by Bob Woodward
“General Motors goes out on strike,” Trump said, giving another example. Nearly 50,000 autoworkers had held a 40-day strike in the fall of 2019. “They shouldn’t have gone. They should have been able to work that out. But they couldn’t do it. They go on strike. Hundreds of thousands of people aren’t working. All of this stuff happens. And you have to make it good.”
“There’s dynamite behind every door” seemed the most self-aware statement about the jeopardy, pressures and responsibilities of the presidency I had heard Trump make in public or private.
Yet the unexpected headline from the call was also his detailed knowledge of the virus and his description of it as so deadly so early in February, more than a month before it began to engulf him, his presidency and the United States. And so at odds with his public tone.
The details from his call with Xi were troubling. I only later learned that much more had been hidden: that his top White House national security advisers had warned him of impending disaster in the U.S. and believed China and Xi could not be trusted; that his top health advisers had tried desperately to get their medical team into China to investigate; that Trump himself had offered to help Xi and been personally rebuffed.
Xi was concealing a lot. So was Trump.
Who was responsible for the failure to warn the American public of the coming pandemic? Where was the breakdown? What leadership decisions did Trump make or fail to make in the crucial early weeks? It would take me months to get answers to those questions.
After reporting Fear, I thought it was likely the potential crisis I worried about might arise from foreign affairs where Trump had the least experience and took the greatest risks. So when I began my new reporting for this book last year, well before the arrival of the virus, I decided to look again and more deeply at the national security team he recruited and built in the first months after his election in 2016.
I now see that Trump’s handling of the virus—certainly the greatest test for him and his presidency, at least so far—reflects the instincts, habits and style acquired in the first years as president and over the course of a lifetime.
One of the great questions of any presidency is: How does it end? But so is the question: How did it begin? So we turn there.
ONE
Shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday of 2016, retired Marine General James Mattis saw a call from an unknown Indiana number flash on his cell phone screen. Not knowing anyone from there, he ignored it.
He was volunteering at the local Tri-Cities Food Bank in Richland, Washington, his childhood home on the Columbia River, where his mother and brother still lived.
When a second call came from Indiana, he answered.
“This is Mike Pence.”
Mattis didn’t know a Mike Pence, but quickly realized he was speaking with the vice president–elect.
The president-elect would like to talk to you about the secretary of defense job, Pence said.
I am happy to give him my advice, Mattis said, but I am not eligible. To preserve strict civilian control, the law prohibits anyone who has been a military officer in the last seven years from serving as defense secretary. The only exception had been World War II General George Marshall, who had received a waiver in 1950 and been a national hero.
Given the raging partisan divisions in Washington, Mattis privately believed Democrats in Congress would never support such a waiver.
But Mattis did want to talk to Trump, and agreed to fly east. He wanted to persuade Trump to question his positions on NATO and torture. Trump had called the military alliance “obsolete” and promised to bring back the “enhanced interrogation techniques” on suspected terrorists that President Barack Obama had banned. Mattis thought Trump was wrong on both counts.
One thing was clear in Mattis’s mind: He did not want the job. Mattis had boundless love for the Marine Corps, but not Washington, D.C. Mattis had been commander of U.S. Central Command, known as CentCom, from 2010 to 2013, overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was fired by Obama due to his aggressiveness toward Iran when Obama was negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran.
Shortly after arriving at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Saturday, November 19, Mattis was escorted to an informal gathering around a table with Trump, Pence, chief strategist Steve Bannon, Ivanka Trump and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Mattis had a stoic Marine exterior and attention-getting ramrod posture, but his bright, open and inviting smile softened his presence.
Right up front, Trump questioned the value of NATO, which had been formed by ten European countries, the United States and Canada at the end of World War II as a safeguard against Soviet aggression. In 2016 there were 28 member nations.
The other countries of NATO, these European allies, are taking us to the cleaners, Trump said. The United States didn’t need NATO. We pay and they get protected. They take us for all we’re worth and they’re not giving enough in exchange.
No, Mattis insisted, if we didn’t have NATO we would have to invent it and build it because we need it so badly. You know how you build your big, tall buildings? You’d build NATO.
Huh? said Trump.
The NATO countries, which pledge that an attack against one is an attack against all, went to war after your hometown of New York City was attacked, Mattis reminded him. NATO troops were sent to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Several of those countries have lost more boys per capita in Afghanistan than we have. They’ve been bleeding.
Yes, they have to do more, Mattis said. You’re absolutely right they need to spend more of their GDP on defense. You’re absolutely right to press them. I’ll even tell you how I’d take the message to them. We need to let them know that we are not going to keep telling American parents they have to care more about protecting European kids than Europeans care.
But, Mattis continued, NATO held the line against Soviet aggression during the Cold War until the internal rot of the Soviet Union collapsed upon itself. NATO prevented real war on the European continent. We need NATO.
To Mattis’s surprise, Trump did not argue. He seemed to be listening.
The president-elect next voiced approval of torture as the quickest way to obtain information from captured terrorists.
Mattis didn’t want to spend time explaining the origins of his personal philosophy. He subscribed to the beliefs of General John Lejeune, the legendary World War I general often described as the greatest Marine of all time. Lejeune believed the Corps not only had to make efficient fighters, but return better citizens to society. Inflicting torture caused spiritual damage and produced horrible people, Mattis believed. It undermined the country’s moral authority.
Instead, he only said to Trump, “We have to recognize that torture damages us. With a cup of coffee and a cigarette you can get just as much out of them.”
Trump was listening attentively, and Mattis was again somewhat surprised.
Next up was the intelligence community, another subject of Trump’s criticism during the campaign.
“We have the best spies in the world,” Mattis said. “I’m probably the first general in history—for three years at CentCom I was never surprised on a strategic or operational matter. Not once.”
Ivanka Trump, the president-elect’s daughter, asked how long it would take to review and rewrite the strategy to defeat ISIS, the violent Islamic State of Iraq and Syria terrorist group which had sprung from the remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq and spread into Syria as it tried to create a caliphate in the Arab world.
Trump had promised in the campaign to “knock the hell out of” ISIS. Mattis, surprised the question had come from Ivanka, said it would take months to review. The strategy needed to radically change from a slow war of attrition to one of “annihilation.” Time was a key issue. Slow wars were losing ones for the United States.
Mattis could see Trump was proud Ivanka had weighed in.
“Is your name Mad Dog?” Trump asked. “Yo
ur nickname?”
“No, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Chaos.”
“I don’t like that name,” said Trump.
“Well, that’s my name.”
“I thought it was Mad Dog.”
No, that came from someone else. Mattis blamed the media.
“Do you mind if I change your name to Mad Dog?”
“You can sort of do whatever you want.”
“Mad Dog Mattis,” Trump said. “That works out great.” Can you do the job?
Government service in any form, Mattis believed, was both an honor and an obligation. He hadn’t wanted the job, but when the commander in chief called, you accepted without hesitation—no Hamlet wringing his hands at the wall, debating with himself, “To be or not to be.”
He said he could. But Trump did not want to announce it publicly yet. Getting a waiver should be easy, he said.
After the 40-minute interview, Trump said they were going to appear before the press. Did Mattis want to say anything?
No, thank you.
Steve Bannon had arranged for the photo of Trump and Mattis to resemble 10 Downing Street—the British prime minister before a large door. The media would be across the street and Trump would be the leader.
“All I can say is he is the real deal!” Trump said to the press. Mattis stood coolly silent.
Trump later tweeted: “General James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, who is being considered for Secretary of Defense, was very impressive yesterday.”
Mattis had a general operating philosophy which he articulated many times over the years: “You don’t always control your circumstances, but you can control your response.”
He called his mother, Lucille, who was 94 years old. She had served in Army intelligence in World War II. He knew she hated Trump.
“How can you work for that man?” she asked.
“Ma, last time I checked, I work for the Constitution. I’ll go back and read it again.”
“All right,” she said. “All right.”
TWO
Right after the election, Rex Tillerson, the longtime CEO of ExxonMobil, received phone messages from Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner. Tillerson, who had run the largest publicly traded oil and gas company in the world for nearly eleven years, was the embodiment of Big Oil. A Texan with a smooth voice and easy laugh, he was a highly disciplined rider and breeder of cutting horses on his 83-acre ranch near Dallas. He ignored their calls.
Then Vice President–elect Pence called. Tillerson decided to take the call.
“The president-elect’s been told you know a lot of world leaders,” Pence said, “and you know a lot about the current situation around the world. Would you be willing to come up and give him a briefing?”
“I’ll be happy to do that,” Tillerson said. He often briefed presidents, but he wasn’t keen on making a high-visibility walk through the lobby of Trump Tower. “I’m not going to come through those front doors by those gilded elevators and do the press walk.”
Pence promised they would slip him in discreetly.
Tillerson, 64, arrived at Trump Tower on December 6 and rode up on the private elevator. With a swept-back mane of gray hair and a big Texas drawl, he stood out. Bannon and the designated White House chief of staff Reince Priebus greeted and escorted him into a side conference room.
“You’re not a Never Trumper are you?” Priebus asked.
Tillerson wasn’t absolutely sure what that was, but got the idea, and said no.
“Have you ever said anything negative about the president-elect?” Bannon asked.
“Not that I recall, Steve.”
“We noticed you didn’t contribute anything.”
“I don’t do political contributions,” Tillerson replied, trying to sidestep the question. “I’ve found it’s not particularly healthy in the job I’m in.” He was a lifelong Republican. His wife, Renda, had paid $2,500 to go to a Trump lunch.
Records show Tillerson made more than $100,000 in contributions in the 2016 election cycle, including $2,700 to Trump’s competitor Jeb Bush. Since 2000 he has made more than $400,000 in contributions.
“Did you vote in the election?”
“Yes.”
“Who’d you vote for?”
“I voted for President-elect Trump.”
Okay, okay, let’s go in and see him.
Tillerson found the political vetting heavy-handed and slightly weird.
Trump was sitting at his desk and rose to greet his visitor. Trump had been such a dominant television presence that to see him in person was a little jarring.
Campaign material—stuffed animals and hats—littered the office. Disneyland, Tillerson thought.
Everyone sat down. Jared Kushner joined them.
“So tell me what’s going on around the world,” Trump asked.
“You’ve been dealt a really difficult hand in foreign affairs,” Tillerson said. As Exxon’s CEO, he traveled the world and met with heads of state. “I’ve been listening to these world leaders for the last eight years” during the Obama presidency. “The challenges now are as serious as any president has faced in my lifetime.”
Tillerson said his closest relationship was with Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom he visited regularly. Oil and gas amounted to over 60 percent of Russia’s exports, and Russia was Exxon’s biggest oil exploration area in the world, with holdings of more than 60 million acres. Exxon had a 30 percent interest in a Russian production-sharing agreement that produced oil and gas from fields in the Russian Far East. Exxon also had 7.5 percent ownership of a pipeline that transported oil from Kazakhstan to a Russian port on the Black Sea.
Let me tell you a story, Tillerson said, about a meeting with Putin two years before the U.S. presidential election.
“We were down in Sochi having a lunch, and I would always just try to ask questions to Putin and let him do the talking,” Tillerson said. It was not hard to get the Russian president to speak openly given Putin’s interest in the energy markets and new technologies.
“Well,” Putin said, “I’ve given up on your President Obama. He doesn’t do anything he says he’s going to do. I can’t deal with someone who won’t follow through on his promises. I’ll wait for your next president.” Tillerson said Putin looked directly at him, adding, “I know when that is.”
Seeing Trump had visibly perked up at the mention of Putin, Tillerson described an earlier conversation when Putin had said he disagreed with Obama’s decision in 2011 to intervene in the Libyan civil war, which resulted in the gruesome death of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi and the widespread upheaval and civil war it unleashed.
Putin said he had warned Obama. “I said to Obama, I understand you don’t like Qaddafi, but what comes after him? He couldn’t answer that. So I told him, well, until you can answer that, you shouldn’t go in,” Tillerson quoted Putin.
“The issue came before the United Nations Security Council,” Tillerson continued. “Putin could have blocked it. And Putin told me, ‘I called Obama. I told him I’m going to abstain for you.’ So Putin I think was trying to say to me, I was trying to work with this guy.
“So fast-forward to Syria,” Tillerson continued. “And when Obama drew the red line over the use of chemicals. Putin and Obama talked again. And Putin said, ‘Okay, I understand if you think you have to respond to that. But I’m not going to allow you to make the same mistake in Syria that you made in Libya because I have a stake in Syria. So let’s understand one another.’ That’s what Putin told me he said to Obama. So somewhere in the midst of that, Putin came to the conclusion this guy’s never going to fix anything. All he does is make it worse.
“Now Libya has turned into a mess,” Tillerson said to Trump. “The question you always have to ask yourself is do you know what’s going to come next? And of course we know the Libyan revolution helped ISIS. All the bad guys that formed ISIS, Muammar Qaddafi had them locked up in his prison.”
Tillerson added, “
Putin feels like we treat Russia like a banana republic.” The year before, Tillerson said he had been tooling around the Black Sea on Putin’s yacht. “And he said to me, ‘You need to remember we’re a nuclear power. As powerful as you. You Americans think you won the Cold War. You did not win the Cold War. We never fought that war. We could have, but we didn’t.’ And that put chills up my spine.”
There is a significant opportunity here, Tillerson said. “When Putin said the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century, it wasn’t because he loved communism. It was because Russia’s stature had been destroyed.
“Anybody who tries to think about Russia in terms of the Soviet era doesn’t know a thing about Russia. The seventy years of Soviet rule was a speed bump in Russian history and it had no lasting effect.
“If you want to understand Russia, they haven’t changed much culturally in 1,000 years. They are the most fatalistic people on the face of the earth, which is why they’re willing to live under lousy leaders. If you ask them about it, they’d say they don’t like it, but they’d say ‘Das Russia’—‘That’s Russia.’ They’d shrug their shoulders. I would talk to my Russian employees about it. Only one time did Russians rise up in revolution. And that didn’t turn out so well. So they look back on that and they say, Don’t do that again.”
Bottom line, Tillerson said, “You can deal with Putin. Obama was never able to. There is just a fundamental dislike of one another. Putin is a terrible racist, as we all know. All Russians are, generally. And Obama had a terrible disdain for Putin.”
Putin has a goal for Russia, Tillerson said. “They want recognition of their role in the global order. And Putin wants respect as a leader of a great country. We’ve never been willing to give him either.
“Now they view their role in the global world order as equivalent to ours. That’s what they seek.”
Trump seemed rapt at all this firsthand information about Putin.
