“This is going to make great television, I will say that.” Those were the final words spoken by Donald Trump to the somewhat shell-shocked media dispersing from the Oval Office on Friday, after his bust-up with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It was a telling moment. For Trump, everything is about how things look on Trump TV, where he imagines himself as the grand and awe-inspiring star. When he’s playing the part of the gracious, benevolent president — a mode that he seemed to still be in at the start of that press conference — he likes to keep things, as he might put it, very classy, very elegant. Everything is “beautiful”; every world leader, hero or villain, is a “great guy” who he has a “very good relationship” with.
When he decides it’s time to play the tough guy, though, he can instantaneously switch into a different gear: boorish, brutish, imperious. This version of Trump might be one that greatly damages his country’s standing in the world. It might be Russian propaganda. But, regardless, he remains a master at getting across his message. Over on the other side of Trump’s “beautiful ocean” on Friday night, the angry showdown in the White House was all people wanted to talk about.