In the White House residence, Dowd peppered Trump with questions about the Russia investigation, provoking stumbles, contradictions and lies until the president eventually lost his cool.
This things a goddamn hoax, Trump erupted at the start of a 30-minute rant that finished with him saying, I dont really want to testify.
The dramatic and previously untold scene is recounted in Fear, a forthcoming book by Bob Woodward that paints a harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency, based on in-depth interviews with administration officials and other principals.
Woodward writes that his book is drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants and witnesses that were conducted on deep background, meaning the information could be used but he would not reveal who provided it. His account is also drawn from meeting notes, personal diaries and government documents.
Woodward depicts Trumps anger and paranoia about the Russia inquiry as unrelenting, at times paralyzing the West Wing for entire days. Learning of the appointment of Mueller in May 2017, Trump groused, Everybodys trying to get me part of a venting period that shellshocked aides compared to Richard Nixons final days as president.
The 448-page book was obtained by The Washington Post. Woodward, an associate editor at The Post, sought an interview with Trump through several intermediaries to no avail. The president called Woodward in early August, after the manuscript had been completed, to say he wanted to participate. The president complained that it would be a bad book, according to an audio recording of the conversation. Woodward replied that his work would be tough but factual and based on his reporting.
The books title is derived from a remark that then-candidate Trump made in an interview with Woodward and Post political reporter Robert Costa in 2016. Trump said, Real power is, I dont even want to use the word, Fear.?
A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trumps inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.
Woodward describes an administrative coup detat and a nervous breakdown of the executive branch, with senior aides conspiring to pluck official papers from the presidents desk so he couldnt see or sign them.
Again and again, Woodward recounts at length how Trumps national security team was shaken by his lack of curiosity and knowledge about world affairs and his contempt for the mainstream perspectives of military and intelligence leaders.
At a National Security Council meeting on Jan.19, Trump disregarded the significance of the massive U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula, including a special intelligence operation that allows the United States to detect a North Korean missile launch in seven seconds vs. 15 minutes from Alaska, according to Woodward. Trump questioned why the government was spending resources in the region at all.
Were doing this in order to prevent World War III, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told him.
After Trump left the meeting, Woodward recounts, Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like and had the understanding of a fifth- or sixth-grader.?
In Woodwards telling, many top advisers were repeatedly unnerved by Trumps actions and expressed dim views of him. Secretaries of defense dont always get to choose the president they work for, Mattis told friends at one point, prompting laughter as he explained Trumps tendency to go off on tangents about subjects such as immigration and the news media.
Inside the White House, Woodward portrays an unsteady executive detached from the conventions of governing and prone to snapping at high-ranking staff members, whom he unsettled and belittled on a daily basis.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1484"]
Chief of Staff John F. Kelly in the Oval Office in February. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)[/caption]White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly frequently lost his temper and told colleagues that he thought the president was unhinged, Woodward writes. In one small group meeting, Kelly said of Trump: Hes an idiot. Its pointless to try to convince him of anything. Hes gone off the rails. Were in Crazytown. I dont even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job Ive ever had.
Reince Priebus, Kellys predecessor, fretted that he could do little to constrain Trump from sparking chaos. Woodward writes that Priebus dubbed the presidential bedroom, where Trump obsessively watched cable news and tweeted, the devils workshop and said early mornings and Sunday evenings, when the president often set off tweetstorms, were the witching hour.
Trump apparently had little regard for Priebus. He once instructed then-staff secretary Rob Porter to ignore Priebus, even though Porter reported to the chief of staff, saying that Priebus was like a little rat. He just scurries around.?
Few in Trumps orbit were protected from the presidents insults. He often mocked then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster behind his back, puffing up his chest and exaggerating his breathing as he impersonated the retired Army general, and once said McMaster dresses in cheap suits, like a beer salesman.
Trump told Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a wealthy investor eight years his senior: I dont trust you. I dont want you doing any more negotiations. .?.?. Youre past your prime.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1484"]
Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the White House in March. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)[/caption]A near-constant subject of withering presidential attacks was Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump told Porter that Sessions was a traitor for recusing himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, Woodward writes. Mocking Sessionss accent, Trump added: This guy is mentally retarded. Hes this dumb Southerner. .?.?. He couldnt even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.
At a dinner with Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others, Trump lashed out at a vocal critic, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). He painted the former Navy pilot as cowardly, falsely suggesting he took an early release from a prisoner-of-war camp in Vietnam because of his fathers military rank and left others behind.
Mattis swiftly corrected his boss: No, Mr. President, I think youve got it reversed. The defense secretary explained that McCain, who died Aug.25, had in fact turned down early release and was brutally tortured during his five years at the Hanoi Hilton.
Oh, okay, Trump replied, according to Woodwards account.
With Trumps rage and defiance impossible to contain, Cabinet members and other senior officials learned to act discreetly. Woodward describes an alliance among Trumps traditionalists including Mattis and Gary Cohn, the presidents former top economic adviser to stymie what they considered dangerous acts.
It felt like we were walking along the edge of the cliff perpetually, Porter is quoted as saying. Other times, we would fall over the edge, and an action would be taken.
After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017, Trump called Mattis and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator. Lets fucking kill him! Lets go in. Lets kill the fucking lot of them, Trump said, according to Woodward.
Mattis told the president that he would get right on it. But after hanging up the phone, he told a senior aide: Were not going to do any of that. Were going to be much more measured. The national security team developed options for the more conventional airstrike that Trump ultimately ordered.
Then-White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn in September 2017. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Cohn, a Wall Street veteran, tried to tamp down Trumps strident nationalism regarding trade. According to Woodward, Cohn stole a letter off Trumps desk that the president was intending to sign to formally withdraw the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Cohn later told an associate that he removed the letter to protect national security and that Trump did not notice that it was missing.
Cohn made a similar play to prevent Trump from pulling the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, something the president has long threatened to do. In spring 2017, Trump was eager to withdraw from NAFTA and told Porter: Why arent we getting this done? Do your job. Its tap, tap, tap. Youre just tapping me along. I want to do this.
Under orders from the president, Porter drafted a notification letter withdrawing from NAFTA. But he and other advisers worried that it could trigger an economic and foreign relations crisis. So Porter consulted Cohn, who told him, according to Woodward: I can stop this. Ill just take the paper off his desk.
Despite repeated threats by Trump, the United States has remained in both pacts. The administration continues to negotiate new terms with South Korea as well as with its NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico.
Cohn came to regard the president as a professional liar and threatened to resign in August 2017 over Trumps handling of a deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Cohn, who is Jewish, was especially shaken when one of his daughters found a swastika on her college dorm room.
Trump was sharply criticized for initially saying that both sides were to blame. At the urging of advisers, he then condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis but almost immediately told aides, That was the biggest fucking mistake Ive made and the worst speech Ive ever given, according to Woodwards account.
When Cohn met with Trump to deliver his resignation letter after Charlottesville, the president told him, This is treason, and persuaded his economic adviser to stay on. Kelly then confided to Cohn that he shared Cohns horror at Trumps handling of the tragedy and shared Cohns fury with Trump.
I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times, Kelly told Cohn, according to Woodward. Kelly himself has threatened to quit several times but has not done so.
Woodward illustrates how the dread in Trumps orbit became all-encompassing over the course of Trumps first year in office, leaving some staff members and Cabinet members confounded by the presidents lack of understanding about how government functions and his inability and unwillingness to learn.
At one point, Porter, who departed in February amid domestic abuse allegations, is quoted as saying, This was no longer a presidency. This is no longer a White House. This is a man being who he is.
Such moments of panic are a routine feature but not the thrust of Woodwards book, which mostly focuses on substantive decisions and internal disagreements, including tensions with North Korea as well as the future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan.
Woodward recounts repeated episodes of anxiety inside the government over Trumps handling of the North Korean nuclear threat. One month into his presidency, Trump asked Dunford for a plan for a preemptive military strike on North Korea, which rattled the combat veteran.
In the fall of 2017, as Trump intensified a war of words with Kim Jong Un, nicknaming North Koreas dictator Little Rocket Man in a speech at the United Nations, aides worried the president might be provoking Kim. But, Woodward writes, Trump told Porter that he saw the situation as a contest of wills: This is all about leader versus leader. Man versus man. Me versus Kim.
The book also details Trumps impatience with the war in Afghanistan, which had become the United States longest conflict. At a July 2017 National Security Council meeting, Trump dressed down his generals and other advisers for 25 minutes, complaining that the United States was losing, according to Woodward.
The soldiers on the ground could run things much better than you, Trump told them. They could do a much better job. I dont know what the hell were doing. He went on to ask: How many more deaths? How many more lost limbs? How much longer are we going to be there?
The presidents family members, while sometimes touted as his key advisers by other Trump chroniclers, are minor players in Woodwards account, popping up occasionally in the West Wing and vexing adversaries.
White House senior adviser Stephen K. Bannon, second from left, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, right, in 2017. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Woodward recounts an expletive-laden altercation between Ivanka Trump, the presidents eldest daughter and senior adviser, and Stephen K. Bannon, then the chief White House strategist.
Youre a goddamn staffer! Bannon screamed at her, telling her that she had to work through Priebus like other aides. You walk around this place and act like youre in charge, and youre not. Youre on staff!
Ivanka Trump, who had special access to the president and worked around Priebus, replied: Im not a staffer! Ill never be a staffer. Im the first daughter.
Such tensions boiled among many of Trumps core advisers. Priebus is quoted as describing Trump officials not as rivals but as natural predators.
When you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody, Priebus says.
Hovering over the White House was Muellers inquiry, which deeply embarrassed the president. Woodward describes Trump calling his Egyptian counterpart to secure the release of an imprisoned charity worker and President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi saying: Donald, Im worried about this investigation. Are you going to be around?
Trump relayed the conversation to Dowd and said it was like a kick in the nuts, according to Woodward.
The book vividly recounts the ongoing debate between Trump and his attorneys about whether the president would sit for an interview with Mueller. On March 5, Dowd and Trump attorney Jay Sekulow met in Muellers office with the special counsel and his deputy, James Quarles, where Dowd and Sekulow reenacted Trumps January practice session.
Dowd then explained to Mueller and Quarles why he was trying to keep the president from testifying: Im not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot. And you publish that transcript, because everything leaks in Washington, and the guys overseas are going to say, I told you he was an idiot. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell. What are we dealing with this idiot for?
John, I understand, Mueller replied, according to Woodward.
Later that month, Dowd told Trump: Dont testify. Its either that or an orange jumpsuit.
But Trump, concerned about the optics of a president refusing to testify and convinced that he could handle Muellers questions, had by then decided otherwise.
Ill be a real good witness, Trump told Dowd, according to Woodward.
You are not a good witness, Dowd replied. Mr. President, Im afraid I just cant help you.
The next morning, Dowd resigned.
