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SAN DIEGO -- President Donald Trump is part politician and part magician. A master illusionist, Trump doesn't merely live in his own reality. He creates a whole new reality and then forces the rest of us to live in it with him.

Like a used car salesman who sells you a lemon by convincing you it's a Lamborghini, Trump doesn't portray things how they are. He paints them how he wants us to believe they are.

Trump can make people see things that aren't really there. It's a sorcerer's trick that he used often during his career as a New York real estate developer. His company would construct a building and advertise it as having more stories than it really did.

During Trump's first campaign for president in 2016, The New York Times found this was the case with several Trump buildings around the world. The list included Trump Tower, where the developer erased 10 stories to make it seem as if the top floors were higher than they actually were. The Trump Organization claimed that Manhattan's Trump Tower rose 68 stories over Fifth Avenue, although real estate databases said the tower was only 58 stories tall.

We can catch glimpses of this scam in how Trump approaches the tumultuous Middle East. At a peace ceremony in Egypt, Trump soaked up compliments from other world leaders. Posing under a banner that read "Peace in the Middle East," he started selling.

"Together, we've achieved what everybody said was impossible at long last," Trump said. "We have peace in the Middle East, and it's a very simple expression, peace in the Middle East, and we've heard it for many years, but nobody thought it could ever get there. Now we're there."

Are we really? Has the war really ended, or merely paused? Is this a legitimate peace deal if it doesn't hold? And if there is a real peace, does it extend to the entire Middle East -- or is it limited to Gaza?

The fighting has stopped, and the ceasefire is holding -- at least for now. Hamas has returned 20 living hostages, and Israel has released 250 Palestinian prisoners facing long sentences and more than 1,700 Palestinian detainees who had been held without charges.

But even with this silver lining, clouds remain.

First, while there are 28 dead Israeli hostages, Hamas has only returned the bodies of nine. The terror group claims they can't find the other bodies given that the Israel Defense Forces turned much of Gaza into rubble, and so it has asked for more time. Israeli leaders have reduced aid supplies to Gaza until all the bodies are returned. If that doesn't happen, the war could start up again.

Next, even with the ceasefire in effect, Hamas fighters have been captured on video executing members of rival groups in Gaza that the terror group accuses of aiding Israel. Trump has warned that, if the killing continues, there will be consequences.

"If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them," he wrote on Truth Social.

Finally, more violence is likely if Hamas doesn't fulfill the most important provision in the peace agreement: putting down its arms. Speaking to reporters, Trump made clear that, if Hamas doesn't voluntarily disarm, it will be forced to do so.

"We will disarm them, and it will happen quickly and perhaps violently," he said.

The problem isn't the threats. The problem is that Trump doesn't appear to be very good at following through on them -- just like he isn't known for completing long-term projects.

Trump has chalked up the Middle East peace deal as a "win." But even if the deal goes sideways, neither party should expect to see him back in the Middle East. It appears that the president has closed this chapter and shifted his focus to unfinished business.

Trump will soon sit down in Budapest with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a ceasefire in the war against Ukraine. This week, Trump is also scheduled to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House.

The illusionist-in-chief has a short attention span, and he is only interested in quick fixes. When he hits a wall, The Great Trumpini retreats into his alternate reality.

This is why it's impossible to give Trump an "A" for his half-hearted stab at peace in the Middle East. The most he deserves is an "Incomplete."

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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