Donald Trump Offers Rare Praise - for Barack Obama?

There's a reason for everything Donald Trump does. Oh, there are times when that reason is spite or anger, and in that respect, he's just like all the rest of us. But there are other times when he makes a statement that, on the surface, appears to be a head-scratcher — until you look at what he said.

One such case happened Tuesday during an interview with CNN, wherein Donald Trump offered some rare praise for his predecessor, Barack Obama. But note Trump's words:

Trump is one of Obama’s most lasting critics, famously questioning his legitimacy by doubting he was born in the United States. On Tuesday, in an interview with CNN, he offered one of his few praises of him though followed by an immediate criticism.
“I like him. I think he’s a nice gentleman, but he was very, very weak on trade,” Trump said. “If you take a look at what happened to our country, tradewise, it was a disaster.”
“Take a look at Japan. Take a look at China,” he continued. “Take a look at what happened with some of these countries, what they did.”
Trump also complimented former first lady Michelle Obama.
“But I happen to like him,” he added. “I respect him, and I respect his wife.”

Taken as a whole, this statement is pretty much the definition of damning with faint praise — the only thing Trump missed was adding a "bless his heart" at the end of his comments, but then, Trump is from New York, not Texas, and that term isn't commonly used in New York, at least not in that same way.

Of course, while this was going on, the Obamas were trashing Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention.

“The truth is, Donald Trump sees power as nothing more than a means to his ends,” Barack Obama said. “He wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would mostly help him and his rich friends.”
“He doesn’t seem to care if more women lose their reproductive freedom since it won’t affect his life,” he continued. “And most of all, Donald Trump wants us to think that this country is hopelessly divided: between us and them. … It is one of the oldest tricks in politics, from a guy whose act has — let’s face it — gotten pretty stale.”

This is something interesting; Trump is taking the high ground. Are his comments designed to defuse the Obamas, who Trump had to know were going to bash him at the convention?

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Or is Trump making an uncharacteristically subtle point? Notice the disclaimer; he sharply criticizes Obama's policies, while referring to him as a "nice gentleman" when speaking of him as a person.

It is certainly possible to like someone personally and differ on political matters. I've mentioned before that one of my best friends is a deep-blue, East Coast urban progressive; we worked together on several consulting projects when I was still in that game. He's very good at that business, and we made a good team, in no small part because we listened to each other, something you can't always count on in the corporate world. We've maintained this odd Felix Unger/Oscar Madison friendship for 15 years; I respect his ability to set up and work within compliance and quality management systems while disagreeing with him rather sharply in political matters.

But honestly, I don't think that's what Donald Trump was expressing here. Nor do I think he was using a soft answer to turneth away wrath. We may note that Trump also referred to Obama in similar terms in 2017, during the transition, and Trump reportedly "cherished" the letter Barack Obama left him (as is tradition) after Trump's 2017 inauguration as president.

Trump, however, is said to cherish Obama’s missive. Upon reading it on Inauguration Day, he attempted to place a phone call to the former president expressing his gratitude, according to both a current White House official and a former Obama aide. His predecessor was traveling west to California with his family, and couldn’t take the call.

And there is, of course, that old admonition to keep one's friends close, and one's enemies closer.

No, I think what Trump is doing here is something he has been doing throughout this year's campaign: dialing back his tone and focusing more on policy. He's not always able to do that; it's not completely in his nature. But these comments, set against the backdrop of the Obamas bashing him from the DNC stage? That's an interesting contrast, and I can't help but think it was deliberate. And this statement, in particular, seems to have done one thing: confounded the legacy media. And that's worth doing, every day and twice on Sunday.