Why Trump Believes the Richest Person in the Room Is Also the Smartest

Ronald Klain, who worked in the Obama Administration, has a savvy analysis in the Washington Post on why Donald Trump's New York attitudes are not translating for DC.

These attitudes are one reason Trump focuses on deal-making rather than policy, Policy-making is for underlings, he asserts, major players do the deals. We can see how that is working for him as we read the astonishing transcript of his January conversation with the Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, which the Washington Post has obtained.

But the key point Klain makes is how Trump always sees the richest person in the room as the one worth talking to. This helps explain his disdain for longtime -- and less well-paid -- civil servants. The very sort of people who are likely coming in to advise him on national security, foreign affairs and domestic problems.

How could they possibly have anything to tell him!