When Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un amped up the rhetoric, he was warned, “Twitter could get us into a war.”
“This is my megaphone,” Trump said again. “Let’s not call it Twitter. Let’s call it social media.” Though the White House had Facebook and Instagram accounts, Trump did not use them. He stuck to Twitter. “This is who I am. This is how I communicate. It’s the reason I got elected. It’s the reason that I’m successful.”
The tweets were not incidental to his presidency. They were central. He ordered printouts of his recent tweets that had received a high number of likes, 200,000 or more. He studied them to find the common themes in the most successful. He seemed to want to become more strategic, find out whether success was tied to the subject, the language or simply the surprise that the president was weighing in. The most effective tweets were often the most shocking.
Later, when Twitter announced the number of permissible characters in a single tweet was being doubled from 140 to 280, Trump told Porter he thought the change made sense on one level. Now he would be able to flesh out his thoughts and add more depth.
“It’s a good thing,” Trump said, “but it’s a bit of a shame because I was the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters.”
* * *
At the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, in early July Trump wanted to talk with Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. In violation of security rules he invited Turnbull into his Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). Only those with the highest U.S. security clearances for Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information were allowed in the SCIF. It was an absolute rule, intended to prevent someone planting listening devices. This facility, a large steel room, had to be torn down after the meeting.
The relationship between the leaders had been difficult since the first week of the administration, when the two men spoke by phone. Trump wanted to get out of what he called a “stupid” deal that is “going to kill me” between the U.S. and Australia, made under President Obama. Under the agreement, certain refugees with questionable backgrounds waiting on an island off Australia would be allowed to enter the U.S. The transcript of their January 28, 2017, call had leaked. Trump had said, “It is an evil time. . . . Are they going to become the Boston bomber?”
As he went to the meeting with Trump in Germany, Turnbull was aware of the debate within the White House about possible tariffs on steel imported into the United States.
“If you do ever put steel tariffs on,” Turnbull said, “you’ve got to exempt Australian steel. We do this steel that’s specialty steel. We’re the only one that produces it in the world. You’ve got to let us out. You’ve got a $40 billion trade surplus with us. We’re military allies with you. We’re in every battle with you.”
“Of course,” Trump said, “we’ll let you out. That makes total sense. You guys are great. We’ve got a big surplus with you guys”—the holy grail.
Gary Cohn, who was in the meeting, was pleased. Turnbull had previously been a partner at Goldman Sachs and had worked for Cohn when he was Goldman president.
* * *
Coming back from the G20 summit, Trump was editing an upcoming speech with Porter. Scribbling his thoughts in neat, clean penmanship, the president wrote, “TRADE IS BAD.”
Though he never said it in a speech, he had finally found the summarizing phrase and truest expression of his protectionism, isolationism and fervent American nationalism.
* * *
Nearly eight months later, on February 23, 2018, Turnbull arrived at the White House to see the president.
In the prep session in the Oval Office for the meeting, Cohn reminded Trump of his pledge.
“Mr. President,” Cohn said, “the first thing he’s going to bring up is the steel tariffs. And he’s going to remind you that you let him out.”
“I don’t remember,” Trump said, sitting behind the Resolute Desk.
“Well, sir,” Cohn said, “you had the conversation with him . . .”
“I’m going to deny it,” Trump replied. “I never had that conversation with him.”
“Okay, sir, just reminding you that it’s going to come up.”
Cohn had witnessed this for over a year—denial when needed or useful or more convenient. “He’s a professional liar,” Cohn told an associate.
At lunch Turnbull carefully stepped Trump through their time at the G20 the previous summer.
Remember we were in Hamburg?
Yes, Trump said.
You took me back in your secure facility?
“Oh, yeah, I remember that,” Trump replied. “My security guys were so pissed. They couldn’t believe I did it.”
Remember what conversation we had?
Trump nodded.
We were talking about specialty steel that Australia exclusively produces.
A version of yes from Trump.
“We’ve got a $40 billion trade surplus?”
Yes, Trump knew that for sure.
And you agreed to let me out of any steel tariff?
“Oh, yeah,” Trump answered, “I guess I remember that.”
Cohn laughed.
Australian steel was later exempted, as were other nations. As of June 2018, Australia retained its exemption.
CHAPTER
26
McMaster had drinks with Dina Powell, a senior deputy from his staff, and Porter on July 15.
“The team of two,” McMaster said—Tillerson and Mattis—were making his position difficult and less and less tenable.
McMaster said that he believed Mattis and Tillerson had concluded that the president and the White House were crazy. As a result, they sought to implement and even formulate policy on their own without interference or involvement from McMaster, let alone the president.
Just the previous week, McMaster said that Tillerson had been in Qatar and signed an important Memorandum of Understanding with the Qatari foreign minister on counterterrorism and disabling the financing of terrorism.
McMaster said he had been completely in the dark about this. The secretary of state had not consulted or even informed him in advance. He had learned from press reports! In a news conference in Qatar, Tillerson had said the agreement “represents weeks of intensive discussions” between the two governments so it had been in the works for a while.
Porter said Tillerson had not gone through the policy process at the White House and had not involved the president either. Clearly Tillerson was going off on his own.
“It is more loyal to the president,” McMaster said, “to try to persuade rather the circumvent.” He said he carried out direct orders when the president was clear, and felt duty bound to do so as an Army officer. Tillerson in particular did not.
“He’s such a prick,” McMaster said. “He thinks he’s smarter than anyone. So he thinks he can do his own thing.”
* * *
In his long quest to bring order to the chaos, Priebus arranged for each of the key cabinet members to regularly check in. Tillerson came to his office at 5:15 p.m. on Tuesday, July 18.
McMaster had not been invited but joined the meeting anyway. He took a seat at the conference table. The national security adviser’s silent presence was ominous and electric.
Tell me, Priebus asked Tillerson, how are things going? Are you on track to achieve your primary objectives? How is the relationship between the State Department and the White House? Between you and the president?
“You guys in the White House don’t have your act together,” Tillerson said, and the floodgates gushed open. “The president can’t make a decision. He doesn’t know how to make a decision. He won’t make a decision. He makes a decision and then changes his mind a couple of days later.”