“Everyone agreed we needed to stop giving the president paper to read,” one former National Security Council staffer recalled. “H.R. was uncomfortable with this. McMaster kept saying, ‘How are we not going to give the president any papers?’”
McMaster and his deputies were mindful of history and fearful of failing to document a risk or of missing an important alarm. President George W. Bush had faced withering criticism when it was discovered that in the summer of 2001 he had been briefed on intelligence suggesting Osama bin Laden planned to orchestrate terror attacks using airplanes. Bush had actually received briefing books on this, but the intelligence did not prompt any corrective action. Eliminating briefing books for the president seemed to tempt disaster. McMaster came up with yet another plan that the staff put into full effect in September: note cards with bulleted factoids.
Other top officials in the White House saw McMaster and some of his top deputies as overly suspicious. They fretted about the national security adviser’s standing with the president and fought at times with others in the building, including Keith Kellogg, another army lieutenant general who served as the chief of staff on the NSC but was loyal to Trump above all.
By the time of the November trip to Asia, Trump was openly mocking McMaster. When McMaster arrived in his office for a briefing, Trump would puff up his chest, sit up straight in his chair, and fake shout like a boot camp drill sergeant. In his play, he pretended to be McMaster. “I’m your national security adviser, General McMaster, sir!” Trump would say, trying to amuse the others in the room. “I’m here to give you your briefing, sir!”
Then Trump would ridicule McMaster further by describing the topic of the day and deploying a series of large, complex phrases to indicate how boring McMaster’s briefing was going to be. The National Security Council staff were deeply disturbed by Trump’s treatment of their boss. “The president doesn’t fire people,” said one of McMaster’s aides. “He just tortures them until they’re willing to quit.” The cruelty also was uncomfortable for Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Kelly, and other advisers to watch. Kelly was weary of McMaster’s inability to take the hint that Trump was done listening. One day in the fall, Trump was meeting with a group of his advisers in the Oval Office, and Kelly decided the president was growing more obstinate on an issue and it was time for the gathering to break up.
“Thank you very much,” Kelly said. “Everyone can leave now.”
McMaster moved closer to the Resolute Desk and said, “Mr. President, I’d like to keep talking to you. I have a few more things.”
Kelly did not take kindly to McMaster disobeying his order. The chief of staff stood nose to nose with the national security adviser and decreed, “I said the meeting was over.”
Here was a four-star marine general and a three-star army general nearly coming to blows in front of the president of the United States. Trump loved it, later telling another adviser that he was impressed by Kelly’s willingness to confront McMaster and the sheer machismo he exuded. “This guy is an animal,” the president remarked, complimenting Kelly. That the president’s narrow bandwidth might have been the root cause of the disagreement didn’t seem to cross his mind.
On the Asia trip, both Tillerson and McMaster hopped into the president’s vehicle in succession to give Trump his morning update before the motorcade took off for its appointed meetings. But as McMaster spoke, Trump frowned, turned his back, and interrupted him midsentence to ask Tillerson a question. It was a not-very-gentle cue for Tillerson to take over the role of updating the president on the key facts he needed to know. Tillerson engaged in a little small talk, then returned to tee up the debates Trump would tackle in his meetings that day.
“As H.R. was saying, Mr. President,” Tillerson began, a sign of respect and deference to the national security adviser at an otherwise painful moment. Tillerson didn’t always agree with McMaster on style or process, but he told aides the man was selfless and dedicated to the mission.
McMaster had occasional disagreements with Trump, such as over the long-term strategy in Afghanistan and the Iran nuclear agreement. Unlike several other senior advisers, though, he genuinely tried to help implement the president’s wishes. Rather than impose his own agenda, McMaster generally sought to curate the opinions of the relevant administration officials and present a range of options to Trump.
“Sometimes you have very forceful differences of opinion among the president’s senior advisers,” Senator Tom Cotton, a McMaster ally, said at the time. “H.R. is indispensable in helping the president hear all those viewpoints and have the information he needs, and framed in time for the president to make a decision.”
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley added, “When we’re in those meetings, he’s all about getting options on the table for the president.”
* * *
—
Another episode startled Trump’s advisers on the Asia trip. As the president and his entourage embarked on the journey, they stopped in Hawaii on November 3 to break up the long flight and allow Air Force One to refuel. White House aides arranged for the president and first lady to make a somber pilgrimage so many of their predecessors had made: to visit Pearl Harbor and honor the twenty-three hundred American sailors, soldiers, and marines who lost their lives there.
The first couple was set to take a private tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, which sits just off the coast of Honolulu and straddles the hull of the battleship that sank into the Pacific during the Japanese surprise bombing attack in 1941. As a passenger boat ferried the Trumps to the stark white memorial, the president pulled Kelly aside for a quiet consult.
“Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Trump asked his chief of staff.
Kelly was momentarily stunned. Trump had heard the phrase “Pearl Harbor” and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else. Kelly explained to him that the stealth Japanese attack here had devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet and prompted the country’s entrance into World War II, eventually leading the United States to drop atom bombs on Japan. If Trump had learned about “a date which will live in infamy” in school, it hadn’t really pierced his consciousness or stuck with him.
“He was at times dangerously uninformed,” said one senior former adviser.
Trump’s lack of basic historical knowledge surprised some foreign leaders as well. When he met with President Emmanuel Macron of France at the United Nations back in September 2017, Trump complimented him on the spectacular Bastille Day military parade they had attended together that summer in Paris. Trump said he did not realize until seeing the parade that France had had such a rich history of military conquest. He told Macron something along the lines of “You know, I really didn’t know, but the French have won a lot of battles. I didn’t know.”
A senior European official observed, “He’s totally ignorant of everything. But he doesn’t care. He’s not interested.”
Tillerson developed a polite and self-effacing way to manage the gaps in Trump’s knowledge. If he saw the president was completely lost in the conversation with a foreign leader, other advisers noticed, the secretary of state would step in to ask a question. As Tillerson lodged his question, he would reframe the topic by explaining some of the basics at issue, giving Trump a little time to think.
Over time, the president developed a tell that he would use to get out of a sticky conversation in which a world leader mentioned a topic that was totally foreign or unrecognizable to him. He would turn to McMaster, Tillerson, or another adviser and say, “What do you think of it?”
“There was always the concern when no one was there that he would be maneuvered into a condition or an agreement that he didn’t realize he had committed to,” one former senior adviser said. “They tell him to do something and he does it.”
Oftentimes after meetings with Trump, Kelly and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis would huddle together—sometim
es with McMaster in the national security adviser’s office, sometimes without him—to compare notes on the presidential performance they had just witnessed. In words and sometimes simply facial expressions, they communicated a shared concern: “This guy doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
In the spring of 2017, as aides gathered in the Oval Office one day to brief Trump on upcoming meetings with foreign leaders, they made a passing reference to some foreign government officials who were under scrutiny for corruption, for taking bribes. Trump perked up at the mention of bribes and got rather agitated. He told Tillerson he wanted him to help him get rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump told the group. “We’re going to change that.”
Looking at Tillerson, Trump said, “I need you to get rid of that law,” as if the secretary of state had the power to magically repeal an act of Congress.
The business developer turned president was angry about the FCPA ostensibly because it restricted his industry buddies or his own company’s executives from paying off foreign governments in faraway lands. Other aides in the room turned to Tillerson to gauge his reaction. Surprised at Trump’s request, Tillerson first paused, then found his words.
“Mr. President,” he said. “I’m not the guy to do that.”
Tillerson explained the way laws work. He said the Justice Department should be consulted about a series of statutes that now made it a crime for American businesspeople to give bribes to foreign officials or business leaders to get contracts or deals struck in other countries. Then, in a somber kind of Schoolhouse Rock! episode that had become a regular feature of the Oval Office education of this president, Tillerson said that Congress would have to be involved in the repeal of the law.
Trump didn’t miss a beat. He was unmoved by Tillerson’s explanations and turned to Stephen Miller, the White House’s senior policy adviser who had long before proved that he could be relied upon to dutifully execute almost all of the president’s wishes.
“Stephen, I want you to draft an executive order and repeal that law,” Trump decreed, evidently still unaware or unconvinced that he alone did not have the power to repeal the FCPA.
Later, after the meeting broke up, Tillerson caught up with Miller in the hallway. Miller, who had championed many of the president’s most unpopular plans, told Tillerson he had some skepticism that the EO idea would work, a rare moment of agreement between the two men.
* * *
—
There was a sign of trouble in the Russia investigation after Trump returned from Asia. The lawyers for various witnesses and subjects in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe had been sharing information and strategies as part of a joint defense agreement. On November 22, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s lawyer Robert Kelner alerted Trump’s attorneys that Flynn was withdrawing from the joint defense agreement and could no longer communicate confidentially with the president or the White House. Though Kelner did not explicitly say so on the call, John Dowd, Trump’s lead personal attorney, took Flynn’s withdrawal from the agreement as an indication that he had begun to cooperate with Mueller’s office or was actively seeking to do so. In either case, Flynn’s lawyers could have a duty to shut off communications with other defense teams.
The night of November 22, Dowd left a voice mail for Kelner saying he would not be surprised if Flynn had “gone on to make a deal” with the special counsel’s office but that if he had “information that implicates the president, then we’ve got a national security issue.” Dowd asked for a “heads-up” for the sake of “protecting all our interests,” then reminded him of Trump’s warm regard for Flynn.
“Remember what we’ve always said about the president and his feelings toward Flynn and, that still remains,” Dowd said in closing. He sounded conciliatory, friendly even.
It was a tricky situation. Flynn’s lawyers were hoping they could eventually secure a presidential pardon for Flynn if he was charged or pleaded guilty to charges. The next day, Kelner returned Dowd’s message and reiterated over the phone that he couldn’t discuss anything with Dowd or any other attorneys for the president. Dowd’s mood shifted dramatically. He grew incensed, warning Kelner that he took this as a sign of Flynn’s hostility toward the president and that he planned to let President Trump know that. Kelner and his co-counsel Steve Anthony saw it for what it was: Dowd was indirectly threatening the wrath of Trump if they didn’t change their plans to have Flynn cooperate. They also knew, as did Dowd, that Flynn didn’t want to anger the president.
The Flynn news came at a stressful time for Trump’s attorneys. Since the summer, Dowd and White House lawyer Ty Cobb had persuaded Trump to buy into their strategy to cooperate fully with the investigation by assuring the president that if he did so, Mueller would have to wrap up the probe more quickly. Dowd first told Trump that Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion with the Russians could be over within weeks or months, but that didn’t pan out. Cobb had been telling reporters the White House portion of the probe could be complete by Thanksgiving, but that deadline slipped away, and he suggested instead the end of the year. Dowd felt growing pressure to satisfy his impatient client, but he had no control over delivering what Trump wanted: a public exoneration from Mueller.
By now, the White House, the Trump Organization, and the Trump campaign had turned over the reams of documents and internal emails that Mueller had requested, and all the members of the White House staff Mueller had requested had either sat for interviews or scheduled them with the special counsel’s office, with Don McGahn being the last on Mueller’s list. They wondered now, what if Mueller wants to interview the president? That would be a natural request. Cobb said they couldn’t reject the idea of an interview publicly. Dowd was wary but thought an interview might give “the old man” what he wanted.
Jay Sekulow, another Trump attorney, was cautious. One day after Thanksgiving, he called Mike Bowe, who also represented the president, to talk it over.
“What do you think about an interview with the president?” Sekulow asked Bowe, who was working in his garage.
After a brief pause, Bowe told him what he really thought: “It’s legal malpractice.”
Having any client testify was risky, but the risks increased manyfold with a client like Trump who tended to exaggerate and had his own brand of reality. Trump’s lawyers had prepped CEOs for depositions for hundreds of hours and always carefully reminded them of the rules. If you couldn’t remember key parts or every detail, simply say, “I can’t recall.” If you didn’t know for certain, say, “I don’t know.” But such executives were bred to have answers and tended to be impossibly stubborn. It was as if they were genetically unable to say, “I’m not sure.” Trump was an extreme version of this. His lawyers took note that Mueller’s team had proved they would charge people for inconsistent accounts.
The lawyers continued to game out the possibilities when the reason for the Flynn team’s silence was revealed. The former national security adviser pleaded guilty on December 1 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, the first White House aide to face charges in the probe. The guilty plea revealed that Flynn was cooperating with Mueller’s team in their ongoing work and had shared with them his discussions with unnamed senior officials in Trump’s transition. Though it was unclear what else he might have told the special counsel about the Trump campaign or administration, his cooperation indicated that Mueller’s probe was heating up rather than cooling down and would likely continue for many more months.
Trump was anxious and increasingly furious as he watched CNN coverage of Flynn’s guilty plea that day. He called Steve Bannon, who was traveling in Scotland. “How can Flynn be charged?” the president said. “Flynn didn’t do anything. Flynn’s innocent.”
Trump said the whole scene made him angry. He said he
was worried Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong.
“They targeted him because he worked for me,” Trump lamented.
Bannon seized this opportunity to share his view of Trump’s lawyers and their strategy. Bannon had long been skeptical that Mueller would ever clear the president of wrongdoing so quickly and believed Dowd and Cobb were effectively wearing rose-colored glasses and misleading their client.
“You gotta get rid of Cobb and Dowd,” Bannon told Trump. “They’re walking you into a trap that’s going to blow up. You gotta get real lawyers. You gotta get a law firm. You gotta hire Jones Day. They’re the only law firm that will work with us. You need a ton of associates. You’ve got to exert executive privilege and not send any more documents and not produce any more witnesses.”
Bannon tried to play to Trump’s pugilistic and litigious impulses.
“You’ve gotta fight this,” he told the president. “You can stretch it out for a number of years.”
Trump replied that Dowd and Cobb had assured him that cooperating was the best strategy.
“They tell me I’m going to get a letter of exoneration,” Trump told Bannon. It was going to be over any day now. Trump was sure of it.
A Very Stable Genius Page 19
