Trump's Big CON: He Can't Close the Deal, CONt.

UPDATE:  "If there's one thing both parties in Congress can agree on, it's this: President Trump, who bills himself as the ultimate dealmaker, is not a very trustworthy one.

That's an unpleasant reality for Republicans as they begin a make-or-break effort to try to rewrite the tax code. They have no margin for error, procedurally or politically, and they need a president who can help persuade reluctant lawmakers to get on board.

Instead, they have a president they don't trust to stick to his word. Trump's actions lately have solidified that. . .

When Congress failed on health care, Trump blamed Congress. If Congress can't pass a tax bill, Trump probably will blame Congress. But that defies reality, Congress argues. Congress takes big steps only with a push from outside. . .

History tells us presidents without a working relationship with Congress don't get a lot done: No modern president who has struggled in the first 100 days of a presidency has suddenly revved up in the next 100 days, or in the next couple of years, says Robert David Johnson, a presidential historian at Brooklyn College. Presidents can't execute their agenda on their own.

As I wrote at Trump's 100-day mark: Every day it gets more difficult to work with Congress. Every day is a day closer to the 2018 midterm elections, when vulnerable Republicans may not want to be seen compromising with an unpopular president.

If the president has proved anything, it's that he has no allegiance to any deal he makes. That makes members of Congress's lives miserable, but it also threatens to derail Trump's agenda."

Read the Washington Post, The art of the unreliable deal: Trump’s bad-faith negotiating could undermine the GOP’s agenda, and his own.

"President Trump campaigned as one of the world’s greatest dealmakers, but after nine months of struggling to broker agreements, lawmakers in both parties increasingly consider him an untrustworthy, chronically inconsistent and easily distracted negotiator .

As Trump prepares to visit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to unify his party ahead of a high-stakes season of votes on tax cuts and budget measures, some Republicans are openly questioning his negotiating abilities and devising strategies to keep him from changing his mind.

The president’s propensity to create diversions and follow tangents has kept him from focusing on his legislative agenda and forced lawmakers who might be natural allies on key policies into the uncomfortable position of having to answer for his behavior and outbursts. . .

If the absence of any signature legislation is an indication, the dealmaking skills that propelled Trump’s career in real estate and reality television have not translated well to government.

Tony Schwartz, a longtime student and now critic of Trump who co-wrote the mogul’s 1987 bestseller 'The Art of the Deal,' said Trump’s dealmaking modus operandi is, 'I am relentless and I am not burdened by the concern that what I’m doing is ethical or truthful or fair.'

'The expectation that you will stand by what you said you would do is higher in politics than it is in the cutthroat world of real estate,' Schwartz added. 'That’s a brutal environment in which misdirection and bullying and making one offer and changing it later are all common practice.' . .

Schwartz said playing to Trump’s ego, as [Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.)] has with his golf compliments, is an effective way to manage him. His advice to those seeking to make deals with Trump: Find the most persuasive way to portray one’s agenda as a personal victory for the president, and be the last person to talk to him.

'Trump is motivated by the same concern in all situations, which is to dominate and to be perceived as having won,' Schwartz said. 'That supersedes everything, including ideology.'"

Read the Washington Post, The great dealmaker? Lawmakers find Trump to be an untrustworthy negotiator.

The Donald can't close a deal because being a bully is not very smart.