Don't imagine Trump as a 4D chess player. That's the wrong metaphor. Imagine him instead as a fencer. He has a sword, which is a very simple tool, with a very simple purpose: pointy end goes in the other guy. Then remember this Bruce Lee quote: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." That's Trump. He uses very, very simple negotiating techniques. And he's very, very good at them. This particular move was a two-stage combo. Two very simple moves. 1. Habitually talk like you have an IQ of 95. Everything is either very bad, or tremendous. Every sentence structure is simple and straightforward. No philosophy, no reducing things to first principles, no complex analysis. Talk like a midwit so people think you are a midwit. 2. Door in the face technique. A compliance method so simple and well-known it has a wikipedia page. The door-in-the-face technique is a compliance method commonly studied in social psychology. The persuader attempts to convince the respondent to comply by making a large request that the respondent will most likely turn down, much like a metaphorical slamming of a door in the respondent's face. The respondent is then more likely to agree to a second, more reasonable request, than if that same request is made in isolation. Except Trump is so good at wielding this simple weapon that he doesn't need to make a second request. He just says a crazy thing, and everyone who's not paying attention believes he wants a crazy thing because they think he's a retard. Then they fall all over themselves trying to suggest a reasonable alternative, which ends up being pretty much the actual thing Trump wanted all along. It's that simple, he does it again and again, and it works again and again, because the people who hate him desperately want to think he's dumb. They succumb to the temptation of flattering their own egos instead of keeping their eyes on the prize. That makes them easy to manipulate.