Trump Strategy Quotes

Trump knows where his strengths exist, and he is emphatically in favor of doubling down on them. This goes far beyond appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

The king of branding, Mr. Trump performs best when he is on the defense.

If you don't donate to Obama and you're a major corporation like Big Oil, then they're gonna blame you for climate change, destroying the planet and they're gonna get everybody turned against you and hating your guts and so forth, and that's how they operate. That's not how Trump operates. That's not how Mike Pence operates. They understand the simple mathematics of economics.

The reality is [Donald] Trump is just better at this game than they are. Blaming the media may be a convenient foil, but the reality is, he's played the free media game better than they have. He has used the personal attack meme against them and literally created memes about them. They need to figure out how to play this game.

I do think the strategy of Trump, and now the Republican Party, is to eviscerate the idea of objective truth.

The sense of crisis is everything for Trump - even if it's largely invented. His depiction of darkness justifies his candidacy, the need to violently shake the system. His ability to conjure fear is what distinguished him from all those career pols he has vanquished. And it suits his ego.

Trump doesn't need his own agenda if he can terrify independent voters in swing states about what would happen if the Democratic agenda is implemented.

[Donald Trump] doesn't have a speechwriter, doesn't have a teleprompter. He doesn't have a pollster, he doesn't have a consultant, he doesn't have campaign staff. He hasn't been fundraising. He hasn't done anything you're supposed to do. Look what he's doing! [People] are fascinated.

There's a big difference in Trump and previous Republicans. They have a strategy known as surrender. When the media starts coming after 'em and the Democrats come after 'em, the Republicans, "Okay, okay, okay." Trump says, "What? What?" And just keeping plowing they had and then impugning 'em, laughing at 'em, making fun of 'em with his tweets and so forth.

Donald Trump said that his plan now is to just let Obamacare fail. He's not gonna own it. He's just gonna let it fail. Which he's been saying for months. He said, you know, the smart thing politically for him to do is to let it fail and let the Democrats absorb all the blame.

[Barack] Obama, he'll be out of office soon and, frankly,[Donald] Trump relies on him .

I don't think [Donald] Trump was playing rope-a-dope. He probably said, "Look, I've done these. How many debates did we do in the primaries? I know what's happening."

It doesn't really matter what policy you're for, so long ease gets your gut-level anger about whatever. So, you can't attack Donald Trump on policy.

Anyone would be able to be played by someone like him [Donald Trump], that's what he did, he played people.

Donald Trump has defied practically every playbook or blue book technique in dispatching an opponent.

Democrats continue to make the mistake of plugging Trump into what they think their system is. And what they haven't figured out is, Donald Trump has taken over their system. I really think they don't have any idea what's headed their way.

Business success is not determined by government policy. It's not determined by regulation. The people succeed in business have to overcome all the obstacles put in their way by people like Democrats and Obama. That's what Trump knows, how to overcome these guys, how to get the things they put in his way out of the way, while they don't even know it's happening. And that would go for much of the political commentariat, too, folks, that are totally immersed in politics and know nothing else, other than they swear allegiance to free markets, but that's about it.

Everything [Ted] Cruz was doing was legal, it was aboveboard, but it was portrayed as Cruz is the villain, and here's [Donald] Trump and what he wants and will he get it? "Will he get to 1,237 before the convention? And if he doesn't, will they block him?"

I think that Donald Trump, how many times during the campaign did he tell us that his plan for dealing with foreign policy was to be unpredictable? Well, there we have it.

Donald Trump has been frustrated because the Republicans won't do anything, so he's going over to the Democrat side, and he's doing deals - and in order to do that, the Democrats are running the show. The media wants you to believe that Trump is acquiescing to the Democrat agenda just so he can do deals and just so there can be something done.

I think Trump uses social media as a way to get to people's lowest common denominator. He uses it to incite fear. He talks about simplistic ideas.

Everybody dealing with Trump is making the big mistake of trying to plug Trump into the age-old political handbook. Trump's not part of that. You don't deal with Trump in the standard, political handbook way on policy and issues and things like that. That's not the way to separate Trump supporters from Trump. It isn't gonna work.

How Donald Trump reaches out to groups that may not have supported him, how he signals his interest in their issues or concerns, I think those are the kinds of things that can set a tone that will help move things forward once he has actually taken office.

Trump is very skillful at identifying - even if he can't quite get it clear, or precisely describe it - but that's what he wants to do, is always have something to use against people, even if it's distorted.

Trump divides his time between working some kind of 'King Ralph' angle, and claiming that he's going to make the U.S. great again by using his business experience. We can only assume that means repeatedly declaring it bankrupt, then changing its name so he can just shake off all the debt.