The pattern is all too clear by now. When Trump hits a stone wall, his strategy invariably is to backpedal tactically and change the subject to create new headlines and sometimes new crises.

Often, the new subject is merely a ludicrous diversion. Other times, he is playing with fire.

Are the ICE raids creating a “moral and political debacle” for the administration, as Trump’s usual allies on The Wall Street Journal editorial page delicately put it? Then let’s lower the temperature, bring in new leadership, begin prolonged negotiations to get the pictures off TV, and get tongues wagging about other stories.

How about a two-year closing of the Kennedy Center that every self-respecting artist is boycotting, for “repairs” that were never needed before? Or a new Trumpian Arc de Triomphe, bigger than the one in Paris?

Most serious people get that this stuff is a silly distraction. And then there is Iran.

A quickie wag-the-dog extraction of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro dominated the news for a few days, and the détente with his successor, socialist Delcy Rodríguez, seems to be working out. Trump even used the Venezuela exfiltration as a model of how ICE could work in Minnesota in a conversation with Gov. Tim Walz, civil liberties be damned. Maybe another foray of quick military action and regime change could work elsewhere?