I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year

by Carol Leonnig

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  Over the years, Trump rarely has expressed misgivings. But he regrets his response to protests last summer in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and other cities. “I think if I had it to do again, I would have brought in the military immediately,” he said.

  Trump had no such second thoughts about his handling of the pandemic. He said he had been “very tough” in protecting the country by restricting travel, first from China and then from Europe. He said he did so against the wishes of his top medical advisers; in fact, most of them agreed with the restrictions before he made his decision, according to participants in the discussions and their contemporaneous notes. But he correctly said he pushed scientists at the FDA “at a level that they have never been pushed before” to get vaccines approved in record time.

  “I think we did a great job on COVID and it hasn’t been recognized,” Trump said, noting that other countries saw spikes in COVID-19 infections in the months after he left office. “The cupboards were bare. We didn’t have gowns. We didn’t have masks. We didn’t have ventilators. We didn’t have anything. . . . We brought in plane loads. We did a great job.”

  When we asked Trump why he encouraged people to believe things that weren’t true or to distrust science and the media, he delighted in talking about the scientific smarts in his family’s genes.

  “First of all, I’m a big person,” he said. “Do you know this? My uncle, Dr. John Trump, I think he was at [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] longer than any other professor. Totally brilliant man . . . He had numerous degrees. So that’s in the genes. I always go with that stuff. But it’s a little bit in the genes and Dr. John Trump, he was a great guy. My father’s brother. No, I’m a big believer in science. If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t have a vaccine. It depends. Are you talking about disinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a more beautiful word called disinformation.”

  When we pressed him on whether a president should be expected to be honest all the time, given his long record of exaggerating successes, downplaying pitfalls, and spreading misinformation, Trump said, “I want to be somebody that’s optimistic for our country. I think it’s very important.”

  Trump ridiculed Anthony Fauci as a self-promoter and lamented the doctor’s high popularity. He said the widespread praise for Fauci was undeserved, and mocked Fauci’s frequent request of people to call him by his first name.

  “A highly overrated person,” Trump said. “He’s a nice guy. I got along great with him. ‘Please call me Tony,’ I call him. ‘Please call me Tony.’ He’s a great promoter, but he was wrong on everything.”

  Trump also trashed Deborah Birx and said she was far too restrictive.

  “She was a lot of work, a real diva with the scarves and shit,” he said. “If it were up to her, we wouldn’t be meeting tonight. This place would be totally closed. You wouldn’t have three hundred people having dinner outside and schools open. . . . If it were up to her, everything would be closed forever.”

  “She’s a woman I always liked, but in the end I jettisoned her and I didn’t take her advice,” he said, adding: “She loves publicity almost as much as Fauci. I got some real beauties.”

  Trump credited himself with turning government officials into household names, but said it also had a negative consequence. The incredible excitement of his administration, he said, drove media interest in chronicling disputes and differences of opinion among his staff, creating a false impression that his administration was chaotic.

  “You have people that have never been stars before and all of a sudden The Washington Post is calling. New York Times is calling. CNN would love to have lunch with you. ‘Come up and meet our editorial staff!,’ ” Trump said. “All of these people are calling. You are a regular person in government. If you were [in the] Jimmy Carter [administration], you’re not calling these people. If you were [in the] Bush [administration], you’re not calling these people. With Trump, everybody becomes a star. I’m the greatest star-maker in history.”

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  Our interview with Trump was scheduled for one hour but stretched to two and a half. His press secretary chimed in every thirty minutes to let him know how long we had been speaking and to give him an opening to end it, but Trump seemed to enjoy the conversation and kept talking. Clusters of club members traipsed through the room before dinner on the Moorish-tiled patio overlooking the lagoon. Service staff gingerly arranged tables around the room’s perimeter for the buffet—a spread of jumbo gulf shrimp and fresh Wellpoint oysters over ice here, a bananas Foster station there.

  Some of Trump’s friends breezed past to greet him, interrupting the interview. Laura Ingraham stopped by and urged the former president to tune into her Fox show that night at 10:00. She said she would be talking about his former medical advisers. A few nights earlier, CNN had aired a documentary featuring critical comments by Birx, Fauci, and other members of Trump’s coronavirus task force.

  “We’re really going to put it to the doctors. You should watch,” Ingraham told Trump. Dressed in the classic Palm Beach attire of a bright-striped blouse and sherbet-colored slacks, Ingraham was one of the few women at the club that night wearing pants; the vast majority wore cocktail dresses and stiletto heels.

  Then Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Trump’s eldest son, paraded through, with a full face of makeup. She told her small clutch of guests to go out to the patio to take their seats and she would join them soon. Then she hovered nearby our interview to say hello to the former president.

  Guilfoyle’s approach seemed cautious and formal, unlike someone greeting her boyfriend’s father. She had recently bought a mansion with Donald Trump Jr. in nearby Jupiter, but she had other reasons to claim good standing in Trump’s world. Guilfoyle had been a major fundraiser for Trump’s campaign and promoted the claim that the election had been rigged. She asked Trump to please come by her dinner table later, where she would sit with Trump Jr., so she could introduce her friends to him.

  “They’re huge supporters of yours,” Guilfoyle stressed. Trump nodded and smiled, telling her he would swing by.

  Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican and former Navy SEAL, also came by, interrupting the interview to tell Trump that life in Palm Beach was obviously agreeing with him.

  “You look great, sir,” Crenshaw said. “What’s your secret?”

  As more dinner guests with plates began queuing up in the room to visit the raw bar and other food stations, Trump finally decided it was time to wrap up our conversation. He invited us to stay for dinner and instructed the maître d’ to find us a table. Then the former president stepped onto the veranda and into the last of the day’s sun. Right on cue, the dinner guests immediately stood up at their tables to applaud him. He took it all in, smiling. Just another Wednesday night at Mar-a-Lago. And off he went, table by table, to greet friends.

  Later in the evening Trump returned to check on us. He wanted to make sure we were comfortable. His gallantry seemed genuine.

  “Good conversation,” Trump said. “I’m getting the word out.”

  The interview, he said, was “a great honor.” He offered to do another if we needed to ask anything else and shrugged off the mention of how many hours he had already spent answering our questions.

  “I enjoyed it actually,” Trump said, a twinkle in his eye. “For some sick reason I enjoyed it.”

  Acknowledgments

  We first extend our appreciation to the many people who were willing to share their accounts from this tumultuous time. We cannot name them here, but each helped us immeasurably in telling the full story of a historic year. Some suffered and chafed in their service to President Trump and could have decided to pack up their memories and put this challenging period behind them. Many public officials sought to serve their country when the stakes couldn’t have been higher, and when safe
guarding Americans was often in conflict with fulfilling the demands of the president. We are grateful to them for helping us document this consequential year.

  This project would not have been possible without the generous support and commitment of our editors at The Washington Post. We thank our former executive editor, Marty Baron, whose commitment to shining a light on the powerful and unearthing truths not only propelled our newsroom but also fortified a free press as it came under attack. We are grateful to Steven Ginsberg, a guide and touchstone for the Post’s gripping coverage of the Trump administration and a critical advocate and inspiration for this deeper examination. We owe a debt as well to Cameron Barr, who ably led our remote newsroom after Marty’s retirement and kept our mothership sailing steadily forward amid a pandemic. We also thank Dave Clarke, Dan Eggen, Matea Gold, Tracy Grant, Lori Montgomery, Kat Downs Mulder, Krissah Thompson, and Peter Wallsten for the support and wisdom they lent to our reporting and this endeavor.

  Our work has been lifted and inspired by the very best journalists in America, our colleagues at the Post whose probing coverage of President Trump in this final year paved our path. We are grateful to them for their keen insights and friendship, and for shouldering the work when we were absent. Special thanks to Yasmeen Abutaleb, Devlin Barrett, Bob Costa, Alice Crites, Aaron Davis, Josh Dawsey, David Fahrenthold, Amy Gardner, Anne Gearan, Tom Hamburger, Shane Harris, Rosalind Helderman, Seung Min Kim, Dan Lamothe, Toluse Olorunnipa, Ashley Parker, Damian Paletta, Beth Reinhard, Missy Ryan, Lena Sun, and Matt Zapotosky.

  We have had the good fortune to find stability and unsurpassed vision at the Post. Carol came to the paper in 2000 and Philip in 2005, and we consider ourselves lucky to work in a newsroom that seeds excellence in its journalism and nurtures collegiality in its journalists. The Post’s mission flourishes because of an unbroken chain of leaders committed to the public good and our democracy. These values were first enshrined by Katharine Graham and protected by Don Graham and Katharine Weymouth. Jeff Bezos and Fred Ryan have championed and built upon the Graham family legacy with their determination to uphold the highest journalistic principles, hold the powerful to account, and expand the Post’s reach.

  We also are fortunate at the Post to work with a diligent group of public relations professionals, especially Cindy Andrade, Kris Coratti, Molly Gannon, and Shani George, who dedicate themselves to ensuring our journalism finds a broad audience on many platforms. We also are indebted to Alma Gill, Sam Martin, Elliot Postell, and Liz Whyte for giving us the tools to do our best work.

  We thought we knew all the reasons it was wonderful to have Ann Godoff as our book editor, but to partner with her again to make sense of this horrific year was a special privilege. Ann is a maestro who can conduct several symphonies at once, a ferocious competitor, and a steadfast champion of the deep reporting that infuses these pages. As the finest editors do, she demands of her writers what feels all but impossible, convinces them they can, and mounts the same Herculean effort on their behalf. William Heyward lent his considerable talent, intellectual firepower, and narrative instincts to this project. The superlative team at Penguin Press, including Casey Denis, Aly D’Amato, Tess Espinoza, Katie Hurley, Jane Cavolina, Gary Stimeling, Do Mi Stauber, Mike Brown, Alice Dalrymple, Kate Griggs, Will Jeffries, John Jusino, Lorie Young, Nicole Celli, Chelsea Cohen, Amanda Dewey, Gloria Arminio, Claire Vaccaro, and Yuki Hirose helped perfect and polish these pages. And the estimable Sarah Hutson, Matthew Boyd, and Colleen McGarvey helped maximize the reach of our reporting.

  Elyse Cheney is our brilliant literary agent, but far more than that to us both. She has been an integral part of our work throughout, giving us hours upon hours of her support and sage advice on everything from our narrative arc to our jacket design. Her level of commitment to us and to our work has been invaluable, impressive, and moving. We are grateful for Elyse and her team, including Allison Devereux, Claire Gillespie, Isabel Mendia, and Natasha Fairweather.

  A number of other people played essential roles in this project. Julie Tate, our longtime collaborator and friend, once again gave her all to stress test our manuscript. The rigor of her work is unparalleled. Kimberly Cataudella and Aaron Schaffer conducted essential research. Cynthia Colonna transcribed many of our interviews. Melina Mara, our friend and Post photojournalist, shot our author portraits.

  We have now spent five years in the trenches with scores of journalists at the top of their game, who each toiled and sacrificed to bring truth to the American public with unflinching professionalism. Our work builds upon and benefits from our competitors, of which there are too many to list here. This has been the most challenging and exhilarating period in American journalism during our lifetimes, and we are in awe of their contributions amid threats against them and disinformation.

  Rucker

  To my mother, Naomi, who raised me with unconditional love and endowed me with the character and courage to achieve my goals, thank you. You afforded me countless opportunities and empowered me to follow my passions and overcome my trepidations. I could never be the author or the man I am today without the sacrifices you made.

  My exceptional sister, Clara, has become as loving a mother as she is gifted a professional. She and Karen have created a nurturing home for Lee, my sweet and inquisitive nephew, who brings joy to my life. Our late grandparents, Bunny and Helen, brave champions of peace, equality, and justice, would be proud.

  Thank you to Carol Leonnig for her unbending determination and devotion to our endeavor. I was not sure how our partnership would evolve after we wrote A Very Stable Genius, for we had no intention of writing a sequel, but I am so glad we did, and that we did it together. Carol brought intelligence and shrewd intuition to our undertaking, and her penetrating questioning deepened our reporting. She never wavered in her commitment to our mission, no matter what it required, and history is richer for it.

  I had the great fortune to cover the final year of the Trump presidency as part of the fiercest White House reporting team in the news business: Josh Dawsey, Anne Gearan, Seung Min Kim, David Nakamura, Toluse Olorunnipa, and Ashley Parker, led by our deft and dedicated editors, Dan Eggen and Dave Clark. Our many collaborations made me a stronger journalist, and our lively Zooms helped me get through months of lockdown. Special thanks to Dan, my direct editor for nearly a decade. His rigor, instincts, and energy have been at the heart of our Trump coverage since even before the famous escalator ride.

  I am lucky to work in a newsroom where collegiality is the creed. Thank you as well to Dan Balz, Jabin Botsford, Bob Costa, Jose Del Real, Amy Gardner, Ann Gerhart, Tammy Haddad, Shane Harris, Roz Helderman, Tracy Jan, Jenna Johnson, Mary Jordan, Al Kamen, Paul Kane, Annie Linskey, Sally Quinn, Damian Paletta, Lisa Rein, Lois Romano, Eli Saslow, Maralee Schwartz, Valerie Strauss, Kevin Sullivan, Karen Tumulty, and Matt Viser for your warm friendship during the pandemic.

  It has been a privilege to work with the all-star team at NBC News and MSNBC. Thank you to Kasie Hunt, Rashida Jones, Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell, Elena Nachmanoff, Joy Reid, Jesse Rodriguez, Stephanie Ruhle, Katy Tur, Nicolle Wallace, Brian Williams, and so many others. I am indebted to the inimitable Alan Berger and his crack team at Creative Artists Agency for making it all possible.

  To Yamiche Alcindor, Peter Alexander, Peter Baker, Michael Bender, Geoff Bennett, Kaitlan Collins, Jeremy Diamond, Maggie Haberman, Hallie Jackson, Jonathan Karl, Annie Karni, Weijia Jiang, Tamara Keith, Carol Lee, Jonathan Lemire, Jeff Mason, Zeke Miller, Kelly O’Donnell, Katie Rogers, April Ryan, Mike Shear, Eli Stokols, Cecilia Vega, Kristen Welker, and so many others, thank you for being wonderful colleagues on the White House beat and for your companionship on the road.

  To Luis Gabriel Cuervo, Liz Dooghan, Borja Gracia, Anna Gregory, Mari Fer Merino, Justin Mills, Ryan Ozimek, John Petersen, Sarah Strom, and April Warren, who have been my D.C. family at Sunday night “Noche” dinners, thank you for your love and nourishment. To Marc
Adelman, Adrienne Arsht, Michael Barbaro, Andrew and Liz Cedar, Luke Frazier, Rick Guinne, Garrett Haake, Joel Johnson, Evelyn Kramer, Matt Lachman, Elyse Layton, Tom Lee, Lisa Lerer, Will and Addar Levi, Dafna Linzer, Rebecca Livengood, Sara Murray, Leslie Pope, Adam and Rachel Presser, Julia Pudlin, Maeve Reston, Matt Rivera, Tim Runfola, Graves Spindler, Rachel Streitfeld, Keith Urbahn, Burden Walker, Nate Wenstrup, Alicia Widge, and David Wishnick, thank you for always being there.

  Leonnig

  I want to thank the people who have now held me together through the grueling work of three books. The first is John Reeder. Words don’t convey how lucky I feel to have chosen him as my life partner. Unflappable, ethical, and centered, he reminds me what is important and helps me get there. He brings the lattes, the pep talks, the love. With him in my corner, it is all possible.

  To my wonderful daughters, Elise and Molly. You grew into even more beautiful people inside and out while this work was in progress. I stand stunned at what you and your friends have accomplished amid all the challenges this last year brought. Your determination, smiles, and even your TikTok dances brightened the hardest days lashed to the laptop. You make your father and me so proud.

  To my work partner, Phil Rucker. I was also incredibly lucky to partner with him, and even after having done this once before, I remain in awe of the rigor, creativity, and integrity he brought to each aspect of our work together for this second book. Readers across the country know what a graceful writer he is and rightfully count him among the best White House reporters in a generation. But working with him under incredible pressure, I got to experience the grace he has as a person, the hard extra mile he is willing to travel to give and be the very best.