No matter the issue, Trump knows a guy – WBNews

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump knows a guy. No matter what issue Trump is addressing, he seems either to know somebody with a relevant personal experience or he’s got a firsthand tale to recount. When he met airline CEOs on Thursday, Trump said his own pilot — “who’s a real expert” — had told him about problems with obsolete equipment. When he met business and economic experts a week earlier, Trump cited the difficulties his friends in business were having borrowing money from banks as he spoke about the need to reduce financial regulations. When he approvingly sized up Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, Trump said last month that he’d had a “very bad experience” in his own businesses when dealing with the EU bureaucracy. “Getting the approvals from Europe,” he said, “was very, very tough.” Call him the anecdotal president: For good or ill, Trump processes policy proposals through his own personal frame of reference. “It’s all about him,” says Jeff Shesol, who wrote speeches for President Bill Clinton. “His frame for Europe, his frame for the airlines, his frame for the banking system … is himself.” It’s not necessarily a bad thing to draw on real-world experiences in developing or justifying policy. Plenty of presidents and politicians have recognized the value of anecdotal storytelling in advancing their agendas. President Barack Obama offered his own improbable life story as a metaphor for the wide-open possibilities available to all Americans. And he frequently drew on the concerns that…more detail