“Don’t spend too much time reading it ‘cause you’re not going to make it!” The prospective putter stands up and responds, “I’m an American male so of course I’m going to miss it!” Grim reality was already setting in by noon today.

Shameless plug: for more on strategic sophistication, empathy, toughness, personality, etc. in negotiations, see my book One Step Ahead:

static.macmillan.com/static/smp/o...

Turnbull ended that call telling Trump, “you ARE going to stick with it [the existing agreement].” That was eight years ago and Trump’s certainly not any less lop-eared, so Putin’s biggest challenge may have been to make his demands simple and direct enough. /6

We know how little light filters through Trump’s thick head and his staggering ineptitude when he negotiates from the transcript of his phone call with Australian PM Turnbull early in his first term: /5

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017...

The lop-eared can be “too dull to see their own advantage, and must be worked up to the point again and again before a ray of light filters through their thick heads.” As Putin no doubt knows, roping the loo-eared mark requires patience, flattery, simple instructions, and possibly, a balled fist./4

“Any confidence man will testify that a real-estate man is the fattest and juiciest of the suckers.” Putin knows what the C-gees would have known: Trump is a particularly stupid mark, “lop-eared,” in the lingo of the 20s.
/3

Trump is a classic mark. As David Maurer detailed in The Big Con, the C-gees of the Roaring Twenties knew who their best “chumps” were: “A Babbitt who has cleared half a million in a real-estate development easily forgets the part which luck and chicanery have played in his financial rise…. /2

Shameless plug: for more on strategic sophistication, empathy, toughness, personality, etc

in negotiations, see my book One Step Ahead:

static.macmillan.com/static/smp/o...

Turnbull ended that call telling Trump, “you ARE going to stick with it [the existing agreement].” That was eight years ago, and Trump’s certainly not any less lop-eared, so Putin’s biggest challenge may have been if he could make his demands simple and direct enough. @emptywheel.bsky.social /6

We know how little light filters through Trump’s thick head and his staggering ineptitude when he negotiates from the transcript of his phone call with Australian PM Turnbull early in his first term: /5

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017...

The lop-eared can be “too dull to see their own advantage, and must be worked up to the point again and again before a ray of light filters through their thick heads.” As Putin no doubt knows, roping the lop-eared mark requires patience, flattery, simple instructions, and possibly, a balled fist./4

“Any confidence man will testify that a real-estate man is the fattest and juiciest of the suckers.” Putin knows what’s the C-gees would have known: Trump is a particularly stupid mark, “lop-eared,” in the lingo of the 20s. @kenwhite.bsky.social /3

Trump is a classic mark. As David Maurer detailed in The Big Con, the C-gees of the Roaring Twenties knew who their best “chumps” were: “A Babbitt who has cleared half a million in a real-estate development easily forgets the part which luck and chicanery have played in his financial rise…. /2

Oh dear god, this is absurd. As a professor of negotiations for 25 years, I can say that Trump is nowhere close to a “good,” “adequate,” or even “mediocre” negotiator. He is a ZERO: no strategic sophistication at all, and no insight into his own personal flaws. @kevinmkruse.bsky.social /1