After four years we now know what being a "transactional president" really means. It came into even sharper focus in the days between November 3 and the vote of the Electoral College. It was also an element in impeachment. Being transactional was not what many first thought. We now know from experience Trump meant being transactional was his modus operandi to get his way in everything, not just in trade deals, and doing it with corrupt intent or not.
Like many, I initially thought Trump meant that he, as a great businessman, knew how to drive a hard bargain with the Chinese or other trade deals because he had mastered the art of the deal. Horse trading, dealing, and self-interest are also the stuff of which politics and compromises are often made. There were no high minded values, national security, and general national welfare that were the primary concerns involved in many of the kinds of deals Donald Trump negotiated, implied, or in which he anticipated paybacks. It can also be a fundamental definition of corruption if there are abuses by public officials with intentions to pad their personal purse or add to political personal advantage, bribery, to induce others to break the law, or for the initiating dealer to break the law himself and ignoring the Constitutional constraints while doing it.
It was much more than just an '"I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine". For Trump, it was he expected "favors returned for favors given." It also became to mean " if my favors are not returned, I'll ruin you via tweet and try to get you prosecuted via the Department of Justice or primaried and have your political future destroyed". It meant he expects those to whom he gave a job or position or helped them achieve their goals to put loyalty to him over anything else, including violating the oath of office to which they swore to honor.
There are several "transactional deals" Trump put forth either implied or overtly that are the poster children examples of what "transactional" meant to him.. One was Trump's attempt to use federal dollars and weapons to force the Ukraine president to find dirt on the Bidens."I have a favor to ask though" as in the next sentence or two he implied there were those military weapons Ukraine wanted. He did not express the deal so crassly, but the context and the sequence were all he needed. That got him impeached, though partisan loyalty and fear of retribution got him acquitted in the Senate, even when some GOP senators admitted quietly the House impeachment managers made their case but still voted to acquit him.
The other was his expecting loyalty from his appointees to the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court. It was overtly expressed by Trump that was the reason he wanted Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court rushed before the election .Per the election, fearing a tie vote, he said, “I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. We need nine justices.” He must have expected judges and justices in the court system, lower and higher, to put aside the law, and instead vote to support his expressed goal to throw out votes against him in a close election.
It meant that GOP public officials in charge of managing the presidential vote were expected to "overturn" the popular vote because mail-in ballots and African American votes were defacto fraudulent, even though there was no evidence. .That is the way it works in autocracies so why should it not work for him? He had the power and immunity from criminal prosecution. He made telephone calls, tweets, and held meetings to pressure his beneficiaries. December 8 that transaction bore no fruit as the Supreme Court without dissent of any justice, including his three appointees, rejected an appeal to overturn the Pennsylvania vote. Before that, his attempt to upend the public vote in lower courts went down in flames as 35 plus lawsuits were decided against his attempt to get the will of the people reversed on any pretext of cases brought before the courts. Judges who were appointed by Democrats and Republicans, including those who were put in place by Trump and the GOP in the past four years by Senate action, ruled against Trump's expressed desire to overturn the vote. The single case his lawyers won did not affect the vote outcome.
Trump forgot one basic fact In any transaction. It takes two parties to agree to a transaction. So far, the justices and judges were loyal to the letter of the law, not to the deal of Trump.
