Fear: Trump in the White House

by Bob Woodward

Employing thousands of hackers, the North was now regularly using cyber programs to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from banks and others on a global scale.

said, “I’m shocked that the Obama administration closed their eyes and acted like the deaf, mute and blind monkey on this issue. And now I understand why the Obama team said to Trump that the major problem you have is North Korean nukes. They’ve been hiding the problem.”

A bachelor and colonel in the Air Force reserve, he seemed always on duty.

He endorsed Jeb Bush, contrasting him to Trump: Bush “hasn’t tried to get ahead in a contested primary by throwing dangerous rhetoric around.”

Graham and McCain had released a joint statement: “We fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism. This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.”

“It’s okay to tweet to your advantage, Mr. President. Don’t tweet to your disadvantage. They’re always trying to drag you into their swamp. You’ve got to have the discipline not to take the bait.”

In 2015, Trump had made one of his most cruel and thoughtless comments about McCain. “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

He told Chris Wallace on Fox News, “What I told our South Korean counterpart is until any renegotiation, that the deals in place, we’ll adhere to our word.”

Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders were integrated into the Hezbollah structure. Iran was paying Hezbollah’s bills—at a staggering $1 billion a year.

It was committed to destroy Israel.

Our position has deteriorated so much during the Obama years.”

Kushner told Harvey he had important and reliable intelligence that the key to Saudi Arabia was the deputy crown prince, the charismatic 31-year-old Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS. The son of the Saudi king, MBS was also the defense minister, a key position and launching pad for influence in the Kingdom. MBS had vision, energy. He was charming and spoke of bold, modernizing reforms.

And went to school in LA

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said there was too much to do in too short a time.

Working groups of Americans and Saudis were set up on terrorism, terrorism financing, violent extremism and information campaigns.

“I’ll make a phone call,” Kushner said to Harvey. He phoned MBS directly and the Saudis increased their arms purchases.

Tillerson and Mattis continued to express their doubts. This is too hard, too much work to do, too many questions about the contracts.

The Saudis, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia) and Israel were united.

The Obama approach of straddling was over.

The next month Saudi king Salman at age 81 appointed MBS, age 31, the new crown prince and next in line to lead the Ki...

The war, begun after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when Afghanistan had been the sanctuary for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, was a thicket of high expectations, setbacks, misunderstandings and massive commitments of money, troops and lives.

He believed the obsession with U.S. troop numbers had been the Achilles’ heel of the Obama administration policy in Afghanistan.

Victory was far-fetched. Winning had not been defined.

In McMaster’s 1997 book Dereliction of Duty, he called the Joint Chiefs who oversaw the Vietnam War “five silent men” who had failed to establish the essential personal rapport with civilian leaders so they could speak their minds. Dereliction of Duty was a field manual for avoiding another Vietnam.

Now the U.S. was spending about $50 billion a year in Afghanistan. Was the government, which was deeply corrupt, just taking money from the U.S. and the allies to fund themselves?

American money was one of the poisons in the Afghan system.

McMaster laid out his four frames or goals: 1. Achieve political stability that will include a political settlement with the insurgent Taliban. 2. Push for institutional actions by the Afghan government to counter the Taliban. 3. Increase pressure on neighboring Pakistan, which was playing a double game—nominally allied with the United States, but also supporting terrorists and the Taliban. 4. Maintain international support from the 39 countries allied with the United States in a coalition.

“Afghanistan is an expensive disaster for America.”

“We’re going to fail on the political,” he said. A peace settlement with the Taliban was the only way out.

“We spent a trillion dollars to take the world’s best fighters,” Bannon said, “and turn them into the world’s worst army.”

There are more international terrorists in Afghanistan than there ever were in Iraq.

It was extraordinary to unleash an attack within hours of renewing a landmark diplomatic agreement.

Nearly all economists disagreed with Trump, but he found an academic economist who hated free trade as much as he did.

Americans who spent less money on those imported goods had more money to spend on other products, services and savings. This was the efficiency of global markets.

Cohn said that 99.9999 percent of the world’s economists agreed with him. It was basically true. Navarro stood virtually alone.

Goldman Sachs, to Cohn, had always been about research, data and fact.

He had sent Trump a heavily researched paper on the service economy. He knew Trump had never read it and probably never would. Trump hated homework.

“You have a Norman Rockwell view of America.” The U.S. economy today is not that economy. Today, “80 plus percent of our GDP is in the service sector.”

So if we’re 80-plus percent services, if we spend less and less money on goods, we have more disposable income to spend on services or do something miraculous called savings.”

On the other hand, Cohn said, if they did it his way—no tariffs, no quotas, no protectionism, no trade wars—“if we do things right, our trade deficit’s going to get bigger.”

Why are you spending any time thinking about our trade deficit? You should be thinking about the economy as a whole. If we can buy cheap products abroad and we can excel in other areas—service and high-tech products—that should be the focus. The global marketplace provided immense benefits to Americans.

Cohn assembled every piece of economic data available to show that American workers did not aspire to work in assembly factories.

As far as Porter was concerned Navarro was a member of the Flat Earth Society on trade deficits, like the president himself.

“Somebody needs to coordinate trade.”

“In a normal administration, it would be the National Economic Council and Gary Cohn,”

gather all the points of view, the data, integrate them if possible and present the president with some options, get a decision...

As the Syrian civil war ground on, Obama was tagged with a strategic failure. The war had left more than 400,000 killed and millions of refugees.

“Obama,” Trump said, “he’s a weak dick. He would’ve never done that.” “And his failure to do that has cost about 400,000 people their lives,” Graham said, pointing to the number who had died in the entire Syrian war.

The trade agreement had been the foundation of economic and national security in North America for more than two decades.

withdrawal from NAFTA would be a national security nightmare,

The people who stand to lose the most if we withdraw from NAFTA are your base, the Trump supporters.”