Trump Deal: Trump "or else". A Guest Post

 Peter Sage Introduction.

Thad Guyer is an attorney who represents whistleblowing employees in complex litigation.   He career involves messages that are persuasive to judges and juries.  Sometimes in settlement this comes down to hardball negotiations with expensive or even catastrophic potential consequences for one or both litigants.  

There are huge unknowns.  Can there be gigantic punitive damages?  Is there a potential RICO exposure?   Could there be criminal charges and prison time vulnerability for either party?   Settlement negotiations deal with the very real human fear that catastrophe could--maybe, who knows?--await a course of action.

Thad Guyer's post describes a Trump whose New York and casino dealmaking has long taken place in an environment of deep menace below the surface of beauty pageants and supposed-reality TV.

Guest Post by Thad Guyer:  “A Deal You Can’t Refuse”

Guest Post, by Thad Guyer

I guess most people regard Second Amendment “armed resistance to tyranny” to be just more conservative rhetorical embellishment-- like abortion is murder.  Trump rallies never mention abortion because his crowds could care less. But Trump always mentions the Second Amendment, saying Paris and San Bernardino would have ended differently “with bullets going back the other way”. Trump fans really care about guns to defend against tyrannical government and Muslim terrorists.   By now, anyone who does not understand that Trump, a hard ball executive producer and shrewd real estate mogul, will not allow the nomination to be “stolen” from him without invoking the specter of bullets, is, well, an idiot.  A tyrannical RNC qualifies for Second Amendment consideration.

Trump has already decreed that the media shall talk about potential violence by his supporters if Cruz, Kasich, Ryan, Rubio or other small and feckless political men lacking votes are seriously discussed as alternatives to him. Please note my language—I said consideration of violence shall result from the mere discussion of a convention rip-off.  Trump has already introduced, endorsed and choreographed a national discussion of a violent convention that wrongs him.  

Trump says he “hopes” convention violence will be averted, but that’s up to the RNC, he says, because only a “fair convention” can cause that violence not to happen. Trump does not take the position that it is illegitimate to debate a political cause and effect for convention violence. It already is being discussed. See, CNN, “Cruz on Trump campaign: They're acting like union boss thugs”, http://goo.gl/1tsZAB, and NYT, “Donald Trump Says ‘Rigged’ Convention Should Not Be Met With Violence”, http://nyti.ms/1qzJMPj.

Peter Sage has blogged: “I am looking into running to be a national convention delegate myself.”  See, “Tactic: Deligitimize”, http://goo.gl/uUm7qO. Perhaps Peter will speculate for us if he were a Hillary delegate but told by the DNC to vote his conscience, whether he would hesitate to switch his vote to Bernie if a radical and known-to-be-armed Hillary constituency threatened to visit his convention hotel to “discuss” the wisdom of that switch.  Maybe by way of further example Peter would tell us whether he would try to dissuade his wife from being a delegate in that scenario—in a gritty and distant city like Cleveland.  Delegates have spouses and children, and I wonder how many of them might hesitate to switch to Cruz, Ryan or another “voterless” nominee if Trump zealots promise such a personal visit. They already have promised that visit. See, Politico, “Roger Stone threatens to send Trump supporters to delegate hotel rooms”, http://goo.gl/txGzi7.

UpClose recently questioned whether Trump was up to the deal making needed to deliver delegate votes.  See, “Trump brand getting squeezed by Cruz”, http://goo.gl/4VHHXW, which opined:  “But if [Trump] cannot convince loyal Colorado and Louisiana Republicans to support him instead of an unlikeable Lie'n Ted then how could he possibly convince Mexico to pay for a wall … GOP voters seemed ready to accept that Trump can do miracles in deal making. So now he needs to do a couple of them, starting with some uncommitted delegates.”  

When I read this, I realized how specialized the “Art of the Deal” is, since as a trial lawyer, very hardball deals, including threats of violence by the parties, are within my bailiwick. I realized a lot of voters and pundits actually have little experience with hardball deals.  Trump does, and in his career he has brought adversaries to their knees trembling at looming catastrophe. I would be very afraid to be the recipient of a Trump threat.  Mexico, China, NATO, RNC officials, and soon rank and file delegates, all know not to dismiss Trump threats.  He dispatches the rich and powerful, the Bushes, Romneys, Ailes, Roves, and McCains, without so much as a shudder. How many people do you think can talk about former President George W. Bush, dirty-trickster and king-maker Karl Rove, or Fox Chairman Roger Ailes like that and have not even a bruise to show for it? 

Trump negotiating a deal

Trump was happy to let the presumptively unfair and voterless Colorado and Wyoming delegates go to Cruz.  See, RT, “Fury at GOP after Cruz handed ‘voterless victory’ in Colorado”, https://goo.gl/UT9miT, and Gateway Pundit, “Ted Cruz Celebrates Wyoming Win Calling Voter-Less Contest a Grassroots Uprising”, http://goo.gl/F4DM8P. Pundits who say Trump didn’t understand the rules and didn’t see the voterless sweeps coming are amateurs, or even stupid.  Strategic negotiations and conquests always mean deliberate sacrificing of pawns and bishops to win the board. As UpClose so aptly explained, Trump is the master of delegitimization, and in just two weeks using Colorado and Wyoming, has delegitimized the RNC, the establishment, and Cruz. See, NBC News, “62% Say Republican with Most Votes Should Be Nominee”, http://goo.gl/edReqM. 

Trump has won the effort to delegitimize the delegate selection process

Republicans are already under siege for voter manipulation. See, NYT: “Why Americans Can’t Vote”, http://nyti.ms/1SlO8X3. The RNC chairman is now pleading with the RNC rules committee to change no rules—to not even suggest changes-- lest Trump burn the entire party apparatus to the ground before Cleveland even arrives. See, CNN, “GOP rules fight flares up behind scenes”, http://goo.gl/PggxZc.

The Trump deal is simple:  If you are a Trump delegate, and you don’t want a knock on your door, you will vote for him on the first or hundredth ballot—you will never switch your vote, and you will keep faith with a Republican majority who says he who gets the most votes wins. If you can’t take the heat, then resign as a delegate before the convention, and be replaced by a real Trump loyalist sent there by voters, not political hacks. 

You want to see hardball deal-making and negotiation in the billionaire and New York executive producer leagues?  You’re seeing it.   It’s called a deal you can’t refuse.