OPINION:
Donald Trump’s greatest secret weapon really isn’t such a big “secret” anymore. Actually, it has never been much of a secret. Mr. Trump’s been telling us about it for pretty much his entire life in the public eye.
Long before he wrote “The Art of the Deal” in the late 1980s, Mr. Trump was crowing to the New York tabloids — sometimes using a fake name — about what a terrific deal-maker he was.
Even if you loathe him, you have to admit that the guy knows how to stay on point. Which makes for an unusually honest and practical politician.
Despite his fabulosity, self-promotion and vulgarity, Mr. Trump got elected in 2016 because voters trusted him to stick to his reality star persona more than they trusted the washed-up wife of a lifelong politician to keep her political promises.
And yet despite Mr. Trump’s unvaried political marketing, he manages to keep everyone interested and engaged. Even his most fanatical enemies cannot turn away when he speaks.
Who knew, for instance, before last week’s CNN town hall that Mr. Trump pronounces the cat name “Vagina” the same way he pronounces “China”?
But while the political press were busy recoiling like salted slugs on a hot sidewalk over his vulgar pugnacity during the town hall, Mr. Trump was working side deals directly with voters.
“If I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day — 24 hours,” Mr. Trump said of President Biden’s war in Ukraine. The audience exploded with applause, even as moderator Kaitlan Collins voiced skepticism.
Then she demanded of Mr. Trump a straight-up, old-fashioned loyalty test.
“Do you want Ukraine to win this war?”
He told her he wanted people on both sides to stop dying.
Then she asked: “Do you believe that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is a war criminal?”
Wisely, Mr. Trump refused to answer — not because he had suddenly turned into some kind of softy, but because Mr. Trump understands that in order to make a deal to end a war in 24 hours, you have to keep your options open and your powder dry.
“It’s something that should not be discussed now,” he said of the “war criminal” charge. “It should be discussed later.”
Pure statesmanship. This is the Art of the Deal — a concept entirely foreign to Washington, where the federal money never stops flowing and problems never get solved.
Another prime example of Mr. Trump’s eagle eye for deal-making came as Ms. Collins tried pinning him down about whether he would sign into law a federal ban on abortion if it reached his desk.
She was admirably relentless on this point. But Mr. Trump was not about fall into her trap. And not because he doesn’t want to take a position on abortion. After all, he gave us the Supreme Court that finally overturned Roe v. Wade.
Rather, Mr. Trump thinks in terms of making deals to find practical solutions. And boxing himself in on this narrow ideological point would hurt his ability to do that.
“I’m looking at a solution that’s going to work,” he explained.
“You have people on both sides of an issue, but we are now in a very strong position — pro-life people are in a strong position — to make a deal that’s going to be good and going to be satisfactory for them.”
Mr. Trump is so committed to the Art of the Deal that rarely does he let slip that — as with all good negotiations — it is a bit of a game. In the rare instance he does let it slip, it’s as funny as when a good comedian’s poker face fails.
When Mr. Trump suggested that a default by the federal government might force lawmakers to stop racking up so much debt, Ms. Collins pounced in a “gotcha” moment.
“You once said that using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge just could not happen,” she harped like a little tattletale. “You said that when you were in the Oval Office!”
“Sure,” he shot back. “That’s when I was president.”
“So, why is it different now that you’re out of office?”
“Because now I’m not president,” he said with a mischievous smile, and the audience roared.
Ms. Collins had won the point, but Mr. Trump had won the fight.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor of The Washington Times.
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