Timothy L. O'Brien, Columnist

In Trump’s World, He Never Loses

His Rose Garden speech declaring a national emergency and his decades of self-aggrandizement are more closely related than you might think.

February 17, 2019 at 1:46 PM UTC

By Timothy L. O'Brien

Timothy L. O'Brien is senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. A former editor and reporter for the New York Times, he is author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.”

My dream for myself is this big.
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images North America

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Hanging on a wall behind the omelet bar at President Donald Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida — where the commander in chief apparently stopped for a bite on Saturday after declaring a national emergency the day before — is an old, framed poster. It’s from an ad campaign Walgreens once ran featuring the president back when he was the sorcerer of “The Apprentice.”

In white block letters on the poster, next to a photo of Trump cocking his index finger at the camera and shouting in full “You’re fired!” mode, is a question: “CAN YOU WALK THE WALK?”