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

by Philip Rucker

British diplomats, talking to their own sources...

Theresa May chose intentionally not to wish Putin well, still waiting for him to acknowledge the poisoning.

The Russians had not exaggerated or misstated the substance of the call, as they often did, and Trump was hardly shy about confirming the truth.

Sarah Sanders told White House reporters in the early afternoon that the Kremlin readout was accurate.

Washington’s national security professionals and Russia hawks were outraged.

The spectacle was so jarring that even Kim

acknowledged the oddity.

Gérard Araud, the French ambassador, recalled a senior White House official explaining to him that Trump “can’t stand people who try to moderate him, but he loves people who are stronger or harsher than he is. He

As Trump made his case, members of the U.S. delegation were visibly stricken. This set the tone for an acrimonious NATO summit—a repeat of Quebec.

The next day, July 12, the situation went from uncomfortable to dangerous.

Trump had been reasonably well behaved, despite the visceral disdain he had long harbored for them because he b...

Xavier Bettel, the prime minister of Luxembourg, had reminded reporters that Trump had wireless internet on Air Force One and could reverse his support for NATO in a single tweet once he left Brussels. When a reporter asked Trump if he might

attack NATO on Twitter after departing, just as he had maligned Trudeau following the G7 in Quebec, the president replied,

“No, that’s other people that do that. I don’t. I’m very consistent. I’m ...

In fact, he said he took the word of Putin over the collective assessment of his own intelligence agencies.

evidence of it. Trump’s performance in Helsinki sparked horror among the national security establishment in Washington.

He thought he had come across as strong, but an hour into his flight home Trump’s mood darkened as he watched cable news on a satellite feed and was shown printouts of statements from fellow Republicans condemning his comments. Even for some of the president’s Republican allies, Helsinki was an out-of-body experience.

Senator John McCain did not mince words in his statement: “Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.

The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate.

But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a...

The Arizona Republican senator added, “No prior president has ever abased himself more ...

Suddenly the word “treason” became part of the public debate about Trump. The former CIA director John Brennan ...

short of trea...

Back at the White House, Trump confided in friends that he did not understand what the big fuss was about.

He thought the summit had been an undeniable success.

“I don’t see any reason why it would be”

“I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.”

“I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia, he meant to say, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.”

Ford’s credibility with the pacing and delivery of a stand-up comedian.

To this day, no one is in charge at the White House. No one.”

“No one would push you to show that except the one person who doesn’t know,” a Defense Department official said of the president.

Trump’s fearmongering a “scare-a-thon.” This period amplified Trump’s ugliest characteristics as president.

“He goes out and says crazy, horrible things, blows race whistles and sits back and watches his topic of craziness dominate cable TV for the next 24 hours,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist.

The Democratic triumph in the House was powered by a record number of women candidates.

This would be the most racially and gender-diverse freshman class of representatives in congressional history, and Pelosi was set to reclaim the Speaker’s gavel she lost eight years earlier.

“They can play that game, but we can play it better, because we have a thing called the United States Senate,” Trump said at a news conference.

Trump refused to show any contrition or take responsibility for his party’s defeats.

After the 2010 midterm elections, President Obama talked about his party’s “shellacking.” And after the 2006 midterm elections, President Bush spoke of his party’s “thumpin’.” But Trump didn’t even acknowledge the ...

“If it doesn’t happen right now, there will be a tweet.”

May had previously been subjected to Trump’s erratic temper, but her aides were shaken by the acrimony of this call.

They described it as the worst in May’s career.

The president was so churlish that a British official told The Telegraph that he had act...

Later, talking to other advisers, Trump shirked any responsibility for bailing on the cemetery visit. “It was John Kelly’s decision [that] I couldn’t go,” Trump said. “I would’ve been

happy to go. I don’t care about the rain.”

He described Trump as “a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read, doesn’t read briefing reports, doesn’t like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of said, ‘Look, this is what I believe and you can try to convince me otherwise, but most of the time you’re not going to do that.’” When Schieffer

asked how his relationship with Trump went off the rails, Tillerson said, “We are starkly different in our styles. We did not have a common value system. I’ll just be blunt about that and so often the president would say, ‘Well, here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it.’ And I had to say to him, ‘Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can’t do it that

way.

It violates the law. It violates ...

Never one to let a slight go unaddressed, Trump slammed Tillerson. He cast the man who rose from civil engineer to chief executive at one of the world’s largest companies and who considered himself a student of history as, of all things, unintelligent. Trump tweeted that Tillerson “didn’t have the mental capacity needed. H...

The insult was a reminder to all who served in the administration that loyalty was a one-way street. An honest reflection like the one Tillerson gave Schieffer after more than a year of service in government could eas...