A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

by Philip Rucker

The next day, Dubke was officially hired, but as he began work as communications director, he knew he could not direct Trump. The ineptitude came from the very top. Trump cared more about putting on a show than about the more mundane task of governing. There would be no restraining the grievances Trump felt nor curbing the chaos he created. They could only be managed.

Cabinet secretaries and other aides pleaded for McGahn to come to the Oval Office to explain to Trump why he couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that. In one of the counsel’s first discussions of executive power with the president, McGahn told Trump he couldn’t automatically issue an executive order to impose tariffs on foreign countries’ goods—unless he had a grave reason. “I just want to do it. I’m the president. Can’t I do it?” Trump asked him.

To Trump, McGahn became Dr. No. The White House counsel labored to keep bad ideas from germinating. McGahn, who carried a pocket Constitution, saw it as his duty to protect Trump from the novices in his administration who knew less about governing than a newly elected congressman coming out of a two-week orientation session. McGahn had also rankled Ivanka Trump by riding herd on the ethical questions of the first daughter joining the West Wing staff.

“He should’ve told me he was going to do this,” Trump fumed about Sessions. “If he couldn’t handle this, he should’ve told me and we could’ve put him down at the border,” Trump said, meaning naming him secretary of homeland security.

When Air Force One touched down at Joint Base Andrews, the president was still so hot that he was urged to sit on board for a while so he could stew in private. Aides explained to him that the press corps would be waiting under the wing, so he shouldn’t stop to talk to them, nor should he stalk down the steps of the plane with a scowl on his face.

Bannon told Trump that times had changed. “There’s something that happened between those days of having Bobby Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover bringing over the files,” he said. “It’s called Watergate. It just doesn’t work like that anymore.” Trump believed Sessions should have protected him and his family at all costs.

Trump repeatedly insisted to aides, “I don’t know any Russians” and “I’ve never been to Russia.” Both statements were outright lies.

“Here’s the deal, Mr. President,” Corallo told him. “If you’re going to get a special counsel, you couldn’t get a better guy. Mr. President, Jim Comey and Bob Mueller, despite what you might think, they’re not best friends. There is no conflict. And Bob Mueller is the most honest guy in town. You’ve got to understand, this guy is a public servant’s public servant. He’s only interested in facts. He doesn’t have a political ax to grind. He’s not for you or against you when it comes to the law. He really is as honest a human being as this country’s ever produced.”

As they settled into a work pattern with the president, the lawyers increasingly saw Kushner and Ivanka Trump as problems. The kids wandered in and out of strategy sessions about the investigation, without so much as a knock on the door, asking what was going on. Ivanka would walk in, say, “Hi, Dad,” and the lawyers would stop talking about substance and simply smile at her awkwardly, waiting for her to leave. She and Kushner talked openly about details of the investigation with other staffers, as well as with the president, and privately offered him their own advice.

Trump would later claim that he never asked McGahn to help him “fire” Mueller, which technically was true. He hadn’t used the word “fire.” But it was clear to McGahn what Trump wanted him to do.

Trump liked to brag that he shared a special bond with Putin because they were “stablemates” on 60 Minutes, having been interviewed separately for unrelated segments that happened to air in the same 2015 episode of the venerated CBS News show. But they had never met face-to-face until July 7, 2017, when Trump and Putin sat down on the sidelines of the Group of Twenty summit for world leaders in Hamburg, Germany.

Retrofitted for presidential travel, the military’s iconic Boeing 747 is segmented by cabins. The president’s personal cabin is at the front of the fuselage, near the nose, and separate cabins flow back from there, with passengers assigned to seats in descending order of seniority: top advisers, then other staff, then Secret Service agents, then guests such as friends or members of Congress, and finally, in the rear, a traveling pool of thirteen journalists.

Revoking the 2012 Magnitsky Act, a little-known law, was actually one of Putin’s biggest priorities. The U.S. legislation had infuriated Putin because it froze the assets and limited the travel of a circle of powerful Russian businessmen he relied upon as extensions of his own power. In retaliation, Putin had halted American adoptions of Russian children. Whenever Putin raised the issue of Russian adoptions, it was really code for his jihad to revoke the meddlesome U.S. sanctions. But when Veselnitskaya raised the “adoptions” code word with Trump junior at Trump Tower in June 2016, it sailed right over his head.

Dunford sought to explain that he hadn’t been charged with annihilating the enemy in Afghanistan but was instead following a strategy started by the Obama administration to gradually reduce the military presence in the country in hopes of training locals to maintain a stable government so that eventually the United States could pull out. Trump shot back in more plain language. “I want to win,” he said. “We don’t win any wars anymore. . . . We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we’re not winning anymore.”

Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn’t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. “I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass. Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.” For a president known for verbiage he euphemistically

Tank meeting had so thoroughly shocked the conscience of military leaders that they tried to keep it a secret. At the Aspen Security Forum two days later, longtime NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked Dunford how Trump had interacted during the Tank meeting. The Joint Chiefs chairman misleadingly described the meeting, skipping over the fireworks. “He asked a lot of hard questions, and the one thing he does is question some fundamental assumptions that we make as military leaders—and he will come in and question those,” Dunford told Mitchell on July 22. “It’s a pretty energetic and an interactive dialogue.” One victim of the Tank meeting

Trump had had his eyes on Kelly for a while. After firing Comey in May, the president had asked Kelly to be FBI director. Kelly had declined, saying he preferred to stay as homeland security secretary, but he had observed to Trump that he had been poorly served by his staff because they had let him fire the FBI director without a Plan B. That conversation stuck with Trump, and the last week of July he asked Kelly to step in as chief of staff. Kelly asked to take the weekend to consider the offer, but the president was too impatient. He tweeted Kelly’s appointment before he had agreed to take the job.

Trump revealed a stunning ignorance about geography. “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border,” Trump said, seeming to dismiss the threat to India. Modi’s eyes bulged out in surprise. Aides noticed him giving a sidelong glance at Tillerson, who accompanied Trump as part of the U.S. delegation. The Indian prime minister considered Tillerson among the best-versed Americans on the region’s security challenges, and together they had been plotting a new partnership. Tillerson’s eyes flashed open wide at Trump’s comment, but he quickly put his hand to his brow, appearing to the Indian delegation to attempt not to offend the president as well as to signal to Modi that he knew this statement was nuts.

McMaster had difficulty holding the president’s attention. Trump, meanwhile, would get annoyed with what he considered McMaster’s lecturing style. The president felt his national security adviser was always determined to try to “teach me something.” Indeed, Trump constantly shifted and grumbled when staff were trying to bring him up to speed on a topic, immediately threatened by the notion that his knowledge wasn’t sufficient if he needed experts. As the president repeatedly told Kelly when he proposed a subject briefing: “I don’t want to talk to anyone. I know more than they do. I know better than anybody else.”

By the time of the November trip to Asia, Trump was openly mocking McMaster. When McMaster arrived in his office for a briefing, Trump would puff up his chest, sit up straight in his chair, and fake shout like a boot camp drill sergeant. In his play, he pretended to be McMaster. “I’m your national security adviser, General McMaster, sir!” Trump would say, trying to amuse the others in the room. “I’m here to give you your briefing, sir!” Then Trump would ridicule McMaster further by describing the topic of the day and deploying a series of large, complex phrases to indicate how boring McMaster’s briefing was going to be. The National Security Council staff were deeply disturbed by Trump’s treatment of their boss. “The president doesn’t fire people,” said one of McMaster’s aides. “He just tortures them until they’re willing to quit.”

Jay Sekulow, another Trump attorney, was cautious. One day after Thanksgiving, he called Mike Bowe, who also represented the president, to talk it over. “What do you think about an interview with the president?” Sekulow asked Bowe, who was working in his garage. After a brief pause, Bowe told him what he really thought: “It’s legal malpractice.”

“I want Putin to come here,” Trump told McMaster. “Yes, Mr. President,” McMaster said. “We’ll start working on it ASAP.” “Let’s announce the invitation and put out a statement about it,” Trump said. McMaster didn’t think Trump should publicly announce his invitation, much less have Putin visit Washington at all, but figured the situation could be managed. He explained to Trump that state visits or face-to-face meetings of this magnitude should be kept secret until closer to the event and after the two countries negotiated a concrete agenda. Trump seemed to relent, shrugging his shoulders. McMaster instructed Fiona Hill, the Russia specialist on the NSC, to contact the Russian ambassador and start talks about a possible meeting. But he stressed that she should take her time. If she set up a meeting with the ambassador, they could say they were working on the visit the next time Trump asked. As McMaster was drafting and editing with his staff the White House’s statement on the Trump-Putin call, the Kremlin released its own readout of the call. The Russians almost always got their statements out before the Americans, which allowed them to shape the global media narrative on their terms. The Kremlin statement made clear what Trump had said.

Sanders’s reasons were obvious. She and her colleagues were getting slammed with questions from journalists about why migrant children were being separated from their parents while crossing the border over the last several days. The situation was fast becoming a humanitarian crisis. John Kelly had opposed the policy when immigration officials first proposed it in March 2017 and he was the homeland security secretary. “No way. Not on my watch,” he told his team. Kelly had held them off for many months, including after he was named White House chief of staff. Once

The president broke first. On the morning of June 20, he called Nielsen at home to say they had to fix what had become a public relations disaster. His conflicting instructions left her scratching her head. “Yeah, yeah, we got to fix this. Just stop it,” Trump told Nielsen, referring to family separations. “But I want zero tolerance to continue.”

It was not, however, ridiculous to Trump. He was adamant about sending troops to the border, telling aides that the military had tens of thousands of men and women in uniform and he should be able to use them, as commander in chief, to protect the sovereignty of the United States. Advisers explained to Trump that if he sent troops to the border, they would not be allowed to function as if they were law enforcement officers. They could erect temporary fencing or fix vehicles or conduct surveillance, advisers said, but they could not use deadly force. Firing a single shot into Mexico would be considered an act of war.

It was Wednesday and Sessions asked Kelly if he could have until Friday to resign, but Kelly wasn’t the decider. He checked with the president and called right back. “It has to happen today,” Kelly informed Sessions. “If it doesn’t happen right now, there will be a tweet.”

“Listen,” Giuliani told Christie. “He’s going to offer you chief of staff tonight. “He just got off the phone with me,” Giuliani added, referring to Trump. “He told me that that’s the decision he’s made. You’re the best person in position for the reelect. You’re the smartest politician. You can run the place. He needs you.” “Rudy, is Jared leaving?” Christie asked. “No,” Giuliani said. “Why the fuck am I going to take this job?” Christie said. “You guys are nuts. I’m not going in there and [having] Jared down the hall.” As the train hurtled toward Union Station, Christie’s mind was racing. If Trump really was about to offer him chief of staff, he had to figure out what to say. So he called Jim Baker, a legendary former White House chief of staff under both President Reagan and President George H. W. Bush. Christie knew Baker and relied on his sage advice; when he was Trump’s transition chairman, Christie had spent two hours in Houston talking with Baker about staffing administrations. Baker picked up right away. “Governor,” he said, “if you’re calling me, you’re about to be offered the worst fucking job in America.”

The Trumps and Christie started talking about the chief of staff job right away. The only one of Baker’s points that the president objected to was that Christie control his own media appearances. Christie told him, “I’m not here to be your press spokesman. I’m here to be your chief of staff.” But Trump insisted upon being the one to decide when Christie went on television.

Trump liked that idea. “That will be a great story for us, you withdrawing from consideration,” Trump said. “Like the Axios story last night. Wasn’t that a great story?” “I wondered about that,” Christie said. “It was just me, you, and Melania in the room, and I’m pretty sure nobody saw me coming in, so how’d that happen?” “Oh, I did it,” Trump said. “Who did it for you?” Christie asked. “No, no, I did it myself,” Trump said. “I called Jonathan and told him.” Christie thought to himself, “You’re leaking yourself? And to think I came this close to being your chief of staff?” But he held his tongue. “You’re really not supposed to be doing that,” Christie told Trump. “Ahhh,” the president said playfully. “Don’t worry about it. He’s a good kid.”

Cipollone had another great calling card: he was a genuine fan of Trump’s policies and was determined to help advance his legislative agenda and put more of Trump’s aspirations into the “win” column. Despite Cipollone’s conservatism, he had friends and admirers across the aisle, too. His former coworkers said he had a comfortable, genial style and put people around him quickly at ease. In his cases, he tried to find compromises to move forward. Melanie Sloan, a Trump critic and prominent government ethics lawyer, applauded Trump’s choice. She noted that Cipollone had a moral code and predicted that he would be unlikely to cross ethical boundaries in service to the president, despite Trump’s frequent demands of advisers to do so.

A few members of Mueller’s team wanted to be explicit in the report about the incriminating information they had found about Trump and explain that if he had not been a sitting president, he could likely have faced charges. They understood the Office of Legal Counsel opinion prohibited prosecuting Trump, but they pointed out it did not state that they could not recommend charges.