The United States of Trump
Page 22
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PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP AND his wife, Melania, are up well before dawn on this overcast Friday. They will be groomed from hair to heel, as the world will be watching their every move during the historic proceedings.
The entire Trump family, soon to be awakened, will attend a number of events, including the most important: the swearing-in ceremony at noon in front of the Capitol Building.
In preparation for the day, President Obama’s top adviser, Valerie Jarrett, set up a private meeting with Trump confidante Kellyanne Conway. The two women discussed how to make the transition as smooth as possible, knowing the media would be anxiously seeking some kind of confrontation.
According to Conway, President Obama directed his staff to be “good” to the incoming Trump people, and so they were.
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AS DAWN BREAKS on the biggest day of his life, Donald Trump is already restless. He has much on his mind. He rarely drinks coffee or eats much in the morning. Instead, he tweets.
At 7:15 a.m., the first Trump tweet goes out: “It all begins today! I will see you at 11 a.m. for the swearing-in. THE MOVEMENT CONTINUES—THE WORK BEGINS!”
There is a reason for that tweet. The new president wants huge TV ratings when he takes the oath. He also anticipates a record crowd watching in person on the Mall. Later in the day, he will tell the press the turnout will be “unbelievable, perhaps record-setting.”
That point of view will become President Trump’s first controversy in office.
A little past 8:30 a.m., members of the Trump team, Kellyanne Conway, Reince Priebus, and Hope Hicks, arrive at Blair House. Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon have written the Inaugural Address, and Donald Trump is editing the words with a blue Sharpie. This is standard procedure. But unlike with many other speeches, Trump has rehearsed this one again and again, adding and subtracting words. In the end, it is almost entirely his speech.
Ten minutes later, the Trumps leave Blair House to attend a prayer service at St. John’s Episcopal Church, a tradition for incoming presidents.
At 9:30 a.m., President Barack Obama also takes to Twitter, a rarity for him. “It’s been the honor of my life to serve you … I won’t stop; I’ll be right there with you as a citizen, inspired by your voices of truth and justice, good humor, and love.”
The wording is standard political fare, something the new president will avoid. He will use Twitter as a cudgel.
At 9:55 a.m., the Trumps arrive at the White House to greet the outgoing Obamas.
The meeting was gracious, with Michelle Obama hugging Melania Trump as the new First Lady gave her a gift; President Obama leaving a personal letter to Donald Trump in the Oval Office; and of course, the official White House pictures memorializing the event.
But then something strange happens. The two men disappear for more than an hour. According to close Trump associate Steve Bannon, Trump and Obama hit it off. In fact, Mr. Obama briefed Mr. Trump, telling him that North Korea would be his biggest problem and that hiring General Michael Flynn as a national security adviser would be a big mistake.
The president-elect and Melania are greeted by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle upon arriving at the White House on Inauguration Day.
In hindsight, the Flynn advice was solid.
Donald Trump emerged from the talk with a positive feeling for Barack Obama personally. But it did not change Trump’s negative opinion about his predecessor’s governance.
Before leaving the White House for good, the Obamas are presented with two American flags: the first flew over the White House on the first day of Mr. Obama’s tenure in January 2009. The second flag flew this morning.
It is now after 11 a.m., and the two presidents enter a black limousine, which will take them to the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony. A light rain is falling. At the Capitol, the two men will separate for good. Donald Trump, his wife, and five children will be ensconced in a Capitol office until he takes the outdoor stage.
Donald Trump Jr., the soon to be new president’s oldest son, speaks privately with his father.
“He never shows emotion, but he was in awe of what was happening. He said to me, ‘Now we’ll find out who our friends are.’ He wasn’t nervous about his speech because he’s a game-time player, but he was focused on it. He planned to stick it to the establishment. He was also concerned about the size of the crowd, because we were hearing the Park police were keeping people away.”
Kellyanne Conway was involved in crafting the tone of the new president’s speech, along with Bannon and Miller.
“We wanted to combine the tough Trump with the uplifting Trump,” Conway told me. “Winning finalizes all sentences, but we did want to make a patriotic appeal for cooperation. The final wording was done by the president, who believed his ideas had to be restated.”
It is 11:55 as Vice President Mike Pence is sworn in by Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas.
Then Donald Trump takes the oath as it is administered by Chief Justice John Roberts.
At noon, the Associated Press sends this dispatch to the world: “Donald Trump is now the 45th president of the United States. He’s just taken the oath of office on the West Front of the Capitol.
“The combative billionaire businessman and television celebrity won election in November over Hillary Clinton, and today he’s leading a profoundly divided country—one that’s split between Americans enthralled and horrified by his victory.
“The unorthodox politician and the Republican-controlled Congress are already charting a newly conservative course for the nation. And they’re promising to reverse the work of the 44th president, Barack Obama.”
I believe it is fair to point out that the folks who run the Associated Press are among those “horrified” by Donald Trump’s ascension. The dispatch is not inaccurate, but it lacks one kind word about a man who pulled off the most stunning campaign achievement in U.S. history.
Not one kind word.
* * *
IT IS 12:05 when President Trump begins his Inaugural Address. It lasts just fifteen minutes, considerably shorter than President Obama’s two previous speeches in the same setting.
The new president thanks the four prior chief executives in attendance: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. He acknowledges that the Obamas have been very “gracious” handling the transition.
Then Mr. Trump lets it rip:
The president says that the transfer of power is not to him but “Washington,” giving power back to the people.
He says the nation has deteriorated badly but “this American carnage stops right now.”
He pledges to protect the borders.
He promises to eradicate “radical Islamic terrorism.”
President Trump then takes a swipe at President Obama: “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward it’s going to be only America first.”
Barack Obama shows no reaction, but Michelle frowns. However, Trump’s words should come as no surprise. The new president believes the Obama administration has been a “disaster.”
However, it may be President Bush who has the strongest external reaction. According to a reporter citing anonymous sources, Bush says this about the speech: “That’s some weird shit.”
At 12:30, President Trump says his leadership will begin a new national pride that will “heal our divisions.”
The Clintons and Bushes on the platform at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2017, before the swearing-in ceremony of President-elect Donald Trump.
President Trump takes the oath of office during the presidential inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., January 20, 2017.
At about the same moment, the Associated Press sends out a dispatch describing Mr. Trump’s view of America as “dark.”
Let the healing begin.
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IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE speech, the Obamas hop on a helicopter bound for
Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland. From there they will fly to Palm Springs, California, for a vacation.
At about 1:50 p.m., President Trump arrives at the inaugural luncheon, where he shakes Hillary Clinton’s hand. Lobster, beef, and shrimp head the menu.
Donald Trump likes shrimp.
After lunch, the parade begins. Then it’s back to the White House to announce cabinet appointments. Later, the president and First Lady will attend three inaugural balls.
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MEANWHILE, ON TELEVISION, the “whose crowd was bigger” controversy is wasting the time of the American people.
The National Park Service no longer estimates crowds, but based on subway ridership and other evaluations, it appears that President Obama’s First Inaugural Address had more in-person attendees than President Trump had.
Photographs taken at the National Mall show the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01 p.m. (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama (right) sometime between 12:07 p.m. and 12:26 p.m. on January 20, 2009.
Same thing with TV ratings: Obama, thirty-nine million in 2009; Trump, thirty-one million in 2016. But many more Americans watched today’s proceedings online, leading Trump spokesman Sean Spicer to say the new president’s total audience was the largest ever to witness an inauguration.
Maybe it was.
Who cares?
Reporting on television, I certainly didn’t. But NBC News and CNN cared deeply. So did President Trump. Perhaps the only time those forces have had anything in common.
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THE WHITE HOUSE is now the Trump domicile. The president’s grandchildren race through the large rooms, having a blast. There is fried chicken, burgers, fries, anything they want.
In one of his few private moments, the new president says to his eldest son, “I wish my mother and father were alive to see this.”
Donald Trump rarely shows emotion, and neither does Melania, but Trump is very aware of the history in this house. He believes he has earned the top job and is sincere about rejecting the Washington establishment and working for the folks.
That attitude and Mr. Trump’s basic confrontational demeanor will spawn the “Resistance,” an alliance of media and political power. And as the new president dances to Paul Anka’s “My Way” at two inaugural balls, he does not really know what awaits him in the anti-Trump precincts. Naïvely, he believes the press will give him a chance to prove himself.
If he knew on his first day in power what was brewing, he would not be dancing.
He would be planning for the worst.
Because the worst is heading his way.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
THE WHITE HOUSE
MAY 17, 2017
LATE AFTERNOON
It has been a rough four months for President Donald J. Trump. Beginning with the release of a salacious, unverified “Russian dossier” by a far-left internet site on January 10, to the appointment today of a special counsel to investigate alleged “Russian collusion” involving the Trump campaign, the president has not had one day of rest on the job. Even though the “dossier” people were paid in part by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, surely a red flag, the media Trump-haters have convicted the president of a variety of crimes and bash him nightly on cable news.
The negative coverage is unrelenting and unseemly, lacking any fairness whatsoever. Anonymous sources rule, late-night political zealots mock, the opposing party plans for impeachment.
Harrowing does not come close to covering it.
The president is genuinely perplexed by the “dossier” thing. As the Washington Post reports, the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign hired a partisan group called Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump. The group did what it was ordered to do; the problem is that much of the dirt is not true. Nevertheless, defamatory suggestions of prostitutes and shady deals got into the public discourse, and no one was held to account.
Donald Trump has never experienced this level of hatred. As a wealthy businessman, he could wall himself off from critics, sit high above them in Trump Tower. He ran his company without challenge. He mostly did what he wanted to do.
But sitting in the Oval Office, the president realizes that part of his life is over. His enemies are making him suffer every day. Studies show that more than 90 percent of the network nightly news coverage is against him. That constant negativity is taking a toll on his well-being.
As always, Donald Trump is fighting back, branding many media operations “fake news” and lashing out against those who despise him. This just fuels the hatred, which has now spread to the neighborhoods of America.
It is a political civil war.
Trump’s handpicked attorney general, former Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, has been a major disappointment to the president. Facing a federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election, Sessions chose to recuse himself because he had a few social conversations with Russian officials in Washington during the election cycle.
That infuriated Donald Trump, who was counting on Sessions to oversee the collusion investigation. Now things are out of control after Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offered the job of investigating the mess to Robert Mueller, a former FBI chief.
There is no present FBI director because President Trump fired James Comey eight days ago. Mr. Trump did not trust Comey, who had saved Hillary Clinton from indictment in the email investigation, and he does not trust Special Counsel Mueller.
But the chief executive is powerless to stop the intense intrusion into his ability to govern, and that is embittering him. He labels the investigation a “witch hunt” as his personal frustration mounts.
The columnist Victor Davis Hanson, generally a Trump supporter, provides an interesting overview as to how the “dossier” and Russian allegations were used by the Trump-haters to try to destroy the president.
The first strategy, according to Hanson, was to create doubt that Trump’s victory was “legitimate,” the spin being that without Putin’s help, the president would have lost to Hillary Clinton.
This assertion unsettled Donald Trump, to say the least.
The second line of anti-Trump attacks was personal, as Professor Hanson describes:
Both politicos and celebrities tried to drive Trump’s numbers down to facilitate some sort of popular ratification for his removal. Hollywood and the coastal corridor punditry exhausted public expressions of assassinating or injuring the president.…
Left wing social media and mainstream journalism spread sensational lies about supposed maniacal Trump supporters in MAGA hats. They constructed fantasies that veritable white racists were now liberated to run amuck insulting and beating up people of color as they taunted the poor and victimized minorities with vicious Trump sloganeering.…
In the face of the constant attacks on him and his supporters, Donald Trump has made mistakes. He vents at staff, discusses taking actions that could harm the nation, and becomes even more distrustful of human beings in general.
On Air Force One about eighteen months after the Mueller appointment, as the press continued its daily attack barrage, I asked the president about the situation:
O’REILLY: What is your level of disappointment? Because the free press is a very important part of this country. The Founding Fathers gave us special privileges.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it’s not a free press; it’s a largely corrupt press. It’s not even inaccurate; it’s downright corrupt what they do. It’s amazing how it’s all gone down, because most people would think, Bill, that the press is honest.
O’REILLY: Is the press treating you the same way it treated [Richard Nixon]?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think they treat me much worse … They treat me much worse than anybody who’s ever been in office. And it’s fake news.
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PRESIDENT TRUMP’S PREDICAMENT as he tries to establish some authority in his
first months in office directly impacts the American people. Eventually, the world would learn from Robert Mueller that there was no “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russians. But the damage Donald Trump is sustaining on a daily basis is hurting him both personally and on the job.
Victor Davis Hanson is perceptive on this again: “The [Mueller] team soon discovered there was no Trump-Russian 2016 election collusion—and yet went ahead to leverage campaign subordinates on process crimes in hopes of finding some culpability in Trump’s past 50-year business, legal, and tax records. The point was not to find out who colluded with whom (if it had been, then Hillary Clinton would be now indicted for illegally hiring with campaign funds a foreign national to buy foreign fabrications to discredit her opponent), but to find the proper mechanism to destroy the presumed guilty Donald Trump.”
Hanson’s analysis can obviously be challenged. The fact is, some of Trump’s associates did lie to federal investigators. But the columnist’s opinion is also held by President Trump to this day.
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SO IT IS that Donald Trump’s world has devolved into constant conflict, a situation that would drain any human being. But Trump has one sustainable weapon at his disposal: power.
And he will soon use it to attempt to neutralize his legion of enemies.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
WASHINGTON, DC
JUNE 26, 2017
LATE MORNING
It is a good day for President Trump. The Supreme Court has just ruled that his so-called travel ban limiting people from seven Muslim nations from coming to the United States is legal.
As part of his foreign policy vision, Mr. Trump divides the Muslim world into good and bad. If a nation provides assistance to his administration, like Jordan or Egypt, it is good. If a country causes problems, like Iran or Somalia, it is bad.