The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021

by Peter Baker

That July, he told a conference of pro-Trump teenagers that Article II of the Constitution gave him “the right to do whatever I want as president,” which was both flagrantly incorrect and also consistent with Trump’s oft-stated view that he had the “absolute right” to do whatever he wanted at whatever moment he wanted to do it—including everything from pardoning himself and declaring a national emergency to build a border wall to revealing classified information.[2] He not only admired autocrats like Putin and Xi, he appeared determined to sound like one. And the presidential ego, never slight, seemed ever more boundless by the middle of 2019 as he often referred to himself as a “genius” and one of “the smartest people anywhere in the world.”