by Bob Woodward
Trump was arriving. The orders were printed out and each put in a leather folder.
Byers finally looked at the second one, titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” It was a travel ban preventing people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Six months earlier, as a civilian, Mattis had publicly criticized candidate Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigrants. In the Middle East, Mattis had said, “they think we’ve completely lost it. This kind of thing is causing us great damage right now, and it’s sending shock waves.”
Mattis was ceremonially sworn in at the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, which honored more than 3,000 service members who had received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest combat award. He thanked Trump and Pence and welcomed them to “the headquarters of your military, your always loyal military, where America’s awesome determination to defend herself is on full display.”
Trump, professing “total confidence” in Mattis, called him “a man of total action. He likes action.”
As the ceremony came to a close, Trump signed the travel ban order and handed it to Mattis. Mattis was stunned.
As soon as the news broke, some veterans in the Congressional Medal of Honor Society immediately conveyed their fury that the hall had been used as a staging ground for the controversial travel ban. Their blunt message to Mattis: That’s not what we fought for.
Mattis felt it was a gross process error. There was no process. Who was deciding these things?
The travel ban, which began as a campaign promise Trump made in December 2015 when he called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” became a symbol of Trump’s anti-immigrant attitudes and policies.
* * *
On March 19, 2017, The Washington Post ran an article saying that many in the Pentagon privately called Byers “the commissar,” a Soviet-era communist official who was supposed to monitor the loyalty of commanders.
Mattis saw the article and asked Byers to stick around after the morning meetings.
“I suppose you read the article,” Mattis said. “If you’re going to float around these circles, you better get used to it. They will either figure out the bad stuff about you, or they’ll make it up.” He told some funny stories about times he thought the press got it wrong about him when he was a general.
When Byers left the office, a large group was standing outside for another meeting.
“Hey, young man,” Mattis said loudly, so everyone could hear, “you keep your sense of humor. And when all else fails, fuck ’em!”
“So the White House thinks you’re their guy,” Mattis later told Byers, “and I’ve got you.” Mattis made it clear he did not want any daylight in public between himself and President Trump on any issue. That way Mattis could have influence. Any public daylight could be fatal.
* * *
In early April, Trump ordered a modest response of 59 Tomahawk missiles at Syria’s Shayrat Airbase as punishment for Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons.
The next morning, Trump phoned Mattis at the Pentagon in what was supposed to be a congratulatory call. Mattis put Trump on the speakerphone and some of the senior staff gathered around his desk to listen.
Trump had seen photos of the damage. “I can’t believe you didn’t destroy the runway!” the president shouted. He was in a rage and seemed beside himself.
“Mr. President,” Mattis finally responded, “they would rebuild the runway in 24 hours and it would have little effect on their ability to deploy weapons. We destroyed the capability to deploy weapons” for months. That was the mission the president had approved, and they had succeeded.
* * *
In April, Byers carried a letter from Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to Mattis about an investigation into steel and aluminum tariffs the president, a strong believer in tariffs, had ordered. The president believed domestic production of steel was in jeopardy because of cheaper foreign imported steel.
“Brad,” Mattis said after reading the letter, “I’ve got North Korea, I’ve got Syria, I’ve got the Horn of Africa all on fire. I don’t give a shit about steel.” But he did care about the alliance with South Korea—a major exporter of steel. Any tariff could severely damage the critical relationship. “Deal with it,” Mattis said.
Mattis sent a memo to the White House reporting that “U.S. military steel usage represents one-half percent of the total U.S. steel demand” and the military would be able “to acquire the steel necessary to meet national defense requirements.”
Byers kept Mattis informed weekly, if not daily, about White House tariff discussions. Dealing with it meant that Byers literally took Mattis’s place at the cabinet-level meetings.
At 10:00 a.m. on June 26, Byers sat at Mattis’s placard in the Roosevelt Room for the cabinet-level meeting on steel tariffs. Byers took notes. The debate turned on how best to impose tariffs. Byers found the lack of context or definition of the problem rendered the talks aimless.
“The president is expecting to come in,” said Reince Priebus, the chief of staff. “I’m going to advise him that we’re not ready for him.” He left for the Oval Office and came back in about two minutes. “Against my advice,” the chief of staff said, visibly nervous, “the president wants to hear this debate.”
Soon Trump walked in and everyone stood.
“We’re going to put a tariff on all steel and aluminum, on everything coming in,” the president said, “and see what happens.”
This approach drove Gary Cohn, the chief White House economic adviser, crazy. He had argued passionately that the American economy was too important to haphazardly experiment with.
The president added that they should not worry about NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he was trying to renegotiate. Then he shifted to trade deficits, especially with South Korea.
“We are a consumer-driven economy,” Cohn said, reminding the president of the consequences of imposing tariffs. “And the prices are going to go up. And that’s going to have a significant impact on our gross domestic product”—overall economic growth.
“We need three percent gross domestic product growth,” Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, agreed, “or we are out of business.”
“The world is taking advantage of us,” Trump said, batting away their concerns, “and it’s time for a change. I would love to leave South Korea.” America was being taken advantage of. The United States was paying to keep 30,000 troops in South Korea to protect South Koreans. “We are the piggy bank that everyone wants to rob.”
Trump was jovial and dropped several F-bombs. “Don’t worry about everything.”
Cohn offered one more argument against steel tariffs. “We’re not a steel-producing nation. We’re a goods-producing nation. If we increase the price of steel, our goods become overpriced and we can’t compete.”
The internal White House war for and against tariffs continued.
* * *
Byers was in the Oval Office, seated by the Resolute Desk, on July 21 as Trump signed an executive order to assess how to strengthen the manufacturing and defense industrial base.
“You were a wrestler?” Trump asked Byers.
“Yes, sir, I was,” Byers replied. He had been the captain of the North Carolina wrestling team for two years and qualified three times for the NCAA championships. “Why would you ask?”
“Those ears,” the president said. “You have wrestling ears.” This was classic cauliflower ear, the buildup of fibrous tissue from repeated impacts. “Were you any good?”
“Yes, sir. I can hold my own.”
“I bet you were good,” Trump said. “You know what? I would’ve been a great wrestler. I never wrestled in my life, but I would’ve been a great wrestler. You know why?”
“No sir. Why?”
“
Because I’m tough,” Trump said. “And you’ve got to be tough to be a wrestler.”
Trump had hosted several pro-wrestling events and even participated in a “Battle of the Billionaires” in 2007. He was inducted into the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2013.
Trump signed the executive order and they all posed for a picture. The group included White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.
“Peter,” Trump said, “I need you to take charge of negotiations on steel.” Trump said that U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross were weak negotiators and that Navarro needed to be tough, hard-line.
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.”
Navarro appeared to be flattered by Trump’s remark and said he would be happy to take over the negotiations.
Once Byers returned to the Pentagon, he asked Mattis for a private meeting. They met alone the next day.
“What’s on your mind?” Mattis asked.
There was an interchange in the Oval Office involving the president that I should tell you about, and it’s very uncomfortable, Byers said.
“Brad, don’t you worry at all,” Mattis said. “Just tell me what happened.”
Byers explained the president had mentioned that generals weren’t tough enough on steel and aluminum tariffs and were more worried about alliances.
“Tell me exactly what he said.”
The president said, Byers recounted, “my fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.”
Byers could see the secretary’s mind racing to assess the situation. For the president to speak that way in front of a subordinate like Byers and others was a 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.
SIX
On January 26, 2017, the sixth day of the Trump presidency, Matt Pottinger—then head of Asia policy for the National Security Council staff and not yet the deputy national security adviser—was summoned to a meeting with the new president.
Trump said that President Obama had told him that North Korea would be his biggest, most dangerous and most time-consuming problem. Kim Jong Un, the 32-year-old erratic leader, had nuclear weapons and could be well on his way to building an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States.
What should I do? Trump asked Pottinger.
Pottinger thought the Obama administration policy toward North Korea of “strategic patience” had been a disaster. As he saw it, the strategy had broadly been to hope the regime fell apart on its own and crawled to the negotiating table.
Within a month Pottinger had options for Trump—literally nine, but better understood as three big options with shades of difference. The range went from accepting North Korea as a nuclear power all the way to regime change either through CIA covert action or a military attack.
On March 17, two months after his inauguration, Trump decided on a policy of maximum pressure—ratcheting up economic, rhetorical, military, diplomatic pressure and, if necessary, covert action. The campaign was designed to show Kim he was in greater danger and would pay a bigger price with nuclear weapons than he would without them. The overall goal was denuclearization.
The economic pressure was set up to choke off North Korea’s ability to make money in its overseas embassies and missions in 48 countries. Economic sanctions were imposed that banned 100 percent of North Korean coal exports. Nations that allowed North Koreans to work within them agreed to push them out. North Korean restaurants and other overseas businesses connected to the regime were shut down. North Korean seafood operations abroad, which were run by Kim’s military to make money, were targeted. Oil imports were cut off.
* * *
One of Trump’s first nominations just two weeks after being elected president had been Representative Mike Pompeo, who had served three terms in the House, as CIA director. An evangelical Tea Party Republican, Pompeo, 52, graduated from West Point in 1986 first in his class of 973. He also had a Harvard Law degree.
Around the beginning of March, Pompeo met at the CIA with Andy Kim, a legendary CIA operator who had just retired after 29 years running some of the agency’s most successful intelligence operations against North Korea.
Born in South Korea, Andy Kim had come to the United States as a teenager with his immigrant parents. Fluent in Korean and educated at one of the elite high schools of South Korea, Kim was an ideal, sophisticated undercover operator. He fit in. He knew the language and culture and was well connected to the South Korean leadership class. He knew how to read between the lines of all the scary shibboleths about North Korea and could figure out which must be true or not.
A CIA case officer for decades, Andy Kim had recruited and built relationships with spies and assessed them and the quality of their information. He had operated undercover from U.S. embassies in Tokyo, then Beijing, Warsaw, Hong Kong, back to China, then Seoul, and finally Bangkok, Thailand.
Pompeo said that North Korea was at the top of President Trump’s agenda. He wanted to eliminate the threat from North Korea to the United States homeland and rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons.
What would you do? Pompeo asked. How would you go about accomplishing this ambitious goal?
As Pompeo knew from his time on the House Intelligence Committee, the CIA collected intelligence mostly from human sources, analyzed that intelligence to describe what it might mean for U.S. national security, and also conducted covert action to change events abroad to further U.S. policy. Ideally covert action would be done without the United States’ role being discovered or known.
You have talented people in the CIA, Kim told Pompeo. But those talents are spread around the agency in the different departments of collection, analysis and covert action. If you really want to change, you need to bring those people under one tent to create synergy. That would be challenging.
Kim said the culture in the agency wedded people to their departments. Departments protected their turf and didn’t share the best information even when they should. One tent had been needed for a long time. The CIA had done this successfully for other geographic areas but not North Korea. Somebody new with new ideas was needed, he said.
Like Pottinger with Trump, Andy Kim told Pompeo that Obama’s policy of strategic patience had not worked. In practice it had meant not engaging with North Korea, handicapping the CIA and the U.S. government. Not engaging meant not understanding. Kim Jong Un was new, having come to power only six years ago. “We are still trying to figure out who Kim Jong Un is and what makes him tick,” he explained. There is an opportunity there to try something different.
Will you come back to create a North Korea mission center with control over all collection, analysis and covert action to engage? Pompeo finally asked.
Kim said he would need new resources. Covert action, especially if it was going to be planned and undertaken, would require lots of new money. But it was too late—the budget was set for the year.
Pompeo said he could get him the money he needed.
Kim said a fully enabled North Korea mission center would involve hundreds of people—some already there and some that would be new.
Pompeo promised. “I will support you.”
After an hour, Kim accepted the job. He would return. As a case officer, his job had been to assess people. Pompeo was determined, mission-focused and no-nonsense. Pompeo might be the guy who had the clout and energy to follow through, Kim reasoned.
But then again Kim had seen enough of the government and the CIA to know people with the right ideas and right energy often got sucked into bureaucratic traditions and were never able
to shake themselves loose and accomplish anything. Good people wanted to be the good guy in the system and the team, make no waves, get promoted to bigger and better jobs.
The recent CIA history on covert action was bleak as well. Prior to the 2003 military invasion of Iraq, the CIA had effectively washed its hands of any possible operation to overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, saying it was too hard.
In the CIA’s reexamination of its role following the spectacular failure of the Iraq War, the Iraq Operations Group was referred to as “The House of Broken Toys” and CIA leadership concluded it was an abdication of responsibility to not give a president covert action options. In retrospect, overthrowing Saddam through covert action, though difficult and risky in the extreme, would have been so much less costly in terms of lives and money.
Mattis planned military operations for North Korea, and Tillerson made the diplomatic efforts. Kim, in turn, planned for covert action to overthrow the North Korean leader in the event President Trump signed a formal order, called a finding, authorizing an operation.
SEVEN
Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, was summoned to the White House on Monday, May 8, four months into the Trump presidency.
On the surface Rosenstein, 52, was one of the quietly powerful men of Washington, part of the unseen bureaucracy, often overlooked and seemingly just an anonymous cog in the wheels of government. Previously he had been relatively obscure as the U.S. attorney in Baltimore. But at this moment, Rosenstein was in the middle of everything.
Rosenstein had occupied the number-two spot at the Justice Department for just 12 days. Because his boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, had recused himself in March from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Rosenstein was now in charge of that probe.