hinking specifically of ethnicity so I wasn't thinking of gender or LGBTQ. I was thinking just of ethnicity for a moment. It seems that this president just got behind the single biggest civil rights legislation. It wasn't called that of course but the prison reform is a huge civil rights thing. Now DACA also would be and we know that the president would negotiate at least on that if he had a chance.

All right so you've got that working against the narrative. But here's the other one. The other one is that he's incompetent. I don't know if I've said this explicitly publicly so maybe you can tell me if you've heard me say this before or if I just thought it. The thing that I've liked and liked ahead of time as well about the Trump presidency, the thing I like best is not that he would break a lot of dishes because everybody knew he was going to break some dishes right? Some dishes were going to get broken. He's going to be a little more expensive than the normal president and sure enough that's the case. But the thing I liked about him was that it seemed to me that he had unique talents that could get some things done that were literally just impossible for another character to do. There was something about the unique blend of talents that he brought to the job that would probably make him not so good on some things. Let's say the deficit. All right I don't think the president's personality and set of talents are well suited to bringing down the deficit. Would everybody agree? Because Trump is actually most known for using debt to build his empire. He likes debt. So while it would be true that the president would be the worst person for maybe helping race relations and feel good, probably terrible for that, might be the worst person for even healthcare. He might be a terrible choice for getting healthcare done because it's a real big complicated thing. You probably have to dig into it a little bit into the details. That's sort of not his deal. So you might not be good for that. And you could probably end the budget, probably not the best for bringing down debt.

But there were other things that he brings to the job that I was hoping would solve some unsolvable problems. Some of the unsolvable problems include North Korea. Would you say that there's something about Trump that's special that made him a perfect choice for getting to what looks like strong progress in North Korea? The answer is yes. Even his critics would say though they be critics, even his critics will say I think that his personality helped get that done. When we look at prison reform his critics say you know I don't like a lot of what he's doing but I got to say there's something about Trump that made this possible. Those are two big things.

What about tax reform? You might argue that another Republican could have gotten tax reform but I don't know. I'll leave that to the jury. There might be something about the tax overhaul that required a Trump personality but less of a case in that case. What about renegotiating NAFTA? What about getting some kind of a better trade situation with China? Is there something about Trump that makes him uniquely qualified for that? I think yes. I think there is something about Trump's personality that makes negotiating trade deals far more likely to be successful. Is there something about Trump that will get the wall built or at least better security on the border whatever that looks like? And the answer is probably yes because the special thing about Trump is that he was willing to take the heat. You needed somebody who was willing to take brutal criticism in order to make the border security a higher priority. Would you say that the president has made border security a higher priority with or without a fence? I'd say yes. I would say that there's something special about this president that allowed border security to be a higher priority and probably will get more money and it might not be a fence but there's definitely something that looks like progress there that his personality probably had a lot to do with it. Something that wouldn't have necessarily happened under even another Republican.

So you look at all these things and then you look at the Middle East. If the Middle East goes the direction that it looks to be going and this is my prediction. My prediction is that the Middle East is starting to shape up into something that's going to form into a Middle East peace plan. Is there something about the president's personality that's unique that could get that done? And the answer is probably yes. Probably yes. He would put more pressure on Iran than another president, important. He would support Saudi Arabia and its leader when nobody else supported him, probably important to get some leverage. He can get along great with Israel like nobody ever did, very important. And apparently you can get along with Putin better than other people which is going to be very important in the Middle East. So is there something unique about Trump that even another Republican wouldn't have that could make the impossible maybe happen? And the impossible is something like a peace deal in the Middle East. And I think yes.

So here's a bigger picture that I've made or a bigger point that I've tried to make a few times which is that you want the president who can solve the problems that nobody else can solve. Because you know who can solve the small problems? The next president. If the president after this president got a hold of the let's say the next president, let me draw this picture for you. Let's say the president after Trump comes into office and ISIS has been solved. By the way I forgot to mention that wouldn't you say that the battlefield defeat of ISIS happened quicker and more efficiently because of something special about President Trump and specifically the rules of engagement and he gave them freedom to do it. He picked Mattis. I think you can make that case. I think you could say that his personality was important to ISIS.

So let's say the next president comes in. That next president is likely to have the best economy ever, an ISIS that has been largely defeated, a North Korea that's crawling toward peace but moving in that direction, a Middle East that is in a much better shape, trade deals that are already completed and more favorable, and a military that's been built up to be more powerful and more effective, a veterans association that's working better. I'm not sure if it's better enough but it's working better. If the next president comes into office what problems will that president have to solve? Well I would say the biggest problem would probably be getting the debt under control. Is President Trump the best person to do that? Probably not. Would the next president be really good at getting the deficit under control? Well if we're smart we'll bring in the next president. Race relations, if we're smart we'll bring in the next president who can do stuff like whatever is left of healthcare if that needs to be improved, getting the deficit under control, maybe better in race relationships.

So we have the option of getting everything we can get in a Trump, accepting that there are going to be some areas where they're just not his strong points by personality, and then you get them with the next president. I would argue that President Obama was very successful. I know you hate this. I know you hate to hear this. He was very successful in the sense that he was the right personality at the right time but not for every task. Obama was the wrong personality to deal with the Middle East. He may have been the wrong personality to deal with ISIS. He may have been the wrong personality to deal with China. But he might have been exactly the right personality to deal with an economy that was ready to fall off the edge because he was this calm cool lawyer-like guy. People trusted him. He had a pretty good mandate from his election. He was probably good on race relations. He got us past the hump of having a black president which was important to the character of the country I think. So I would say that Obama had some unique personality traits that were well suited for some types of problems and poorly suited for others. President Trump is similar but in reverse. And that Trump is really strong on the things that Obama was weak on and kind of weak on the things that Obama was strong on. I don't know that it's a bad thing that we ping pong between Democrats and Republicans. And I know you hate that too but it's probably a good thing that this country likes to try one for a while, say ah eight years is enough of this guy, let's try the opposite because he solved all the problems that his personality can solve. You need a different personality for the next problems.

All right I think it is hilarious and shows just how clever I am that there's conversation now about whether this particular structure that they're looking at for the border should be called a fence or a wall. There is literally, and you can't make this stuff up, people they're actually considering as one of the top structures to be on the border with Mexico something that's got slats. These steel slats. And some people look at a thing that has steel slats that you can look through and they say well that's clearly a fence. But it's made out of steel and it's thick. These are thick slats. What do you call something that's as tall as a wall, as hard as a wall, but is made of metal? Well some people would call it a wall. Other people would call it a fence. Did I not tell you that the solution to this was always going to be something that one side could call a wall at the same time the others could stand there and look at it right in front of themselves and say that my friends is a fence? Did anybody else predict that there would be a solution that some would call a wall and some would call a fence? Because it's the only way to get past it. I think I'm the only one. And I forwarded an article from CNN in which they're making that case that some people are going to call this structure a wall and some call it a fence.

I think what's happening is that the president is just looking for a different way to get the budget. He's going to carve it out of different departments. He's going to find a creative way to do it. I think the Democrats painted themselves into a corner. They painted themselves into a corner by saying it was immoral to have a wall so now they can't really fund it. So the president will have to find his funding some other way, call it a fence, hand it off to the engineers, let them do something.

All right let's talk about climate just briefly. I've talked about this too much. I've told you that the problem with trying to decide what to think about climate change, one of the biggest problems is that we are not scientists so we can't really evaluate the science on a deep level as citizens. So we can only look at the people who have the pro side and look at the people who have the con side and evaluate their persuasiveness. We can't really go down to