Fear: Trump in the White House

by Bob Woodward

“Tell them I’m not going to pay.” It was a standard line.

He let it be known he would make no more trips to Dover.

“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.

“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.”

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.

“I’m always moving. I’m moving in both directions.”

He’s 71. He’s not going to admit he’s wrong, ever.”

Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president: “You’re a fucking liar.”