“The president needs congressional approval to go to war-even I know that,” Jimmie said. “They haven’t seen eye to eye on anything.”
“He’s wearing them down,” Connor said. “Look, the guy had the country declare bankruptcy, and Congress impeached him. Then he sent the bulldozers in to seize all that private land along the border without authorization-do you remember that? And Congress impeached him. Then he lied under oath that he didn’t write that list ranking the entire White House staff in order of ‘bangability,’ and Congress impeached him. Each time, not only was he exonerated, but his approval rating went up, and Congress’s went down.
“Now, with the midterms coming up, they’re feeling the pressure,” Connor continued. “Trump’s found even more leverage. He gets the roll calls of the votes on every bill and donates ten thousand dollars to the primary challenger of everyone who didn’t vote his way. Then he calls the congressmen to tell them that he did it!”
“The American people know a bully when they see one,” Jimmie said. “There will be an outcry eventually.”
“Haven’t you seen the polls? Americans don’t like bullies in schoolyards, but they love it when the victim of the bullying is Congress. Change.org has forty thousand signatures on a petition for Trump to give Rand Paul a wedgie on the Senate floor. Trust me, bro. If Trump wants to go to war, we’re going to war.”
Jimmie shook his head. It sounded like this kid had been watching too much MSNBC. “I’m going to forget we had this conversation. I expect you to do the same,” he said, turning to leave.
“Have you been to the basement?”
Jimmie froze. “Of the White House?”
“Of the Alamo,” the kid said sarcastically. “Of course I mean the White House.”
“Maybe. What of it?”
“There’s another basement-a basement under the basement.”
“A subbasement. That’s not unusual.”
“That’s where his office was,” Connor said. “It’s a long shot, but his tapes might still be there. You might-”
“Whose tapes?”
“The last ghostwriter,” Connor said. “Lester Dorset.”
Chapter Sixteen
Winter Is Coming
Jimmie retraced his steps back toward the hotel. He’d known kids like Connor Brent back in college. Kids with Che Guevara T-shirts and hemp necklaces. Kids who camped out on the steps of the college president’s office for “change.”
That was all they ever wanted: “change.” They knew what they were against but didn’t have the imagination to think up a viable alternative. Jimmie wasn’t much different. He didn’t like war, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think he could devise a better alternative to the way things were. True intelligence meant knowing the limits of your intelligence.
Jimmie had reached the limits of his intelligence long ago.
The kid was wrong-as kids often were.
There was no way Trump would ever give the order to fire nukes. If Jimmie knew the phrase “mutually assured destruction,” Trump had to know it too. The man owned too much real estate to let it all go up in a mushroom cloud.
What bothered Jimmie a little, though, was this whole business with Lester Dorset.
He had specifically asked Emma Blythe if Cat and Lester were still together, and she’d artfully dodged the question. Even more suspicious, she hadn’t said a word about the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter being the previous ghostwriter.
There was a perfectly acceptable reason for her to avoid such talk: She might have sensed some professional animosity between Jimmie and Lester. That Jimmie felt inadequate next to somebody with the pedigree of a New York Times byline.
Well, the joke was on her. Jimmie couldn’t care less about any of that. So what if he won a Pulitzer? It was for feature writing-the easy Pulitzer. Find a sob story, crap out ten thousand words, hello, Joe.
What he did care about, though, was the fact that Lester had-rather abruptly-overtaken Jimmie in Cat Diaz’s affections. Did it bother Jimmie that his girlfriend had left him for that old bag of bones? Of course. But he’d let go of his anger long ago. Cat had made a choice-a dumb choice, but it was her business. He’d moved on.
Jimmie paused at the water fountain at the entrance to the park. The bronzed sculpture of Bill Clinton not having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky glimmered under the moonlight. A soft breeze blew through the park, kicking up leaves. Jimmie shuddered as a chill came over him.
He tried to tell himself the chill was just because he didn’t have on a heavy enough jacket. Fall was here, and the nights were getting longer and colder. The chill had nothing to do with the nagging suspicion that even if the kid was full of shit, some of what he’d said had resonated with Jimmie. That America, while strong at home, was assuming the reputation outside her borders of the crazy guy you cross the street to avoid. That the map he’d seen in the Boardroom was more than a simulation. That it wasn’t just winter that was coming-it was war.
Excerpt From the Trump/Dorset Sessions
June 1, 2018, 9:45 AM
Dorset: Your relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin has raised some eyebrows.
Trump: It’s strictly platonic.
Dorset: Of course-I wasn’t implying otherwise. You are, however, aware that Putin’s record on human rights has earned him an F from Amnesty International. What do you think it says to the world when the American president is seen horseback riding with somebody like that?
Trump: You mean somebody who looks phenomenal without a shirt on? Somebody who’s in tremendous, tremendous shape?
Dorset: I mean somebody who’s been sanctioned by the United Nations multiple times. Somebody who was the target of a congressional resolution that condemned him as a threat to America’s national security.
Trump: Is he a little rough around the edges? Yeah. It takes big balls to hold onto power in a place like Russia. They’re a tough people. Very tough to govern. But he’s got cojones the size of grapefruits. Trust me-I know. I’ve been in the locker room with him.
Dorset: What did you think about Russia harboring NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden?
Trump: If I were in Putin’s boots, I would have rolled out the red carpet for him too. What a smart thing to do. Russia never stopped playing spy games. They never stopped fighting the Cold War-they just made us think it was over to trick us into submission. I knew what he was doing the whole time.
Dorset: Do you really think we’re still in the midst of the Cold War?
Trump: Are there hostilities between our countries still? In some quarters, undoubtedly. So what? I have some hostilities with all my exes. That doesn’t mean we can’t still show up at the same fundraiser. To meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, Vlad and I need to work together.
Dorset: What type of challenges?
Trump: Real bad guys, like the Chinese. ISIS. England.
Dorset: The United Kingdom is the United States’ oldest ally. In our recent military endeavors, they’ve been the one country who we could count on to have our back. Are you suggesting there’s some tension between the two countries now?
Trump: You tell me. They tried to ban me from their stupid little country, you know.
Dorset: You’re referring to the Parliamentary “debate” over whether or not to allow you into the UK, which was triggered by an online petition. Those who signed the petition believed your remarks about Kardashians constituted hate speech.