Melania’s primary concern was their son, Barron. “She’s obsessed with Barron,” one person said. “That is her focus 100 percent.”
Trump gave some private advice to a friend who had acknowledged some bad behavior toward women. Real power is fear. It’s all about strength. Never show weakness. You’ve always got to be strong. Don’t be bullied. There is no choice.
“You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women,” he said. “If you admit to anything and any culpability, then you’re dead. That was a big mistake you made. You didn’t come out guns blazing and just challenge them. You showed weakness. You’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to be aggressive. You’ve got to push back hard. You’ve got to deny anything that’s said about you. Never admit.”
* * *
Trump debated tariffs for months. He wanted to impose a 25 percent tariff on auto imports. “I want an executive order,” he said.
He did not have the legal authority to do that, Porter said.
“Fine, we’ll challenge it in court. But I don’t care. Let’s just do it!”
Another time the president told Porter, “Go down to your office right now. Get it all written up. Bring me my tariffs!”
One day in the Oval Office, Cohn brought in the latest job numbers to Trump and Pence.
“I have the most perfect job numbers you’re ever going to see,” Cohn said.
“It’s all because of my tariffs,” Trump said. “They’re working.”
Trump had yet to impose any tariffs, but he believed they were a good idea and knew Cohn disagreed with him.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Cohn said, half-joking and smacking Trump gently on the arm.
Cohn turned to a Secret Service agent. “I just hit the president. If you want to shoot me, go ahead.”
Cohn wrote a joke for Trump to use at the Gridiron Dinner: “We’ve made enormous progress on the wall. All the drawings are done. All the excavating’s done. All the engineering is done. The only thing we’ve been stumbling with is we haven’t been able to figure out how to stretch the word ‘Trump’ over 1,200 miles.”
Trump wouldn’t use it.
* * *
Porter observed that anytime anybody challenged Trump—in a policy debate, in court, in the public square—his natural instinct seemed to be that if he was not exerting strength, he was failing.
He stopped counting the times that Trump vented about Sessions. His anger never went away. Sessions’s recusal was a wound that remained open.
Jeff Sessions, Trump said in one of many versions, was an abject failure. He was not loyal. If he had any balls, if he had been a strong guy, he would’ve just said, I’m not going to recuse. I’m the attorney general. I can do whatever I want.
CHAPTER
22
Within the intelligence and military world there exist what President Obama once told me are “our deep secrets.” These are matters so sensitive, involving sources and methods, that only a handful of people including the president and key military and intelligence officials know about them.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks the American espionage establishment ballooned, making secret surveillance a way of life.
Near the end of May 2017, I learned of one such “deep secret.” North Korea was accelerating both its missile and nuclear weapons programs at an astonishing rate, and would “well within a year” have a ballistic missile with a nuclear weapon that perhaps could reach the United States mainland. Previously the intelligence showed North Korea would not have that capability for at least two years if not longer. This new intelligence was a rare earthquake in the intelligence world, but it did not travel far. It was to be protected at almost any cost.
In response, a preliminary Top Secret Pentagon war plan called for the United States to send escalation signals to put the country on a war footing: reinforce the Korean Peninsula with two or three aircraft carriers; keep more U.S. Navy attack submarines in the region (capable of firing barrages of Tomahawk missiles); add another squadron of F-22s and more B-2 stealth bombers. Perhaps even withdraw U.S. dependents, family members of the 28,500 U.S. military in South Korea. Add more ground forces, thicken the theater missile defense systems, disperse troops to make them less vulnerable, harden infrastructure to help withstand artillery attacks.
I began checking around about whether North Korea was “well within a year” of a new ICBM nuclear weapon capability. At the top levels of the Pentagon, I was told “There is nothing like that,” providing an absolute knockdown of my information.
At the top levels of the intelligence community, I was told “there was nothing new” and “no significant change” in the two-year-plus assessment. There was nothing to be alarmed about.
I talked with a person with the broadest, most authoritative access to such current intelligence. The absolute denials were repeated emphatically, categorically. Then something happened that had never occurred in 46 years of reporting. This person said, “If I am wrong I will apologize to you.”
That was definitely a first. But the meaning was unclear. I have had officials lie outright about something very sensitive. Asked later, they have said they felt it was better to dissemble. Why agree to talk or meet? Silence could be interpreted as confirmation, they usually replied. That is the real world of reporting on sensitive intelligence matters. The offer to apologize if wrong had never happened before to me.
I decided not to seek out the person to get the apology, but I was soon entitled to one.
* * *
Just over a month later, on July 3, North Korea successfully tested its first ICBM, a Hwasong-14. The missile only traveled 930 kilometers and was in the air only 37 minutes, but the intelligence showed that with a flatter trajectory, it could possibly have reached the United States mainland. This was what my source had warned about two months earlier.
Trump was briefed that night. The next day, July 4, he hosted an Independence Day celebration at the White House. That afternoon, McMaster chaired an emergency principals meeting in the Situation Room. Trump was not present.
CIA Director Pompeo said there was confirmation of an ICBM. It had been fired via an eight-axle mobile vehicle that had been imported from China. So much for the hope that China would be a restraining influence on North Korea.
Tillerson said he had been unable to contact the Chinese, but had called for an emergency meeting in the U.N. Security Council. “We need to work with Russia to get their support and focus on countries that are not abiding by the existing sanctions,” he said. “This ought to be a topic of discussion at the G20, especially with Japan and the Republic of Korea.”
Tillerson raised the concern that the administration was targeting China with steel tariffs at a time when they needed its help to corral North Korea. He was also worried about allies’ reactions to Trump’s threatened steel tariffs, like Japan, South Korea and the European Union.
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said, “China has been avoiding us, but eventually they agreed to a U.N. Security Council meeting tomorrow.” The U.S. needed to identify more companies who did business with North Korea for additional sanctions.
“We need a persuasive press statement to gain allies on this,” Mattis said. “We don’t want to show any daylight between us and the Republic of Korea.” He walked through military contingency plans, including possible strikes in North Korea—the full range, from limited pinpoints to an all-out attack, and even a leadership strike. The U.S. didn’t have all of the ships and other assets it might need in the region. They were not ready for every contingency, and it would take time to get everything in line.
“Our first choice ought to be U.N.-led sanctions,” Mnuchin said. “Otherwise we can have another dozen primary sanctions available.”