Tillerson and Kelly both insisted they knew nothing about it. Kelly was firm, telling the Mexican officials that the United States was not sending any troops. Still, Osorio Chong was stone-faced as he cited chapter and verse of the Mexican Constitution. “Let me explain to you why this is never going to happen,” the interior secretary said, assuring the Americans his country’s laws prohibit U.S. troops from coming onto Mexican soil.
The Mexicans kept their composure, which Kelly and Tillerson considered a gift. Setting aside the craziness from Trump, the Mexican leaders appeared to be working overtime to keep their eyes on the bigger prize: a productive working relationship with the United States, almost in spite of its president. When Kelly and Tillerson were done assuring the Mexicans in private, Kelly went to clean up the public mess. “Give me my binder,” he told David Lapan, his communications director. He wanted the folder where he kept his prepared remarks. “I need to make some changes.”
Kelly’s instincts were to try to correct the record and ensure both the Mexican officials and the international media that the U.S. military would not actually be deployed as troops to guard the border. The press conference started about twenty minutes late. Kelly was the last of the four principals to speak. He began by celebrating Mexico as a critical U.S. ally in combating trafficking and criminal gangs. Then he lifted up his head and stared over the room, where the local press and traveling U.S. press corps sat with microphones running. “Now this is something I would really like you all to pay attention to because it is frequently misrepresented or misreported in the press,” Kelly said. “Let me be very, very clear. There will be no—repeat no—mass deportations. Everything we do at DHS will be done legally, according to human rights and the legal justice system of the United States.”
Kelly explained that deportations would be focused on criminals and stressed the “interaction and friendship” between Mexico and the United States. Then he returned to his earlier point: “Again, listen to this, no, repeat no use of military force in immigration operations. None. I repeat: There will be no use of military in this. . . . At least half of you try to get that right, because it continues to come up in your reporting.”
Kelly had gotten out the message but found a clever way to correct the president: scolding the press, even though they were merely reporting the president’s own words. The moment was a forerunner for the rash actions he would confront again and again from Trump.
Kelly had a deep, nuanced, and personal understanding of the desperation that fueled the migration from Central America northward from his years as commander of the military’s U.S. Southern Command. Though Trump was fixated on erecting a wall, Kelly believed a sea-to-sea physical barrier was not the solution to illegal border crossings. In the secure confines of the Department of Homeland Security’s Washington headquarters, Kelly would snort at Trump’s public pronouncements about a wall with his top deputies. “Oh, come on, it’s bullshit. We’re not building any wall,” Kelly would tell them. He would really get a chuckle out of Trump’s promise to force Mexico to pay for the wall. Confiding in his aides, the secretary would say of his boss, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Three
THE ROAD TO OBSTRUCTION
On March 1, 2017, nearly six weeks after President Trump had raised his right hand and swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, he struggled to read aloud the words of the founding document. A film crew had come to the White House to record the new president reading a section of the Constitution. Trump chose to participate in the HBO production because he did not want to forgo the chance to be filmed for history, and he knew that as the sitting president he would be the documentary’s most important character.
The documentary, titled The Words That Built America, was directed by Alexandra Pelosi, a daughter of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. Her conceit was that the country was starkly divided after the ugliness of the 2016 campaign but the founding documents remained a unifying force for the nation’s factions. Pelosi and her team had a novel and distinctly bipartisan hook: all six living presidents, as well as six vice presidents, would join in reading the Constitution on camera, while other political figures and actors would read portions of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. Each performance would be edited to create a lively, unabridged reading of the treasured documents that have united the nation for more than two centuries.
On March 1, Pelosi and her crew arrived at the White House, and as they were getting ready in the Blue Room, Trump entered the opulent parlor, which sits at the center of the residence’s first floor and opens onto the South Portico. The Blue Room, distinguished by its French blue draperies and gold wallpaper, is steeped in history. It was where President Grover Cleveland and his wife exchanged wedding vows in 1886, and every December the White House’s primary Christmas tree is erected at the center of the oval-shaped room.
On this day, Trump seemed stiff and uncomfortable. Though he was technically in his own home, he did not greet his guests. Rather, he stood waiting for someone to approach him. Pelosi moved in to thank Trump for participating in this special history project, but he appeared to have no idea who she was, apparently not briefed on her political lineage or her role as the director. The president asked for some water, and with no staff bringing any to him, Pelosi handed him a bottle of Aquafina from her purse. “I’ve been into the White House,” Pelosi later said of visits to see previous presidents. “There are always protocols. Here there were no rules, no protocol.” She added, “There’s so much wrong with the whole thing. I’m thinking, isn’t there someone who’s supposed to guard what he’s eating and drinking?”
Meanwhile, a White House staffer gave the other crew members instructions about what they could and could not do with the president. The very first rule was for the makeup artist: Do not touch the president’s hair. On his face, light powder only. The next instruction was for the technical crew: Could they make the lighting a little more orange? The president preferred a warm glow on camera. The mention of “orange” struck some in the room as an odd choice. Outside the bubble of the White House, late night TV show hosts and cartoonists had been mocking the perpetually orange hue of Trump’s skin.
Pelosi had let presidents and vice presidents choose the portion of the Constitution they wanted to read. Many were wary of reading the section on the rules for impeachment or foreign emoluments. Trump had selected the opening of Article II, the part of the Constitution that addresses a president’s election and the scope of his or her power. It would normally have been the perfect selection for a president—but was an ironic one for Trump, who had spoken of his desire to exercise his executive power as much as possible, including by threatening Congress and challenging the judiciary.
With LED lights on stilts in front of him, Trump took his seat. “You’re lucky you got the easy part,” Pelosi told him cheerfully. “It gets complicated after this.” But the president stumbled, trying to get out the words in the arcane, stilted form the Founding Fathers had written. Trump grew irritated. “It’s very hard to do because of the language here,” Trump told the crew. “It’s very hard to get through that whole thing without a stumble.” He added, “It’s like a different language, right?” The cameraman tried to calm Trump, telling him it was no big deal, to take a moment and start over. Trump tried again, but again remarked, “It’s like a foreign language.”
The section, like many parts of the Constitution, was slightly awkward—an anachronistic arrangement of words that don’t naturally trip off the tongue. Members of the crew exchanged looks, trying not to be obvious. Some believed Trump would eventually get it, but others were more concerned. The president, already bristling about his missteps, was getting angry. He chided the crew, accusing them of distracting him. “You know, your paper was making a lot of noise. It’s tough enough,” Trump said.
“Every time he stumbled, he manufactured something to blame people,” another pers
on in the room recalled. “He never said, ‘Sorry, I’m messing this up.’ [Other] people would screw up and say, ‘Ohhhh, I’m sorry.’ They would be self-effacing. He was making up excuses and saying there were distracting sounds. . . . He was definitely blaming everyone for his inability to get through it. That was prickly, or childish.” Though stiff, he eventually made it through without any errors.
Trump presented a stark contrast to many other readers, including the Supreme Court associate justice Stephen Breyer, who read as if he knew the full text by heart, and Senator Ted Cruz, who “knew it from beginning to end” as a result of performing dramatic readings of the Constitution as a high school student, according to Pelosi. “Donald Trump is a celebrity and he came to perform,” she said. “He had not practiced it beforehand. I don’t think anyone would show up to read the Constitution without practicing it first.”
Whatever the reason for Trump’s discomfort with the reading, several watching agreed on this much: he behaved like a brooding child, short-tempered, brittle, and quick to blame mystery distractions for the mistakes. “I didn’t expect this, but I felt sorry for him,” another witness said. “When [Vice President] Pence is reading it, when [former vice president Dick] Cheney is reading it, I knew they knew the Constitution. And I thought, before he got this job, he really should have read it.”
* * *
—
The next day, March 2, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, one of Trump’s most steadfast allies, the man who served at the vanguard on immigration and other policies at the heart of the president’s agenda, recused himself from oversight of the Russia investigation. During his January 10 confirmation hearing, in response to a question from the Democratic senator Al Franken, Sessions had testified under oath that he “did not have communications with the Russians” during the 2016 campaign. He did not disclose that he had had two conversations during the campaign with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, a fact later revealed in a Washington Post story.
The morning of March 2, the president got worked up at the prospect of Sessions bowing to escalating public pressure and recusing, believing the attorney general would look guilty for forgetting an inconsequential meeting, and, most importantly, leave him unprotected and vulnerable. So the president called White House counsel Don McGahn to insist that he stop Sessions.
“Sessions doesn’t have to recuse,” Trump bellowed, speaking so loudly that people in the West Wing hallway could make out what he was uttering from the Oval Office. “Whatever he said to Franken, so what?”
Trump was incredulous. “Everyone is now saying he has to recuse,” he repeated to McGahn. “He doesn’t have to!”
McGahn was convinced that some of Trump’s reasoning made sense, despite the angry tone he used to explain it. But other reasons were purely political. McGahn’s mind raced through the risks, knowing the president’s order had the potential not only to be a fool’s errand but also to get Trump into trouble for obstructing justice.
McGahn had been loyal to Trump since the early days of the campaign. A veteran campaign lawyer, he was not the typical Trump supporter, yet he was one of the first to recognize the power of Trump’s campaign and to join his team. In January 2015, he had watched the real estate developer and reality-television star in action by flying with him to the Iowa Freedom Summit, hosted by Congressman Steve King. McGahn had calculated that due to a seismic shift in the GOP and the rising disaffection of rural white voters in both parties, a traditional Republican candidate like Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush could never win in 2016. The hulking billionaire that McGahn saw onstage in Iowa, home to the nation’s first presidential caucuses, made a big impression and connected with the crowd in a way that surprised him. Trump took note that McGahn was in the greenroom, sizing up all the candidates, and figured he was an important player. When Trump later asked McGahn to be the lawyer for his campaign, McGahn said yes. Trump could tell that McGahn, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, knew his field and could see all the angles. Trump knew zip and was unapologetic about it. The candidate gave his lawyer broad autonomy and normally followed his advice.
Once they were in the White House, however, their dynamic changed. Trump believed he was cornered early with a series of rules rigged to box him in and limit his power. It often fell to McGahn to deliver bad news. Cabinet secretaries and other aides pleaded for McGahn to come to the Oval Office to explain to Trump why he couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that. In one of the counsel’s first discussions of executive power with the president, McGahn told Trump he couldn’t automatically issue an executive order to impose tariffs on foreign countries’ goods—unless he had a grave reason.
“I just want to do it. I’m the president. Can’t I do it?” Trump asked him.
“No,” McGahn said, pointing out the standard role of Congress in imposing duties and tariffs on imports. “You need a study under the statute. There’s a process. They have to do reports, and there has to be public notice.”
To Trump, McGahn became Dr. No. The White House counsel labored to keep bad ideas from germinating. McGahn, who carried a pocket Constitution, saw it as his duty to protect Trump from the novices in his administration who knew less about governing than a newly elected congressman coming out of a two-week orientation session. McGahn had also rankled Ivanka Trump by riding herd on the ethical questions of the first daughter joining the West Wing staff.
On March 2, McGahn called Sessions to tell him that Trump was not happy about the idea of his removing himself from the Russia investigation. Sessions responded that his hands were tied and that he intended to abide by the Justice Department’s rules of recusal and follow the advice of the career ethics staff who were evaluating the situation. Other White House advisers also pressed Sessions and his deputies against recusing. Still, Trump went public with his feelings. Asked by reporters whether Sessions should recuse, Trump said, “I don’t think so.” The president said he had “total” confidence in Sessions.
It was too late. Sessions hastily called a news conference and announced that he would not oversee any existing or future investigations that pertain to the Trump campaign. Sessions was following the rules, which plainly stated that no Justice Department official could participate in a criminal investigation if he or she has a personal or political relationship with an individual or organization substantially involved in the investigation. When a reporter asked Sessions about Trump’s and White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s comments that the attorney general didn’t need to recuse, the attorney general smiled awkwardly and shrugged. “They don’t know the rules, the ethics rules,” he said. “Most people don’t.”
Trump watched Sessions’s news conference from aboard Air Force One, returning from a short afternoon trip to Newport News, Virginia, to visit the USS Gerald R. Ford, the navy’s newest nuclear-powered warship. He was furious. As the diminutive Alabaman spoke from his lectern at the Justice Department, all the president saw was weakness and disloyalty. He railed about how “weak” and “horrible” the attorney general was. He said he should never have picked him for the job. To Trump, this was the end of Sessions. His attorney general had betrayed him. But this was also the moment Trump started to turn on McGahn, one of his earliest backers, for failing to stop the recusal. He began shutting out the very lawyer who had been working thanklessly to protect him from his own dangerous impulses.
“He should’ve told me he was going to do this,” Trump fumed about Sessions. “If he couldn’t handle this, he should’ve told me and we could’ve put him down at the border,” Trump said, meaning naming him secretary of homeland security.
Trump’s Air Force One eruption was the maddest his aides had ever seen him to date. He was so loud that some more junior staffers took a seat in a rear cabin of the plane and put on headphones to drown out the president’s yelling. Still, some aides shared their boss’s anger.
“This is fucked-up,” said Johnny McEntee, the president’s body man.
McGahn
gave Trump a directive aimed at protecting the president from his own emotions: he could not call Sessions, under any circumstances. Otherwise it could appear as if he were seeking to obstruct justice.
When Air Force One touched down at Joint Base Andrews, the president was still so hot that he was urged to sit on board for a while so he could stew in private. Aides explained to him that the press corps would be waiting under the wing, so he shouldn’t stop to talk to them, nor should he stalk down the steps of the plane with a scowl on his face.
Trump managed to deplane without causing a ruckus. But his fury had not subsided. Rather, it was a rage that boiled into the next day. He went thermonuclear. “The rages, they build and they build,” one of his advisers said. “He’s screaming and he’s a big guy and he looks like he could get physical.”
Trump is famously short-tempered, a trait that predated his presidency. A large physical presence even when he is sedate, Trump becomes monstrous when something sets him off. “He is scary,” said Barbara Res, a former Trump Organization executive who worked for Trump between the 1970s and the 1990s. She recalled Trump losing his cool during a tour of renovations at the Plaza hotel shortly after he purchased the crown jewel overlooking Central Park in 1988. Inspecting the knockoff furniture purchased for guest rooms, Trump tried to slide back the doors to an armoire and one of them got caught on a rail. He shook the door, and still it wouldn’t move. So he pulled the door off its hinges and threw it to the floor. Then, inspecting one of the bathrooms, he launched into a tirade at Res over the green Chinese marble. An Italian verde this was not.
A Very Stable Genius Page 5
