{"id":3157,"date":"2026-07-11T11:37:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T11:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=3157"},"modified":"2026-07-11T11:37:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T11:37:33","slug":"corrupt-mobster-trump-staggered-that-some-people-cant-be-bought-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=3157","title":{"rendered":"Corrupt ‘mobster’ Trump staggered that some people can\u2019t be bought: analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Dispatch writer Nick Catoggio says it really throws a corrupt man when other people don\u2019t respond to bribery. This is the confusion facing President Donald Trump in his doings with more principled international leaders \u2014 even in the terrorist state of Iran.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018I think he\u2019s dead\u2019: Mitch McConnell pulls a \u2018Franco\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Someone like Trump believes \u201ceveryone has their price,\u201d Cartoggio told the Dispatch. \u201c\u2026 Team Trump\u2019s One Neat Trick to get Iran to accept its interpretation of Paragraph 5 was to offer the Iranians the fattest envelope America could stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. diplomats led by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff proposed a trade-off to the enemy, in Trump\u2019s ceasefire deal, said Catoggio. Iran relinquishes its claim to control the Strait of Hormuz and renounce toll payments in exchange for billions of dollars of unfrozen funds. Dangling $100 billion in Iranian money at the regime if they\u2019d let go of the strait treated Hormuz like an income-producing Iranian asset that the United States might buy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the price was right, a rational actor would happily sell, no? And remember, that $100 billion is the tip of the iceberg under the memorandum: $300 billion in new investments from private interests is waiting for Iran if it complies fully with the terms of the deal, including meeting U.S. demands on its nuclear program,\u201d said Catoggio. \u201cThat\u2019s almost as much as the country\u2019s GDP last year. Bribes don\u2019t get much sweeter. Trump\u2019s fat envelope should have worked. After all, everyone has their price. Don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

But the transaction went sideways, said Catoggio, because Trump keeps expecting other leaders to act the way he acts himself \u2014 \u201ctransactional and generally without a guiding worldview.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is amoral whereas the Iranian regime is immoral, but they are immoral actors in the pursuit of long-term goals, enshrined in the Islamic Revolution of 1979,\u201d said Catoggio. \u201cNo amount of resistance appears capable of convincing the president that foreign nationalism usually can\u2019t be broken by buying, bullying, or bombing it into submission. Occasionally, it can: The predators who rule Venezuela rolled over meekly when Trump demanded fealty. But Ukraine fought on after the U.S. cut off military aid. Canada began organizing a western counterweight to U.S. power after Trump challenged its sovereignty. And Denmark continues to defy White House threats to sabotage NATO if it doesn\u2019t cough up Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The choke-worthy irony of Trump\u2019s new scare tactic<\/a><\/p>\n

Unlike Trump, not everyone has their price, particularly people motivated by nationalism. But genuine nationalism and patriotism is an alien notion to a creature like Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatriotism is an irrational impulse insofar as it implies that one should be willing to make great sacrifices for the good of one\u2019s country, and the president is an eminently rational actor. (In the economic sense of the term. No other.) He\u2019s a draft-dodging mobster, not Nathan Hale. Naturally he assumes that the Iranians are too,\u201d Catoggio argued. \u201c\u2026 In a war like the one in Iran, led on one side by someone who believes in nothing and on the other by people who believe fervently in crazy things, which is more likely to misjudge the other\u2019s willingness to persevere toward strategic victory rather than be bribed to quit?\u201d<\/p>\n

But what the president \u201clacks in intellectual foundations for his patriotism, he makes up for in raw chauvinism,\u201d Catoggio added. \u201c\u2026 He plainly revels in leading the most powerful country in the world because<\/em> it\u2019s the most powerful country in the world. That people abroad might feel similar pride in their own lesser nations is hard for him to grasp, I\u2019m sure. What do they have to feel pride about? Without chauvinism, what is patriotism worth?\u201d<\/p>\n

His broken understanding of \u201cAmerica first\u201d serves Trump\u2019s \u201cpreposterous narcissism,\u201d said Catoggio, \u201cbut it also leaves him unprepared and likely confused when people abroad decide that not only do they not like the world\u2019s strongest power pushing them around, they\u2019re willing to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Guess where the money came from?\u2019 Outrage sparked as cost of \u2018free\u2019 Air Force One is revealed<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dispatch writer Nick Catoggio says it really throws a corrupt man when other people don\u2019t respond to bribery. This is the confusion facing President Donald Trump in his doings with more principled international leaders \u2014 even in the terrorist state of Iran.Someone like Trump believes \u201ceveryone has t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCorrupt 'mobster' Trump staggered that some people can\u2019t be bought: analysis - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=3157\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Corrupt 'mobster' Trump staggered that some people can\u2019t be bought: analysis - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dispatch writer Nick Catoggio says it really throws a corrupt man when other people don\u2019t respond to bribery. 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