(Dobbs) Ignore Evidence, Go With IntuitionHe only knows what people in his circle tell him. And they only tell him what he wants to hear.
How does Donald Trump make the decisions he makes? That’s another way of asking, how does Donald Trump govern? In a column last week called “Trump’s Kiss of Death,” I quoted Georgetown University political scientist Michael Bailey who, when asked, told The New York Times, “He makes rash, reckless decisions; at best, they are based on bar-stool theories of how the world works, and at worst, they are driven by corrupt motives. Since he ‘just knows’ he is right…. no evidence will sway him.” That’s another way of saying, Trump wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him in the face. Nor does he care. To put it bluntly, the man doesn’t know squat. From what we’ve learned from leaks out of his inner circle, he only knows what people in his circle tell him. And they only tell him what he wants to hear. Hardly a model for rational behavior. Hardly a model for rational governance. But that’s what we’ve got. From the Iran war to the slush fund for his supporters to the controversy over the Reflecting Pool in Washington, he is driven not by evidence but by his gut. He told us so himself. During his first term, he said during an interview with The Washington Post, “My gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.” Which brings us to the first example: the war. Last week, talking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked about defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s allegation to Congress that both China and Russia were helping Iran. The president said, “I will tell you that President Xi said he will not partake, and President Putin said the same thing. I trust them.” Ignore evidence, go with intuition. Trust the dictators. That’s Donald Trump’s way. Of course after prodding from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, his gut told him to start the war in the first place. According to credible accounts, his gut told him that after the quick invasion of Venezuela and quick extraction of its president, Nicolas Maduro, Iran would be another slam dunk. In the face of continued complications with the war, and contrary to Iran’s continued resistance, he’s still saying that. Then last night, another U-turn on Iran. Although he said the United States is “locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he was cancelling the next planned attack “in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.” It would include a promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he said, and “an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.” Where have we heard all this before? Or maybe more to the point, how many times? It might be real for a change, but it also might just be Trump’s gut working overtime again. Now to the slush fund. Acting attorney general Todd Blanche, under pressure from Congress, promised back in June that Trump’s plan to use $1.8 billion in federal funds to “compensate” Americans “who have been so badly treated by the crooked Joe Biden (and Obuma! sic) administration” was dead. He said the justice department was “not moving forward” with the idea. It was only a verbal promise though. He refused to put it in writing. Lucky thing for him, because yesterday Trump brought it back to life. He wrote on his social media site, “It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done.” Retiring Republican senator Thom Tillis, who has nothing to fear from the president any more, put up his own post saying, “President Trump clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks.” Punks like the insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the newly elected government on January 6, 2021. Buried under the controversy over the slush fund is the additional pact Trump worked out under its radar, quietly announced the day after the slush fund was revealed. It was laid out in a one-page addendum: an assurance that the IRS would be “forever barred and precluded” from going after unpaid tax claims against the president, against his businesses, against his family. Estimates are that this could save the president something on the order of $100 million. In other words, Trump has a huge stake in the outcome of the fund, because his immunity is tied to it. In a dictionary, this could be the definition of a “sweet deal.” This could explain why he vows to bring it back, to “get it done.” It does lead one to wonder, if Trump does somehow restore the slush fund, will former FBI director James Comey qualify to put in for some compensation after the government fatuously charged him with making a threat against the president by posting a picture on Facebook of seashells he found on the beach spelling out “86-47?” Finally, the Reflecting Pool. Yesterday Trump’s longtime cheerleader on Fox News and now U.S. Attorney for Washington DC Jeanine Pirro stunned the political world by dropping criminal charges against David Hearn, the one-time Team USA Olympic canoeist who was indicted for a felony because he “maliciously did injure, break and destroy certain property, that is, the lining material of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.” Remember what happened? He was going by on his bike during the pool’s renovation and grabbed a piece of its crumbling surface with his hand. Looking for a scapegoat for the botched repair work, the Trump administration went after him with guns blazing. Trump wrote, “The Scum in Court will hopefully be prosecuted to the MAX.” He told reporters, “We have pictures of it.” Interior secretary Doug Borglum said on CNN, “It didn’t peel off. There was vandalism. There was box cutters.” When host Dana Bash asked, “And you’re 100% sure that what happened with the liner was vandalism? You can prove it?”, his answer was, “Oh, yes absolutely, Dana.” And of course Jeanine Pirro was part of the firing squad. She said she had “tremendous evidence” against Hearn, and claimed, “When these anarchists come, and we have witnesses, they’re like, ‘Oh, we didn’t do anything,’” like “they have the right to destroy a monument.” Of course there were no pictures, there were no box cutters, there was no tremendous evidence, there were no witnesses, nobody destroyed a monument. There were just lies. Across the board. Yes, there were scum, but they were the ones issuing those baseless accusations. That’s what came to a culmination yesterday when Pirro dropped the charges. Chancing the wrath of a president who never wants to be proved wrong, her office wrote, “The damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI (Department of the Interior).” As if we didn’t know that from the beginning. As her office discovered— which of course it should have discovered before it tried to ruin David Hearn’s life— the president’s renovation of the Reflecting Pool was “a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool.” And here’s the kicker: large chunks were seen peeling off the pool a week before Hearn ever rode by. And now Pirro says, the Interior Department knew it. But Secretary Borglum trashed David Hearn anyway. Sounds par for the course for this administration: no one wants to make the boss look bad. Maybe Pirro had better be looking for a new job. Hearn’s lawyers issued a statement yesterday saying that what this all proves is, “The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim.” But dropping the charges is too little, too late. This already has cost the man a lot of grief, a hit on his reputation, a bucket of money for legal help, and a period of fear that he could end up spending ten years in a federal prison cell. We could call this administration a clown car, but it’s not funny. There is of course a footnote: to do the work, Trump hired a Florida company that has done jobs for him at at least one of his golf clubs. When he was telling reporters in the Oval Office about his plans back in April, he said as if this was something to instill confidence, “I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools. He looked at it. He called me up. He said, ‘Sir, we can do something on it.’” It was a $14 million no-bid contract. The algae didn’t go down the drain. But the money did. However, that is not the end of the story, because when it comes to Donald Trump, these stories never end. Yesterday— before or after he announced that he wants to give new life to his slush fund, it’s hard to keep track— he put up a post about the charges dropped against David Hearn: “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM.” He even conceded, “There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” That’s Donald Trump’s way: Ignore evidence, go with intuition. To recap the accomplishments of this man who is taking an axe to every American norm we once treasured, the war is still going on and he has no way out. He’s still lionizing insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol to show their support and they still are thirsting for money. And the reflecting pool is still a mess. Which pretty much describes the whole administration of Donald J. Trump. © 2026 Greg Dobbs |