Ever so often we touch on this topic at this blog. One of Trump's tactics is to make his opponents believe he is crazier than they are. Jonathan Swan sees it, too, and wrote about it in Trump's plan to out-"crazy" North Korea.
What we're hearing: Trump loves to say that every other U.S. president was predictable. He believes foreign affairs has always been overly scripted and his predecessors were "totally predictable," which let their adversaries run rings around them.
A source who recently spoke to Trump about his upcoming meeting with Kim Jong-un paraphrased the president's private monologue:
"No one knows what I'm going to do. They are over there trying right now to analyze every statement I'm putting out to get a sense of what's going to happen when I walk into the room. But the fact of the matter is nobody knows."
Trump loves to watch the media try to predict what he's going to do and say about any number of things, including North Korea, and he gleefully tells aides: "They have no idea."
“Kim Jong-un’s entire lineage is having people think he might be crazy. Trump’s like: 'You’re crazy? How about this?'” a source said a while back, during the phase of Trump calling Kim "Little Rocket Man" and taunting him by saying he has a bigger nuclear button.
Making ones opponent believe you are crazier than they are is a very useful tactic. And apparently, like an angry outrage, it's not always obvious that it is just another negotiating tactic. But it works for some people. And let's hope it works for Donald Trump on someone other than Democrats.
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2:13 PM 5/17/2018
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