His great skill is to read a crowd and repeat their passions back to them

Marc Fisher, US journalist

are, in fact, a calculated ploy to gain support among a certain segment of American voters.

“In reality, that has an appeal in various places,” he said.

“He has looked at the situation and saw it appeals to certain people.”

In the event that Trump is elected, Fisher said that Trump would likely function as he has in his business ventures — through a small number of trusted advisors.

“He has always worked with a tiny circle of trusted executives. That would continue to be the way he operates,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine him breaking that pattern in the way a president has to.”

Kranish said that Trump might — out of necessity — have to change the way he operates if he were in the White House.

“Even Republicans have been concerned by his temperament. As president, you need to be willing to listen to people who have a different opinion and challenge you,” he said. “He’d have to be a different kind of president than executive.”

In the event that Trump loses the elections, Fisher believes that after an initial period of bluster Trump would eventually accept defeat.

“He tends to last out, blame others and say the system is rigged,” he noted. “Then he tends to move on.” Regarding Trump’s controversial statements regarding women, Fisher said that he considers Trump as someone who has been “arrested in the period of his youth.”

“He has an enormous drive to prove himself to other men as a guy’s guy,” he said. “A lot of this behavior is linked to that.”

“He’s not someone who has had a lot of exposure to the way conversations have changed,” he added. “He’s also just trying to get a rise out of people.”

When asked for predictions about the coming elections, both authors declined to give any.

“I predict that the country will remain divided and (that there will be) a lot of dysfunction in Washington,” Kranish concluded.

bernd@khaleejtimes.com