Vanity Fair is out with a new expose on the inner workings in the White House and boy does it ever paint a picture that we need to see. For one, who knew that last Thursday, as the Dow was going about the greatest point drop in history (until today), Donald Trump was on the phone with NFL owners, hoping that the NFL wouldn’t cancel next season like the NBA and NHL have canceled this season.

Eye on the ball, Biff.

Trump STILL believes that this whole thing is primarily a “media problem,” and if he can just convince enough people that things are “normal,” then things will be “normal” again! See how that works?

Trump’s concern for the NFL’s well-being was a stark reversal given that he spent the first two years of his presidency attacking the league and its kneeling players. It reflected Trump’s magical thinking that he could manage the coronavirus pandemic by convincing people life would remain normal and sports would be played. (Last week, Trump also spoke with Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White and advised him not to cancel UFC events.) “Trump thinks this is a media problem,” a Republican close to the White House told me. Treating COVID-19 as a public-relations crisis put Trump at odds with the medical community, including the White House’s chief coronavirus adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

It is not just that “Trump thinks this is a media problem,” it is deeper than that.

I have been saying for days that Trump doesn’t understand life played wholly above board. To Trump, “real life” involves managing an angle, playing up something that isn’t real, or hiding something that is real, all to his advantage over someone else. He is a CON, and a con doesn’t believe in scenarios where everyone wins, nor does he see situations where everyone could lose.

In all things there are winners and there are losers, and who defines reality will determine who is the winner and who is the loser. Except an epidemic doesn’t exactly fit Trump’s normal prism, and so Trump did his best to make it fit, and “hid” the real information, believing he’d come out ahead.

No, it doesn’t make sense, but then again, you’re not Trump.

Don’t worry, though – Trump’s coming along on it:

With the markets in free fall despite emergency action by the Fed over the weekend, Trump is waking up to the reality that’s been clear to everyone: Coronavirus poses a once-in-a-hundred-years threat to the country. “In the last 48 hours he has understood the magnitude of what’s going on,”

And only two months later than everyone else!

 “This is not what he likes to do,” a former West Wing official said. “There’s no boogeyman he can attack.”

Exactly, the only way he wins is if we all win, and to Trump, that’s no “win” at all. I have been saying it for quite some time now, Trump doesn’t understand any dynamic in which he’s not trying to defeat somebody, take something from someone, make himself win by making you lose. He just doesn’t know how to do it.

And he’s not going to learn this late in life.

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Peace, y’all

Jason

[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom