Donald Trump has long championed the element of surprise in warfare, and often admonished President Barack Obama for allegedly telegraphing U.S. strategy. “I never talk about military moves,” Trump told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly in a recent interview. “I always criticized President Obama with having an announcement that they’re going into Mosul. They give the name, the date, the time. I don’t believe in that.” But when it comes to fighting his domestic enemies, Trump is as predictable as Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. During the presidential campaign, for instance, he essentially announced that he would use Bill Clinton’s sex scandals against Hillary Clinton. Trump has been similarly transparent since becoming president, as seen most recently in his attacks on federal judge James Robart, who on Friday blocked Trump’s executive order banning people from seven predominately Muslim countries from entering the U.S.

Over the weekend, on Twitter, Trump derided Robart as a “so-called judge” and preemptively blamed him for potential future terrorist attacks:

Because the ban was lifted by a judge, many very bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country. A terrible decision — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

The judge opens up our country to potential terrorists and others that do not have our best interests at heart. Bad people are very happy! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

This is not just an attack on a single judge. Rather, it’s a broader attempt to intimidate the judiciary, the branch of government most likely to check his power and policies. But it’s also a candid admission about how he intends to play the politics of terrorism. If the U.S. is hit by a terrorist attack that can be connected to Islamic radicalism, Trump will blame his opponents, whether they be the courts, politicians, journalists, or whomever; the terrorist attack will be anyone’s fault but his own. Knowing this, Democrats must be ready to play politics in return.

Late last month, Alexandre Bissonnette, a 27-year-old white man who had expressed admiration for both Trump and French demagogue Marine Le Pen, gunned down six people in a mosque in Quebec City, Canada. Trump didn’t make any public comments about the massacre, only addressing it in private conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Several days later, in France, a man armed with knives attacked a group of soldiers, injuring one, while yelling “Allahu Akbar.” Trump tweeted almost immediately about it:

A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART U.S. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2017

The disparate response to these two attacks—one downplayed even though six people were killed, the other elevated even though there was no loss of life—make clear that Trump intends to focus exclusively on “radical Islamic” terrorism, as suggested by the administration’s reported plans to exclude white supremacist extremism from a Department of Homeland Security counter-extremism program. It’s easy to imagine, then, how Trump will respond to future attacks. If the culprit is a white racist, as in Quebec or the Charleston church massacre, Trump will try to ignore it as much as possible and not present it as an act of political violence. Conversely, if an attack can be tied to Islamic radicalism, Trump will say “I told you so”—and argue that he was trying to protect the American people, but was hamstrung by the courts and other enemies. He will use Americans’ anger over terrorism to discredit the institutions that have a constitutional duty to check him, and he will push for more presidential power.