16 Ivanka Trump, the president’s 36-year-old daughter, was a senior White House adviser whose influence with her father was resented and resisted by others in the White House. Chief strategist Steve Bannon got into a screaming match with her. “You’re a goddamn staffer!” Bannon yelled. “You’re nothing but a f---ing staffer! You walk around this place and act like you’re in charge, and you’re not. You’re on staff!”
Ivanka shouted back, “I’m not a staffer! I’ll never be a staffer. I’m the first daughter.”
17 Kellyanne Conway became Trump’s campaign manager in August 2016 and coined the phrase “the hidden Trump voter. . . . There’s not a single hidden Hillary voter in the entire country. They’re all out and about.”
18 Hope Hicks served as Trump’s press secretary during the campaign and became White House strategic communications director. Like many others, she tried and failed to rein in the president’s tweeting. “It’s not politically helpful,” she told Trump. “You can’t just be a loose cannon on Twitter. You’re getting killed by a lot of this stuff. You’re shooting yourself in the foot. You’re making big mistakes.” Hicks is pictured here with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
19 As Staff Secretary, Rob Porter briefed Trump on decision memos and other important presidential documents. In alliance with Gary Cohn, he attempted to block Trump’s most dangerous economic and foreign policy impulses.
Porter told an associate, “A third of my job was trying to react to some of the really dangerous ideas that he had and try to give him reasons to believe that maybe they weren’t such good ideas.”
20 Peter Navarro, a 67-year-old Harvard PhD in economics, received a White House post from Trump. Both Trump and Navarro were passionate believers that trade deficits harmed the U.S. economy. Navarro agreed with Trump on steel and aluminum tariffs though few others did.
21 Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pushed Trump to take a hard line on North Korea. “You don’t want it on your résumé that North Korea, a nuclear power, got a missile that could reach the United States on your watch,” Graham told Trump.
“If they have a breakout and have a missile that will reach the United States, you’ve got to whack them.”
22 FBI director James Comey was fired by Trump in May 2017. “Don’t try to talk me out of it,” Trump told his White House counsel, Don McGahn, and his chief of staff, Reince Priebus. “Because I’ve made my decision, so don’t even try.” He believed Comey was a grandstander and out of control.
Trump seized on allegations that Comey had mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails as grounds for his firing.
23 Former FBI director Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel to investigate Russian election meddling and any connection to the Trump presidential campaign. Trump rejected him as Comey’s replacement for FBI director.
“He was just in here and I didn’t hire him for the FBI,” Trump said. “Of course he’s got an ax to grind with me.”
24 John Dowd joined Trump’s legal team in May 2017. He convinced the president not to testify in the Mueller investigation, but resigned in March 2018 when Trump changed his mind and Dowd could not dissuade him.
“Mr. President, I cannot, as a lawyer, as an officer of the court, sit next to you and have you answer these questions when I full well know that you’re not really capable,” Dowd told Trump.
25 White House counsel Don McGahn wanted the president to assert executive privilege in the Mueller investigation and resist handing over documents. Trump’s lawyer John Dowd disagreed and cooperated with Mueller in order to speed up the investigation.
“We’d get a hell of a lot more with honey than we would with vinegar.”
26 Trump and first lady Melania Trump with Chinese president Xi Jinping and first lady Peng Liyuan. Trump believed China’s support for sanctions against North Korea was a result of his personal relationship with Xi. “Isn’t it good that I’m friendly when all you guys say that we should be adversarial with them,” he said, despite warnings that Xi was using him. “Because if I didn’t have that great relationship with President Xi, they never would have done that. So that I can get them to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise do.”
27 North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un, 34, was a more effective leader of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles programs than his father, Kim Jong Il, according to U.S. intelligence. The younger Kim accepted that weapons and missile testing would inevitably lead to failures. He did not order officials and scientists shot after failures as his father had. Trump believed the building conflict between the U.S. and North Korea was a contest of wills.
“This is all about leader versus leader. Man versus man. Me versus Kim.”
Acknowledgments
This is my 19th book with Alice Mayhew, my editor at Simon & Schuster, over the last 46 years. Alice understood immediately, in the midst of the Trump presidency with all its controversies and investigations, the importance of finding out what Trump actually did as president in foreign and domestic policy. It was Alice’s full and brilliant engagement on the concept for the book, the pace, structure and tone.
Jonathan Karp, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, is at the top of his game. He devoted time and his keen intellect to this book. He helped edit and thought through the opportunities, responsibilities and dilemmas of publishing a book about President Trump in this convulsive era. I owe him much. He used to be the Boy Wonder; now he is the Middle Age Wonder but still has the Boy Wonder’s energy.
I thank Carolyn K. Reidy, the CEO at Simon & Schuster, who for decades has sponsored and promoted my work.
At Simon & Schuster I thank the following: Stuart Roberts, Alice Mayhew’s talented, energetic and thoughtful assistant, and Richard Rhorer, Cary Goldstein, Stephen Bedford, Irene Kheradi, Kristen Lemire, Lisa Erwin, Lisa Healy, Lewelin Polanco, Joshua Cohen, Laura Tatum, Katie Haigler, Toby Yuen, Kate Mertes and Elisa Rivlin.
My special thanks to Fred Chase, traveling counselor and extraordinary copy editor, who spent a week in Washington with Evelyn and myself. Fred loves words and ideas. In that week he went through the manuscript three times with meticulous care and wisdom. We call Fred the Fixer, which he does on nearly every page with his sharp red and green pencils.
I wish I had taken careful notes over the last two years of my regular conversations with Carl Bernstein, my Nixon-Watergate partner, as we discussed Trump. We did not always agree but I loved those talks and the deep insights he has about the presidency, Washington and the media. The friendship and affection for Carl is one of the half-dozen joys of my life.