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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.
Putin called from Russia with congratulations, as did President Xi Jinping from China. Many other world leaders called.
A week after the election
Chapter 6 and we aren't yet into the presidency
One source was in such jeopardy that the CIA wanted to exfiltrate that person from Russia to safety abroad or in the United States.
Five days after taking the oath of office,
Chapter nine. Trump now president.
President Trump is a good listener, Mattis said, as long as you don’t hit one of his third rails—immigration and the press are the two big ones. If you hit one, he is liable to go off on a tangent and not come back for a long time.
“Tweeting,” the president said, “that’s the way I operate.”
“I admire you. You’re a very tough man. You’re a good man.” It was as close as he might get to, I’m sorry.
When McMaster tried to sell a slimmed-down version of concepts like “frames” or the R4s, Trump was cruelly dismissive. He had one question: “What the fuck are we doing there?”
We’ve got to figure out how to get the fuck out of there. Totally corrupt. The people are not worth fighting for . . . NATO does nothing. They’re a hindrance. Don’t let anybody tell you how great they are. It’s all bullshit.”
“The soldiers on the ground could run things much better than you,” the president told his generals and advisers.
At the White House, Trump began repeating a line he had heard at a meeting: “The way we’re going to win is to run an insurgency against the insurgency of the Taliban.”
“Well, Mr. President,” Mattis said, “I think they are probably in technical compliance.”
you should make the case that this agreement is done and finished.” He suggested they might consider reopening the terms of the deal. “And that maybe we’d be willing to renegotiate.” “Mr. President,” Tillerson said in exasperation, “you have the authority. You’re the president.
Mr. President, Cohn said, trying to summarize, “You have a Norman Rockwell view of America.”
Cohn assembled every piece of economic data available to show that American workers did not aspire to work in assembly factories.
“It is impossible to get a trade action to your desk for consideration in a timely manner,” Navarro wrote. He unleashed at Rob Porter, the staff secretary. “Any proposed executive action on trade that moves through the Staff Secretary process is highly vulnerable to dilution, delay or derailment.” Cohn “has amassed a large power base in the West Wing and his two top aides on trade . . . are skilled political operatives fundamentally opposed to the Trump trade agenda.
“Jared and Ivanka are moderate Democrats from New York.”
It was more description than complaint.
kick the can down the road for several more weeks,
100,000 a month, which was about half his normal rate. Trump instructed him to send the invoice to his office in New York and he would be paid the next day. (He was.)
“We need to get out of Paris,” Pruitt said, handing the president a plain sheet of paper he wanted him to read withdrawing from the Paris Accord. We need to get out, he said. “This was a campaign commitment.” “Yes, yes, yes,” Bannon said several times. “We’ve got to do this now.” Make this statement, Pruitt said. This could be your press statement. Maybe read it to reporters in the Oval Office, and have the press secretary put it out as a written statement. Porter was taken aback. As staff secretary he knew there had been no process. No one had been consulted. There had been no legal review.
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Since the tweets were often triggered by the president’s obsessive TV watching, he looked for ways to shut off the television.
The four options: One was to retain the Obama policy that allowed transgender people to serve openly, two was to issue a directive to Secretary Mattis giving him leeway, three was a presidential order to end the program but come up with a plan for those transgender people already in the military, and four was to ban all transgender people from military service. The likelihood of being sued increased as they got to number four, Priebus explained. “When you come down, we want to walk you through on paper,” Priebus said. “I’ll be down at 10,” the president said. “Why don’t you guys come and see
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Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “The president’s national security team” was consulted and that Trump had made the decision the day before and “informed” Mattis immediately after.
“Forget about Reince. He’s like a little rat. He just scurries around. You don’t even have to pay any attention to him. Just come talk to me. You don’t have to go through him.”
“I know what you are going to say,” Trump said as Priebus crossed the threshold. “It’s not presidential. And guess what? I know it. But I had to do it anyway.”
He’s the attorney general. He can make these decisions on his own. He doesn’t have to listen to his staff. If he was that smart of a lawyer and he knew he was going to have to recuse himself, he should’ve told me
“There’s some things where he’s already reached the conclusion and
it doesn’t matter what you say. It doesn’t matter what arguments you offer. He’s not listening.”
“Maybe we’ll do it this weekend,” Trump said. What are you going to do? Priebus hoped to rejoin his old law firm. Trump gave him a big hug. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “You’re the man.” Air Force One landed. Priebus walked off down the ramp. Rain dotted his black SUV, where Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino were waiting for him. He felt as good about the situation as possible. He got an alert for a presidential tweet. He looked down at the latest from @realdonaldtrump: “I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a
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Priebus made a final assessment: He believed he had been surrounded in the West Wing by high-ranking natural killers with no requirement to produce regular work products—a plan, a speech, the outline of a strategy, a budget, a daily and weekly schedule. They were roving interlopers, a band of chaos creators.
Porter felt it was a moment of victory, of actually doing some good for the country. He had served the president well. This made the endless hours of nonstop work worth it.
The suggestion that he had admitted doing wrong and was unsteady infuriated the president. “That was the biggest fucking mistake I’ve made,” the president told Porter.
strangely Trump did not direct his rage at Porter. “I can’t believe I got forced to do that,” Trump said, apparently still not blaming Porter but venting directly to him.
when Trump brought up the second speech to him, the staff secretary said, “I thought the second speech was the only good one of the three.” “I don’t want to talk to you,” Trump responded. “Get away from me.”
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!” Most significant, however, were the private reactions from House Speaker Ryan and Senate majority leader McConnell. Both Republicans called some of the CEOs and privately praised them for standing up.
“Go to the podium right now, and make a statement.” He was inviting Cohn to go to the podium in the press room of the White House. “I’m not going to do that, sir. That’s embarrassing. That’s not what you do. Let me do it my way.” “I don’t care what way you do it,” Trump said. “I just don’t want you leaving until taxes are done. And you can say whatever you need to say.” “Do you want to see it before I say it?” Trump seemed to be of two minds. “Nope,” Trump replied at first. “Say whatever you want to say.” But then he asked what it might be. “Could we see it first?” Cohn said he would work with
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Bannon knew Trump was heading toward a globalist decision. The forces of the national security establishment, led by McMaster, were setting him up. They were creating a record that Trump had been briefed fully about the potential Afghanistan threat as a base for future 9/11-style terrorism. If the threat materialized, they would leak to The Washington Post or The New York Times that Trump had ignored the warning.
Trump had no understanding of how government functioned. At times he would just start drafting orders himself or dictating.
“Rob, I want you to stay. You’ve got to be a part of this.” “I’m not your lawyer,” Porter said. “I’m not acting as a lawyer. But even if I was, I’d be a government lawyer, not one of your personal lawyers and that would break attorney-client privilege. And so I can’t be in here.” “No, no, no,” Trump said, “that doesn’t matter.”
Trump was determined to impose steel tariffs. “Look,” Trump said, “we’ll try it. If it doesn’t work, we’ll undo it.” “Mr. President,” Cohn said, “that’s not what you do with the U.S. economy.” Because the stakes were so high, it was crucial to be conservative. “You do something when you’re 100 percent certain it will work, and then you pray like hell that you’re right. You don’t do 50/50s with the U.S. economy.” “If we’re not right,” Trump repeated, “we roll them back.”
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.
Grievance was a big part of Trump’s core, very much like a 14-year-old boy who felt he was being picked on unfairly. You couldn’t talk to him in adult logic. Teenage logic was necessary.
This was a giant opportunity, capitalism, building and development at its best. “Why aren’t we in there taking it?” “Who’s we?” Cohn asked. “We should just be in there taking it,” Trump said, as if there were a national mining company to move into Afghanistan.
insult to McMaster, Trump did an imitation of his national security adviser. The president puffed up his chest and started noticeably exaggerated breathing. He said in loud staccato, “I know the president of Iraq. He’s a good man, sir! I know he has our best interest at heart.”
“Tom, are you ready? You go up there. You say . . .” He wanted to formulate it just right. “You tell them you’ve never seen—no wait. First you tell them, ‘Trump’s dead serious.’ That’s what you tell them. Are you ready?” Trump’s hands and fingers went up again. “You tell them $150 billion. Wait! You tell them $150 billion is nothing. He’s ready to go to $500 billion because he’s tired of not being treated fairly. That’s what you tell them!”
Trump offered some stage direction, one hand up again for dramatic emphasis. “Then you say, ‘It’ll all be all right because the relationship Trump has with Xi is so . . .’ ” A pause. A refinement. “It’s the best.” Wait! “You’ve never seen such a good relationship between two presidents in your life. Maybe ever.
“Boss, here’s how I do it: It’s a trade dispute, it’s not a trade war. There’s a trade deficit. In the ’80s we had a trade dispute with Japan and we were close allies with them at the same time.” “Perfect!” Trump said. “You got it. You throw that crap in there, sounds good, then you tell them what I said.
Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president: “You’re a fucking liar.”
