“INSANITY,” “FURIOUS,” “ON HIS OWN”: TRUMP’S POST-MIDTERMS BLUES ARE VEXING HIS STAFF
“INSANITY,” “FURIOUS,” “ON HIS OWN”: TRUMP’S POST-MIDTERMS BLUES ARE VEXING HIS STAFF AND ROILING THE WHITE HOUSE
He’s lashing out at aides and press and foreign leaders, and threatening to roll West Wing heads—but at least he didn’t get his hair wet at the Belleau Wood memorial.
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NOVEMBER 14, 2018 5:54 PM
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Trump responds to a question from the media prior to boarding Marine One, November 9, 2018.
By SHAWN THEW/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock.
As Donald Trump’s West Wing careens through one of the most turbulent weeks of his presidency, White House officials are struggling to understand the source of the fury fueling the president’s eruptions. “This is a level of insanity I’ve never seen before,” one former West Wing staffer told me. Current and former officials are debating different theories for Trump’s outbursts, ranging from his fears over his son Don Jr.’s legal exposure to the prospect that House Democrats will unleash investigations in January. “He’s under a tremendous amount of mental stress,” one prominent Republican close to him told me.
What’s surprising to some advisers about how bad the past week has been is that Trump initially seemed to take the midterm losses in stride. Last Tuesday, he was in high spirits as he watched election returns come in with about a hundred friends at the White House. Trump told people that his barnstorming rally schedule had mobilized his base and held Republican losses to historical lows, while increasing Republican gains in the Senate. “He really thought he won the midterms,” a prominent Republican who spoke with Trump said.
But by Wednesday, after hours of commentary about the suburbs’ distaste for him and with seat after undecided House seat slipping toward the Democrats, his mood slid, too, hitting bottom in a bizarre and combative press conference. “He was furious about the narrative. He said, ‘Look, I went to all these states and now people are saying Trump lost the election,’” the Republican who spoke with him recalled. Within hours, Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replaced him with Matt Whitaker,who’d been a frequent cable-news critic of the Robert Mueller investigation. Next, Trump directed his press office to revoke CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass, something he’d wanted to do for months but had been talked out of by aides. “This is a matter of the president now being on his own without any countervailing force whatsoever,” a person close to Trump said. “It’s just 100 percent Donald Trump doing what Donald Trump wants.”
Trump remained in a dark mood during his weekend trip to France to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. As The Washington Post reported, he got into an argument with British Prime Minister Theresa May during a phone call on the flight across the Atlantic on Friday. On Saturday morning, Trump skipped attending a rain-soaked ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery to honor the Battle of Belleau Wood. When his absence became a scandal, the White House said the decision had been made because Marine One reportedly could not fly in the rain, and Secret Service did not want Trump traveling by motorcade. One Republican briefed on the internal discussions said the real reason Trump did not want to go was because there would be no tent to stand under. “He was worried his hair was going to get messed up in the rain,” the source said. “[John] Bolton and everyone was telling him this was a big mistake.” A former administration official said Trump hates being outside in wet conditions. “What I honestly think? He woke up and said, ‘It’s pouring rain. This is a joke and I’m not doing this.’”
Trump’s absence from the ceremony became the dominant headline from his trip. Perhaps as a gambit to change the subject, Trump fumed on the flight back to Washington that he was ready to fire embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, whom he has clashed with over the uptick in border crossings. A move against Nielsen would be, in many ways, a chance for Trump to finally force Chief of Staff John Kelly, her closest administration ally, to quit. According to a source, Kelly told White House counselor Johnny DeStefano that he would resign if Trump fired Nielsen.
Kelly’s resignation would be a big victory for Trump. For months, Trump has been reluctant to fire him, partly because he’d have to do it personally, and partly because he doesn’t want to make Kelly a potent enemy on the outside. “Kelly has decided to hang in there and get humiliated day after day,” a person close to Trump said. Trump recently told a former official that he was worried Kelly would campaign against him in 2020 if he fired him, a person briefed on the phone call said. But Trump may be getting over those concerns. According to two sources, Trump and Melania had a conversation on election night last week about the chief of staff position with Nick Ayers, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s top choice to replace Kelly.
Ayers, politically gifted but conspicuously ambitious, and with questionable loyalty to Trump, would bring his own baggage to the job. “Half the West Wing told me they’d walk out,” a Republican close to the White House said. A Washington Post correspondent reported that Kellyanne Conway told friends she’d quit if Ayers got the job. (Conway told me that the suggestion was “silly.”)
As if the possible defenestration of two Cabinet officials and the replacement of the chief of staff weren’t enough of a sign of extreme dysfunction, yesterday Melania’s office issued an unprecedented statement attacking the deputy national security adviser, Mira Ricardel, who had reportedly clashed with the First Lady’s staff on her tour of Africa last month. A source said the president approved the First Lady’s statement and supports Ricardel’s firing. “The president called Johnny DeStefano today and said, ‘Get the bitch out of here or you’re gone,’” a source briefed on the conversation recalled.
Fear of Trump’s rage has spread throughout the Cabinet. According to one Republican, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has told people he’s afraid to visit the White House because he doesn’t want to be fired.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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