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Trump arrived and sat down. Hot dogs and hamburgers were laid out. The fantasy diet of an 11-year-old kid, Bannon thought, as Trump wolfed down two hot dogs.
Citing the New York Times story about the failure to tame his tongue, Trump asked Manafort how such an article could appear. It was one of Trump’s paradoxes: He attacked the mainstream media with relish, especially the Times—but despite the full-takedown language, he considered the Times the paper of record and largely believed its stories.
I wonder if this is still his stance on it...
“No, I can tell,” Trump replied, directing his fire at Manafort. “They’re leakers.” He knew the quotes were true.
Bannon felt sorry for Manafort. The campaign manager had been astonished at the success and power of Trump’s Twitter account, and had started one of his own. But the New York Daily News had run this item in April: “Make America kinky again,” noting that Manafort—perhaps unaware that Twitter was a public forum—had followed a Midtown bondage and swingers’ club called Decadence. “Manafort was following the swanky spank spot—which bills itself as the city’s ‘most intimate swing club.’ ”
Manafort was probably the most clueless in the whole campaign, even more so than Trump.
Early on, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the debate co-host, raised the Access Hollywood tape, saying, “That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?” Trump parried. “When we have a world where you have ISIS chopping off heads . . . where you have wars and horrible, horrible sights all over and you have so many bad things happening . . . yes, I am very embarrassed by it and I hate it, but it’s locker-room talk and it’s one of those things. I will knock the hell out of ISIS.”
Nice way of deflecting the issue instead of owning up to the mistake.
On election night, it was remarkable to watch the needle on the live forecast dial on the New York Times website, which started out giving Clinton an 85 percent chance of winning. But the dial began to swing swiftly toward Trump. A good sign for Trump was North Carolina. African American and Latino turnout was down.
People in the US really take their right to vote for granted...
Bannon was convinced that Trump himself was stunned. “He has no earthly idea he’s going to win,” Bannon said later. “And he had done no preparation. He never thought he would lose, but he didn’t think he would win. There’s a difference. And you’ve got to remember, no preparation, no transition team.”
Though he noted that Obama had made several statements on Iran, Mattis remarked, “Presidential speeches are not a policy.”
I agree, Trump said. “We should just go borrow a lot of money right now, hold it, and then sell it and make money.” Cohn was astounded at Trump’s lack of basic understanding. He tried to explain. If you as the federal government borrow money through issuing bonds, you are increasing the U.S. deficit. What do you mean? Trump asked. Just run the presses—print money.
🤯🤯🤯 Genius!
“You know what?” Trump said at the end of what had become an hour-long meeting. “I hired the wrong guy for treasury secretary. You should be treasury secretary. You would be the best treasury secretary.” Mnuchin, right there, didn’t say a thing or show any reaction. “Come back and tell me what you want,” Trump said. “You’d be great to have on the team. It’d be fantastic.” Five minutes later while Cohn was still in the building, he saw a television flash breaking news: President-elect Trump has selected Steve Mnuchin as treasury secretary. “That’s crazy,” Jared said. “Mnuchin just put that out.
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Cohn’s wife, Lisa, said he should do it because he owed the country a great deal. “You’re too slow, you’re too fat and too old to serve your country any other way.”
You didn't have to kill the man like that, Lisa Cohn.
On the second page it said: “According to Source D, where s/he had been present, TRUMP’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.” This was designed to
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What the fuck
The elder Kim had dealt with weapons test failures by ordering the death of the responsible scientists and officials. They were shot. The younger Kim accepted failures in tests, apparently absorbing the practical lesson: Failure is inevitable on the road to success. Under Kim Jong Un, the scientists lived to learn from their mistakes, and the weapons programs improved.
During the Gulf War in 1991 in Operation Desert Storm, just seven years out of West Point as an Army captain, McMaster led nine tanks in a battle that destroyed 28 Iraqi Republican Guard tanks. Captain McMaster suffered no losses and the battle lasted 23 minutes. He was awarded a Silver Star for valor.
That's fucking crazy. This guy is not to be fucked with.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who was a commander in the Naval Reserves, tried several times to persuade Mattis to appear on Sunday talk shows on behalf of the administration. The answer was always no. “Sean,” Mattis finally said, “I’ve killed people for a living. If you call me again, I’m going to fucking send you to Afghanistan. Are we clear?”
Cohn knew it was about 84 percent but he did not want to be called out for rounding numbers up. The Goldman way was to carefully round down.
Interesting technique.
Porter was trying to present himself as the honest broker but he had taught economics at Oxford and was convinced that Navarro’s views were outdated and unsupportable. As far as Porter was concerned Navarro was a member of the Flat Earth Society on trade deficits, like the president himself.
The timing of the strike—4:40 a.m. in Syria—virtually ensured they would not be working around the aircraft. About 15 minutes before the Tomahawks would hit, a warning was sent to the Russians at the airfield. When the call was made, the Russian who picked up the phone at the airfield sounded intoxicated.
CLASSIC
Trump went to dinner with Chinese president Xi Jinping, who was visiting Mar-a-Lago as part of a two-day summit to discuss trade and North Korea. As dessert was being served Trump said to Xi, “We’re in the process of bombing Syria because of its gas attack.” “Say that again,” Xi said through the interpreter. Trump repeated it. “How many missiles?” Xi asked. Trump said 59. “59?” Xi asked. Trump confirmed 59. “Okay,” Xi said, “I understand. Good, he deserved it.” And that was the end of the dinner.
Dowd examined the one-page Rosenstein order appointing Mueller May 17. Not only did it authorize a Russian investigation but it directed Mueller to investigate “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the [Russian] investigation.” Dowd had never seen anyone in Justice with such broad authority.
Trump gave some private advice to a friend who had acknowledged some bad behavior toward women. Real power is fear. It’s all about strength. Never show weakness. You’ve always got to be strong. Don’t be bullied. There is no choice. “You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women,” he said. “If you admit to anything and any culpability, then you’re dead. That was a big mistake you made. You didn’t come out guns blazing and just challenge them. You showed weakness. You’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to be aggressive. You’ve got to push back hard. You’ve got to deny anything that’s
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One day in the Oval Office, Cohn brought in the latest job numbers to Trump and Pence. “I have the most perfect job numbers you’re ever going to see,” Cohn said. “It’s all because of my tariffs,” Trump said. “They’re working.” Trump had yet to impose any tariffs, but he believed they were a good idea and knew Cohn disagreed with him. “You’re a fucking asshole,” Cohn said, half-joking and smacking Trump gently on the arm. Cohn turned to a Secret Service agent. “I just hit the president. If you want to shoot me, go ahead.” Cohn wrote a joke for Trump to use at the Gridiron Dinner: “We’ve made
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Cohn is such a clown sometimes, I love it.
Bannon believed the administration owned the hard-line immigration posture—except for Trump himself. “He’s always been soft on DACA. He believes the left-wing thing. They’re all valedictorians. They’re all Rhodes Scholars. Because Ivanka over the years has told him that.”
This is interesting, never did I paint Trump as somebody who would believe the Dreamers and Ivanka seemed to be behind this
Two thirds (68 percent) of legal permanent residents entered under family reunification or chain migration in 2016. This was at the heart of Trump’s and Bannon’s anti-immigration stance: They wanted to stop illegal immigration and limit legal immigration. Bannon wanted a new, stricter policy. Graham and he were not able to come close to agreement.
Ivanka and Jared gave a newspaper story to the president with highlighted quotes from an unnamed White House source. You know who this is? This is Steve Bannon, they said. In a West Wing filled with leakers, these tactics slowly but surely planted a distrust of Bannon with the president.
During the campaign, Trump had proclaimed himself a supporter of LGBT rights. Now he told Bannon, “What the fuck? They’re coming in here, they’re getting clipped”—a crude reference to gender reassignment surgery. Someone had told him that each surgery cost $250,000, an inflated number. “Not going to happen,” he said.
The tweets were not incidental to his presidency. They were central. He ordered printouts of his recent tweets that had received a high number of likes, 200,000 or more. He studied them to find the common themes in the most successful. He seemed to want to become more strategic, find out whether success was tied to the subject, the language or simply the surprise that the president was weighing in. The most effective tweets were often the most shocking.
Trump took advantage of social media just like Kennedy took advantage of live T.V.
“If you do ever put steel tariffs on,” Turnbull said, “you’ve got to exempt Australian steel. We do this steel that’s specialty steel. We’re the only one that produces it in the world. You’ve got to let us out. You’ve got a $40 billion trade surplus with us. We’re military allies with you. We’re in every battle with you.” “Of course,” Trump said, “we’ll let you out. That makes total sense. You guys are great. We’ve got a big surplus with you guys”—the holy grail. Gary Cohn, who was in the meeting, was pleased. Turnbull had previously been a partner at Goldman Sachs and had worked for Cohn when
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In the prep session in the Oval Office for the meeting, Cohn reminded Trump of his pledge. “Mr. President,” Cohn said, “the first thing he’s going to bring up is the steel tariffs. And he’s going to remind you that you let him out.” “I don’t remember,” Trump said, sitting behind the Resolute Desk. “Well, sir,” Cohn said, “you had the conversation with him . . .” “I’m going to deny it,” Trump replied. “I never had that conversation with him.” “Okay, sir, just reminding you that it’s going to come up.”
At lunch Turnbull carefully stepped Trump through their time at the G20 the previous summer. Remember we were in Hamburg? Yes, Trump said. You took me back in your secure facility? “Oh, yeah, I remember that,” Trump replied. “My security guys were so pissed. They couldn’t believe I did it.” Remember what conversation we had? Trump nodded. We were talking about specialty steel that Australia exclusively produces. A version of yes from Trump. “We’ve got a $40 billion trade surplus?” Yes, Trump knew that for sure. And you agreed to let me out of any steel tariff? “Oh, yeah,” Trump answered, “I
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On July 24 Kushner released a long, carefully lawyered statement ahead of his congressional appearance. “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.” The Trump attacks on Sessions subsided for a while. It was a sideshow, a diversion. He did believe Sessions had failed him, though, so it was a diversion with conviction.
Everybody fell for it, too. Trump is pretty good at diversions.
Kushner said that most of the legislative discussions in the White House involved Priebus acolytes from the combative Republican National Committee, or from former senator Sessions’s office or from Pence’s stable of conservatives. None of them had experience negotiating bipartisan agreements or getting deals done. Extremists and people trying to score political points were running the legislative agenda.
Referring to the Afghanistan commander, General John Nicholson, who was not present, the president lashed out. “I don’t think he knows how to win. I don’t know if he’s a winner. There’s no victories.” Trump had not settled on an Afghanistan strategy, which was then still being debated. “You should be killing guys. You don’t need a strategy to kill people.”
Priebus called an end to the meeting. Mattis seemed completely deflated. Trump got up and walked out. All the air seemed to have come out of Tillerson. He could not abide Trump’s attack on the generals. The president was speaking as if the U.S. military was a mercenary force for hire. If a country wouldn’t pay us to be there, then we didn’t want to be there. As if there were no American interests in forging and keeping a peaceful world order, as if the American organizing principle was money. “Are you okay?” Cohn asked him. “He’s a fucking moron,” Tillerson said so everyone heard.
For Priebus, it was the worst meeting among many terrible ones. Six months into the administration, he could see vividly that they had a fundamental problem of goal setting. Where were they going? The distrust in the room had been thick and corrosive. The atmosphere was primitive; everyone was ostensibly on the same side, but they had seemed suited up in battle armor, particularly the president. This was what craziness was like, Priebus concluded.
McMaster said that at 6:03 a.m., Trump had tweeted: “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign—‘quietly working to boost Clinton.’ So where is the investigation A.G. [attorney general]” It was clearly Russian propaganda, McMaster said. He and the NSC and intelligence experts had concluded that. But the president had picked it up and shot it out. McMaster said he wasn’t sure how long he could stay.
At least twice, Porter had the order drafted as the president had directed. And at least twice Cohn or Porter took it from his desk. Other times, they just delayed. Trump seemed not to remember his own decision because he did not ask about it. He had no list—in his mind or anywhere else—of tasks to complete.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, told employees that the Strategic & Policy Forum had decided to disband. Trump preempted further resignations by abolishing both groups via Twitter: “Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!”
"We quit." "No, you're fired!" Very mature.
On the way out of the Oval Office, General Kelly, who had heard it all, pulled Cohn into the Cabinet Room. According to notes that Cohn made afterward, Kelly said, “That was the greatest show of self-control I have ever seen. If that was me, I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times.”
General Kelly is hot-headed as fuck
Ideas from the session were never taken seriously. The president often made decisions with only one or two or three people involved. There was no process for making and coordinating decisions. Chaos and disorder were inadequate to describe the situation. It was a free-for-all. The president would have an idea and say, “I want to sign something.” And Porter would have to explain that while Trump had broad authority to issue executive orders, for example, a president was frequently restricted by law. Trump had no understanding of how government functioned. At times he would just start drafting
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The Chinese broke every rule. They stole everything, from tech companies’ trade secrets to pirated software, film and music, and counterfeited luxury goods and pharmaceuticals. They bought parts of companies and stole the technology. They stole intellectual property from American companies that had been required to move their technology to China to operate there. Cohn considered the Chinese dirty rotten scoundrels. The administration estimated China had committed $600 billion in intellectual property theft.
Whenever either of them would challenge Trump’s conviction on the importance of trade deficits and the need to impose tariffs, Trump was immovable. “I know I’m right,” he said. “If you disagree with me, you’re wrong.”
Cohn realized that Trump had gone bankrupt six times and seemed not to mind. Bankruptcy was just another business strategy. Walk away, threaten to blow up the deal. Real power is fear.
Very interesting thought. In a way, it explains a fair amount of Trump's logic behind his strategies.
“The World Trade Organization is the worst organization ever created!” Trump said. “We lose more cases than anything.” “This is in your book, sir,” Cohn said, and brought out another copy. The document showed that the United States won 85.7 percent of its WTO cases, more than average. “The United States has won trade disputes against China on unfair extra duties on U.S. poultry, steel and autos, as well as unfair export restraints on raw materials and rare earth minerals. The United States has also used the dispute settlements system to force China to drop subsidies in numerous sectors.” “This
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"The WTO is AWFUL!"
"Actually here's data proving otherwise."
"Bullshit!"
"You can ask anyone and they will agree."
"No, I won't ask anyone but I know I'm right though."
What a tough cookie. And to think a bunch of his supporters do the same thing.
Kelly appeared on Fox News’s Bret Baier show and said that Trump had gone through “an evolutionary process” and “changed his attitude toward the DACA issue and even the wall.” At the White House, Trump went through the roof. “Did you see what Kelly said?” he asked Porter. “I evolved? I’ve changed on this? Who the fuck does he think he is? I haven’t changed one bit. I’m exactly where I was. We’re going to build the wall. We’re going to build it across the entire border.”
What was Kelly's end plan here? Trump obviously did not change his stance on the issue at any moment. Not that I agree with Trump on this topic at all but I would be pissed too if I was misrepresented like that.
In a small group meeting in his office one day, Kelly said of the president, “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown.” “I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”
“I want to know what the numbers are going to be,” Trump said, throwing out numbers again. “I think they ought to be 10, 20 and 25.” He dismissed any effort to crunch the numbers. A small change in rates could have a surprising impact on taxes collected by the U.S. Treasury. “I don’t care about any of that,” Trump said. Solid, round numbers were key. “That’s what people can understand,” he said. “That’s how I’m going to sell it.”
Trump is half-right actually, easy to understand numbers would help people to grasp their tax rates better. That being said, these rates DEFINITELY have to be analyzed thoroughly and have to make sense. Policy cannot be purely superficial and pretty to look at.
Cohn tried to explain that during the Reagan era the U.S. economy had been very competitive and other countries had begun cutting their taxes. There was plenty of history and technical detail. “I don’t give a shit about that,” Trump said.
LMAO. That's all.
The House called it “The Tax Cut and Jobs Act.” But because of ancient Senate rules, that title was too short, and rather unbelievably it was finalized as “An Act to Provide for Reconciliation Pursuant to Titles II and V of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2018.”
The Republican establishment had brought Trump to heel, he believed. The tax cut was a 100 percent corporate interest tax cut. The budget, adding $1.5 trillion to the deficit, was the worst part of the permanent political-class, boomtown mentality where every lobbyist got their deal for their clients. There was no wall. The swamp had won.
