Awful ideas are seeping out of the White House at high volume with the ranks of the clear-eyed depleted. Fewer people speak up these days in meetings, and increasingly the voices in Donald Trump’s ear are only those who tell him what he wants to hear. If ever there was a victim of confirmation bias—the tendency to search for information that validates one’s preexisting beliefs, even if they are wrong—it is him. The danger is that President Trump runs the most powerful government on earth and cannot afford to be without dissenting opinions. Yet the Oval Office has become an echo chamber.
I was wrong about the “quiet resistance” inside the Trump administration. Unelected bureaucrats and cabinet appointees were never going to steer Donald Trump in the right direction in the long run, or refine his malignant management style. He is who he is. Americans should not take comfort in knowing whether there are so-called adults in the room. We are not bulwarks against the president and shouldn’t be counted upon to keep him in check. That is not our job. That is the job of the voters and their elected representatives.
Americans’ faith in the executive branch should be measured by their faith in the president himself and him alone, not by functionaries in his administration whose names never appeared on the ballot. So that begs the question: Who is he?
CHAPTER 2
The Character of a Man
“A good moral character is the first essential in a man… It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.”
Everywhere you look within the walls of the White House are shrines to our democracy. On one end of the main floor, George Washington’s commanding portrait hangs in the East Room for all to see. First Lady Dolley Madison famously rescued this national treasure before the British set fire to the building during the War of 1812. On the other end, guests are greeted in the State Dining Room by Abraham Lincoln’s likeness hanging above the fireplace, one of the most valuable paintings of the sixteenth president. The stately rooms in between, famously restored and redesigned by Jacqueline Kennedy, are filled with priceless artwork, furniture, and symbols of our history.
Upstairs is the president’s private residence, where every commander in chief since John Adams has lived with his family. Notable guests stay in the Lincoln Bedroom, which the martyred president once used as a working office, or the Queen’s Bedroom, where Winston Churchill rested during wartime visits to Washington. On the ground floor, special guests can tour the White House library, the China Room, the Map Room used by President Roosevelt to monitor sensitive developments during the Second World War, and the Diplomatic Reception Room, where acclaimed world figures have been welcomed to our nation’s capital.
Most interest is usually reserved for one room in particular. To get there, you walk out of the White House residence to a building next door: the West Wing. Built in the early 1900s to accommodate a growing staff, the West Wing houses the offices of the president and senior advisors, the Situation Room, the Cabinet Room, and more. The Oval Office is its crown jewel. Itself a historic splendor, the room is iconic, from the presidential seal carved into the ceiling to the Resolute desk, a gift from Queen Victoria in 1880 made from the timbers of a salvaged ship. It is the same desk where Harry Truman displayed a plaque that read “The buck stops here” and where John F. Kennedy’s young children sometimes played while their father worked.
The Oval Office fills visitors with a sense of respect. This is where our leaders make life-and-death decisions, shape the direction of our country, and address the people. Ronald Reagan spoke from behind the Resolute desk after the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986, honoring the memory of those lost. “We will never forget them,” he said, “nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’” George W. Bush calmed a grieving nation after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, telling Americans from the same room that “a great people has been moved to defend a great nation… the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world, and no one will keep that light from shining.” Whether you are there for a tour, or whether you work for the president, it is hard to shake this quiet feeling of reverence, no matter how many times you enter the room.
That is, until the silence is broken.
“It’s a hellhole, okay? They don’t let you say ‘shithole’ anymore. But that place is a hellhole and everybody knows it.”
“Watch them start to choke like dogs.”
“This place is kind of sexy, isn’t it?”
“I don’t fucking care. Ooh ooh ‘excuses, excuses.’ Just stick it to them. I promise you, they will be kissing our asses afterwards.”
“I’m hotter than I was then, okay? Because you know you also cool off, right? You do. But I’m much hotter.”
“It is very unfair to me. And it’s presidential harassment frankly. You can’t harass a president.”
“Sweetie, your face looked very tired on television. Have you lost weight?”
“I think I’ve done more than any other first-term president ever.”
“If you’re going to cough, please leave the room… Do you agree with the cough?”
“I think it’s probably, uh, I want them to think whatever they think, they do say, I mean, I’ve seen and I’ve read and I’ve heard, and I did have one very brief meeting on it. But people are saying they’re seeing UFOs, do I believe it? Not particularly.”
“We have the worst laws and the stupidest judges.”
“This guy, have you seen him? ‘My Pillow.’ He’s unbelievable. He buys all the airtime on TV. It’s terrific. And he’s a big, big Trump supporter.”
“This is one of the great inventions of all times—TiVo.”
“You’re saying it’s MY fault? It’s all fucked, and it’s your fault.”
These are the sounds bouncing off those rounded walls today, or on any given day of the Trump presidency. Some of these have been said with television cameras in the room and others with the doors closed. All of them reflect the real Donald Trump. Not everyone sees the full Trump, especially the one who is red-faced, consumed with fury, and teetering at the outer limits of self-control. Visitors are sometimes greeted with something they don’t expect.
Many people, including those with a low opinion of the president, tend to be pleasantly surprised when they first encounter him in this place. They don’t mind that he has no filter. In fact, there is something refreshing, even charming, about a politician just saying whatever pops into his or her head. He can also be funny. Sometimes he will delight in calling up officials on speakerphone and making jokes at their expense to the amusement of staff sitting on the couches. When so many politicians cling to clichés and talking points, one who is routinely straightforward and indiscreet is kind of disarming.
Those who want to see the best in President Trump, as we tried to do when the administration began, can write off his unorthodox behavior and strange stream-of-consciousness commentary as the result of putting a “disruptor” in the White House. Besides, we used to tell ourselves, there have been a number of chief executives who’ve acted unscrupulously in office. If those Oval walls could talk, they would recount Lyndon Johnson’s vulgar comments and crude advances, John Kennedy’s and Bill Clinton’s assorted trysts, and Richard Nixon’s efforts to obstruct justice and seek vengeance against his enemies.