Analysis: Trump's triangulation shows what might have been

In early 2016, as the field of Republican candidates winnowed, Bob Dole said that Donald Trump was preferable to Ted Cruz because he could "probably work with Congress."

"He's got the right personality, and he's kind of a deal-maker," said the former Senate majority leader and GOP presidential nominee.

Cruz pounced on that quote, working it into his stump speech as evidence that "the Washington establishment" believed Trump could be coopted. "If as a voter, you think what we need is more Republicans in Washington to cut a deal with . . . Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, then I guess Donald Trump is your guy," said the Texas senator.

That line of attack never resonated with most Republicans. Many rank-and-file conservatives don't like dysfunction, gridlock and government shutdowns. In the general election, even if they didn't like him personally, swing voters overwhelmingly felt like the author of a book called The Art of the Deal could probably make pretty good deals – whether with foreign countries, defense contractors or Democrats. Indeed, that was a central rationale of Trump's populist campaign.

Wednesday, President Trump cut his first big deal with congressional leaders Pelosi and Schumer. Snubbing Republican leaders and his own Treasury secretary, he agreed with Pelosi and Schumer on plans for a three-month bill to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for the same amount of time.

The president also signaled support for a Democratic push to pass legislation that would shield undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children from deportation. "Chuck and Nancy want to see something happen – and so do I," Trump said.

Then he flew to North Dakota on Air Force One with Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, declared he really wants to work with her on overhauling the tax code and called her "a good woman."

• As some Trump advisers signaled that this is a sign of what's to come, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill seethed with anger about all three of these developments. Veteran negotiators in Trump's adopted party think the freshman president agreed to a bad deal that gives Pelosi and Schumer more leverage. They feel like they're being boxed in on immigration and being set up as fall guys. And they resent that Trump just gave meaningful air cover to one of the most beatable Democrats in 2018.

• Entertaining counterfactuals can be silly, but what if Trump had acted this way from Day One? What if he had positioned himself consistently as a nonideological pragmatist? What if he made an earnest show of bipartisanship and focused on issues which Democrats would have felt compelled to cooperate on, such as infrastructure spending to repair crumbling roads? What if instead of demanding a straight repeal of Obamacare, he had insisted on regular order, supported fixing the health-care system and frontally challenged pharmaceutical companies over drug pricing? What if the White House tried negotiating in good faith on overhauling the tax code, instead of focusing primarily on big corporate tax cuts?

Wednesday offered a small taste of what might have been if he had triangulated from the beginning. For one thing, it does not seem unreasonable to speculate that his approval rating would be higher than 37 percent.

• Think back to Jan. 20: After railing against political elites of both parties during his inaugural address, President Trump went inside the Capitol for a cozy lunch with congressional leaders. He was chummy at a signing ceremony to nominate members of his Cabinet. He handed Pelosi one of the pens he used so she'd have a memento to remember the day. Then he gregariously told Schumer to also take a pen. He called them "Nancy and Chuck," just like he did Wednesday.

That back-slapping repartee suggested that the new president might be serious about building bridges. Perhaps he would slam Washington on the stump but schmooze his critics behind closed doors.

Instead of bargaining, though, he chose to govern with the very scorched-earth tactics that he had successfully employed on the campaign trail. The result is a litany of missed opportunities, essentially no legislative accomplishments and a well that has been poisoned.

There are 10 Democratic senators up for reelection next year in states Trump carried. The White House had good reason to believe that several of these lawmakers would feel compelled to work with them. (Trump won North Dakota by 36 points, for example.) But as the president's approval rating kept falling, even in red states, and Trump seemed to constantly be struggling with self-inflicted wounds, these senators lost that incentive.

• Sometimes when Trump looks crazy, he's being crazy like a fox.

The media's coverage of the debt deal Thursday morning is over-the-top negative. Partly this is because top Republicans on the Hill are angry that Trump didn't do what they want, so they're trashing the deal to reporters. Their frustrations are legitimate and sincere. They thought they had a real opportunity to not talk about the debt ceiling again until after the midterm elections. They know from experience how hard it is to get conservatives to vote for raising the borrowing limit, which always forces them to rely on Democratic votes to make it happen. "A three-month debt ceiling? Why not do a daily debt ceiling?" Rep. Mike Simpson (R., Idaho) joked to Politico. "He's the best deal-maker ever, don't you know? I mean, he's got a book out!"

Let's keep what happened in perspective: Democrats didn't really win major concessions. They just agreed to prevent the government from defaulting on its debts for three months and funded initial relief efforts for Hurricane Harvey. Schumer and Pelosi are gleeful because they think they've positioned themselves perfectly for December negotiations. "Democrats still must prove, however, that they can actually land those victories," the Post's Paul Kane writes. "For now, they have (merely) secured a seat at the negotiating table."

Meanwhile, Trump looks independent from unpopular congressional Republicans and showed he can work across the aisle. In North Dakota Wednesday night, as an illustration of this, Trump boasted about his "great bipartisan meeting" with Schumer and Pelosi. "I'm committed to working with both parties to deliver for our wonderful, wonderful citizens," the president said. "Everybody was happy. Not too happy, because you can never be too happy, but they were happy enough." He called it a "very good" deal.

Trump also recognizes that he cannot force a showdown over funding for his border wall with Houston flooded, another hurricane bearing down on Florida and several must-pass bills on the docket. Now he gets to have that fight in December instead. Democrats insist they will never support money for the border wall, but administration officials believe they will agree to increased border security or some version of a fence if it means protecting 800,000 "dreamers" from deportation. "We believe that helping to clear the decks in September enables us to focus on tax reform," White House director of legislative affairs Marc Short told reporters on Air Force One. "I think it puts pressure on all of us to get tax reform done before December."

• Another key reason Republican leaders are mad: Trump has once again humiliated Paul Ryan. Administration officials reportedly told congressional leaders on Tuesday night that the president would endorse their request for an 18-month extension. Based on that, Ryan told reporters at the Capitol that it was "ridiculous and disgraceful" that Democrats wanted just a three-month extension. Acting outraged, the Speaker accused the opposition of playing politics "when we have fellow citizens in need." Less than an hour later, though, Trump accepted that "ridiculous and disgraceful" offer. Then Ryan and Mitch McConnell got on board.

They did so because they know Trump has more suction with Republican voters than they do. Just 28 percent of Republican voters said they'd be more likely to vote for a member of Congress that supported McConnell, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll published this week, while 30 percent said they'd be less likely and 15 percent said McConnell's support would have no impact.

• "The pivot is real, and it's spectacular," writes conservative thought leader Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist. "It may be that this is the first sign Trump is himself waking up to the inaccuracy of the conventional wisdom about 'needing McConnell and Ryan' which has animated so much of the early failures of the Republican legislative agenda. So he's being more honest: he doesn't like McConnell and Ryan, never did. He likes Chuck Schumer, and knows him, and thinks he can work with him. And he knows Chuck always makes money for his partners. . . . Trump siding against GOP leaders and seeing them bend over illustrates how he could get them to do this on just about everything. The path of least resistance, the path of popularity for him, is to dismiss the demands of Congressional Republicans on virtually everything except abortion, judges, education, free speech, and regulations."

• Triangulation worked for Bill Clinton. He got reelected in 1996 after brutal losses in the midterms by positioning himself against both congressional Republicans and Democrats. Clinton declared that the era of big government was over, endorsed an income tax cut and signed onto welfare reform. Negotiating big bipartisan deals made him look like a third-way centrist after the HillaryCare debacle during his first year. Outside Trump advisers have suggested in recent weeks that the Clinton model is instructive.

• But, but, but: The kind of deal making we saw Wednesday probably cannot and will not last. Trump is toxic to most Democrats because of his personal behavior and his reaction to events like Charlottesville. Not to mention rescinding DACA, instituting the travel ban, pardoning Joe Arpaio, firing James Comey, etc., etc. The window for grand bargains has probably closed. Any Democrat who wants to run for president in 2020 recognizes that collaborating with Trump in any way will be a liability in the primaries, and more than a dozen Democratic senators want to run for president.

There is also a reasonable expectation that Trump will invariably go back to his old ways sooner than later. Maybe even with a tweetstorm Thursday. Trump's instinct is still to play to his base and preach to the choir. (Recall last month's Phoenix rally.) The left also sees the Russia investigation as potentially fatal for the presidency.

• Furthermore, continuing down this new course would require Trump to show self-discipline that he's lacked over the past seven months.

Trump's biggest cheerleaders in the conservative media are mad that he's reaching across the aisle and will ratchet up pressure on him not to do it again. He's tended to be more comfortable pleasing his base than challenging it.

There's another risk: Relationships matter more than anything else in Washington, and trust is the coin of the realm. Trump's ties with Ryan and McConnell continue to fray. They might put on a good face publicly and show a stiff upper lip, but each time the president embarrasses them they become marginally more likely to turn on him down the road during his darkest hours. For example, what if Trump were to fire Robert Mueller as special counsel? Are Ryan and McConnell really going to risk permanent damage to their own legacies to defend someone who has burned them more often than not? Is that a risk the president would be willing to take?