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57abcf2
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Men who demand the most loyalty tend to be the least loyal pricks,
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Michael Wolff |
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bb546f1
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But from the start it also was apparent that the Trump administration could just as easily turn into a country club Republican or a Wall Street Democrat regime. Or just a constant effort to keep Donald Trump happy.
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Michael Wolff |
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c71daa4
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Trump, the unserious candidate, had, however incomprehensibly, become a more or less serious one. And somehow, because of his prior unseriousness, and his what-you-see-is-what-you-get nature, the braggart businessman, with his bankruptcies, casinos, and beauty pageants, had avoided serious vetting.
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Michael Wolff |
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81b9c3c
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the organizational premise of the Trump White House: the family would always prevail.
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Michael Wolff |
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dc65ca0
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Trump quite profoundly seemed unable to distinguish between his political advantage and his personal needs--he thought emotionally, not strategically.
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Michael Wolff |
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83b6540
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I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.
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Michael Wolff |
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5925e03
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kibosh
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Michael Wolff |
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3cb7377
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But if Halberstam defined the presidential mien, Trump defied it--and defiled it. Not a single attribute would place him credibly in the revered circle of American presidential character and power.
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Michael Wolff |
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0e411e2
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Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Egyptian strongman, ably stroked the president and said, "You are a unique personality that is capable of doing the impossible." (To Sisi, Trump replied, "Love your shoes. Boy, those shoes. Man....")"
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Michael Wolff |
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d47843d
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Few innovations have been as unclear in what they would become and what they could offer and yet been greeted with as much certainty and enthusiasm as digital media.
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Michael Wolff |
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49acfba
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Steve wants to force a million people out of the country and repeal the nation's health law and lay on a bunch of tariffs that will completely decimate how we trade,
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Michael Wolff |
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9a23433
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The White House, realized former naval officer Steve Bannon after a few weeks, was really a military base, a government-issue office with a mansion's facade and a few ceremonial rooms sitting on top of a secure installation under military command.
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Michael Wolff |
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176e0af
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You might attach many superlatives to Vice--it may be the hottest, savviest, coolest, richest, Brooklyn-est new media company on the block (Vice, according to Smith, is now the biggest employer in Williamsburg, the epicenter of Brooklyn-ness), but one peerless thing it does not necessarily have is a super-size audience. Vice makes a torrent of YouTube videos but most, according to YouTube stats, have only a limited viewership. The New York ..
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Michael Wolff |
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92e2257
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Trump, trying to move in on his friend's date, urged a stop in Atlantic City. He would provide a tour of his casino. His friend assured the model that there was nothing to recommend Atlantic City. It was a place overrun by white trash. "What is this 'white trash'?" asked the model. "They're people just like me," said Trump, "only they're poor."
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Michael Wolff |
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ab98a9e
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few in the thin ranks of Trump's inner circle, with their overnight responsibility for assembling a government, had almost any relevant experience. Nobody had a political background. Nobody had a policy background. Nobody had a legislative background.
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Michael Wolff |
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4d81029
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So frustrating that they just want to get the deal done--get their fee and get out. If the client won't acknowledge the rituals in a highly ritualized situation...if people don't listen, if they can't listen no matter how you explain...well, fuck it.
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Michael Wolff |
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dbecf28
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If I told Trump that, he might have the job.
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Michael Wolff |
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0af4b77
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From the Bannon side, Pence garnered only contempt. "Pence is like the husband in Ozzie and Harriet, a nonevent," said one Bannonite. Although many saw him as a vice president who might well assume the presidency someday, he was also perceived as the weakest vice president in decades and, in organizational terms, an empty suit who was useless in the daily effort to help restrain the president and stabilize the West Wing."
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Michael Wolff |
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930a6bd
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During that first month, Walsh's disbelief and even fear about what was happening in the White House moved her to think about quitting. Every day after that became its own countdown toward the moment she knew she wouldn't be able to take it anymore--which would finally come at the end of March. To Walsh, the proud political pro, the chaos, the rivalries, and the president's own lack of focus and lack of concern were simply incomprehensible...
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Michael Wolff |
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ae1bcdc
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He wasn't going to win! Or losing was winning.
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Michael Wolff |
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041de18
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If you fuck with the intel community they will figure out a way to get back at you and you'll have two or three years of a Russian investigation, and every day something else will leak out.
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Michael Wolff |
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e4c2d87
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That was almost his appeal: he was what he was. Twinkle in his eye, larceny in his soul.
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Michael Wolff |
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cf4a66f
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Trade it out so in the end everyone got something, and the better dealmaker got a little more.
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Michael Wolff |
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eba3ab5
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Trump was, for Bannon, a modern-day William Jennings Bryan.
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Michael Wolff |
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1c5fd2e
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It was, said Walsh, "like trying to figure out what a child wants."
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Michael Wolff |
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1ad6e84
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As it happened, Conway meant to say "alternative information," which at least would imply there might be additional data."
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Michael Wolff |
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14ad861
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Here was, arguably, the central issue of the Trump presidency, informing every aspect of Trumpian policy and leadership: he didn't process information in any conventional sense--or, in a way, he didn't process it at all. Trump didn't read. He didn't really even skim. If it was print, it might as well not exist. Some believed that for all practical purposes he was no more than semiliterate. (There was some argument about this, because he cou..
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Michael Wolff |
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1a00990
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Trump did not enjoy his own inauguration. He had hoped for a big blowout.
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Michael Wolff |
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de8ffa4
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Convinced he knew the direction of success, keenly aware of his own age and finite opportunities, and--if for no clear reason--seeing himself as a talented political infighter, Bannon sought to draw the line between believers and sell-outs, being and nothingness.
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Michael Wolff |
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286aa82
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After the bill had been pulled that Friday, Katie Walsh, feeling both angry and disgusted, told Kushner she wanted out. Outlining what she saw as the grim debacle of the Trump White House, she spoke with harsh candor about bitter rivalries joined to vast incompetence and an uncertain mission.
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Michael Wolff |
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e228657
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It was during Trump's early intelligence briefings, held soon after he captured the nomination, that alarm signals first went off among his new campaign staff: he seemed to lack the ability to take in third-party information. Or maybe he lacked the interest; whichever, he seemed almost phobic about having formal demands on his attention. He stonewalled every written page and balked at every explanation. "He's a guy who really hated school,"..
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Michael Wolff |
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a0c0c60
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Do nothing" had long been viewed as an unacceptable position of helplessness by American foreign policy experts. The instinct to do something was driven by the desire to prove you were not limited to nothing. You couldn't do nothing and show strength. But Bannon's approach was very much "A pox on all your houses," it was not our mess, and judging by all recent evidence, no good would come of trying to help clean it up. That effort would cos..
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Michael Wolff |
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a3e0c42
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The Oval Office itself had been used by prior occupants as the ultimate power symbol, a ceremonial climax. But as soon as Trump arrived, he moved in a collection of battle flags to frame him sitting at his desk, and the Oval immediately became the scene of a daily Trump cluster-fuck. It's likely that more people had easy access to this president than any president before. Nearly all meetings in the Oval with the president were invariably su..
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Michael Wolff |
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ae67866
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You defined yourself by your enemy's reaction. Conflict was the media bait--hence, now, the political chum. The new politics was not the art of the compromise but the art of conflict.
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Michael Wolff |
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bdf6eba
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But not only didn't he read, he didn't listen. He preferred to be the person talking. And he trusted his own expertise--no matter how paltry or irrelevant--more than anyone else's. What's more, he had an extremely short attention span, even when he thought you were worthy of attention.
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Michael Wolff |
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c3df967
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Trump's home in Beverly Hills
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Michael Wolff |
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bc6ec6c
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The unspoken agreement among them: not only would Donald Trump not be president, he should probably not be. Conveniently, the former conviction meant nobody had to deal with the latter issue.
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Michael Wolff |
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7e9b709
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most of all don't let him piss off the intel community," said one national Republican figure to Kushner. "If you fuck with the intel community they will figure out a way to get back at you and you'll have two or three years of a Russian investigation, and every day something else will leak out."
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Michael Wolff |
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41ab97a
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But most of the leaks, certainly the juiciest ones, were coming from the higher-ups--not to mention from the person occupying the topmost echelon. The president couldn't stop talking. He was plaintive and self-pitying, and it was obvious to everyone that if he had a north star, it was just to be liked. He was ever uncomprehending about why everyone did not like him, or why it should be so difficult to get everyone to like him. He might be h..
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Michael Wolff |
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a958cc9
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Trump's repeated brags about his relationship with Vladimir Putin and the nature of Trump's relationship with the Kremlin.
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Michael Wolff |
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6e09d44
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Bannon's strategic view of government was shock and awe. Dominate rather than negotiate. Having daydreamed his way into ultimate bureaucratic power, he did not want to see himself as a bureaucrat. He was of a higher purpose and moral order. He was an avenger. He was also, he believed, a straight shooter. There was a moral order in aligning language and action--if you said you were going to do something, you do it.
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Michael Wolff |
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3f5af9d
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It's worse than you can imagine. An idiot surrounded by clowns. Trump won't read anything--not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers; nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored. And his staff is no better. Kushner is an entitled baby who knows nothing. Bannon is an arrogant prick who thinks he's smarter than he is. Trump is less a person than a collection of terrible traits. No one will survive..
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Michael Wolff |
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c8aba2f
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Having attained the unimaginable--bringing a fierce alt-right, antiliberal ethnopopulism into a central place in the White House--Bannon found himself face to face with the untenable: undermined by and having to answer to rich, entitled Democrats.
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Michael Wolff |
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ff4e56f
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His son-in-law and daughter hoped--they were even confident--that they could speak to DJT's better self, or at least balance Republican needs with progressive rationality, compassion, and good works. Further, they could support this moderation by routing a steady stream of like-minded CEOs through the Oval Office. And, indeed, the president seldom disagreed with and was often enthusiastic about the Jared and Ivanka program. "If they tell hi..
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Michael Wolff |