David Sally

"I would take a bullet for you,” the Politician said. He always said that. “Please don’t say that,” I said. I always said that. From his mouth the bullet theoretical launched the bullet possible. I did not like to think about it. About the armed man at his speech. Or the armed man who broke into his home. Or the armed men he paid to guard him from armed men who sought to harm him while the federal government denied his pleas for protection from the security agency whose modern protocols were carved by the same bullets that cut boughs from his family tree and cut the track of the American experiment.

I regret to inform you that Olivia Nuzzi's book appears to be Perfect

insane, stupid, comically overwritten, dishy, politically indefensible I cannot wait to get my hands on it I must accept this is who I am as a person at some deep level whether I like it or not www.vanityfair.com/news/story/o...

Scoop: Nico knew the Mavs were going to fire him so he had secretly pivoted last week to his new job—negotiation advisor for Chuck Schumer

“Don’t spend too much time reading it ‘cause you’re not going to make it!” The prospective putter stands up and responds, “I’m an American male so of course I’m going to miss it!” Grim reality was already setting in by noon today.

What was the crowd like today at the RyderCup? One example: on the small putting green by the Bethpage clubhouse where they were letting normies take putts, an attendee is crouching down looking at the slopes in the green and a passerby heckles,

One Step Ahead There’s been a revolution in negotiating tactics.

Shameless plug: for more on strategic sophistication, empathy, toughness, personality, etc. in negotiations, see my book One Step Ahead:

static.macmillan.com/static/smp/o...

Turnbull ended that call telling Trump, “you ARE going to stick with it [the existing agreement].” That was eight years ago and Trump’s certainly not any less lop-eared, so Putin’s biggest challenge may have been to make his demands simple and direct enough. /6

Full transcript of Trump's phone call with Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull This is the White House transcript of the phone call between Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull on 28 January 2017, as published by the Washington Post

We know how little light filters through Trump’s thick head and his staggering ineptitude when he negotiates from the transcript of his phone call with Australian PM Turnbull early in his first term: /5

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017...

The lop-eared can be “too dull to see their own advantage, and must be worked up to the point again and again before a ray of light filters through their thick heads.” As Putin no doubt knows, roping the loo-eared mark requires patience, flattery, simple instructions, and possibly, a balled fist./4

“Any confidence man will testify that a real-estate man is the fattest and juiciest of the suckers.” Putin knows what the C-gees would have known: Trump is a particularly stupid mark, “lop-eared,” in the lingo of the 20s.
/3

Trump is a classic mark. As David Maurer detailed in The Big Con, the C-gees of the Roaring Twenties knew who their best “chumps” were: “A Babbitt who has cleared half a million in a real-estate development easily forgets the part which luck and chicanery have played in his financial rise…. /2

This World-Renowned Negotiator Says Trump’s Secret Weapon Is Empathy

🧵Oh dear god, this interview is absurd. As a professor of negotiation for 25 years, I can say that Trump is nowhere close to a “good,” “adequate,” or even “mediocre” negotiator. He is a ZERO: no strategic sophistication, no insight into his own personal flaws. /1

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/m...

One Step Ahead There’s been a revolution in negotiating tactics.

Shameless plug: for more on strategic sophistication, empathy, toughness, personality, etc

in negotiations, see my book One Step Ahead:

static.macmillan.com/static/smp/o...

Turnbull ended that call telling Trump, “you ARE going to stick with it [the existing agreement].” That was eight years ago, and Trump’s certainly not any less lop-eared, so Putin’s biggest challenge may have been if he could make his demands simple and direct enough. @emptywheel.bsky.social /6

Full transcript of Trump's phone call with Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull This is the White House transcript of the phone call between Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull on 28 January 2017, as published by the Washington Post

We know how little light filters through Trump’s thick head and his staggering ineptitude when he negotiates from the transcript of his phone call with Australian PM Turnbull early in his first term: /5

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017...

The lop-eared can be “too dull to see their own advantage, and must be worked up to the point again and again before a ray of light filters through their thick heads.” As Putin no doubt knows, roping the lop-eared mark requires patience, flattery, simple instructions, and possibly, a balled fist./4

“Any confidence man will testify that a real-estate man is the fattest and juiciest of the suckers.” Putin knows what’s the C-gees would have known: Trump is a particularly stupid mark, “lop-eared,” in the lingo of the 20s. @kenwhite.bsky.social /3

Trump is a classic mark. As David Maurer detailed in The Big Con, the C-gees of the Roaring Twenties knew who their best “chumps” were: “A Babbitt who has cleared half a million in a real-estate development easily forgets the part which luck and chicanery have played in his financial rise…. /2

Oh dear god, this is absurd. As a professor of negotiations for 25 years, I can say that Trump is nowhere close to a “good,” “adequate,” or even “mediocre” negotiator. He is a ZERO: no strategic sophistication at all, and no insight into his own personal flaws. @kevinmkruse.bsky.social /1

Ceci n’est pas une re-poste.

Excellent advice!