by Joshua Green
Bannon’s fall from his exalted status as Trump’s top adviser wasn’t the result of a policy dispute, but the product of Trump’s annoyance that Bannon’s profile had come to rival his own. Trump grew incensed at the popular notion that Bannon was the one really running the show—that he was, as an infamous Time cover put it, “The Great Manipulator.” Soon afterward, Bannon was unceremoniously demoted, though he kept his job and clawed back to a position of influence. “I like Steve, but you have to remember, he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Trump told the New York Post. “I’m my own strategist.”
For a certain segment of people around the world, the Trump brand holds powerful appeal. It was powerful enough to drive the greatest upset in American political history. Before that, it induced a succession of business partners in places as far flung as Miami and Moscow, Dubai and Azerbaijan, to team up with Donald Trump. The lure is always the same: that forming a partnership will be a mutually profitable arrangement. No one can sell that idea like Trump. More often than not, however, those partners seem to end up disappointed.
As Trump’s presidency drifts and the scandals around him mount, the idea that he will follow through on the robust nationalist agenda he campaigned on seems less and less likely, and would be difficult to pull off even if he was inclined to try. Still, every president changes the contours of American politics, and Trump will, too. It may not be nearly as aggressively as Bannon envisioned when the two joined forces, or even necessarily in the direction he wanted, but it is also true that after Trump Republicans will have a harder time pursuing free trade and open immigration. Perhaps even more significant, the effects of Jeff Sessions’s elevation to attorney general will reverberate for years in a way that populist-nationalists will approve of.
But in the end, it’s hard to imagine that Bannon and the legions he spoke for will wind up as anything other than the latest partners disappointed when their deal with Trump turns sour.
—June 5, 2017
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
On November 8, 2016, the world shifted for just about everybody, including me. As strange as Trump’s victory was the realization that I’d had a front-row seat to many of the events that led to his presidency and had spent years getting to know many of the people responsible for it. At the outset of the election cycle, I’d approached the job of covering the Trump campaign as an interesting lark and a narrative bounty—a roller-coaster ride that, whatever its ups and downs, was certain to end on election day. It didn’t, of course. But trapped as we all are on the roller coaster, it seemed worthwhile to try to tell the full story.
This book would never have come to be without Josh Tyrangiel, my editor at Bloomberg Businessweek in 2015, who allowed me to spend eight months researching what became an eight-thousand-word feature story on an ex-Goldman Sachs banker with grandiose plans to upset U.S. politics whom practically no one had heard of at the time: Steve Bannon. Few editors show that kind of faith in their writers, which is why few are as highly regarded as Josh. Ellen Pollock and Brad Wieners, who rate in the same category, put the story on Businessweek’s cover and gave it an unforgettable headline (“This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America”) that was far more apt than any of us realized at the time. I want to give special thanks to my beloved story editor, John Homans, who, in addition to greatly improving the original feature story with his deft editing, also read (and greatly improved) the chapters in this book. A special thanks as well to my Bloomberg bosses, Mike Bloomberg, John Micklethwait, Reto Gregori, and Wes Kosova, for allowing me time to work on this book, even amid the most news-intensive early presidency in memory.
I’m deeply indebted to several current and former Bloomberg colleagues who went far beyond the call of duty in sharing their reporting and expertise. Zachary Mider, in particular, who got to the story of Robert and Rebekah Mercer before almost anyone else did and is undoubtedly the most knowledgeable journalist on the subject, generously provided notes and on-the-ground reporting to help me re-create the scenes of the Mercers’ 2015 Christmas party. His published work on the Mercers also informed this book in several places. Sasha Issenberg was an invaluable collaborator and traveling companion during the presidential campaign’s stretch run and into the bleary early morning hours after election day, when we pieced together for Businessweek exactly how Trump had pulled it off. Sasha’s unparalleled knowledge of data analytics, modeling, and cutting-edge campaign survey research (and his ability to explain it in plain English) made our pieces, and this book, much better than I ever could have managed on my own. Jennifer Epstein, a campaign road warrior who traveled with Hillary Clinton throughout, also generously shared her reporting notes and recollections.
My thanks also to Mark Lilla for his guidance on French intellectual history and antimodernist philosophy, and especially to Mark Sedgwick, both for his fascinating history of the Traditionalists and for generously critiquing a draft of my chapter on Bannon’s fascination with them.
One of the most unexpected and interesting areas of reporting, for me, was unearthing the history of corporate America’s fondness for The Apprentice and the multicultural audience Trump drew. I was first alerted to the liberal skew of Trump’s viewers by Will Feltus back in 2011, during the “birther” craze. Since then, Will and the staff of National Media, Inc., have produced fascinating demographic research for me on several occasions, and for this I will always be grateful. I’d like to thank Eric Leininger of the Kellogg School of Management (and before that, McDonald’s Corporation) for explaining how Fortune 500 corporations decide where to advertise and for connecting me with several sources involved in the ad-buying process during the early years of The Apprentice. I’d also like to thank Monique Nelson of UniWorld for her insights on minority representation in prime-time television. As a reporter for a business magazine, I have not encountered a sharper and more thoughtful CEO. Thanks as well to Henry Schafer of The Q Scores Company for several informative conversations.
This book drew on stories I wrote during the campaign that were often assigned, edited, and published by a talented group of journalists who include Mike Nizza, Elizabeth Titus, Kelly Bare, Allison Hoffman, Matthew Philips, and Howard Chua-Eoan. Several source relationships were deepened or made possible by my stints guest hosting the Bloomberg TV show With All Due Respect. I thank Mark Halperin and John Heilemann for that opportunity. Thanks also to Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of Morning Joe, and to Jesse Rodriguez. It’s a cliché of Washington journalism that a lot of reporting is done in greenrooms—it also happens to be true. I’m grateful to Bloomberg’s publicists Rachel Nagler and Julia Walker for putting me there so often.
Brad Stone, David Frum, and Jonathan Kelly provided helpful advice and encouragement at critical points. My editor at Penguin Press, Scott Moyers, was a joy to work with throughout the writing process, from our first conversation, when he outlined the book, through the final days of what sometimes felt to me like Trumpian chaos, but was in fact a finely choreographed display of publishing prowess. That process was aided by Christopher Richards, Kiara Barrow, Liz Calamari, Bill Peabody, Karen Mayer, Ann Godoff, Matt Boyd, Sarah Hutson, and Tricia Conley, as well as John Lawton and Christopher Dufault. Thanks also to Darren Haggar and Amanda Dewey.
Any campaign narrative is informed by the work of dozens of talented reporters. That was certainly the case here. There are too many to list individually, but I’m grateful to all those whose work has shaped and informed my understanding of American politics. They’re a put-upon lot, and naming them wouldn’t be professionally helpful, so I’d like to collectively thank the many current and former Trump staffers, officials, and advisers who served as sources for my reporting—one even hiding me in a Trump Tower pantry so we could speak undetected. I also had help from an assortment of people at Breibart News, GAI, and Fox News.
My agent, Gail Ross, was instrumental in putting this project together quickly, but also paused
to make sure that it wouldn’t be suicidal from a psychic and family-balance perspective. It wasn’t (quite) thanks to the support of friends and family. Diane Roberts gave me writing space high above the barking dogs and leaf blowers. My sister and brothers-in-law—Abby and Chris Forhan and Alec Woodard—have loved and bolstered my family through years of deadlines. My in-laws, Mark and Susie Woodard, took in my family so that I would have time alone to write. My parents, Gary and Priscilla Green, modeled and encouraged the writing life, and reassured me during moments of despondency as only parents can.
More than anyone else, I want to thank my wife, Alicia, and my two young kids. After promising them throughout the campaign that the stress and time away would end in November, I made their lives more difficult by deciding to write this book. From the first mention of it, Alicia was unflagging in her support—through absences and meltdowns, missed family functions, and unexpected midnight phone calls from Trump officials. I missed my wife and kids tremendously, I love them deeply, and I’m happiest of all to be back in their presence.
NOTES
Preface
My piece argued: “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin,” Joshua Green, The Atlantic, June 2011.
Chapter Two: “Where’s My Steve?”
“It’s like poison”: The Trump-Winn story is drawn from George Anastasia, “Donald Trump Vs. Steve Wynn,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 12, 2000.
“a relentless ferret”: Francis X. Clines, “‘Pit Bull’ Congressman Gets Chance to Be More Aggressive, New York Times, March 9, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/09/us/pit-bull-congressman-gets-a-chance-to-be-more-aggressive.html.
A volunteer firefighter: Lloyd Grove, “A Firefighter’s Blazing Trail,” Washington Post, November 13, 1997, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/11/13/a-firefighters-blazing-trail/b9beb874-fd7b-4dfe-b285-ffcd385501a2/.
Waxman’s team discovered: George Lardner Jr. and John Mintz, “Burton Releases Hubbell Tapes,” Washington Post, May 5, 1998, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/hubbell050598.htm.
The show’s host, Tim Russert: David Brock, “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” New York, May 18, 1998, nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/2732/.
“The Burton investigation”: Paul Kane, “Rep. Dan Burton, Who Transformed House Panel into a Feared Committee, to Retire,” Washington Post, January 31, 2012, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rep-dan-burton-who-transformed-house-panel-into-a-feared-committee-to-retire/2012/01/31/gIQACFD2fQ_story.html.
George Clooney, who once stormed: Elizabeth Leonard, “George Clooney Unloads on Casino Owner Steve Wynn,” People, May 2, 2014, people.com/celebrity/george-clooney-unloads-on-casino-owner-steve-wynn/.
Trump had accepted both invitations: PageSix.com staff, “Doubled Up,” New York Post, March 25, 2011, pagesix.com/2011/03/25/doubled-up/.
“I’m fine with this stuff”: Roxanne Roberts, “I Sat Next to Donald Trump at the Infamous 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” Washington Post, April 28, 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/i-sat-next-to-donald-trump-at-the-infamous-2011-white-house-correspondents-dinner/2016/04/27/5cf46b74-0bea-11e6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html.
“incredibly gracious and engaged”: Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns, “Donald Trump’s Presidential Run Began in an Effort to Gain Stature,” New York Times, March 12, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/us/politics/donald-trump-campaign.html?_r=0.
Trump had indeed toyed: “Before 2016, Donald Trump Had a History of Toying with a Presidential Run,” PBS NewsHour transcript, PBS.org, July 20, 2106, www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/2016-donald-trump-history-toying-presidential-run/.
One day that fall: Michael Kruse, “The True Story of Donald Trump’s First Campaign Speech—in 1987,” Politico, February 5, 2016, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/donald-trump-first-campaign-speech-new-hampshire-1987-213595.
“People have birth certificates”: “Trump on Obama’s Birth Certificate: ‘Maybe It Says He’s a Muslim,’” FoxNews.com, nation.foxnews.com/donald-trump/2011/03/30/trump-obama-maybe-hes-muslim.
National polls taken in mid-April: “Poll: Donald Trump Leads 2012 GOP Field,” USNews.com, April 15, 2011, www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/04/15/poll-donald-trump-leads-2012-gop-field.
“Is the birther debate”: Newsmakers, “Newsmakers with Reince Priebus,” C-SPAN, April 8, 2011, www.c-span.org/video/?298925-1/newsmakers-reince-priebus.
“I realized,” he said: Haberman and Burns, “Donald Trump’s Presidential Run Began in an Effort to Gain Stature,” op. cit.
George Conway earned: Ryan Lizza, “Kellyanne Conway’s Political Machinations,” New Yorker, October 17, 2016, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/kellyanne-conways-political-machinations.
“I’m very honored”: “Donald Trump Offers Obama 5 Million Dollars,” posted on October 24, 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-lWv0cpCnM.
An analysis of his Twitter feed: Charles Warzel and Lam Thuy Vo, “Here’s Where Donald Trump Gets His News,” BuzzFeed News, December 3, 2016, www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/trumps-information-universe?utm_term=.alYW6Dqgx#.hhxxJnvK4.
Chapter Three: Bildungsroman
moved to a leafy neighborhood: Graham Moomaw, “Steve Bannon Talks Richmond Roots, Says Trump Will Condemn All Forms of Racism,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 26, 2016, www.richmond.com/news/local/government-politics/article_0f87d838-4aaa-5e4f-b717-6a342a00b89c.html.
“We were Kennedy freaks”: Matt Viser, “Harvard Classmates Barely Recognize the Bannon of Today,” Boston Globe, November 26, 2016, www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/11/26/look-steven-bannon-and-his-years-harvard-business-school/B2m0j85jh5jRKzKbMastzK/story.html.
“He would come home”: Ibid.
an insurgent campaign for president: Matea Gold, Rosalind S. Helderman, Gregory S. Schneider, and Frances Stead Sellers, “For Trump Adviser Stephen Bannon, Fiery Populism Followed Life in Elite Circles,” Washington Post, November 19, 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-trump-adviser-stephen-bannon-fiery-populism-followed-life-in-elite-circles/2016/11/19/de91ef40-ac57-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html.
“We were all very involved”: Michael Kranish and Craig Whitlock, “How Bannon’s Navy Service During the Iran Hostage Crisis Shaped His Views,” Washington Post, February 10, 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bannons-navy-service-during-the-iran-hostage-crisis-shaped-his-views/2017/02/09/99f1e58a-e991-11e6-bf6f-301b6b443624_story.html?utm_term=.55daec272e01.
“He was not a rebel”: Matt Viser, “Harvard Classmates Barely Recognize Bannon of Today, Boston Globe, November 26, 2016, https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/11/26/look-steven-bannon-and-his-years-harvard-business-school/B2m0j85jh5jRKzKbMastzK/story.html.
Chapter Four: “A Dangerous Way to Look at the World”
Bannon started a production company: Daniel Miller, “Inside the Hollywood Past of Stephen K. Bannon, Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2016, www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-stephen-bannon-donald-trump-hollywood-20160830-snap-story.html.
a shady, little-known Italian: David McClintick and Anne Faircloth, “The Predator: How an Italian Thug Looted MGM, Brought Crédit Lyonnais to Its Knees, and Made the Pope Cry, Fortune, July 8, 1996, archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/07/08/214344/index.htm.
Parretti was arrested: “Rob Wells, Financial Settles Fraud Charges with SEC,” The Hour (Norwalk, CT), January 5, 1996, news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1916&dat=19960105&id=yxVJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jwYNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4634,444961, James Bates, “Ex-Studio Owner Parretti Arrested on Fraud Warrant,” Los Angeles Times, October 19, 1995, articles.latimes.com/1995-10-19/business/fi-58839_1_giancarlo-parretti.
global media conglomerates: Stephen Prince, A New Pot of Gold: Hollywood Under the Electronic Rainbow, 1980–1989 (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 158.
Crédit Lyonnais sold MGM: Lisa B
annon and Bruce Orwall, “Kerkorian Group to Acquire MGM for $1.3 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, July 17, 1996, www.wsj.com/articles/SB837557246545964000.
“We were wrong by a factor of five”: “Bannon’s claim to have a piece of the Seinfeld rights has drawn a good deal of attention since I first published it in Bloomberg Businessweek in 2015, with Forbes suggesting the rights could be worth as much as $32 million, and the New Yorker’s Connie Bruck raising the question of whether they exist at all. According to a source familiar with the terms of the deal, Bannon’s Seinfeld rights went to the French bank Société Générale when it acquired Bannon’s firm so that Bannon and his partner could defer income rather than pay a lump-sum tax on the total assets. The Seinfeld money flows to Bannon through Société Générale, income that is reflected on Bannon’s White House disclosure statement. According to the source, Bannon and his partner have each collected close to $2 million and counting.
“great intellectual property”: Carl DiOrio and Josef Adalian, “Hypnotic Wins Big in Vegas,” Variety, January 8, 2004, variety.com/2004/film/markets-festivals/hypnotic-wins-big-in-vegas-1117898069/.
helped orchestrate its great coup: Sharon Waxman, “Firm Believer,” Washington Post, July 8, 2002, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/07/08/firm-believer/c1a53bfe-f8f0-4888-a5b7-8315d85aa78e/.
Amid charges of cocaine use: Sharon Waxman, “Firm Believer,” Washington Post, July 8, 2002.
The business centered on: The next three paragraphs draw on Julian Dibbell, “The Decline and Fall of an Ultra-Rich Gaming Empire,” Wired, November 2008.
