To understand how US President Donald Trump promotes his presidency and policies, especially when they are being challenged, it is necessary to understand the impact that New York lawyer, the late Roy Cohn, had on his approach to politics and power.
For most of his career, Cohn was a behind-the-scenes player, a ruthless practitioner of dirty tricks and power politics who attached himself to powerful men to assist their careers while advancing his own. He rose to prominence as a prosecutor in the case against the Rosenbergs, a couple charged, convicted and executed as Soviet spies. Cohn went on to serve as a key strategist working with senator Joseph McCarthy’s congressional hearings which, while designed to expose communist infiltration in the US, ended up destroying more lives than uncovering communists.
Cohn went on to advise presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, before hitching his star to a young Donald Trump as he was beginning his career in the world of New York City real estate and politics. Cohn’s advice to those for whom he worked has been distilled into three rules: attack, attack, attack; admit nothing, deny everything; and no matter what happens, always claim victory and never admit defeat.
The logic behind these rules was simple. Cohn always wanted his clients or mentees to be on the offensive, project an image of power showing no weakness, and appear to be ruthless and in control. These traits are daily on display in the Trump White House in, for example, his ridicule of and relentless attacks on Joe Biden, other Democrats, the courts, mainstream media, and those who dare to challenge him. It can also be seen in his boastful claims of success, even when reality says otherwise – for example, that his crowds were larger than Barack Obama’s, that consumer prices are going down, or that he’s brought peace to eight conflicts across the world.
The past month provided two clear examples of Roy Cohn’s lessons at work, beginning with Mr Trump’s performance at Davos. In his speech before the assembled world political and business leaders, while making the case for why America had the right to take control of Greenland and would not be deterred from making its claim, he insulted Europeans, pointing out their weaknesses in comparison with America’s strength. He also threatened them with more punitive sanctions if he didn’t get his way.
Following the speech, during negotiations with the same European leaders, Mr Trump folded. Nevertheless, emerging from their negotiations with a deal that pretty much leaves the situation as it is, Mr Trump declared victory.
A similar situation is now unfolding with regard to the real problems the White House is experiencing in its campaign to detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the US. During his campaign for the presidency, Mr Trump was on the offensive, attacking Democrats for being weak, and accusing Latin American countries of opening their prisons and mental hospitals to flood the US with dangerous people. The immigrants themselves bore the brunt of his attacks. The results were fear and panic. After his party in Congress appropriated tens of millions of dollars enabling the White House to hire an expanded immigration enforcement agency to carry out the deportations, the President was riding high.
Early on, it became clear that Mr Trump may have had a broader agenda in mind than the removal of dangerous “illegals”. The states he chose to flood with armed enforcement agents were jurisdictions led by Democrats. This was to be an exercise in intimidation and humiliation. True to form, despite the fact that these immigration enforcement exercises in Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, cities in Oregon, and now Minneapolis have been more problematic than successful, Mr Trump always declares victory and never admits defeat.
Of all of these initial forays of demonstrating power, the one that may prove the most difficult for the President is Minneapolis. He began the campaign by attacking and insulting the governor, a Somali-American Congresswoman, and the entire Somali community. Agents went in with a massive display of force – 3,000 armed federal agents, compared to the city’s police force of 600 officers. What the White House didn’t expect was that they would encounter massive resistance from the city’s largely white population. Churches and synagogues sent out a call for their co-religionists across the country to join them. Tens of thousands came to hold vigils and provide protective presence for the city’s immigrants.
Possibly flustered, the federal agents responded with brute force. In January, two volunteer non-violent observers who were monitoring the arrests were shot and killed. Following Cohn’s playbook, administration officials responded by attacking and attempting to smear the victims. They called them “domestic terrorists”, and said they were trying to kill law enforcement agents. True to form, they were attacking, denying every charge and admitting no mistakes.
In the past, this approach has satisfied the President’s supporters and only deepened the partisan divide. That wasn’t the case this time. Some Republican senators and governors have criticised the murders, the excessive tactics used and the lies that many White House officials told about who the victims were and what the federal agents actually did in murdering them.
Here’s where it gets interesting and may have Cohn rolling over in his grave. Instead of defiance, Mr Trump appeared to flinch. He called Minnesota’s governor, removed the brutish commander he had sent to oversee the operations in Minneapolis and suggested that there would be a reduced presence of enforcement officers in coming weeks.
Most likely this is being done to calm troubled waters – especially with members of his party worried about elections in November. The White House moves may be a change in optics and not a change in tactics. But this and the Greenland climbdown are early indications that there are limits to Cohn’s advice when it runs into persistent realities that won’t give way.
