More than half of Republicans say Trump thinks before he speaks, poll shows

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Over half of Republicans believe Donald Trump thinks carefully before he speaks, a poll has found.

Americans were asked if they believed Mr Trump puts much consideration into the things he says or not in the poll, which was conducted YouGov in partnership with The Economist

Republicans were about equally as likely to say he was deliberate as speaking off the cuff, with 51 per cent saying he “considers carefully what he says before commenting”.

The majority of Trump voters also picked the “considers carefully” option in the poll.

But nearly three-quarters of Americans said they thought Mr Trump just sort of said stuff.

There is a theory among some of the US president’s supporters that his comments and tweets are part of a grand strategy aimed at tripping up his opponents.

When he disparages the city of Baltimore because he’s mad about how a Maryland congressman is investigating his daughter, this theory holds that the tweet is simply another gear in Mr Trump’s enormous, carefully planned lib-owning machine.

The president himself is not an adherent of this philosophy.

During a brief press gaggle on Wednesday, Mr Trump was asked to explain the strategy behind attacking that congressman, Representative Elijah Cummings, D-Md.

“There’s no strategy. I have no strategy. There’s zero strategy,” Mr Trump said. “All it is, is I’m pointing out facts.”

He bashed Baltimore some more. “It’s very simple. And Elijah Cummings is in charge of it and he ought to take his Oversight Committee” – the committee that subpoenaed information from Ivanka Trump – “and he ought to park them in Baltimore and find out what happened to the $15 billion and a lot of other money.”

The president has also tried to foster a sense of his own intentionality.

After he accidentally sent a tweet referring to “press covfefe”, he had then-press secretary Sean Spicer claim that Trump knew exactly what he was doing and, later, tweeted a challenge to his followers to “figure out the true meaning of ‘covfefe’ ??? Enjoy!”

Democrats are probably overly willing to think Mr Trump just sort of does stuff without meaning to. Republicans are probably too willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But as for the idea that he’s playing chess against wily political opponents? He says that he is not.

Unless, of course, that was a carefully considered response meant to throw his opponents off the scent.

The Washington Post