The Kind of Men Who Flummox Trump
May 7, 2026
By David French
Opinion Columnist nytimes.com/…/07/opinion/trump-iran-ukraine-true-…
The Iran war has revealed President Trump’s true weakness. There is a kind of person who truly flummoxes Trump, the person he just can’t understand — the true believer.
Trump’s central political insight (and perhaps his key political advantage) is that he understood that Americans weren’t quite cynical enough about many of our politicians. As much as we already thought they placed power over principle, we didn’t know the half of it. He could see our politicians more clearly than we could — perhaps because he’d spent a lifetime in their presence, writing them large checks while hearing their empty promises.
And he showed it by placing a big carrot and a giant stick in front of the Republican political class, and then we watched as virtually everyone fell in line.
It’s worth emphasizing the size of the carrot and the stick. First, the carrot: Joining …More