[John Isbell]

Thanks, Andrew, for the Economist interview. Here is an excerpt, with Trump speaking first:

"you understand the expression “prime the pump”?

Yes.
We have to prime the pump.

It’s very Keynesian.
We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?

Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?

Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just…I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do."

To be fair, I don't think Donald Trump is an idiot. I didn't think George W. Bush was an idiot. I think Trump combines an ignorance, laziness, and narcissism that make George W. look stakhanovite, with a rare gift for unfiltered speech. And that leads to astonishing moments like the one above. He becomes hard to take seriously, or put another way, easy to underestimate. People have done so before.
One Trump topos is the powerful people who keep coming to his throne for approval. We heard from Trump how Comey did so, here it is heads of state like Trudeau. These are the rules of Trumpworld, and what a sad world it is.

Update. Here is the latest NYT headline: "‘Looking Like a Liar or a Fool’: What It Means to Work for Trump"