But her political predicament was larger than that. Trump also demands — and rewards — loyalty, particularly in the form of effusive praise on cable news. Nielsen tried on that score, but she was never particularly convincing, often sounding as if she were reading from a script she didn’t like.
But there’s another measure of political value the president prizes in his lieutenants and surrogates: He likes a good foil. In foreign policy, for instance, Trump has played the disrupter, questioning NATO, blowing up trade deals. Meanwhile his foreign-policy and defense teams played a reassuring role, pushing the broom behind the bull.
In domestic politics, however, Trump loves controversy but struggles with confrontation. (That’s why he so often fires people over Twitter from a distance.)
From his lifelong admiration for Roy Cohn, the bare-knuckled brawler who served as his mentor, to his hiring of legal and political brutes like Michael Cohen and Corey Lewandowski, Trump enjoys it when others play the heavy for him so he can claim to be the nice guy.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member