Trump’s ‘ultimatum’ is fairly brilliant in a cynical way. He believes that there aren’t enough votes to pass the massively unpopular bill, so instead of spend the time to craft a decent piece of legislation, he’s hoping the bill will fail so that he can blame Congress for its failure and escape most of the repercussions. This also allows him to get away from the complicated and difficult subject of healthcare where he is completely out of his element and toward more flashy bits of executive showbusiness.

People keep underestimating Trump, saying that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He absolutely knows when to deflect, distract, blame, defame, and call names. He knows how to play Machiavelli’s lion and fox, and I fear that the media is just going to let him slink away on this one.