The swamp had turned in hours ago.
* * *
AT 8:22 THE next morning, Donald Trump, who may be a vampire, was speaking by phone to Fox and Friends: “If I don’t win, I will consider it a tremendous waste of time, energy, and money.”
* * *
AT 9:06 A.M., Hillary Clinton was dressed, made up, and voting at the Douglas Grafflin Elementary School in Chappaqua, New York, where she lives some of the time. Her other residence is in Washington, DC.
Mrs. Clinton seemed confident, telling reporters, “I know how much responsibility goes with this. So many people are counting on the outcome of this election and what it means for our country.”
It would be another busy day for candidate Clinton. She had already chosen her victory speech outfit, a white pantsuit, and her writers had worked up two “we won” speeches. Hillary had to select the one she preferred.
* * *
SHORTLY AFTER NOON, Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, cast their ballots at New York City Public School 59, a few blocks from their Trump Tower home. According to the New York Times, some voters standing in line booed the Trumps, and one woman yelled a profanity.
When asked if that lady worked for the New York Times, no answer was forthcoming.
* * *
THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN had rented the mammoth Javits Center for its anticipated victory party. Lost was the irony that a young Donald Trump had sold New York City the land upon which the Javits Center was built.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Clinton people wanted a major fireworks display over the Hudson River to erupt when Hillary won, but the NYPD said no for security reasons.
There was, however, some big-name talent set to appear that evening at the Clinton bash, including pop star Katy Perry. Doors would open at 6 p.m.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton stayed in her Chappaqua home, doing a few get-out-the-vote radio interviews and studying her victory speech.
* * *
BY CONTRAST, THE Trump campaign had rented a ballroom in the pedestrian New York Hilton Midtown Hotel. Not much was planned. The only famous person booked was former Apprentice contestant Omarosa Manigault.
There was a pretzel guy in front of the hotel.
* * *
DONALD TRUMP SPENT much of Election Day in the “war room,” located on the fourteenth floor of Trump Tower, or in his private office on the twenty-sixth floor. Advisers Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Kellyanne Conway, Reince Priebus, and Jared Kushner, along with Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump, were mostly in the fifth-floor “vote count room.”
“It was business as usual,” Don Jr. told me. “We always expect success and never talk about failure. My father thought they might pull something. Even though we were all beaten down [from campaigning,] we were still at war. Nobody relaxed. We were like caged animals.”
* * *
AT 5:50 P.M., Hillary Clinton departed Chappaqua for the one-hour drive to Midtown. At about the same time, CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta was tweeting doom for Trump. Folks were lined up for blocks waiting to get into the Javits Center to celebrate that doom.
* * *
AT 7 P.M., the Hollywood Reporter estimates there are just fifty people in the Trump room at the Hilton.
The pretzel guy has left.
AT 8 P.M., the real election coverage begins. Charles Krauthammer, the perspicacious writer and commentator, is convinced Trump is going to lose. Although conservative, Charles wants that outcome. So, I open Fox News’s prime-time programming dueling with him:
O’REILLY: [Trump] is not underperforming. Would you cede me that?
KRAUTHAMMER: Look, Bill, underperforming in this election is not reaching 270 … The fact is that he has to carry the big three swing states, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, to penetrate the blue wall. Right now, that looks like a distant prospect.
O’REILLY: Which state do you think Hillary Clinton will take out of those three?
KRAUTHAMMER: I think it’s likely she takes Florida and it’s a toss-up she takes North Carolina. Ohio, I think she has the edge.
O’REILLY: Where do you think her strength is going to come in Florida?… The northern counties in the Central Time Zone remain to be counted. And that’s Trump territory.
KRAUTHAMMER: She has a two percent lead now, and that’s substantial.
O’REILLY: So, you’re going to predict Clinton is the next president?
KRAUTHAMMER: If you force me, I’ll take it.
* * *
HILLARY CLINTON LOST Florida and Ohio and North Carolina. In all, she was defeated in thirty states. Charles and most other pundits were stunned, but not Kellyanne Conway. At about 9:30 p.m., she told her boss, Donald Trump, that he would win. That was based upon exit polling.
Trump answered with his usual “Let’s see what happens.”
* * *
IT IS NOW 12:30 a.m. on November 9, and the race still has not been called. The Hollywood Reporter placed a correspondent at Hillary’s victory party who filed this.
“Inside the media room, reporters slammed their tables at yet another Trump [state] victory. While many gathered outside for a much-needed cigarette break, guests began to quietly exit the venue, gloomily bidding their friends goodbye before going their separate ways.…
“[Hillary supporters are] describing themselves as ‘heartbroken,’ ‘disappointed,’ ‘confused’ and ‘in shock.’”
Note the line “reporters slammed their tables.” Reporters are supposed to be neutral. But when it comes to Donald Trump, they are not and never will be.
On television, the comments became personal and brutal. CNN analyst Van Jones described Trump’s strong showing in racial terms.
“This was a whitelash against a changing country.”
* * *
IT IS ALL over at 2:20 in the morning. John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign chairman, steps onto the stage at the Javits Center, telling the remaining crowd to go home. Hillary Clinton will not be speaking until tomorrow.
“We are so proud of her,” Podesta says. “She’s done an amazing job and she’s not done yet.”
But she is done.
* * *
AT 3 A.M., Vice President–elect Mike Pence, usually in the Land of Nod long before this, takes the microphone at the Hilton Hotel to introduce President-elect Donald Trump. It has been 511 days since Mr. Trump declared his candidacy. He has accomplished the unthinkable.
Donald Trump’s victory speech is conciliatory, beginning with mention of his opponent.
“I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign.
“Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.”
The new president then goes on to say many words, but one sentence sums up his victory: “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”
* * *
BEFORE LEAVING TRUMP Tower to deliver his victory speech, Donald Trump received a congratulatory call from President Obama. Mr. Obama did most of the talking.
The moment was witnessed by his eldest son, Don Jr. “My father does not show emotion,” he said. “The magnitude of this had not yet hit him. Everyone around him was saying, ‘I can’t believe we won.’ But he said very little. He just continued to watch the coverage.”
* * *
THE AGONY OF defeat for Hillary Clinton was something that only she can describe. After the election was called for her opponent, she stayed overnight in Manhattan. The next day, she delivered a short concession speech, asking her supporters to give Donald Trump “a chance to lead.”
Ten months later, she told David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker magazine, this: “At every step I felt that I had let everyone down. Because I had.”
So it is that the American people had elected Donald J. Trump to lead them. But that did no
t sit well with some very powerful people.
And some of those people had a plan.
CHAPTER FORTY
LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
APRIL 19, 2019
GOOD FRIDAY MORNING
It’s been another turbulent week in America as the Mueller Report is now public and the usual hate-or-love-Trump debate is raging. The president believes he’s been exonerated from allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia.
However, the Trump haters—“the Resistance,” as they still call themselves—continue to see a corrupt president who should be removed from office.
The intensity of the ongoing brawl stems from long before the 2016 ballot. Donald Trump became the fifth president in U.S. history to lose the popular vote but gain the office. However, in the state of California, which is now in a one-party situation, Trump lost by more than 4 million votes.
Take the Golden State out of the mix, and the election was decisive for Donald Trump, who convinced almost 63 million Americans to vote for him.
How did that happen?
Mr. Trump is the first president without any previous experience in public service. He is a man of self-interest, confidence, and unshakable determination.
His flaws were brightly illuminated by a partisan press, which became heavily invested in not only Trump’s defeat, but also his complete destruction.
As part of that effort, the national media followed Hillary Clinton’s lead and diminished Americans who had dared support Donald Trump. The “deplorables” brand, and the scorn that goes with it, was deeply felt by millions of voters.
That was the most important element in Trump’s victory because it solidified his support. No matter what the Democrats or the press said about their candidate, he was better than his detractors. And that mind-set remains to this day.
Crude language, exaggerations, bombastic tweets—none of that really matters. Millions of Americans believe they themselves have been directly attacked by arrogant elitists. On Election Day, those Americans cast payback votes.
To this day, much of the media does not understand what happened, and that failure to grasp reality extends into serious situations like the investigation into how Russia intruded on a U.S. presidential election.
Instead of the entire nation being galvanized against the naked aggression of Vladimir Putin, the Mueller Report is almost exclusively a Trump thing, with the president’s supporters dismissing the allegations because they don’t trust “the swamp” or believe the media, and the Hate Trump cadre totally denying Mr. Trump due process and demanding his departure, even though Robert Mueller put forth evidence deemed inconclusive by the Justice Department.
Instead of “getting it”—understanding that Donald Trump is president because the media allied itself with Hillary Clinton—the press is unrepentant and clueless as to how they actually empower the president.
A look back by the New Yorker magazine vividly makes that point. “[Hillary] lost because she could never find a language, a thematic focus, or a campaigning persona that could convince struggling working Americans that she, and not a cartoonish plutocrat, was their champion. She lost because of the forces of racism, misogyny, and nativism that Trump expertly aroused. And she lost because of external forces (Vladimir Putin, Julian Assange, James Comey) that were beyond her control and are not yet fully understood.”
So, there it is, and based on a number of statements she made after the vote, Hillary Clinton might agree with most of that very liberal and shortsighted analysis.
But here’s the truth. Mrs. Clinton was never a champion of working Americans in any way. There were no “forces of racism and misogyny” that mattered a whit on Voting Day. Barack Obama was elected twice. Oprah Winfrey is the most successful celebrity in history.
And calling Donald Trump “cartoonish” implicitly insults the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for him.
Here’s the final word on President Trump’s triumph. Despite all Trump’s bedrock support, it happened because African Americans did not rally to Hillary Clinton’s cause. Although she carried 88 percent of the black vote, 7 percent fewer African Americans showed up at the polls than in 2012.
About 765,000 black voters simply stayed home. Had they turned out for Hillary at an 88 percent rate, she most likely would have won in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and would be in the White House right this moment.
Facts like that are routinely ignored by an American press, which often rejects truth if it does not fit into their ideological narrative. Just turn on your television set. It’s right there before your eyes, on both sides of the Trump equation.
* * *
SO, NOW WHAT? A complicated, politically inexperienced man is in charge of the most powerful nation on earth. With a steep learning curve that would be daunting for any human being, President-elect Trump will be under constant pressure. The American media has basically set itself up to denigrate the Trump administration. Therefore, the new president’s accomplishments will be routinely ignored and his controversies declared “bombshells.”
Donald Trump is facing a special prosecutor, Vladimir Putin, vast illegal immigration problems, Little Rocket Man, and the Chinese government setting out to dominate the world economically.
Other than that, things are calm at the White House.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Donald Trump now lives there, and it’s never calm when he’s in any building. After nearly three months in office, many Americans are asking questions: Will things ever calm down? Will the president ever be allowed to lead?
A look back to Inauguration Day just might hold the answer to those questions.
PART THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
WASHINGTON, DC
JANUARY 20, 2017
INAUGURATION DAY
Donald Trump’s campaign for reelection in 2020 begins the day he takes the oath of office as the forty-fifth president of the United States. There is no rest for the new chief executive; he is incapable of that. Mr. Trump already has his eye on his legacy and thus remains in campaign mode, as outgoing president Barack Obama will soon find out.
As per tradition, last night the Trump family rested at the Blair House, across the street from the White House. Blair is essentially a presidential guest residence consisting of about eighteen thousand square feet of living space spread across four buildings flanking Lafayette Park. Most human beings are awed by Blair. However, most folks did not build Trump Tower.
Today, Americans and the world will again witness a peaceful change of power in the most powerful nation on the planet. But drama will unfold. After all, Donald Trump is involved.
To understand exactly how the incoming president really sees America, you must realize his view of life in general. Donald Trump assesses the world in just two colors: black and white. Gray does not exist. Other colors are irrelevant to him.
He is also a “no” person, at least outwardly—no doubt, no fear, no apologies, no retreat. He will fight most battles aggressively, even the small skirmishes that many folks would ignore.
This confrontational style is a major departure from that of presidents of the past, most of whom employed some element of caution in their public dealings. Caution and Donald Trump seldom interact.
President Trump is also not a “people person,” although he respects the goal of Americans who desire to achieve prosperity. He is more comfortable interacting with crowds rather than individuals. The new president sincerely wants to deliver economic opportunity and is angered by policies that restrain that goal. This is Trump’s core political strategy: to drive economic expansion that will translate into better lives for all Americans.
Except for his enemies, of course: no quarter for them unless they recant their anti-Donald posture.
One important aspect of the new president’s thinking is that every group should participate in material success. He sees more prosperity for minorities as a gold star for him, a sterling achievement, as most other president
s could not deliver that. Thus, President Trump is personally invested in helping poor and working Americans, a fact that will be ignored by his detractors, who have intentionally distorted his demographic outlook—and even worse, branded him racist for political reasons.
As he prepares to lead the nation, the new president already has a number of major “transactions” on his mind in order to accomplish his goals and ensure his place in history. Joe Biden entitled his biography Promises to Keep, and Donald Trump espouses the same commitment.
There is an ancient rule in sub-Saharan Africa: never get between a hippopotamus and water. In the new administration, the adage has become “never get between Donald Trump and his promise.” The new president will be relentless in promoting his stated national view, and those who oppose it will be harshly confronted, including, very shortly, the outgoing president.
Finally, Donald Trump has learned many things during his arduous campaign, lessons about ultimate success. Advisers told him to be more “diplomatic.” They opined that he should not use personal insults. They suggested that he court the media and cut back on Twitter.
Trump totally rejected all that advice.
Trump was elected president of the United States.
So, now, as he prepares to take the Presidential Oath of Office in a few hours, the question becomes: Will Donald Trump modify his behavior, and conduct himself in a more traditional way?
Will he act “presidential”?
The answer to that question will become clear as Inauguration Day unfolds.
The United States of Trump Page 21