My thoughts on Mr. Trump that you may find of interest.
On more than one occasion Mr. Trump has been described as a petulant child with a limited attention span and a lack of ability to comprehend any concept that cannot be expressed in a paragraph — or less. Personally, I see no evidence that he was ever better than a B student (and probably, at the low end of B at that) and I doubt that his IQ extends very far into the triple digit range.
Baring some kind of trauma, people do not change, they just become “more so.” While Trump has not changed in the past month, something in the white house did change. At the end of July, General John Kelly became the White House chief of staff. Kelly is a man who understands sacrifice. A general definitely has some experience in politics because one seldom achieves that rank without having political abilities.
Whether you agree with him or not, you would be hard pressed to doubt his dedication / loyalty to this country and to the US constitution.
It is hard to believe that he did not lay down some rules before taking the job.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-general-john-kelly-2017-8. While in the past 30 days the number of Trump’s tweets has dropped only 6%, as near as I can tell, his “controversial” tweets, as reported in the news, have definitevly diminished. Perhaps two large hurricanes hitting the US just pushed his tweets off of the news.
Still, I have noticed that news commentators have been making comments about how Trump has become “more presidential.” His comments and speeches certainly seem to be less irrational and bombastic, and appear to generate less hostility from people not part of his “base.” His foot seems not to be in permanent residence in his mouth.
So, here is my theory: Trump is the face of the presidency, but little of substance is done by Mr. Trump without approval from General Kelly. Kelly may even have some control over what gets tweeted. He manages the president, and is our de-facto leader.
Given the tight ship that General Kelly and his very competent assistent Kirstjen Nielsen run, I doubt that there are any leaks at all from the circle around General Kelly, and certainly none of any import. I do not know if it is possible for you to get any confirmation about what I am stating. Hopefully, you can find some evidence, and speculate and will probably come up with something more substantive than the almost meaningless verbiage that passes for the current analysis of “What is Trump Thinking?” (Nothing I see little evidence of any thought) “What is his strategy?” (None — again, I see no evidence of any strategy — or even tactics. I suspect that Mr. Trump does not know the difference.) “What are his goals?” He has two goals. Undo what Obama did, and gather adulation.
Here is a recent sample: Trump turns away from the Republicans and towards the Democrats with regard to relief funding, the federal budget and the debt ceiling. As a successful and well read General, John Kelly knows about negotiating with an adversary. To my knowledge, Mr. Trump has never negotiated with anybody. Lying and having your legal team repeatedly file Chapter 11 bankruptcy is not what most people would consider negotiating. His only interactions with others has been “You’re Fired!!” Again, as far as I can tell, no one has ever told him no.
While it is possible, I find it hard to imagine that at the age of 71, Mr. Trump was able to coneceive of the idea of negotiating with the party of his enemy, President Obama. I think that some digging might confirm the idea that John Kelly was the driving force behind the deal that Mr. Trump did with the Democrats. (Note that the book, “The Art of the Deal” was basically BS. Or as the actual author said: “I put lipstick on a pig,” Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter, says. He feels “deep remorse.”