President Donald Trump denies defeat at any cost and against all reason. 

Just last week, The New York Times reported that Trump had dropped his demand for a $200 million payment from Harvard University. When it became clear that Trump had lost ground in his ongoing negotiation, he renewed his assault, posting in a flurry of late-night Truth Social posts demands for $1 billion from Harvard while claiming he “wants nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard”.

Nobody should have been surprised, because this about-face reflects one of the most fundamental impulses of Trump: a proclivity to deny failure through the art of preemptive rejection. In other words, “You don’t reject me; I reject you.” Or, “You can’t break up with me; I’m breaking up with you.”

In our book, Trump’s Ten Commandments, we reveal the ten pillars of power that define Trump's strategic playbook. By exposing these predictable patterns, we show how he wields his favorite leadership tools. Preemptively denying his defeats is one of them. 

Trump cannot tolerate the reality of others rejecting him. In his view, he must always be the one doing the rejecting. This compulsion to preemptively........

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