The ‘business strategy’ behind Donald Trump’s outrageous remarks

WE’RE wrong about Donald Trump.

Every time he says or tweets something outrageous and we get offended and blast him, we’re getting the President all wrong.

That, at least, is according to White House security adviser Rudy Giuliani.

Speaking to Nine News journalist Alex Malley on In Conversation with Alex Malley, Mr Giuliani said his boss’ outrageous, headline-grabbing remarks are nothing more than the entry point for a business negotiation.

“(Mr Trump) is a showman,” said Mr Giuliani. “He loves to create a little drama, and he understands how to command the discussion and keep the agenda on the agenda he wants it on.

“He understands that to get attention, sometimes you have to overstate, and then later you can pull back from the overstatement. Maybe that’s because (of his) experience as a real estate negotiator.

“People never got that about him that a lot of what he says, he believes in, but it’s a negotiating position. It’s here’s where we’re gonna start, that doesn’t mean we’re gonna end up there.

“I think he’s gonna be a very good President, because that’s a great skill that negotiating skill is a great skill for a President, and people are gonna find as they get to know him ... that he’s very nice, very warm and very engaging.”The friendship between Mr Giuliani and Mr Trump stems back almost three decades. He said they’ve done everything from work in business together, to playing golf and going out to sporting games.

When asked why he devoted himself to a presidential campaign that, at the time, was not looking promising, Mr Giuliani said he thought Mr Trump would “shake up” the system.

“I believe that my country is headed in the wrong direction,” he said. “I believe we are headed in the direction of a European social democracy, and of just another country that’s gonna accept some kind of international order, rather than what I believe America should be a sovereign country, with its own set of laws, its own set of values that the international order doesn’t get determined. That the people who live in these 50 states get to determine it.

“I believe the genius of America has always been capitalism. I don’t believe in unrestrained capitalism . I believe this was our last chance to once again re-establish the genius of America which is this is a country of opportunity, not dependency.

“It’s built on a good education and a good job. We’ve been doing a terrible job at our education system, and a terrible job at protecting our jobs for poor people.

“I saw Donald Trump as somebody who could shake that all up.”

Mr Giuliani also touched on Mr Trump’s Twitter account.

According to Mr Giuliani, this is also largely a political strategy that helps the President speak directly to the public in his own words.

“He loves tweets. He’s found a new way to communicate that no American politician can,” said Mr Giuliani. “It gives him a chance to cut through a media that doesn’t like him.

“If he depended on the media to report him, people would not get his actual viewpoint on something. He gets it down to a nice, crisp — and then all of a sudden he’s on TV, this is what he says, this is what he tweeted.”Questions have been raised over the future of the US-Australia relationship, following Mr Trump’s notorious phone call with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

But according to Mr Giuliani, there’s no need to be concerned.

“He has a great understanding of the post-war friendship between the US and Australia,” he said. “He realises we’re going to have a big challenge in the Pacific and we’re going to need Australia as an ally. “

He also said he wants the US to take a more assertive role in the Pacific region, reiterating Mr Trump’s wish to build up to 350 navy ships.

“He wants to reassert that America has a strong interest and role (in the Pacific), particularly in the South China Sea,” said Mr Giuliani.

“But this is not going to be ‘China is such a big trading partner and we’re going to do anything it wants’. It’s going to be that we’re going to have to give in, and they’re going to have to give in, not a one-way street.”