by Bob Woodward
The New York Times wrote, “Abuse Claims End Star’s Rise in White House” and “Aide’s Clean-Cut Image Belied His Hot Temper, Former Colleagues Say.”
In a statement, Porter said, “I took the photos given to the media nearly 15 years ago, and the reality behind them is nowhere close to what is being described.”
“Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation,” Trump tweeted.
The Washington Post editorial board accused the White House of “shrugging off domestic violence” and The New York Times said “Trump Appears to Doubt the #MeToo Movement.”
Cohn saw that one of the main restraining influences on Trump was now gone.
* * *
After 6:30 on the night of Wednesday, February 28, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro went to the Oval Office and convinced the president to move ahead with steel tariffs before the 301 investigation was complete, imploding the whole trade strategy. Ross had earlier produced a study maintaining that the rising imports of steel and aluminum were a threat to the national security, giving Trump the authority to impose them without Congress.
Ross and Navarro had arranged for the main U.S. steel executives to come to the White House the next day.
When Cohn got word of the plan, he called Kelly around 10 p.m.
“I don’t know anything about a meeting,” Kelly said. “There’s no meeting.”
“Oh, there’s a meeting.”
“What are you talking about, Gary?”
Cohn tried to kill the meeting, and for a while he thought he had succeeded. But then it was back on.
More than a dozen executives showed up the next day. At a meeting in the Cabinet Room, Trump announced that he had decided to impose a 25 percent tariff on foreign-made steel and 10 percent on aluminum.
“You will have protection for the first time in a long while,” Trump told the executives. “And you’re going to regrow your industries,” he said, even though all the data Cohn had gathered showed it was not practical or even possible.
* * *
Cohn believed if they had completed the work on the intellectual property case against China, they would have had the allies on board for a blockbuster trade case. It would have been most of the world against China. Their economic rival would be isolated. Steel tariffs upended all of that.
Cohn concluded that Trump just loved to pit people against each other. The president had never been in a business where he had to do long-term strategic thinking. He went to see Trump to explain that he was resigning.
“If this is the way you’re going to run the place,” Cohn said, he was going to leave. “I can deal with losing a battle in the White House as long as we follow proper protocol and procedure. But when two guys get to walk in your office at 6:30 at night and schedule a meeting that the chief of staff and no one knows about, I can’t work in that environment.”
* * *
Cohn knew the importance of Hope Hicks, who had been elevated to White House communications director. Cohn often asked her to join him when he was heading into a tough conversation with Trump, saying, “Hope, come on in with me.” He found Hicks softened the president and that Trump treated Cohn differently when she was there.
On Tuesday, March 6, he went to see Hicks. They crafted a statement for the president to issue with Cohn’s resignation.
“Gary has been my chief economic adviser and did a superb job in driving our agenda, helping to deliver historic tax cuts and reforms and unleashing the American economy once again. He is a rare talent, and I thank him for his dedicated service to the American people.”
They fiddled with the language, then took a printed copy into the Oval Office. They took seats at the Resolute Desk.
“Mr. President,” Cohn said, “today’s probably the right day for me to put out my resignation.”
“Gary’s been so great,” Hicks said, soothing the moment. “We’re going to miss him so much. This is a shame. We’ve got to find a way to bring him back.”
“Of course,” the president said, “we’re going to bring him back.”
It was a false show to the end. Cohn realized again what he had said before to others about the president: “He’s a professional liar.”
“I’ve got a quote here that I’ve okayed with Gary,” Hicks said. “I want you to okay it.”
Trump took the piece of paper and tweaked a word, but otherwise let the statement stand.
“It’s a huge loss,” Trump said. “But we’ll be fine. And he’s coming back.”
“Gary Cohn to Resign as Trump Adviser After Dispute Over Tariffs,” Bloomberg reported. “Gary Cohn Resigns Amid Differences with Trump on Trade,” said The Washington Post. “Gary Cohn Resigns, Apparently Over Tariffs,” read The Atlantic. “Gary Cohn Resigns as White House Economic Adviser After Losing Tariffs Fight,” said The Wall Street Journal.
Later, after he resigned, Cohn worried about instability in the economy that would come from tariffs and the impact on the consumer. The U.S. is a consumer-driven economy. And if the consumer is unsure of what the economy will look like and what their disposable income will look like, that will be seen very quickly in the economy and in the stock market.
Trump’s action and mounting threats on tariffs were jarring. Cohn thought that Trump had to know. “But he’s not man enough to admit it. He’s never been wrong yet. He’s 71. He’s not going to admit he’s wrong, ever.”
* * *
Tom Bossert, the president’s adviser for homeland security, cyber security and counterterrorism, went to the Oval Office in the spring of 2018 and found Trump in his private dining room.
“Sir, do you have a minute?” Bossert, a 43-year-old lawyer and security expert, asked.
“I want to watch the Masters,” Trump said. He had TiVo’d the Augusta National Golf Club tournament, the most famous in the world, and was glued to it.
Bossert, another high-flying aide with Oval Office access even in the Kelly era, invited himself to sit down and watch.
The lawyer knew the United States was already in a constant state of low-intensity cyber war with advanced foreign adversaries such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. These countries had the ability to shut down the power grid in United States cities, for example, and the only deterrent was to make clear that a massive cyber attack would not just be met with cyber-for-cyber symmetry.
The full force of the U.S. military, including nuclear weapons, would have to be a central part of the deterrent. Bossert liked to say, and he said it regularly, that the use of any element of national power would be justified. The United States had too much to lose in a high-consequence cyber attack. Bossert had repeated it so often that the president seemed to understand, but the import of this—nuclear weapons as a cyber deterrent—had not quite become part of the public debate.
“What’s going on?” Trump finally asked.
“I’m coming at you one more time,” Bossert said. “I’m going to do TV”—the upcoming ABC Sunday show This Week. “But this China trade issue is going to come up again.” So would cyber.
“You and your cyber,” Trump said, “are going to get me in a war—with all your cyber shit.”
“That’s the point, sir. I’m trying to use other elements of national power to prevent bad behavior online. And that’s going to put me right in the middle of all of the decisions you’re making. That’s why I’m here. You’re now in the middle of a personal negotiation with President Xi. You just upped the ante to $150 billion” in tariff threats with China. “Fine. How do you want me to handle it on TV? I don’t want to go out and say something that’s going to then piss you off.”
Trump jumped at the invitation to provide some television coaching, to mainline some performance wisdom. It was pure delight.
“So here’s how you do it,” Trump said, his fingers flying in the air. “Tom, are you ready? You go up there. You say . . .” He wanted to formulate it just right. “You tell them you’ve never seen—no wait. First you tell them, ‘T
rump’s dead serious.’ That’s what you tell them. Are you ready?”
Trump’s hands and fingers went up again. “You tell them $150 billion. Wait! You tell them $150 billion is nothing. He’s ready to go to $500 billion because he’s tired of not being treated fairly. That’s what you tell them!”
Trump continued with animated fingers. “You ready? That’s what you tell them.”
“Okay,” Bossert said, “you want me to go hard?”
“You go hard!” Trump said with enthusiasm. “If it weren’t Sunday, you’d shut the markets down, that’s how fucking hard you fucking go!”
Fingers up again. “Hold on! Wait! Then you say, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ See here, watch, here’s what you do.” Trump offered some stage direction, one hand up again for dramatic emphasis. “Then you say, ‘It’ll all be all right because the relationship Trump has with Xi is so . . .’ ” A pause. A refinement. “It’s the best.” Wait! “You’ve never seen such a good relationship between two presidents in your life. Maybe ever.
“Are you ready?” the president asked.
Bossert thought he would remember the script and the Trump show, perhaps for the rest of his life. It was Trump’s way of saying, go hard, Trump’s willing to go to the mat. We’re being treated unfairly.
“And don’t worry about soybeans,” Trump said. The Chinese had announced they would retaliate with tariffs on American agriculture and other goods. Speaking in the third person, Trump said, “He’ll buy more goddamn soybeans if Trump has to. He’ll buy his own damn soybeans from his own farmers before the Chinese push him around. But then you tell them, ‘It’ll be all right. He and Xi will work out a deal. It’ll be a beautiful deal. The best deal you’ve ever seen.’ ”
“So you want me to go hard and soft?” Bossert now asked—hard on determination and soft on the relationship with Xi.
“Yeah.”
Bossert raised cyber again.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Trump said, “if you have to hit the cyber thing, fine.”
Bossert saw that Trump wanted him to stick to trade. “Boss, here’s how I do it: It’s a trade dispute, it’s not a trade war. There’s a trade deficit. In the ’80s we had a trade dispute with Japan and we were close allies with them at the same time.”
“Perfect!” Trump said. “You got it. You throw that crap in there, sounds good, then you tell them what I said. And then you’re good.” Apparently trying to tamp down any anxiety, he added, “Tom, you’ll be fine.”
Afterward, Bossert stuck his head in Kelly’s office, just as a courtesy, to say he had just been prepping for TV with the president and had nothing unusual to report. Kelly waved him off. It seemed to Bossert that the chief of staff was greatly diminished, resigned and had largely given up.
Bossert was ready with his talking points, but on ABC, host Martha Raddatz focused on border security. Trump had said he wanted to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops to the southern border. It was the topic of the day, driven by Trump’s comment. She never asked about China.
Bossert was disappointed because he was “Ready!” to pass along the president’s message of determination and the extraordinary bonding with President Xi of China.
CHAPTER
42
The rest of February, Dowd didn’t hear much. He thought Mueller and Quarles were slow-rolling it. A meeting was finally arranged for 2 p.m. on Monday, March 5, at Mueller’s office.
Mueller was accompanied by Quarles and three other prosecutors.
Dowd came with Sekulow and another lawyer. It quickly became clear that they had different views about the purpose of the meeting.
“Well,” Mueller said, “I guess that’s it.”
“What are you talking about?” Dowd asked. “Where are the questions?”
“You know, I don’t know,” Mueller said, a poker player in mid-game.
“Jim said that’s what was going to happen here.”
“Well, you know, I don’t know,” Mueller said again. “Seems to me you’re not going to testify.”
“Under the circumstances, exactly right.”
“Well, you know,” Mueller said, “I could always get a grand jury subpoena.”
“You go right the fuck ahead and get it!” Dowd said, striking the table with his hand. “I can’t wait to file a fucking motion to quash. And I want to hear you tell the U.S. district judge what the crime is. And I want you to explain.”
Dowd said Mueller had all the evidence he could possibly need. “My motion to quash is going to have everything we’ve given you, including the testimony of 37 witnesses. Including the 1,400,000 documents with the highlights on the most intimate conversations of the president. I want you to tell that judge why you need a grand jury subpoena. Which by the way, has never been issued in the history of the country to any president. And by the way, there is no president, all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, who’s ever been so transparent.”
Dowd continued, “You want to go to war? Let’s go to war. And by the way, I will tell the president that you have now threatened us with a grand jury subpoena. ‘So Mr. President, if you don’t testify, I’m going to haul your ass in front of the public and we’re going to have a grand jury subpoena. We’re going to have a hearing.’ And by the way, Bob, none of this evidence is before the grand jury. So I want you to explain that to the federal judge, why none of this is before his or her grand jury yet.”
Dowd believed all the main evidence was in the interviews and documents. And only in rare cases had that sort of evidence been presented to the grand jury.
“John, it’s okay,” Mueller said, trying to calm Dowd.
“Bob, you threatened the president of the United States with a grand jury subpoena when he’s not a target. And barely a subject. He’s essentially a goddamn witness. And I’m going to tell the judge that. So he has no criminal liability as of March 5, 2018,” the date they were meeting. “Nothing. And I’m going to tell the judge I’m not going to let you play gotcha. I’m not going to have you start testing the recollection of this president over something that—there is no crime. And Bob, I’ve asked you. You’re the one that wanted to engage. Talk about reciprocity. You guys tell me where the collusion is. And don’t give me that chickenshit meeting in June,” Dowd said, referring to Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower.
“That’s a nothing. There’s no collusion. And the obstruction? It’s a joke. Obstruction’s a joke. Flynn? I mean, Yates and Comey didn’t think he lied. And by the way, he told—in the memo of the White House counsel, he told them the agents had said they closed his file. I mean, Flynn believed that he had no jeopardy. Yeah. None.”
Dowd continued. “I can’t wait to read your papers. Well, my papers are going first. And by the way, just give me the subpoena. I’ll take it.”
“John,” Mueller said, “I’m not trying to threaten you. I’m just thinking of the possibilities here.”
Dowd pivoted to the good-old-boy approach. “The other possibility is, give me the questions. We have a relationship of mutual trust. We’ve trusted you guys. You’ve trusted us. And we’ve never failed you. Bob, isn’t really the important thing that you get whatever the truth is? And you’ve got us working for you.”
Dowd decided to take an extraordinary step. “I have no secrets with you guys,” Dowd said. “I’m going to tell you about my conversation with the president of the United States on the subject of testimony.” He mentioned three of the questions he had taken Trump through up in the White House residence. On the third he had no clue. “He just made something up. That’s his nature.”
Dowd realized he had Mueller’s full attention.
“Jay,” he said to Sekulow, “you play the president. I’ll play Mueller. Okay?” They would role-play what Dowd had witnessed with the president. “Let’s talk about Comey.” Dowd asked about one of Trump’s Comey conversations. Sekulow’s answer was classic Trump—an answer spun out of thin air, with contradictions, mad
e-up stuff, anger. A perfect performance. A perfect Trump.
“Gotcha! Gotcha, 1001!” Dowd said slamming the table, referring to the section of the U.S. Code that deals with false statements. “Gotcha, 1001!”
Dowd asked another simple question of Sekulow, still playing Trump.
“I don’t know,” Sekulow said. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“Jay,” Dowd said, “how many times did he say I don’t know when we talked to him?”
“Oh, a dozen, twenty.”
“Bob,” Dowd said to Mueller, “here’s my point. You’re asking me to sit next to a president who’ll get to the third question, screw it up and thereafter, because I’m going to counsel him, he just doesn’t know and he doesn’t remember. So he’s going to say I don’t remember 20 times. And I’m telling you, Bob, he doesn’t remember. And by the way, if you’d like I will get General Kelly in here to tell you he doesn’t remember. And the reason he doesn’t remember is very simple. One, these facts and these events are of little moment in his life.” Most had taken place early in his presidency.
“All of a sudden he’s the boss. But he’s getting information from all quarters, including the media every day. That is like tonnage. And the fact is, I don’t want him looking like an idiot. And I’m not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot. And you publish that transcript, because everything leaks in Washington, and the guys overseas are going to say, I told you he was an idiot. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell. What are we dealing with that idiot for? He can’t even remember X, Y, Z with respect to his FBI director.”
Dowd was aware that he had illustrated the president was “clearly disabled.”
“John, I understand,” Mueller said.
“Well, Bob, what do you want to know? Give me one question that no one has answered.”
“Well, I want to know if he had corrupt intent.”
“Bob, do you think he’s going to say yes? Because on his behalf, I’m telling you no. And if you want me to get an affidavit from the president that he had no corrupt intent, I’ll give it to you.”