Rage

by Bob Woodward

“Don’t think SARS 2003,” the expert replied. “Think influenza pandemic 1918.”

675,000 deaths in the United States.

But his public attention was focused on just about everything except the virus: the upcoming Super Bowl, the technological meltdown in the Democratic caucuses in Iowa, his State of the Union address and, most importantly, the impeachment trial in the Senate.

“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told me. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

“It goes through air,” Trump said. “That’s always tougher than the touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

Fear described Trump as “an emotionally overwrought, mercurial and unpredictable leader” who had created a governing crisis and “a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.”

“Let’s hope to God we don’t have a crisis,”

“There’s dynamite behind every door” seemed the most self-aware statement about the jeopardy, pressures and responsibilities of the presidency I had heard Trump make in public or private.

Lejeune believed the Corps not only had to make efficient fighters, but return better citizens to society.

The strategy needed to radically change from a slow war of attrition to one of “annihilation.” Time was a key issue. Slow wars were losing ones for the United States.

He called his mother, Lucille, who was 94 years old. She had served in Army intelligence in World War II. He knew she hated Trump. “How can you work for that man?” she asked. “Ma, last time I checked, I work for the Constitution. I’ll go back and read it again.”

“I don’t do political contributions,” Tillerson replied, trying to sidestep the question. “I’ve found it’s not particularly healthy in the job I’m in.” He was a lifelong Republican. His wife, Renda, had paid $2,500 to go to a Trump lunch. Records show Tillerson made more than $100,000 in contributions in the 2016 election cycle, including $2,700 to Trump’s competitor Jeb Bush. Since 2000 he has made more than $400,000 in contributions.

leader

not a leader... A gruesome and treacherous dictator

“The question you always have to ask yourself is do you know what’s going to come next?

Third, Tillerson said, “I want you to promise me that we are never going to have a public dispute, because that doesn’t serve anyone.” In the New York real estate world, Trump had built a decades-long reputation for disparaging former business and romantic partners in the tabloid press after relationships turned sour. “If you’re unhappy with me, call me and ream my ass out,” Tillerson said. “It’s all behind closed doors. Because when I walk out that door, I serve you and the American people. I will not disparage anybody. It’s just not in my nature.”

“Keep the peace one more year, one more month, one more day, one more hour as you guys [diplomats] work your magic.” America is still an inspiration, he added, but “Intimidation is necessary. That’s what I exist for. But it should generally be the last resort.”

One outspoken relative said of Trump, “He’s not a Christian. He’s not a nice person. He’s not a moral man.”

“Trump is so controversial,” she later said to an associate. “He’s the kind of person that would inspire crazy people.”

Adding to the disorientation, Coats never knew which Trump he’d find in residence when he walked into the Oval Office three times a week for the President’s Daily Brief.

But the bad days were more frequent. Coats began to think Trump was impervious to facts.

“Hey, young man,” Mattis said loudly, so everyone could hear, “you keep your sense of humor. And when all else fails, fuck ’em!”

“We’re going to put a tariff on all steel and aluminum, on everything coming in,” the president said, “and see what happens.”

Trump added, “Not to mention my fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.”

gross violation of a basic Leadership 101 principle—praise in public, criticize in private.

“Brad,” Mattis said, “I really appreciate your telling me that. Would you mind putting that in an email for me?” Byers followed Mattis’s order and wrote an email to document what had occurred.

He considered himself a “pre–Fox News Republican” because he did not like the hyper-conservatism and what he considered the reflexive pro-Trump coverage.

Aware of Trump’s obsessive TV watching, he thought he would like to advise the president, “Turn off the TV and run the country.”

He was astounded how the president’s rambling monologue continued in every way but a straight line. He found it important, though, that Trump did not say he wanted to get rid of the Russia investigation—he wanted to get rid of Comey.

He also thought the scattershot nature of Trump’s draft letter showed a disturbed mind.

“The president has no moral compass,” Mattis replied. The bluntness should have shocked Coats, but he’d arrived at his own hard truths about the most powerful man in the world.

“Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings responsible to one another and to God.”

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”

The Strategic Command in Omaha had carefully reviewed and studied OPLAN 5027 for regime change in North Korea—the U.S. response to an attack that could include the use of 80 nuclear weapons. A plan for a leadership strike, OPLAN 5015, had also been updated.

Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August on

“I got over enjoying public humiliation by second grade,” Mattis once told the president.

“But not with the current occupant. Because he doesn’t understand. He has no mental framework or mode for these things. He hasn’t read, you know,”

“It can seem like routine here, gentlemen. And if you’re not concerned about war, well, war is very concerned about you. And if you’re not attentive to this, no one is.”

Trump’s impact on the country would be lasting. “This degradation of the American experiment is real. This is tangible. Truth is no longer governing the White House statements. Nobody believes—even the people who believe in him somehow believe in him without believing what he says.”

Each gumball represented 10,000 troops, he said. Under current conditions, the United States had three gumballs, and South Korea had 62. In a time of war, after 200 days to fully mobilize, the United States would have a force of 720,000, according to the war plans, and the South Koreans 3.37 million.

Mattis was frustrated with the message being sent to China, Russia and North Korea. “What we’re doing is we’re actually showing how to destroy America,” he said later. “That’s what we’re showing them. How to isolate us from all of our allies. How to take us down. And it’s working very well. We are declaring war on one another inside America. It’s actually working against us right now.”

“General—General, come on. I may be wearing this”—Mattis pointed to his civilian suit—“but we’re both generals,” Mattis said. “I’ve been shot at by defensive weapons and offensive. I can’t tell the difference, okay?”

Shanghai would replace New York City as the center of world finance by 2030. Taiwan would be reincorporated as part of China. The only way for China to do that would be with intimidation or force.

“Remember, the Americans have never tried to contain you,” he said. “We want you to play by the rules. But the bottom line is: How are we going to manage our differences when two nuclear-armed superpowers step on each other’s toes? That is the fundamental question of this age. And the whole world is watching.” He referenced the two world wars fought in the previous century: “Are we going to be as stupid as the Europeans, and twice in the 20th century light the world on fire? Or are we not going to do that?”

“Look if you want to fight, I’ll fight. I’ll fight anybody. I’ll fight frigging Canada, okay,” Mattis said. “But I’ve had enough of fighting. I’ve written enough letters to mothers. I don’t need to write any more. And you don’t need to write them, either.”

“the country I would most be willing to fight would be one whose entire officer corps had never heard a shot fired at them.

The military and the country would lose Goldfein’s leadership, although he stayed on as Air Force chief of staff. Milley was more than acceptable. Having a bond with the president might help. It also, though, might make it harder for Milley to stand up to the president—increasingly a central part of the job of chairman.

What might it mean if a war came and the best person was not in the chairmanship? Suppose the great military leaders of World War II had been cast aside on the impulse of the commander in chief? In that environment, would there have been an Eisenhower or Marshall or MacArthur or Nimitz or Halsey? And what would have been the price paid for not having them there?

“In any organization you become complicit with what the organization is doing.”

“But we haven’t beaten them. We’ve done the military part. Now we have to win the part that’s going to make sure we don’t have to go back in, like your predecessor who pulled out of Iraq too early and we have to go back in.”

Consolidate gains.

“It’s time for you to decide if you’re a coequal branch of government or if you’re just going to talk like you’re one.”