If the U.S. pulled its troops out, it would require more Navy carrier groups in that part of the world to feel comfortable. That might cost 10 times as much, Cohn stated.
Then there was the ultra-sensitive intelligence gained through the Special Access Programs South Korea allowed the U.S. to run. Trump seemed not to comprehend the value and the necessity.
“Like $3.5 billion, 28,000 troops,” the president said. He was really hot. “I don’t know why they’re there. Let’s bring them all home!”
“So, Mr. President,” Cohn said, “what would you need in the region to sleep well at night?”
“I wouldn’t need a fucking thing,” the president said. “And I’d sleep like a baby.”
Priebus called an end to the meeting. Mattis seemed completely deflated.
Trump got up and walked out.
All the air seemed to have come out of Tillerson. He could not abide Trump’s attack on the generals. The president was speaking as if the U.S. military was a mercenary force for hire. If a country wouldn’t pay us to be there, then we didn’t want to be there. As if there were no American interests in forging and keeping a peaceful world order, as if the American organizing principle was money.
“Are you okay?” Cohn asked him.
“He’s a fucking moron,” Tillerson said so everyone heard.
* * *
Trump left the meeting with Priebus, Bannon and Kushner just before 12:45 p.m. He spent a few moments greeting service members lined up in the corridor.
“The meeting was great,” Trump told reporters. “A very good meeting.”
He moved toward the presidential limousine.
“I’m glad you fucking decided to say something,” Trump said to Bannon. “I needed some backup.”
“You were doing great,” Bannon said.
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin had followed them out. He wanted to make sure it was clear he was with Trump on the European allies. “I don’t know if they’re allies or not,” he said. “I’m with you.”
In the car, Trump described his advisers, “They don’t know anything about business. All they want to do is protect everybody—that we pay for.”
He said that the South Koreans, our allies, won’t cut a new deal with us on trade. “And they want us to protect them from that crazy guy in the North.”
* * *
Cohn concluded that Trump was, in fact, going backwards. He had been more manageable the first months when he was a novice.
For Priebus, it was the worst meeting among many terrible ones. Six months into the administration, he could see vividly that they had a fundamental problem of goal setting. Where were they going?
The distrust in the room had been thick and corrosive. The atmosphere was primitive; everyone was ostensibly on the same side, but they had seemed suited up in battle armor, particularly the president.
This was what craziness was like, Priebus concluded.
* * *
A senior White House official who spoke contemporaneously with participants in the meeting recorded this summary: “The president proceeded to lecture and insult the entire group about how they didn’t know anything when it came to defense or national security. It seems clear that many of the president’s senior advisers, especially those in the national security realm, are extremely concerned with his erratic nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learn, as well as what they consider his dangerous views.”
CHAPTER
28
After the meeting in the Tank, Tillerson, an Eagle Scout, left to attend the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia and his son’s wedding in Texas. He was thinking of resigning.
“Listen,” Priebus said later in a call to him, “you can’t resign right now. That’s ridiculous. Come over to my office.”
Tillerson came to see him. “I just don’t like the way the president talks to these generals. They don’t deserve it. I can’t sit around and listen to this from the president. He’s just a moron.”
Priebus was surprised at his open hostility. He realized that Tillerson’s real grievance was also the way the president talked to him. In many Situation Room meetings Tillerson would almost literally huff and puff, conspicuously telegraphing that he was more than just annoyed, masking the “moron” talk, but barely.
Priebus suggested that Tillerson tone it down. “You can’t just be disrespectful. You can’t talk to the president the way you do. You’ve got to find a way to communicate, say the same thing but find a way to say it that’s not offensive.”
Priebus admired Mattis’s approach—avoid the confrontation, demonstrate respect and deference, proceed smartly with business, travel as much as possible, get and stay out of town.
Tillerson returned to the generals. “I can’t sit there and listen to the president dress down these generals. I just can’t take it. It’s not right.”
Priebus later told Trump that he had spoken to Tillerson about being disrespectful to the president. He did not mention the “moron” comment.
Trump listened quietly, which was unusual, and did not disagree about what was going on. Priebus thought that the president did not want to acknowledge Tillerson’s hostility because he was full of pride. As chief executive he should not allow clear insubordination from his secretary of state.
* * *
At times the NSC process worked. A Policy Coordination Committee, one level below the Deputies Committee, would convene and gather input from the Joint Staff, civilians at the Defense Department, the State Department, the intelligence agencies, Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget. A 30-page strategy paper might be drafted, with annexes. Disagreements would be ironed out. Then it would be sent up to the Deputies Committee, where deputies from various departments could make changes. When everyone agreed on a framework, when a roadmap was approved, a Principals Committee, chaired by McMaster and attended by cabinet secretaries, would be called.
Tillerson was senior and so talked first at principals meetings. He would walk in and say, I didn’t see the NSC strategy paper. This is a tough issue. We have to put it in perspective. Here’s how I’m looking at it.
He would distribute a package of briefing slides. Rather than send them prior to the meeting so others could read ahead, he went through each slide at the meeting, sometimes taking five minutes on just one. The members of the NSC were a captive audience. The principals meetings were often scheduled for an hour and 15 minutes, so sometimes Tillerson’s was the only voice, certainly the main voice.
Tillerson wanted to have everyone agree with his definition of the problems and then go back and rework the strategy.
These Tillerson interventions—his desire to restart the entire interagency process based on his assessment of where policies needed to go—happened in one form or another on the strategies for Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Hezbollah, Syria, China, North Korea and defeating ISIS.
Some at the Principals Committee meetings, including both those at the table and the backbenchers, were at times impressed with the reframing. Others thought his presentations conventional. Tillerson would argue for more economic integration, coordination of development assistance and the need to address the motivators of violence and actively use diplomacy.
What was often lacking or delayed was an execution plan assigning responsibility and accountability. Endgame goals were fuzzy or unstated. The result was often weeks or months of delay.
* * *
Around this time in July, Trump was on a small plane, still designated Air Force One, returning from Bedminster. He came back to the small staff area where Ivanka, Jared, McMaster and Porter were seated.
Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, the three main war zones, were quagmires and he was tired of owning them, the president said in a lecturing tone. “The enormous resources that we continue to expend in those countries!” he said. “We should just declare victory, end the wars and bring our troops home.”