What Trump Gets About His Presidency that Critics Don’t

Matt Bai: “What that televised confrontation really showed is that Trump understands exactly what keeps his listing presidency afloat, even if you don’t.”

“First of all, Trump knows that immigration — legal, illegal, extraterrestrial, whatever — is the single resonant issue of his political life, and has been since he rode down that escalator and straight into our nightmares. He may run afoul of Republicans and independents when it comes to Russia or Saudi Arabia or trade, but he can always come home again to the issue that got him here in the first place.”

“Trump could have had the Secret Service handcuff Pelosi and Schumer right there and force-fed them his remaining inventory of Trump steaks, and as long as he said he was doing it to keep undocumented, nonwhite people out of the country, his core voters would applaud.”

“And Trump the entertainer understands, in a way his critics still don’t, that most Americans are bone-tired of all the phony stagecraft. What we in Washington consider dignified behavior worthy of the office strikes an awful lot of voters as something else — namely, a condescending put-on.”