At
Lunch, Donald Trump Gives Critics Hope
Thomas L. Friedman
Thomas L. Friedman
NOV. 22, 2016
Well, that was
interesting … Donald Trump came to lunch at The New York Times. You
can find all the highlights on the news pages, but since I had the
opportunity to be included, let me offer a few impressions of my
first close encounter with Trump since he declared for the
presidency.
The most important
was that on several key issues — like climate change and torture —
where he adopted extreme positions during his campaign to galvanize
his base, he went out of his way to make clear he was rethinking
them. How far? I don’t know. But stay tuned, especially on climate.
There are many
decisions that President-elect Trump can and will make during the
next four years. Many of them could be reversible by his successor.
But there is one decision he can make that could have truly
irreversible implications, and that is to abandon America’s
commitment to phasing out coal, phasing in more clean energy systems
and leading the world to curb CO2 emissions before they reach a level
that produces a cycle of wildly unpredictable climate disruptions.
When asked where he
stood on that climate change issue — which in the past he dismissed
as a hoax — and last December’s U.S.-led Paris
emissions-reduction accord, the president-elect did not hesitate for
a second: “I’m looking at it very closely. … I have an open
mind to it. We’re going to look very carefully. … You can make
lots of cases for different views. … I will tell you this: Clean
air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal-clean water is vitally
important.”
Do you think climate
change is caused by human activity?
“I think there is
some connectivity,” Trump answered. It is not clear “how much,”
and what he will do about it “depends on how much it’s going to
cost our companies.” Trump said he would study the issue “very
hard” and hinted that if, after study, he was to moderate his
views, his voice would be influential with climate skeptics.
On the question of
whether the U.S. military should use waterboarding and other forms of
torture to break suspected terrorists — a position he advocated
frequently during the campaign to great applause — Trump bluntly
stated that he had changed his mind after talking with James N.
Mattis, the retired Marine Corps general, who headed the United
States Central Command.
Trump said Mattis
told him of torture: “I’ve never found it to be useful.” (Many
in the military and the C.I.A. have long held this view.)
He quoted Mattis as
saying, “Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I
always do better” than anyone using torture. Concluded Trump, “I
was very impressed by that answer.”
Speaking of the
Middle East, Trump said unprompted: “I would love to be able to be
the one that made peace with Israel and the Palestinians,” adding,
“I have reason to believe I can do that.” And he hinted that his
son-in-law, Jared Kushner, could be his special envoy and “he’d
be very good at it. … He knows the region.” (Wow, watching Trump
try to forge a deal between Bibi Netanyahu and the Palestinians would
be pay-per-view!)
The one area where I
think Trump is going to have the hardest time delivering on his
campaign promises is to create “millions” of good-paying jobs by
incentivizing and pressuring American companies to manufacture more
in the U.S. He still talks about America as a manufacturing wasteland
when, in fact, manufacturing remains the largest sector of the U.S.
economy but employs far fewer workers.
As the management
consultant Warren Bennis famously observed: “The factory of the
future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be
there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from
touching the equipment.”
Bottom line: The
campaign is over, but the struggle for Donald Trump’s soul has just
begun. Trump clearly learns by talking to people, not reading.
Because so few thought he would win, many of those who gathered
around him and had his ear were extreme characters.
But now that he has
been elected president he is exposing himself to, and hearing from, a
much wider net of people. He mentioned that he had had telephone
conversations with Bill Gates and with Apple C.E.O. Tim Cook. And he
stressed repeatedly that he wants to succeed: “I am doing this to
do a good job.”
To do that he needs
to moderate many views and learn from a much wider network of people.
For those of us who opposed Trump’s election, it is not time to let
down our guard and stop drawing redlines where necessary. But for
moderate Republicans and Democratic business leaders, like a Bill
Gates, who can gain his ear and respect, and who have made big
investments in clean energy, Trump may be — may be — persuadable
on some key issues. They need to dive in now and try to pull him
toward the center.
For a meeting
between the newsmaker and this news organization that has covered him
without fear or favor, the lunch was fairly relaxed, but not without
some jousting. Asked if he read The New York Times, Trump said: “I
do read it. Unfortunately. I would live about 20 years longer if I
didn’t.”
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