The Trump Paradox in Action

By Judson Berger

Friday, October 17, 2025

 

The Israel-Hamas deal has more fathers than a Jerry Springer episode. Biden allies were all too eager to claim that his administration laid the groundwork for the cease-fire and hostage return that has, for now, put an end to two years of fighting.

 

But it’s difficult to envision anybody but President Trump pulling off this week’s headline event. His mercurial blend of wheedling, hectoring, arm-twisting, trash-talking, promise-making, and Iran-bombing — combined with, of course, Israel’s military achievements and the work of his diplomatic team — helped compel both sides to the table in the end.

 

“This doesn’t happen with President Kamala Harris or President Mitt Romney,” Jeff Blehar writes. It didn’t happen with President Joe Biden.

 

As counterintuitive as it might be to say, this kind of breakthrough happens not in spite of Trump’s flaws but because of them. A more couth, predictable, statesmanlike actor can be respected, not always feared — as Hamas can testify. As a staunch Israel ally (who also shows tough love), he’s been able to push Benjamin Netanyahu toward “yes” in ways his predecessors couldn’t.

 

From National Review’s editorial:

 

Israeli military and intelligence services displayed incredible acumen throughout the war against the terrorist groups that surround Israel and the rogue states that sponsor them. And President Trump and his deputies contributed mightily to this civilizational achievement. Their clear-sightedness and diplomatic creativity delivered a result that means Trump certainly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, whether he ever gets it or not.

 

Their elementary theory of the case — defeat Israel’s enemies first and make peace with them second — eluded far too many over the course of the war that Hamas started on 10/7. But it did not elude the president.

 

The peace may not be lasting. A dispute over missing hostage bodies already threatens it. Hamas could yet reconstitute and resume its reign of terror over the Gaza Strip and beyond, drawing Israel into a new phase of war. But as of this week, the blessed return of living hostages to Israel after two years in captivity, and the deal that secured their release, is Trump at his best.

 

Unfortunately, the worst of Trump comes with the bargain, even as it makes the fruits of his administration, in cases like this, possible. (I’m not saying we should be comfortable with this.) This past week showed that paradox in action. Part of the reason Trump is feared, abroad and at home, is that he does vindictive, extreme, seemingly irrational things to those who cross him (imagine Trump delivering the Bill the Butcher monologue to a protégé, on the value of “the spectacle of fearsome acts”). Take his Justice Department’s pursuit of prosecutions against political rivals and critics. While it’s too soon to assess the merits of the case against John Bolton — the most recent figure to be indicted, for allegedly mishandling classified materials — the choice of target sends an obviously deliberate message; Bolton, for his part, denied the charges and accused Trump of weaponizing the DOJ. The same goes for the indictments against James Comey and Letitia James. As Dan McLaughlin writes of the latter case, “There appears to be enough law and evidence on the side of this indictment to get it to a jury, but nobody has any illusions that James would have been charged if she had not fired the first shot at Trump.”

 

Would someone other than a payback president who threatens “HELL” for Hamas bag the Mideast deal? It’s impossible to know. But the account earlier this year from freed hostage Omer Shem Tov, that his captors “wanted Kamala to be elected,” gives a sense of those odds.