Here is the difference, Mr. Trump:

When you buy a building, you want to get it for the best terms possible. If the seller needs to sell it and wants to receive $5 million, you can say to him, ” Here’s the deal. I will buy it for $2 million. If that works, fine. If not….goodbye.” And you can walk away and wait to see if he calls. If he does, fine. If not, no problem; there are other buildings you can buy. Either way, the deal is over.

Working out, say, tariffs with China is different. You can not just say “nevermind” and the deal is never over. A deal that is bad for China will cause you problems, not only China. And once you make a deal, you don’t walk away from each other, like the parties to a real estate contract. You have to live with it. If you just decide you don’t like the deal you made and abruptly announce you are changing it, you lose credibility, no one will want to deal with you, and once again you have a big problem.

A real estate deal and a deal involving tariffs are not even distant relations. The Art of the Deal is irrelevant.

You don’t seem to understand this.

And then there is Harvard. You want to turn the president of Harvard into a Trump employee who will spend his time implementing your policies as to what to teach, whom to hire, whom to admit, and so forth. You want him to do this because you think that Harvard doesn’t take care of its Jewish students because it is too woke. Come on…….

When Harvard told you that you don’t run their university, you said that you would cancel $2 billion of federal support for programs that you may or may not like, that may or may not be important, etc. You obviously don’t care, but guess what? Your sledgehammer approach is one reason (there are many others) why you should never become the president of Harvard (or any other university).

When Harvard said that they were not willing to respond to your Mafia-like protectionist demands, you raised the ante, and have now told your independent Department of the Treasury’s IRS  to take away Harvard’s tax exempt status. Lotsa luck, as they say. You don’t have much of a chance to succeed here, even if the IRS follows your instructions. And, obviously, this threat is not going to move Harvard to accept your demands.

So, I am wondering what you do next? Do you bring criminal charges against all Harvard administrators? Do you take any Harvard faculty members who are not citizens and send them to El Salvador. Do you tell any organization or entity which continues to have any relationship with Harvard that you are going to have the IRS audit them? Are you going to burn down the entire Harvard campus? Yes, you have a lot of choices.

Let’s go back to antisemitism for a minute. I, for one, don’t you think you are antisemitic. No, let me put it another way. I don’t think you dislike Jews any more than you dislike everyone else. You clearly dislike everyone, I think, except maybe Ivanka. No, let me put it still a different way. You don’t really dislike any of these people. How could you? You don’t even think of them as people. Obviously.

But, as to antisemitism, let’s talk about Josh Shapiro. Did I miss your message to him after the arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion by someone who didn’t like his stance on Israel? What about “good people on both sides”? And what about those acknowledged antisemites that you entertain at Mar-a-lago, or who have positions in your government? How can you allow that? What about the Musk salute, or the dalliance between Vance and Germany’s right wing party? If you weren’t you, and you were serious about antisemitism, you would surely take some actions against you. Maybe you should ignore that you are you, and give you what you deserve.

Finally, for now, I would like you to explain one thing to me. When you say, or when your much too young press secretary says, that you will always obey the rulings of the courts, what does that mean? I can see that it doesn’t mean that you will always obey the rulings of the courts, but then I get stuck. Which of your words do I not seem to understand. Is it “always”, is it “obey”, is it “rulings”, or is it “courts”? Can you at least give me a hint?

Oh, wait a minute. I think I see my problem. You and I may agree on the definition of each of these words, but we may there is another word, one that seems innocuous but which clearly holds the key. The word is “will”.

I look at the word “will” in this context as referring to any time after you make the statement. But you may be looking at “will” as meaning “any time in the future”. Not the future from the time you make a statement, or from any other definite time, but simply the future, the future that never comes. As you look at it, you can always disobey a court because whenever you disobey the court, it is the present, and quickly it is the past. And as you disobey the court, you can say that you “will” never do that in the future.

Clever, Don, clever. You have my respect for that one. Brilliant.