The true author of The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, confessed “I put lipstick on a pig,” and expressed remorse for creating the mythology that Donald Trump is a great negotiator. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All. If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.”
Donald Trump has just demonstrated that he is the “Worst. Negotiator. Ever.” A year ago, Democrats put $25 billion on the table to build his “big beautiful wall on the Mexico border” that he said Mexico would pay for, agreeing to pay ransom for a comprehensive agreement on DACA eligible immigrants to have a pathway to citizenship. Trump had said he “would sign whatever bill they (Congress) send me.” There’s even video. But Trump rejected that deal, choosing to listen to his racist white nationalist adviser Stephen Miller who demanded deep reductions in legal immigration to the United States.
Fast forward to this past December. The spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security that congressional leaders and President Trump agreed to included $1.6 billion for 65 miles of fencing. Then Fox News, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh convinced him to renege on the deal and he demand $5 billion for his “big beautiful wall on the Mexico border” that he said Mexico would pay for. The Trump Shutdown lasted 35 days, and he did not get one dime for his wall in the short-term CR spending bill.
The current legislation approved by Congress last night only provides $1.375 billion to build 55 miles of barrier (not his wall) in the Rio Grande Valley, a small fraction of what Trump demanded before triggering his Trump Shutdown.
As Aaron Blake of the Washington Post wryly noted: “Trump could have taken $1.6 billion and/or declared a national emergency last year, before all this went down; he will have gotten basically nothing for shutting down the government for 35 days.”
Actually, Trump could have taken $25 billion for his wall, and he negotiated himself down to $1.375 billion for border security and no wall. “Worst. Negotiator. Ever.”
