“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practice to deceive.”

Sir Walter Scott got it right, but sometimes, when the phase of the moon is right, the planets are properly lined up, and luck is with us, even Donald Trump will (if perhaps only by accident) tell the truth.

Such a moment came the other day when he tried to brush off the report in the New York Times on his ten-year flirtations with revealing the truth about his wealth and his evasion of his tax obligations. Some of us consider that a moral duty to observe — perhaps even a privilege to perform if we take our Bibles or our Korans seriously.

Not Donald. Everyone in real estate considers evading taxes just part of the game, he said. Some, like him, he said, are good at it and are rich and successful. He was good at it, he said. He was a winner. Others are not so good at it. They are the losers.

No comment from Donald on the social value of the taxes being dodged — to create pooled funds to help society’s losers avoid wasting their lives — help those who have not been as successful or as greedy as the winners. No comment from him on the various complicated forms of cheating (labeled ‘emoluments’ by the Constitution if you happen to be the president) engineered by suborned legislators who obediently insert at midnight the subtle clauses in spending bills that cannot be amended, and wherein hide the innocent-sounding loopholes involving various exceptions to the laws the rest of us are expected to obey. (Oil depletion allowances, mortgage deductions on penthouse apartments and beach ‘cottages’, tax ‘abatements’ on new construction of luxury buildings, and the like). No comment from him on the newly reviving art of ‘flipping’ (buying foreclosed homes and a bucket of paint and a high-school kid and offering new buyers high-interest loans to ensure that their indebtedness will be never-ending.

The losers lose their stakes, have to steal to feed their children, and wind up in jail (where they have of course no way to make any money to pay off their debts). Trump lost his stake, too, but Deutsche Bank kept him supplied with funds (long after all reputable other banks had stopped doing business with him) so he could maintain the illusion of wealth and keep up his brand’s reputation — traveling by private helicopter or the biggest automobile he could find, building a tower to get his living quarters as high off the ground as possible, so he could sneeringly look down on the losers. The IRS faithfully executed the laws passed by his co-opted congressmen that kept him in a 1% lifestyle while he blew hundreds of millions of dollars (over a billion in the past ten years alone) on failed gambles. This was a game. He was a winner. Everybody in real estate, and a lot of mid-western farmers and blue-collar factory workers, idolized him for that. They thought he could apply the same BS to international relations that he did to the stock market, and Make America Great Again. Both he and they forgot that the strategies that worked with Leona Helmsley’s ‘little people’ were going to be a lot less effective with professionals like Angela Merkel or Xi Jinping or Theresa May.

He, personally, was a winner. That his compatriots had to become losers in order for that to happen was not a factor of any importance to Mr. Trump.

The country had no Daddy Fred to come up with rescue cash when the going got rough. There was no International Bankruptcy Court to bail him out when he was against the wall. But he knew the secret formula : announce a new casino, sell the guaranteed lotto tickets (shares in the ‘greatest, most beautiful future resort ever seen in Florida (Moscow?), wave from the top of the steps of the TRUMP airplane or the golden Trump Tower escalator and add another billion in claimed (but never described) wealth to his CV, and rely on the suckers to fall all over each other pursuing his magic gravy train.

Now he seems at last to have been cornered. That everyone in real estate does the same thing — even if true, which all signs indicate that it is — various Congressional committees, jealous of their prerogatives and given the power to investigate by the Constitution — are not likely to be so easily distracted. So Donald takes refuge where all liars must eventually hide — doubling down; sticking out his chin and telling the truth.

“We all did it.”

Will this make the slightest bit of difference to his chanting MAGA Red Caps? Not likely. They are too enchanted by seeing former winners transformed, at lost for the nonce, into current losers. Will it bring the wrath of the Deep State down on him? It already has, but how much muscle comes with it? Will it make any difference to the country? Only if the voters have the good sense to turn him out. Will they? Your guess is as good as my prayer.

I found him with his head down on the table, apparently taking a nap. After the bright sunshine outside the interior seemed gloomy and at first I didn’t understand what I was seeing — I thought it was someone playing with a large yellow cat. No. He was just resting his chin on his folded arms. I had come to Bedminster to see how the golf club was dealing with its legal travails. Seeing the golf cart with the American flag on the bumper and the huge presidential seal on the front parked on the 18th green, next to the sign saying “No carts on the greens, please” I took a chance and just stuck my nose in the clubhouse.

He heard the click of the door latch and looked up, but sort of into middle space; not at me.

“I can’t believe it,” he was mumbling to himself. “All I said was that Vlad had put forward some interesting ideas and the whole crooked media world exploded. I didn’t say he was right and my intelligence community was wrong; I just said there were good people on both sides. There are always good people on both sides, people with large bank accounts and good connections. There was a time when Rupert would have smoothed that one over for me without breaking a sweat. But somebody came up with that scare word ‘treason’ and right away there was a chorus yapping about my supposed failure to defend the country and the Constitution and that that was treason. Who knew what was in the Constitution about treason? Who reads the Constitution? I thought Constitution was an Avenue — or a ship. Someone should have warned me. But Sarah goofed. Why wouldn’t Vlad’s word be as good as Coats’s? Or better, if it comes to that? He’s probably got better hackers, and he has a whole country that will solidly back him up or be put in jail. What’s Coats got? A miserable little Pentagon office and a few computer geeks on the payroll. Oh, his people must have some skills, true — look how they were able to doctor the photographs of the crowds at my inauguration. That wasn’t grass; it was people. I was there. I saw them. She was there, too, the loser. She lost. I won. I’m the President. Hillary can go home to Chappaqua and count her delegates but it won’t do her any good. I got mine. And they still can’t find those e-mails. Where are they? And that famous server from the DNC. Who was the DNC colluding with? Will we ever know? And then the whole thing went off the rails when that jerk Muller, (Miller? Moller? Whatever his name is) started offering people immunity. I sure messed up when I appointed HIM. He shouldn’t be allowed to offer people immunity. I should be only the one with pardoning power. I always figured I could fire the little jerk if he got too annoying. Now they tell me I can’t can him without looking guilty. NOW they tell me, NOW. When it’s too late. Why didn’t Jeff warn me about that in the beginning — instead of all that self-serving stuff about recusing himself? I used to think the New York real estate scene was vicious. Believe me, for back-stabbing it’s a kids’ birthday party compared to D.C. These turncoats think nothing of abandoning their loyalty to the guy who gave them their jobs. How many lawyers does it take to survive in such a place? I don’t even know — that’s why I have so many lawyers. Cohens come and Cohens go, Mnuchins come and Mnuchins go, Manaforts come and Manaforts go, I can always find another boy. But Roy is gone. I told him to be careful. Only two people I can trust now are Jared, who understands the power of a buck in the right palm, and Ivanka, who knows the power of a brand and a too-tight dress. But, to tell you the truth sometimes I’m not sure that Netanyahu isn’t playing games with Jared. The kid is still a little wet behind the ears. Israel is trickier than it looks from a Fifth Avenue rooftop. And this Moller-Miller character sweeps witnesses up like a new busboy who’s just learning to use the crumber. Rounds ’em up and asks judges to grant them immunity and listen to their BS. It’s enough to disillusion even a genius dealmaker like me. So now what have we got to look forward to? President Pocahontas? She doesn’t look any more like a president than her supposed ancestor — she looks like the lady from the census who came to check on your skin color. And that raving radical Bernie. What a pair. But the worst thing is that suddenly nobody comes to my beautiful golf courses any more. They’re losing money. If it goes on like this I’ll have to put it in bankruptcy pretty soon. Of course that’s no real problem — I am probably the world’s foremost authority on bankruptcy. Onward and up yours, Charlie! — that’s always been my motto, from subcontractors to the EU. But it IS one more headache I don’t need. I could use some heavy consoling right about now. Where’s Melania? Well, come to think of it maybe not Melania — where’s Stormy? Speaking of pairs, SHE knew how to calm me down. She’s running for Congress? The whole world has truly flipped out. I have to be my own caddy on my own golf course? Where’s the Marine Band? Where’s ‘Hail to the Chief’? Where’s my helicopter? Where the hell am I, anyhow?”

I tiptoed out the door and closed it quietly behind me. I don’t think he saw me.