“Well, you just broke my wife’s heart, because she already called the moving vans,” Redfield told the president.
Trump offered a forced laugh. They said goodbye.
But by the next week, Redfield was seriously considering quitting. Unlike many of the president’s detractors, Redfield admired Trump as a leader and believed he was unusually gifted in his ability to process a lot of information quickly and make instinctive decisions. He thought Trump’s decisions to restrict travel from China in January and from Europe in March had been bold because in each instance he had rapidly overruled his economic advisers. But watching the president and his White House advisers reject science and operate with a campaign-only mindset in the summer and fall, skipping past difficult realities and painting a fantasy in which the virus was on its last legs, took a toll on Redfield. He became uncomfortable with the Emerald City facade.
On September 29, the coronavirus task force gathered in the Situation Room to decide what to do about cruise ships. The no-sail order that Redfield authorized in March and successfully pushed to extend in July was set to expire the next day. Redfield believed infections were likely to spike in the winter months ahead and that resuming travel on cruise ships, which were petri dishes for pathogens, would be irresponsible. He urged the task force to extend the ban until the end of February 2021, at a minimum, by which time some Americans might be vaccinated.
As Redfield advocated for extending the ban, Vice President Pence, who chaired the meeting, nodded and listened politely, but his face was dour. Pence rejected Redfield’s proposal and told him he thought it was too draconian and could inflict too much economic pain on cruise lines, which had already laid off workers and taken a massive beating on Wall Street. The Trump administration extended the ban only another month, until October 31, which was what the industry proposed. The Cruise Lines International Association had announced it would voluntarily suspend its cruising business until that date.
Redfield believed that as the CDC director he was legally the final authority on a decision of this nature. Being overruled by Pence made Redfield ask himself, If I’m not allowed to protect public health, how can I do this job? He considered resigning if the cruising ban was not extended further.
Redfield spoke with Marc Short. “This is a really important public health issue that I feel has to be done,” he said. “I’m not going to be able to do my job if these things aren’t operationalized. I feel very strongly about it.”
Later that day, Axios’s Jonathan Swan reported that Pence had rejected Redfield’s push to extend the ban. His story included comments from anonymous sources saying Pence and others in the White House had bowed to a powerful industry’s wishes and were rushing to reopen businesses before the election, putting the public at risk. The cruise industry had a major presence in Florida, one of the key battleground states for Trump’s reelection.
White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern rejected that suggestion. “The president, the vice president, and the task force follow the science and data to implement policies that protect the public health and also facilitate the safe reopening of our country,” he said in a statement to Swan. “It is not about politics. It is about saving lives.”
That statement was misleading, as Pence had rejected the counsel of the top scientist advising him and the data on viral spread on cruise ships. But Redfield refused to give up. Over the next month, he planned how he could hot-wire another extension. He and his staff designed a “conditional” sail order, one that would allow cruise ships to begin a return to sailing in phases, with firm social distancing, testing, and quarantine rules. The order reminded the industry—and the White House—of the studies showing that the virus had rapidly spread aboard a densely populated ship, and often passed from one voyage to the next via infected crew members. The phased plan created substantial and costly hurdles up front. The cruise ships would first have to perform simulated cruises to show they had implemented new measures and were equipped to follow testing protocols for crew and passengers. Only then could a real cruise set sail, albeit with a drastically limited number of passengers.
The White House, facing the risk that Redfield might resign, agreed to the phased-in start. The industry, confronting the high costs of these test runs, voluntarily suspended cruises through the end of the year. Redfield had won.
* * *
—
For Trump, September 26 was a day of celebration. On September 18, Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the modern feminist icon, had died at age eighty-seven from complications of pancreatic cancer. Her death presented Trump with the third Supreme Court vacancy of his presidency—and an historic opportunity to shift the court to the right by replacing a liberal hero with a hard-line conservative. Trump had moved quickly, and on September 26 he formally nominated Amy Coney Barrett, a forty-eight-year-old federal judge in Indiana. That Saturday, more than 150 guests arrived at the White House for Trump’s Rose Garden announcement. It was a crisp and sunny autumn day in Washington. There was a feeling of invincibility in the air.
Upon arriving, attendees were administered rapid coronavirus tests by White House doctors and waited in a room, wearing masks, for their results. Those who tested negative were told it was safe to remove their masks, so they did. In the Rose Garden, guests mingled, shook hands, and hugged one another. The maskless mixing continued indoors at a reception where guests personally congratulated Barrett.
Attendees included Cabinet members and senior White House officials, Republican senators, Barrett’s family, family members of the late justice Antonin Scalia, and other supporters of the president, including Rudy Giuliani, Laura Ingraham, and Chris Christie. The Reverend John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, the law school from which Barrett graduated and worked as a professor, flew in from Indiana, where his campus had been reeling from a coronavirus outbreak.
Attendees were seemingly so indifferent to the virus that the gathering resembled a normal event from before the outbreak of the pandemic. To the millions of Americans watching on television as Barrett introduced herself and Trump testified to her qualifications, it appeared there was nothing to worry about.
That weekend Trump had a full schedule of non–socially distanced interactions. After the Barrett event, Trump flew to Middletown, Pennsylvania, where he spoke at an evening campaign rally. The next day, September 27, the president played golf at Trump National Golf Club in northern Virginia, held a news conference at the White House, and hosted a reception for Gold Star parents. Trump also met that weekend with Christie, Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway, Hope Hicks, Jason Miller, Stephen Miller, Bill Stepien, and a few other advisers to prepare for his upcoming debate with Biden.
The Gold Star event the night of September 27 honored the families of fallen service members. Trump gave formal remarks about the Gold Star families in the East Room and then mingled privately with many of them. As with all White House guests who met the president, the Gold Star parents were first tested for the coronavirus and did not disclose any symptoms.
As soon as the reception ended, Trump complained to some of his advisers about having been close to the Gold Star families, a concern he had not had about mingling with Republican officials and friends celebrating Barrett’s nomination a day prior.
“You guys are letting people entirely too close to me,” the germaphobe president said. “It’s so sad, these Gold Star families are telling these stories, they’re weeping, they’re crying, they want to hug you, and they’re all over me. You guys should not let these people close to me. They’re way too close.
“If they have COVID,” Trump added, “I’m definitely going to get it.”
* * *
—
At about 3:30 p.m. on September 27, Candice Parscale called police in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to report that her husband, Brad, Trump’s former campaign manager, had been talking about suicide and may have just shot
himself. When officers arrived outside their waterfront home in the Seven Isles neighborhood, they first found Candice on the street, panicked and barefoot wearing a bikini top and a towel wrapped around her waist, having fled her home. She told police that Brad was drunk, had argued with her, made suicidal comments, grabbed a gun, racked the slide, and loaded it in her presence. Afraid for her own safety, Candice said she ran out of the house on foot and heard a possible gunshot, though later assumed Brad had not shot himself because she heard him ranting inside and their dog barking frantically.
Candice told police that Brad drinks, “suffers from PTSD,” and had hit her, according to police reports. Candice had several bruises on both arms as well as contusions on her cheek and forehead, which she said she got a few days earlier from an altercation with Brad. She said Brad had been stressed out for the past two weeks and had made suicidal comments over the past week, talking about shooting himself.
Brad Parscale had had a difficult time dealing with his July demotion. He went from being a MAGA celebrity who flew around on Air Force One and had the ear of the president to a castaway in Florida. His proximity to power, intoxicating as it was for so many Trump aides, suddenly was all but nil. Parscale still tried calling Trump every week, but only sometimes got through to the president. The two spoke in late September, a few days before Candice Parscale called police to the house. Brad Parscale told Trump that Stepien and other campaign leaders were “fucking up.”
“They’re not letting me do what I need to do to help you win,” Parscale said. “You asked me to do digital and they’re not letting me do it.”
Kushner called around this time as well. “We’re not sure we made the right decision,” he told Parscale. “We need you to come back and [look over] what Bill’s doing. We don’t think he’s making good choices.” Kushner told other aides he had exaggerated his concerns about Stepien to Parscale because he wanted to puff up the former campaign manager. He knew Parscale had been distraught and he wanted to keep him involved on the campaign because he valued his data analysis.
Parscale had booked a flight to Washington for Monday, September 28, to return to campaign headquarters and, as Kushner asked, monitor what Stepien was doing as campaign manager.
But he never made that flight. When police got to his house on September 27, officers outside contacted him on the phone and asked him to leave. But Parscale stayed. His speech was slurred, and he seemed to be crying, according to police reports. Police called in crisis negotiators and a SWAT team. Police eventually got Parscale to exit the home. “I’m not trying to kill myself,” Parscale told officers as he walked down his driveway, barefoot, bare-chested, wearing shorts and a baseball cap, and clutching a can of beer. An officer commanded him multiple times, “Get on the ground.” When Parscale stayed standing, the officer tackled him at the waist and pushed him to the ground. Police handcuffed and detained Parscale. “I didn’t do anything,” Parscale said. Police went inside and secured ten firearms: five handguns, two shotguns, two rifles, and a small revolver. They brought Parscale his phone, shirt, and shoes, and transported him to Broward Health Medical Center under the Baker Act, a Florida law that allows authorities to commit people they believe pose a danger to themselves.
The Trump campaign offered support to Parscale initially after his hospitalization. Campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh issued a statement referring to Parscale as “a member of our family.” But later, after the president was briefed on the incident, Murtaugh issued a new statement attempting to capitalize politically on the incident.
“The disgusting, personal attacks from Democrats and disgruntled RINOs have gone too far, and they should be ashamed of themselves for what they’ve done to this man and his family,” Murtaugh said. RINO was an acronym for Republicans in Name Only, a derisive term for Republicans deemed too soft in their support for GOP policies or politicians.
* * *
—
In the weeks leading up to the first presidential debate on September 29 at the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Biden spent considerable time practicing—reading briefing books; rehearsing his criticisms of Trump and his defenses of his record; getting used to the ping-pong nature of a two-person debate; training himself to keep his answers to ninety seconds and his follow-up points to thirty seconds; and performing from behind a lectern in mock debates staged by his advisers.
But Trump kept putting off his debate preparation until suddenly the big night was near. Trump’s advisers were worried about the president’s readiness. Sure, he had sparred incessantly with reporters, but he had not been on a debate stage in four years, and despite winning the election, he was hardly considered a skilled debater. Trump could land a punch, but his advisers knew he struggled to recall facts or to deliver clear and concise messages. Stepien fretted over Trump’s ability to recall policy details or recite his accomplishments in a range of areas—not because the president was old or didn’t pay attention, but simply because so much had happened over the past four years and he couldn’t stick to disciplined talking points.
Lindsey Graham, who had similar concerns, encouraged Trump to avoid nasty personal exchanges with Biden. “The more you talk about issues the better you’re going to do,” the senator told him. “Sound like the president. Look like the president. Don’t take Joe for granted. He’ll be fine. You’ve got to [be] the storyteller on foreign policy, what you’re doing, trying to turn around the COVID, marching toward a vaccine—that kind of stuff. Just tell the story of your accomplishments.”
To tell that story effectively, Trump needed to study and focus. But his message to the worrywarts on his campaign was, “Guys, I got this.”
The weekend of September 26, Trump finally sat for a series of full debate prep sessions. Christie, a former prosecutor and widely considered to be one of the Republican Party’s most agile debaters, led the session. He coached Trump to be aggressive in the first thirty minutes of the ninety-minute debate. That was when the most people tuned in and paid the closest attention, and it was a chance to set a tone and framework, with both Biden and the moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News, for the remainder of the debate.
“That first thirty minutes, you come out there and you are letting people know the kind of president Donald Trump is and the kind of president he will be over the course of the next four years,” Christie told Trump.
Christie also advised Trump to stay on offense. “You’ve got to put him on his heels,” he said. “Bait him on Hunter. See if you can get under his skin on Hunter. And don’t let him lie about you. If he lies about you, go right back at him.”
Conway cautioned against being too aggressive out of the gate and counseled Trump to let Biden hoist himself on his own petard.
“Let Biden speak,” she told the president. “Numbers totally fluster Biden. He gets them confused all the time. He will get tired and lose his luster.”
In mock exchanges with Trump, Christie played Biden and Conway played Wallace. She was tough with her questions and Christie was brutal with his attacks and interruptions. Together, they were trying to rough up the president so he would be ready.
As Conway told Trump, “There’s no debate moderator who’s going to be that rude to you. They’ll be that challenging, but they won’t be officious. And it’s good that I’m being angry and getting up in your face. It helps control the temperament.”
Trump had invited Giuliani to the sessions, after the former New York mayor called the president asking to be included. Giuliani wanted to help and showed up at the September 27 session armed with talking points about Hunter Biden and his work in Ukraine and China. Giuliani had been pushing stories about Hunter Biden with media outlets and wanted Trump to have ammunition to make the case against his opponent’s son.
Giuliani clashed with Christie and Conway. Whereas Christie suggested merely mentioning Hunter Biden as a means to throw Joe Biden off his balance, G
iuliani thought Trump should try to litigate his overseas entanglements. Most of the other advisers found Giuliani’s advice to be “supremely unhelpful,” as one characterized his coaching tips for the president. Though not an official member of the debate team, Giuliani wanted to return for Trump’s prep session on September 28, the day before the debate. Aides told Giuliani they would be gathering at 2:00 p.m., though they were scheduled to start at noon. They had tricked Giuliani by giving him the wrong time. He showed up so late he only got to participate in the final half hour of prep.
On September 29, by the time Trump touched down in Cleveland he had become convinced that starting on the offensive and staying there for the entire ninety minutes was the key to beating Biden. The debate devolved into chaos and acrimony from the get-go. Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden, rarely letting him finish a full sentence. He also insulted his opponent, angrily raised his voice, and, yes, lied. Trump’s badgering and jeering was so obscene that Wallace pleaded with him multiple times to stick to the debate rules the two campaigns had negotiated and agreed to, and to let Biden speak when it was his turn. At one point, an exasperated Biden begged of Trump, “Will you shut up, man?”
Trump’s bullying largely overwhelmed any differences of substance between the candidates. Both men spoke in sweeping and apocalyptic terms about the other. Trump argued that if Biden were elected, the country would experience “a depression the likes of which you’ve never seen,” while Biden said the nation had become “weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided, and more violent” during Trump’s presidency.
Heeding Giuliani’s advice, Trump pursued a deeply personal attack on Biden. When Biden gave an impassioned defense of the patriotism and heroism of his late son, Beau, who died of brain cancer and had served in the Iraq War, Trump seized the moment as an opening to attack the integrity of his surviving son.
I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year Page 32
