Chris Kleponis/Pool/Getty Images Opinion The Cognitive Dissonance Presidency The Trump administration has formidable obstacles, but none looms quite as large as the fact that Trump himself has no idea how he wants to govern.

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review and a contributing editor with Politico Magazine.

To paraphrase Groucho Marx, President Donald Trump has a position on the Lamar Alexander/Patty Murray health care deal, and if you don’t like it, he has another one.

Within hours, Trump veered wildly on the bipartisan compromise on Obamacare that the Tennessee Republican and the Washington Democrat forged at his personal urging. At times supportive, noncommittal and opposed, Trump finally came out against, his final answer until further notice.


It isn’t unusual for a politician to wobble when confronted with a nettlesome issue or a shifting political environment. “To live is to maneuver,” said the great 20th century conservative Whittaker Chambers. It’s downright weird, though, for a president to rapidly switch sides on something he gave every indication that he wanted.

The Trump administration has formidable obstacles in the way of substantive success — a slender Senate majority, lack of staffing, an unrelenting opposition — but none looms quite as large as the fact that Trump himself has no idea how he wants to govern.

Other presidents have had trouble making their administration — inevitably involving big personalities and clashing agency cultures and interests — cohere. Trump is having trouble arriving at a coherent conception of his own presidency.

Trump’s decision to end Obamacare’s cost-sharing reduction payments last week made sense as a political strategy only if he wanted to pressure congressional Republicans into a bipartisan deal. The termination of the payments wasn’t going to discomfit the Democrats, who could scream “sabotage” and blame Trump and Republicans for every failing of Obamacare going forward. It was nervous Republicans who were going to feel compelled to remove the political heat by propping up Obamacare.

It seemed that this is precisely what Trump wanted. The president on Tuesday took credit for forcing Republicans and Democrats to talk about a health care deal. He initially welcomed Alexander-Murray as a stopgap to restore the CSR payments, calling it “a short-term solution so that we don’t have this very dangerous little period.”

Alexander reports that Trump told him he wanted a deal because “I don’t want people to suffer.” Yet, in turning around and opposing the deal, Trump said he couldn’t support “bailing out” insurance companies. This dissonance recalls Trump’s celebration of the passage of the House Republican health care bill that he called “mean” shortly afterward.

You can either believe the CSR payments are a boon to ordinary people or an unconscionable giveaway to insurance companies (in reality, neither is true). You can’t believe both, unless you have the protean policy views of Donald J. Trump.

Trump can’t decide who he wants to be. As a matter of substance (malleable and nonideological) and self-image (the ultimate deal-maker), he should be with Republican moderates. This is the Trump who encourages Lamar Alexander to get together with Patty Murray and talks a DACA deal with Chuck and Nancy.

As a matter of affect (unapologetically outrageous) and sensibility (thoroughly anti-establishment), he should be with the House Freedom Caucus. This is the Trump who pulls the plug on CSR payments over the advice of more cautious advisers and releases immigration principles that will never be realized in any bipartisan agreement.

Which of these Trumps predominates depends on which meeting the president happens to be in.

At the moment, pro-Trump operatives want to go out and kill elected Republicans who don’t support the Trump agenda, even though it’s vague what exactly that is and it’s subject to constant change. Alexander is as sensibly establishment as GOP senators come, and thought he was not just supporting the Trump agenda, but doing the president’s bidding. Is he a friend, or an enemy, or a befuddled would-be ally?

Steve Bannon should sit down and have a long conversation with Trump about what, in fact, constitutes his agenda. Needless to say, it would have been good to do this — and sketch out a plan in detail — before Trump got elected. The problem is that even if such a conversation happened and produced a crisp, five-point congressional agenda, it would all be prone to unraveling as soon as Trump talked to someone with a different idea.

In terms of internal Republican politics, if nothing else, it suits Trump to be up for grabs. Both major factions within the party are vying for his affections. Bannon wants to persuade the president to support a crusade on behalf of True TrumpismTM; Mitch McConnell wants the president to steer clear of dubious candidates and show enough discipline that he’s not an obstacle to passing legislation.

Trump is happy to keep a foot in each camp. He can say nice things about Bannon but suggest he’s not on board with everything he’s doing, while at the same time touting his great relationship with McConnell, yet prodding him on Twitter whenever he feels like it.

Trump’s approach keeps everyone guessing and keeps him from getting pinned down, but it is no way to lead a party. This is why Trump’s strong suit is things he can do on his own, namely culture-war battles, fights with the news media and other critics, and executive actions. These don’t involve many moving parts and don’t require much constancy; in fact, Trump’s tendency to fix a target for attack and then move on when he’s bored or it no longer serves his purposes, often works in his favor in his feuds.

For Trump, very little is ever truly ruled out or ruled in, and before long, a bipartisan health care deal will surely again strike his fancy.

