“The Art of the Deal” is the title of the best-selling book claimed by President Donald Trump but written by Tony Schwartz. Schwartz, a sharp critic of Trump, alleges that Trump neither contributed much to the manuscript nor, by all evidence, even read it. The publisher, former Random House head Howard Kaminsky, said, “Trump didn’t write a postcard for us!”
Nonetheless “our” president parlayed the myth into a paper fortune, adding glitter to his “brand” and eventually leading to the celebrity status that took him to the White House.
His latest artful deal is the negotiation over his wall. First, the Mexicans would pay for it. Then the latest trade deal would pay for it. Such “deals” never materialized, so he held the nation hostage, shutting down the government for the longest stretch in history and causing incalculable suffering to millions of families. Artful indeed.
Yielding to pressure, Trump re-opened the government by signing a short-term spending bill and gave a bipartisan conference committee several weeks to come up with a “deal” that would fund his wall — or else. Last week, the committee proposed legislation that fell far short of funding his wall.
Remarkably, the portion of the appropriation designated for “the wall” (about 50 miles of fence) is less than the offer made before the initial shutdown.
Here’s my best analogy: You’re offered a promotion at the college where you serve on the faculty. The dean promises a salary of $65,000, an increase of $5,000 over your current pay.
You have tenure and can’t be fired except for cause, so you set your jaw, stomp your feet and boycott classes for a month, causing your students to lose a semester’s credit.
You appeal to the Faculty Senate’s grievance committee, which conducts a binding arbitration hearing to resolve the dispute. The committee recommends to the dean that your salary be set at $55,000, an effective cut of 10 percent. You grudgingly accept, declaring that you’ll make it up with “other work.” So much winning.
Everything this man touches turns to fool’s gold.
The week offered additional hints of the ongoing Mueller investigation and a remarkable New York Times story reporting conversations in May 2017 among the highest ranking justice department officials about pressing for a 25th Amendment removal of Trump from office. Several weeks ago, the Times and others reported on a contemporaneous FBI investigation into the breathtaking possibility that Trump was an agent for the Kremlin.
So how are these elements of the Trump saga related?
Trump repeatedly denies “collusion” and any effort to obstruct justice. I believe him.
That’s not to say that there was no collusion or that justice has not been obstructed. But in his narcissistic bubble, a lifetime of artful dealing has been perfectly legal and he is genuinely stunned that he is under investigation. That’s because he has always functioned precisely this way — skirting the rules, bending the truth, manipulating the press, and consorting with low-life con men and shady operators. As did his father.
What we have here is a profoundly unscrupulous operator, not a traitor or a spy. He doesn’t have the courage, the ideological conviction or the competence to be a traitor or a spy.
Trump has been supported by Russians because he has no credit anywhere else. It’s just a “deal.” He wanted to build a tower in Moscow and needed financing and political approval from the Kremlin and Kremlin associates. Running for president was incidental. The Russians helped him win, but he only knew a bit of the scheme on the periphery and surely was not sophisticated enough to see it as anything more than another “deal.”
Paul Manafort joined the campaign because his desperate interests overlapped with Trump’s desire for a “deal.” Manafort wanted the sanctions lifted because he was paid millions by oligarchs to make it happen, and he needed the money. Trump didn’t and doesn’t care about the sanctions, except to the extent that lifting them would help him consummate his “deal” and protect any scrutiny of money laundering related to various other “deals.”
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Manafort deputy Rick Gates, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and others, like Trump business associate Felix Sater and Trump’s greedy children, were in on the “deals” for self-enrichment, not treason.
But, as Manafort, Cohen and others are discovering, entering into a “deal” with Donald Trump is risky business. Ask the hundreds of creditors who have been stiffed by the oft-bankrupted phony. The difference now is that an entire nation is at risk because of this artless, feckless dealer.
You may remember Trump’s repeated use of the snake parable in the 2016 campaign. Here’s a CliffsNotes version: Kind person takes in beleaguered snake. Snake eventually bites kind person. Kind person expresses surprise. Snake responds, “You knew I was a snake when you took me in.”
The only surprise is that anyone is surprised.
Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo., and Sharon. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@gmail.com.