Natalie Kitroeff

Sure.

I mean, I think that we tend to fall into the trap of assuming that when Trump is espousing something, that it is an ideology.

When the belief, in fact, that he is espousing is self-belief.

In other words, that he's not saying, here is...

a core principle of what we believe in.

Instead, he's saying, other people are doing it stupid.

I'm going to do it smart.

And in fact, he was actually saying that in real time during that presidential debate that I referenced earlier.

Yeah, yeah, November 2015, when he says, you know, terrible war, tragic.

And we didn't take the oil.

That's what we should have done.

We should have taken the oil.

And then, in fact, the previous debate, he had actually said, I'm a very militaristic person.

I'm a very militaristic person.

But you have to know when to use the military.

So there he was explicitly saying, I'm not an anti-war president.

I'm a smart war president is what I am.

Sure.

Once Trump realized this was a winning message, then he began to say things that I think were very much against his core belief.

He began to say, I'm the peace president.