Will He? Won't He? Does He Know?

“I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

That, of course, is President Donald Trump.

He was talking to reporters earlier this week about whether he would order the US military to strike Iran.

But that statement is fairly representative of everything about the Trump Administration.

And it very well may be that the “Nobody” he referred to includes himself.

At least that’s what his various statements on topics ranging from who is going to be rounded up by ICE to who is going to be paying what in terms of tariffs. (As for the tariffs: You are going to be paying. The “what” remains to be seen. For example, on “Liberation Day” China, like essentially every country on the planet, had a “reciprocal” tariff of 10%. Then there was the 20% tariff from March related to fentanyl. That’s 30%. But they were put on top of a 25% tariff still existing from the first Trump Administration (based on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, claiming unfair trade practices). So 55%. But then Trump became miffed at the Chinese so he boosted the tariffs to 145%. Then there was a reset to 30%. Who knows what they are now and who knows where these various numbers came from?)

Among the items on the list of “Priorities” on the official White House website, there’s this under the “Drain the Swamp” category:

“President Trump is taking swift action to end the weaponization of government against political rivals and ordering all document retention as required by law.”

As you may recall, special prosecutor Jack Smith initially charged Donald Trump with willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act: Remember the beautiful boxes of classified documents in the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago? Seems like that wasn’t exactly “document retention as required by law.”

And as for the ending of “the weaponization of government against political rivals,” how does one explain the examinations of the “Biden crime family,” Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Liz Cheney, Christopher Krebs, Miles Taylor, Mark Milley, Robert Mueller. . . .

Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. Who knows?

One might argue that the inconsistency exhibited by the man who is often seen in public wearing a baseball hat with a meaningless slogan on it (the only 79-year-olds who should be seen in public wearing a hat like that ought to be in Del Boca Vista, and only Del Boca Vista) is a negotiating tactic.

Keep the people you are negotiating with off balance.

While that might be useful in real estate transactions or property developments, when there is a need for long-term relationships with other parties because there is a mutual dependence (like it or not), this unpredictability may provide short-term advantage, but makes the other parties have rapidly diminishing confidence with the “deal maker.” Yes, there may be a gain in the moment, but after that moment is passed, after the echo of “Yahtzee!” is gone, then those who have been put off-kilter by the unpredictability of the other party are likely to want to get theirs back.

Or put more simply: Those who Trump treats badly (can anyone explain why he has been so abusive to Canada? Can he?) are probably not going to establish cordial relations with the country who is responsible for putting that person in the position to do that. He will be gone, but the bad taste will linger like scombroid fish poisoning.

This is no way to run a country.

Although he “wrote” in The Art of the Deal “never let anyone know exactly where you’re coming from,” it would be slightly more confidence-inspiring if it seemed that he knew.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.