Trump Won’t Commit to the Pivot

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, December 18, 2025

 

Pity the poor viewer who tuned into the president’s primetime address on Wednesday night under the misapprehension that he would explain the rationale for a U.S. military campaign against the regime in Venezuela. Instead, the national crisis Donald Trump set out to confront was his sagging poll numbers. What viewers witnessed last night was a classic presidential pivot. But instead of stopping at 180 degrees, the president whirled around so hard he ended the night right where he began it.

 

It was a disjointed address — manic, even, as the president tried to cram the scope of his presidency into 18 minutes. Trump spoke so quickly and with such vigor that he often seemed to outpace the teleprompter. But if the point of the speech was to preview the State of the Union address, reminding voters of what they disliked about Joe Biden’s presidency and rattling off a list of accomplishments, it had many successful moments.

 

Trump promoted his own efforts to close the southern border to illegal migrants. That’s something the president’s advisers and allies have wanted him to do for some time. Likewise, Trump reminded the public that most can expect their tax burden to decline next year. That, too, is smart politics. From Trump’s military and diplomatic accomplishments abroad to job creation and rising wages at home, he has a lot to tout.

 

But what this entirely political speech set out to do was to convince voters that Trump’s economic record does not deserve the miasmic odor about it. On that front, Trump failed, if only because he will not pivot away from the millstone he affixed to his own neck: tariffs.

 

Indeed, Trump attributed his economic record in its entirety to trade barriers — not that voters need much convincing there. “Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs,” Trump said, “My favorite word, tariffs, which for many decades have been used successfully by other countries against us. But not anymore.”

 

That confidence was betrayed by the president’s gimmicky attempt to establish an emotional connection between the public and trade protectionism — a bond Trump himself maintains with religious conviction.

 

“Because of tariffs,” he said, “tonight I am also proud to announce that more than 1,450,000 service members will receive a special warrior dividend before Christmas” to the tune of precisely $1,776 in honor of next year’s semiquincentennial. “And the checks are already on the way,” Trump smiled, “nobody understood that one until about 30 minutes ago.”

 

This is the Republican equivalent of raiding the treasury for the benefit of teachers, for example — a deserving demographic, the plight of whom on an individual level tugs at your heartstrings. Maybe you object to the underlying economic policies that render that sop necessary as a political maneuver, but you can’t argue with the results — not unless you want to be demagogued into next week for your callous disregard for the selfless Americans who make this country work.

 

Trump is wise to enlist the public in his foremost economic project. He should have done that in April. It’s too late now. The effects of tariffs are today thoroughly known and equally resented. Trump has scaled his trade barriers back from their maximalist iteration, but quietly — never letting the public know that the policies they despise are in retreat. Instead, he insists that they are in place and going nowhere — even when that’s not the story Americans want to hear, and even when he has a different story to tell. That’s no pivot.

 

Trump seems to recoil from the prospect of admitting the tariffs were folly, but he doesn’t have to slink away in humiliation. Everyone pivots. Obama pivoted. Bush pivoted. But when a president pivots, they have to be explicit about it — telling voters in no uncertain terms that they are pivoting. At least, they must if they expect voters to notice and reevaluate their deteriorating impression of the administration. And a pivot must be accompanied by a policy shift, even if it is only a ploy to compel the opposition party to strike a posture that is at odds with public opinion.

 

In Trump’s case, that would have looked like a tactical shift away from tariffs — even just rhetorically. What voters got instead was emotional blackmail. In the long run, they’re unlikely to respond favorably.