PREVIEW - The Friday Edition: Five things I got *right* about Trump.
Tangle
Isaac Saul
4.7 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about five things I had gotten wrong about Trump in his first six months in office. In all honesty, I’m not a huge fan of political prognostication, and I often try to avoid making predictions to focus more on my analysis and reporting. Still, predictions inevitably slip into that analysis; and my last retrospective, like many others I had written before it, was an exercise in the kind of accountable and analytical journalism we do here at Tangle. I’m a big fan of writing about when I’m wrong, or have changed my mind, or have valuable criticisms to share — I think it helps me evolve and our readers reflect on their own viewpoints, too.
But, shortly after publishing that piece, I realized that I spend a lot of time writing about all the things I get wrong, and maybe not enough time writing about when I get things right. After all, if I’m simply wrong over and over, should readers really trust me for reliable analysis? It struck me that in trying to be transparent with criticisms I may be undermining my own credibility.
So today, I figured I’d flip the script, give myself some grace, and do something I had never done before: Pen an entire piece on things I’ve gotten right. Since my newsletter a few weeks ago focused exclusively on Trump, I thought I’d turn the focus to the same subject and share five things I’ve gotten right about Trump’s second term so far.
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Transcript
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| 0:27.8 | So move on to Monday.com. |
| 0:33.9 | From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. |
| 0:44.8 | Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. |
| 1:00.2 | I'm your host, Isaac, So on today you're going to get a lot of me, all me. It's just me here today with you on the show, and we're doing something a little bit special. |
| 1:09.0 | So a couple weeks ago, I wrote and we published a podcast |
| 1:13.5 | here about five things I had gotten wrong about Donald Trump in his first six months in office. |
| 1:20.2 | In all honesty, I'm not a huge fan of political prognostication. I mean, I often try to avoid |
| 1:26.3 | making predictions about the future because I think there's just |
| 1:30.0 | something kind of gimmicky about that and instead focus on my analysis and reporting and talking |
| 1:35.1 | about what we know and what's in front of us. |
| 1:37.7 | Obviously, predictions inevitably slip into that analysis or into my take in the newsletter, |
| 1:43.4 | and I've written explicit articles where, |
| 1:46.2 | you know, I made 19 predictions about the future of politics because I understand they're |
| 1:50.9 | interesting and they're good ways to kind of test my theses about the world. In my last |
| 1:55.7 | retrospective, like many others I'd written before it, it was an exercise in the kind of accountability and |
| 2:02.0 | analytical journalism that we do here at Tangle. I am a big fan of writing about when I'm wrong, |
| 2:07.7 | or when I've changed my mind, or when I have valuable criticisms to share. I think it helps me |
... |
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