Chuck Todd: Trump Can’t Handle Short-Term Political Pain for His Long-Term Goals

HUNT: “Chuck Todd, it seems very clear to me that this is an enormous mess, with repercussions beyond where even many people in the White House felt they risked real repercussions. They don’t necessarily want to be seen as publicly walking it back. You could hear kind of pugnaciousness there from the White House press secretary. Are — do you think Wall Street’s going to buy that, hey, they actually are going to make some moves away from this? Does anybody feel like they can believe him anymore?”

Todd: “I think until you see pen and paper, until you see trade deals happen with India and Japan, until you actually see these things happen, I think the markets are going to have a hard time taking words, right, to the bank on this front. But this is the trap he’s put himself in, right? He’s got some long-term goals, and in order to get to those long-term goals, there’s going to be — there’s potentially short-term political pain, but he can’t handle the short-term political pain, as we have found out, right? He keeps — he’s essentially trying to manage, he’s managing the economy right now with his news cycle brain and he’s trying to fix the news cycle. Let’s see if I can buy a day, buy a couple of days, get this off the front page, buy some time. We all get this. A lot of people in their lives, you juggle things that, boy, this is something I don’t want to deal with. Maybe I can push it off another week, right? He is trying, and this is the trap of doing, of essentially — because again, you know, the long-term goal here is something that there is support for, but his path to do it is becoming less and less popular and people are more and more — so I think that’s the trap he’s in, where today he’s worried about his political, the political side of things. And this is what’s made, I think decision-making uncertain. Is he making a political statement today or is he making an attempt to redefine long-term economic policy?”

HUNT: “And how is he going to feel when he wakes up in the morning.”