If you go back and you look at the presidency over the course of history, presidents tend to do what they campaigned on. In the 20th century, presidents between Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter accomplished 73 percent of the things that they said they would do as candidates. Part of that is because once they get into office, their credibility, their ability to do anything depends on doing the things that they said they would.

Chinese leaders are saying amongst themselves, according to the Chinese analysts who follow them most closely, that they believe Donald Trump is in the end making hollow threats, and they think that he would be easy to handle, is how one of them put it.

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Often Americans have heard Donald Trump be very hard on China. But that's not how it's heard over there. In China, his message is being interpreted as the sound of an exhausted America, an America that is seeking to withdraw from its commitments to NATO, to holding up, for instance, human rights around the world.

Actually the idea of having Mexico pay for the wall on the southern border is a nonstarter. That seems to be generally pretty much recognized on both sides of the border. What you find, though, is that logistically it's not impossible.

If you go back and you look at the presidency over the course of history, presidents tend to do what they campaigned on. In the 20th century, presidents between Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter accomplished 73 percent of the things that they said they would do as candidates. Part of that is because once they get into office, their credibility, their ability to do anything depends on doing the things that they said they would.

When we remember presidents who didn't fulfill their promises - for instance George H.W. Bush saying no new taxes or Barack Obama saying he would close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay - we remember those because they're the exceptions, not the rule.