'Crazy worked just fine the first time': What some Republicans think is behind Trump’s 'freewheeling'

In a slew of social media posts on Christmas Day, President-elect Donald Trump reiterated something that he suggested last month following his victory over Kamala Harris: that the United States "should own Greenland, annex Canada and reclaim the Panama Canal."

In a Thursday Politico report, breaking news reporter Myah Ward asserts that "if Trump’s overtures are evidence that his America First policy agenda may have an interventionist component, they also served as an early reminder of how the incoming president conducts foreign policy: Lots of threats, confusion, freewheeling and a dose of unpredictability."

Ward writes, "And Republicans are largely writing it off as saber rattling, an approach that sometimes helped Trump get what he wanted out of allies and adversaries during his first term, but also at times threw his administration into chaos or sowed confusion like the famous late-night 'Covfeve' tweet."

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Matthew Bartlett, Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett — who served under Trump's first administration — told Politico, "I was there at the State Department when a tweet would be issued, and then, every intellectual in the building had to somehow figure out if there’s any logical sense to this and policy to this and if there’s any upside, or if this actually is Covfefe."

He added, "But from a foreign policy context, crazy worked just fine the first time. If leaders are like, we may not respect you but we absolutely think that you’re bonkers, and we don’t know what’s coming at us next, great. Full send. And if that leads to better peace and prosperity in Ukraine, in Israel, with terrorists on watch, with foreign states. Great. They should be put on notice."

Another GOP strategist, Dave Carney, told the news outlet that the president-elect could be "trying to soften the ground for negotiations," Ward reports, "recalling his threats during his first term to withdraw from NATO — which some Republicans credited with pressuring other countries to increase their defense spending."

Carney suggested that "Trump’s unpredictability can be an asset in some scenarios," Ward added.

"With the president, there’s, I think, always the possibility that other countries think, ‘holy shmoly, he may actually do that, we should try to accommodate him,’” the former Trump appointee said.

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Politico's full report is available here.