But then a funny thing happened: The leader of the House Freedom Caucus — the man who could perhaps be most offended by Trump's tactics after being publicly called out and told “I'm gonna come after you” — gave Trump a pass. Asked about the tweet three times on ABC's “This Week,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) punted each time.

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“You know how this works,” Meadows said. “To put a stake in it today would not be accurate, and nor would it be the narrative that this is a great failure for the president. He's done more in 65 days than any president in modern history. And so let's put it in real perspective where we are.”

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That looks a whole lot like Meadows backing down — even heaping praise upon the man who had just lobbed a grenade at him. But the more likely explanation is that Meadows doesn't really think Trump is “coming after” him or the House Freedom Caucus.

And you could forgive Meadows for thinking that. This is a president, after all, who just threatened to force members to vote on the health-care bill no matter the outcome — and go on record opposing the GOP's Obamacare replacement — and then scrapped those plans Friday when it was clear the bill would fail. As former Fix boss Chris Cillizza noted, Trump's bluff was sufficiently called.

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It's also a president who has routinely forged and broken alliances depending upon the day and his interest at that moment. Chris Christie, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were all sworn enemies before they made peace with Trump. Trump eviscerated Goldman Sachs in his campaign before hiring a bunch of its executives for his administration. He has threatened to challenge the “One China” policy before assuring China that he was on board with it. And his up-and-down relationship with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) could fill a book.

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Even as recently as this weekend, it seemed Trump might be signaling unhappiness with Ryan, tweeting that people should watch Judge Jeanine Pirro's Fox News show just hours before she tore into Ryan on it. (The White House insists there was no coordination and that Trump has confidence in Ryan.)

It's been said before that all Trump alliances are temporary and subject to change. Such is the case when you install such a volatile, unorthodox candidate without any ties to the political establishment as president. Trump had basically zero GOP establishment support months into the Republican primary.

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But while that outsider-ism made him an attractive candidate to GOP primary voters, it's far less ideal as a vote-whipping strategy. A big part of cutting deals is bargaining and fear of reprisal — the carrot and the stick. But that fear of reprisal only exists if you show a willingness to follow through on your threats. Trump, from his campaign through Friday, has shown that you can't take him at his word, and that you can always hold out hope to return to his good graces down the line.

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Trump has also offered mixed signals when it comes to just how hard he might pursue the case against the House Freedom Caucus. He could have truly used the carrot-and-stick approach to apply pressure during the health-care debate, but he never really played the kind of hardball that he threatened on Sunday when it truly mattered.