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Michael Cianchette is a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan. He is in-house counsel to a number of businesses in southern Maine and was a chief counsel to former Gov. Paul LePage.
I never read “The Art of the Deal,” Donald Trump’s 1987 memoir and advice book. But there are plenty of summaries and reviews online that can give you a sense of it.
I did watch the first season of “The Apprentice.” I was a sophomore in college and it felt like a more “real” version of a reality show, with the first episode forcing the contestants to succeed in starting and running lemonade stands in New York City.
The Greek roots of the word “sophomore” — a wise fool — probably apply here, thinking any reality show is “real.”
However, these two plainly dramatized pieces of media are great context to keep in mind as the second Trump administration takes shape.
The announcement of former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as Trump’s selection for attorney general was met with countless headlines and unabashed shock across the political spectrum. Trump’s most fervent supporters quickly heralded it as a wonderful choice that pokes the Washington establishment in the eye.
Maybe. Or maybe it is just part of the art of the deal.
Trump’s loudest critics seem to take everything he says literally. He cracked an apparent joke last week in front of congressional Republicans — which was met with laughter — when he suggested they could help him run for a third term.
Commentators accused him of testing the waters for some type of grand strategy to destroy the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two terms. Maybe. Or maybe it was just a joke.
Whatever your feelings about the president-elect, it is clear he was successful at negotiating to buy countless properties throughout the world. Even after having some businesses fall into bankruptcy, he continued to strike deals with large, sophisticated lenders like Deutsche Bank.
One of the oldest tricks in the book in sharp-elbowed negotiating is opening with something crazy. You know you will probably need to deal the card away, but it makes the next option seem reasonable by comparison.
I think the Gaetz nomination is just the start of the deal.
If you asked anyone who followed politics two months ago whether they thought Gaetz would make a good attorney general, you would probably have received a resounding number of “nos.” In fact, if you believe markets are generally good at predicting future events, as of Wednesday night odds were hovering around 60 percent against Gaetz’ confirmation.
I would’ve been on the “no” side of the bet. And I’d be willing to wager that Trump was, too.
Thursday morning, the “no” side on Gaetz won and he withdrew.
Of course, giving Gaetz the heat lessens the pressure on some of the president-elect’s other controversial choices, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Pete Hegseth. Betting markets are still predicting Kennedy and Hegseth are both more likely than not to be confirmed. As Meat Loaf told us, two out of three ain’t bad.
I think Trump’s critics are off-base when they take him literally. That does not mean we should not take him seriously. His strategies make sense if you think he is positioning for a desired outcome, knowing he needs to have things to give away — like Gaetz — in order to close the deal.
In Trump’s first term, one of his most remarkable achievements was the Abraham Accords, a brokered normalization treaty with full diplomatic recognition between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. It was an artful deal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last weekend that the war in Ukraine will end more quickly with Trump in the White House. If he’s right, then Trump may have secured a deal that eclipses both the Abraham Accords and getting money from banks after a bankruptcy.
We’re about two months away from the second inauguration of Donald J. Trump. Hopefully there are some worthwhile deals to be had.
