President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn as he arrives at the White House, Sunday, June 30, 2019, in Washington. Trump returns from a visit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea as well as the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

During her appearance on Face the Nation yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a challenge to President Trump. If, she said, he’s complaining about his not receiving due process, there is an easy solution:

SPEAKER PELOSI: …So the president could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the truth that he wants if he wants–

MARGARET BRENNAN: You don’t expect him to do that?

SPEAKER PELOSI: –if he wants to take the oath of office or he could do it in writing. He has every opportunity to present his case.

President Trump has responded:

….that I testify about the phony Impeachment Witch Hunt. She also said I could do it in writing. Even though I did nothing wrong, and don’t like giving credibility to this No Due Process Hoax, I like the idea & will, in order to get Congress focused again, strongly consider it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2019

I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in this. It is largely theater on both parts. Pelosi is taunting Trump, possibly thinking she can work on his ego and goad him into testifying before the Schiff-show. Trump is responding by holding out a possibility that everyone thinks is pretty much like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown.

At some level, I don’t doubt that Trump actually believes that if he testified he’d be able to clear things up. I think, by now, he’s smart enough to know that if you give them nothing, they got nothing. There is nothing that Trump submits, in writing or orally, that is going to stop this process and there is a near certainty of any response making the matters worse. After all, as the saying goes, no one has ever talked himself out of being arrested but a lot of people have talked themselves into being arrested.