Republican insider details Trump’s 4 steps to failing 'spectacularly'

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a ceremony marking the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States at the Pentagon, in Washington D.C., U.S., September 11, 2025. REUTERSEvelyn Hockstein

According to conservative commentator Andrew Egger, whenever President Donald Trump lays out a goal, history has shown that there are typically four steps between having the commander-in-chief announce his intentions and having them fail “spectacularly.”

Writing for the Bulwark, Egger explained “how the president has approached basically all problems since retaking office last year. Step 1: Announce your intent to solve some longstanding problem, like America’s trade deficit,or Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon, or the national debt, or an algae-ridden reflecting pool. Step 2: Ignore all logistical challenges that made the problem difficult in the first place; proclaim confidently that the only reason previous attempts to solve them failed is because your predecessors were giant idiots. Step 3: Try to solve the problem via the first idea you think of. Step 4: Fail spectacularly and immediately.”

This script, asserts Egger, has been repeated again and again over the course of Trump’s second term.

For example, “After months of castigating the ‘filthy, dirty’ pool as a symbol of failed Democratic leadership… and just days after the White House declared the mission of cleaning it up accomplished, the reflecting pool is once again resolutely algae-green. National Park Service teams could be seen scurrying around Monday and Tuesday, brandishing pool skimmers and gallon jugs of 12 percent hydrogen peroxide solution in a ferocious attempt to restore the pool to its ‘American flag blue’ glory. Hey, look on the bright side: It might not be quite what Trump wanted for the Fourth of July, but it’ll work great next year for St. Patrick’s Day!”

Or for another example, “How to fix the American economy? Simple: Throw a million tariffs on it. ‘For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,’ Trump thundered on ‘Liberation Day’ in April 2025. ‘I don’t blame these other countries at all for this calamity. I blame former presidents and past leaders who weren’t doing their job.’ He then spent months in a fever dream of tariff negotiations and renegotiations, setting and resetting rates with mad abandon and whipping the economy around like a rag doll, until the Supreme Court declared the whole mess unconstitutional earlier this year.”

From there, Egger lambasts Trump's strategy for tackling the national debt. According to Egger, the president’s approach is “simple: Just throw open the government books to some smart tech guys and let them figure out what to cut. Trump and Elon Musk, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last February, were doing ‘the exact same things that Democrat politicians promised the American people they would do for decades. President Trump is just the first president in our lifetimes to actually do it.’ Musk then spent a few months rampaging through the government tearing the wiring out of the walls; a project that did major damage to vulnerable populations around the world and U.S. science research but made no appreciable dent in federal spending.”

Finally, Egger raises an issue that has been looming largest in the news: the war with Iran. So what was Trump’s plan to “bring Iran’s mullahs to heel? Simple: Bomb the hell out of the country until they give you everything you want. ‘For 47 years, no president was willing to do what I’m doing, and they should have done it a long time ago,’ Trump said of his war on Iran back in March. He then spent months watching economic pain pile up in America and waiting in vain for the Iranian capitulation to come, before finally getting sick of the thing and throwing in the towel this week.”

As Egger concludes, “Each time this happens, Trump and Co. are compelled to deal with a certain amount of strain in the base. It’s not easy these days being the sort of Trump supporter who rushes in to trumpet every one of his actions as a masterstroke; he tends to leave you with a certain amount of rhetorical cleanup to do.”

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