Trump Tangles with the WSJ Editors

Definitely worth a read.

If you can control for Trump's weird speaking style, he actually does a really good job IMO.

Many people who shriek about his relationship with authoritarian leaders like Putin and Xi have no idea how such negotiations should go and would get eaten alive by those guys--or start WWIII. The chattering class thinks it knows everything and can do everything. They have no respect at all for domain-specific practical knowledge of the kind people like Trump bring to bear.

   Of course I, uh, don't know anything about it either...so...

   But his approach sounds pretty damn reasonable to me.

   Democrats want him to hate those guys (well, not Xi...that would be raziztz...). Trump seems to try to be as friendly as possible with them while still being tough in negotiations...and leveraging the fact that they think he's a little crazy. I don't know anything about that world either, but, again, sounds reasonable. Adding personal animosity to the picture isn't going to gain us any advantage.

   Noonan asked him about his weirdo fascist-seeming talk about using the military against "the enemy within." Trump says something inscrutable then wanders off into talking about his polling numbers. Noonan refocuses him, and he says that of course he meant that he might have to use them against (leftist) rioters--and that's all he meant. Well, that's what I thought he meant...but the problem is having a Presidential candidate that says unclear things about such things. And gets distracted when asked to clarify. You want someone who won't say such things, and who says, loud and clear, when asked, that he'd never use the military against ordinary, peaceful Americans. Well, that's what one wants...

   He also sounds very reasonable about illegal immigration. We have to deport--true. Unquestionable, in fact. But there will be tough cases and, as he says, "interests of the heart." We won't be able to deport all of them, he says--but as he also says, he can't sound too nice about it or more people will come. Some of the most reasonable things I've heard a candidate--or a President--say in quite some time.

   This puts me in mind of something about tariffs, too: people who don't understand negotiation don't understand that you have to say certain things for the other side. He's even said somewhere that tariff-talk is a threat. That's mostly for China to hear.

   Anyway.

   Pretty heartening interview, IMO.