5/2/2018

TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP POSITION CHANGES: “Trade clashes with Europe are brewing. Border tensions with Mexico are boiling. Negotiations with North Korea and Iran are murky as ever. What can Americans expect in these uncertain times? We’ll see what happens. President Trump, a new-to-the-game politician who once campaigned on a promise of ‘I alone can fix it,’ has spent the past month speaking with a decidedly less definitive stance, shrugging off a series of diplomatic high-wire acts that may come to define his presidency with a bit of well-worn Trumpese. ‘We’ll see,’ when a reporter asked Mr. Trump on Tuesday [5-1-18] whether he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to arrange peace talks between North and South Korea…Republican and Democratic speechwriters and others who study the president’s speech patterns say ‘we’ll see what happens’ may be a way to signal a veiled threat to unpredictable adversaries, like the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, amid delicate negotiations. But many who watch closely say Mr. Trump is using the phrase to avoid accountability.”

-Katie Rogers, “‘We’ll See,’ Trump Says on North Korea. And Iran. And Nafta. And So On.,” The New York Times online, May 2, 2018