Donald Trump is never knocked off course!

Judging by his interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News today, Donald Trump is a man who believes in his personal powers to such an extent that somehow political defeats are always seen in terms of victory and success. It's an extraordinary characteristic of his personality. When he was asked to comment about losing the House of Representatives to the Democrats and losing in areas that were always staunch Republican territory, Trump just focused on only one thing: "I won the Senate". Never mind the House, he won the Senate and that was something historic in his view. The fact is that Trump now has the prospect of facing numerous investigations by the House Judiciary Committee, looking into his business empire, his taxes, his alleged obstruction of justice in the Russia collusion affair, his sacking of James Comey as FBI director and probably a host of other topics. He must know that, but all he told Chris Wallace was that he had won the Senate, as if losing the House was of no concern. Whoever interviews Trump basically gets the same answers. His two favourite sayings or phrases are: "It's fake news, just fake news" or "Let's see what happens". So when he was asked whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, had lied to him about knowing nothing of the plot to murder Jamal Khashoggi, he basically said he didn't know but he would see what happens. I cannot believe that the US administration does not actually know whether there is a direct link between the team of assassins and the crown prince. Trump said he hadn't listened to the tape of Khashoggi being murdered, which was handed to him by the Turkish president. But the CIA which very unhelpfully leaked their assessment to the Washington Post and New York Times, have clearly told the president that in their view there was no way the crown prince did not know everything about the planned killing of the Saudi dissident journalist and must have ordered it. But Trump is going to stick to the line that everyone except bin Salman knew about it. His "let's see what happens" just means he is not going to stand up the CIA account. In fact I'm quite surprised he hasn't already fired Gina Haspel, the CIA director, for allowing her minions to leak that stuff to the newspapers. As he made clear in the interview with Chris Wallace, everything to do with his administration is going smoothly. The White House, he said, is a well-oiled machine. It's amazing to watch him and hear him speak. It's all about success success success.