Thursday on MSNBC’s “Deadline,” network political analyst John Heilemann described President Donald Trump as being “tactically inept” and “strategically nitwitted” by canceling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) upcoming international travel.
Heilemann said, “Tactically though, and strategically, this is a political thing, right? So tactically, what Trump has done today is tactically inept, strategically nitwitted in the following way: as a tactic, Nancy Pelosi will now stand up and say, so you barely have been abroad ever to visit the troops. You barely have ever set foot in a war zone and did it once and you moaned and whined about it when you went. You’re essentially saying to me you will take out your personal problem on me in my effort to try to learn more about the world and get to visit some troops. This makes Trump look bad at a tactical level.”
He added, “The strategic level, what’s the point here, right? Pelosi’s thing was brilliant for the following reasons—it’s a way to force Trump to end the shutdown. Dude, if you keep the government shut down, this is not a secure event. I’m putting pressure on you to give you what I want, which is the government gets reopened. Trump doing this to Pelosi has what effect on her stance related to the border wall? Zero. And the best-case scenario, even if he felt like it was a tit for tat, she slapped me, I slapped her back. How does that get her to change her mind and the Democratic party’s mind on the thing he’s supposed to be fighting for, which is wall funding? Zero chance of getting him anything, even in the best-case scenario, Zero chance of accomplishing anything at the level of political strategy. So, yeah, I mean, it’s obviously kind of on the surface stupid. But took him a whole day. If you thought through the tactics and strategy, this makes no sense on either level.”
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