways as long as the American public is willing to withstand his trickery and his lies.
Res is former executive vice president of the Trump Organization.
President Trump, Deal Maker? Not So Fast
His 17 months in office have in fact been an exercise in futility for the art-of-the-deal president.
- No deal on immigration.
- No deal on health care.
- No deal on gun control.
- No deal on spending cuts.
- No deal on Nafta.
- No deal on China trade.
- No deal on steel and aluminum imports.
- No deal on Middle East peace.
- No deal on the Qatar blockade.
- No deal on Syria.
- No deal on Russia.
- No deal on Iran.
- No deal on climate change.
- No deal on Pacific trade.
.. Even routine deals sometimes elude Mr. Trump, or he chooses to blow them up.
.. “Trump is an anarchist,” said Jack O’Donnell, a former president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, who became a sharp critic. “It was his approach in business, it is his approach as president. It does not take good negotiating skills to cause chaos. Will this ever lead to concessions? Maybe, but concessions to what? Not anything that resembles a deal. I just do not see him getting much done.”
.. I don’t think it’s that counterintuitive to say that playing hardball will lead to better trade deals eventually,” said Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist and former aide to Mr. Trump.
.. We’ll see what the final outcome is, but it’s already a success just to get them to the table.”
.. the major tax-cutting package that passed late last year. But even that was negotiated mainly by Republican lawmakers, who said Mr. Trump did not seem engaged in the details.
.. And as legislative challenges go, handing out tax cuts without paying for them is not exactly the hardest thing that politicians do.
.. In effect, the agreement with Mr. Kim is like a deal to sell parts of Trump Tower without settling on a price, date, inspection or financing. It is not nearly as advanced as agreements that President Bill Clinton and Mr. Bush made with North Korea, both of which ultimately collapsed.
.. But no modern president has sold himself on the promise of negotiating skills more than Mr. Trump has. He regularly boasts that deals will be “easy” and “quick” and the best ever.
.. He has pulled out of Mr. Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, Paris climate accord and Trans-Pacific Partnership, but promises to negotiate better versions of those deal have gone nowhere.
.. Mr. Trump set his sights on what he called “the ultimate deal,” meaning peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. He said it was “frankly maybe not as difficult as people have thought.” A year later, his team is only now preparing to release a plan.
.. “What the president seemingly fails to understand is that in foreign policy and in trade policy — unlike in real estate transactions — the parties are all repeat players,”
.. “The country you insult or seek undue advantage over today you will have to work with again tomorrow.”
.. Mr. Trump’s approach so far has been to make expansive demands and apply as much pressure as he can. He argues that crushing sanctions he imposed on North Korea forced Mr. Kim to meet. He now hopes to extract concessions from China, Canada and Europe after slapping punishing tariffs on them.
.. “Trump is a bilateral player, in part because that’s what he is used to from his building days, but also because he keeps himself the king, the decider, the strongman,” said Wendy Sherman, who was Mr. Obama’s lead negotiator on the Iran nuclear deal. “In the case of North Korea, however, he wouldn’t have gotten this far — which isn’t all that far — without the South Koreans or the Chinese.”
.. When he gave up on immigration on Friday, he blamed it on Senate Democrats, even though the immediate impasse was among House Republicans who do not need the other party to pass a bill.
.. “Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November,”
.. It was in effect an acknowledgment by Mr. Trump that he cannot reach across the aisle and can only govern with Republicans.
.. the challenge on immigration is that the president has to grapple not just with Democrats but also with Republicans who do not share his philosophy on the issue.
.. Mr. O’Donnell, the former casino president, said Mr. Trump has always oversold his deal-making skills. The casino he managed, Mr. O’Donnell noted, brought in $100 million a year yet still went bankrupt.
.. “The fact is, Trump casinos should have been one of the greatest success stories in the history of casino gambling, but bad deal making caused him to lose all three properties,” he said.