McConnell and the president were barely on speaking terms. From his August working holiday in Bedminster, the president’s staff had tried to organize a makeup meeting with McConnell, but McConnell’s s...
Look, Kasowitz has known him for twenty-five years. Kasowitz has gotten him out of all kinds of jams. Kasowitz on the campaign—what did we have, a hundred women? Kasowitz took care of all of them. And...
Kushner’s analysis was the same as nearly everyone’s who spent a significant amount of time around the president. He was childlike—a hyperactive child at that. There was no clear reason for why someth...
Kushner, in fact, now believed Bannon would do anything to destroy them. This was personal. After months of defending Bannon against liberal media innuendo, Kushner had concluded that Bannon was an an...
Kushner was going to pursue as his first leadership mark a meeting with the Mexican president, whom his father-in-law had threatened and insulted throughout the campaign.
It was the first presidential instance of what the campaign regulars had learned over many months: on the most basic level, Trump just did not, as Spicer later put it, give a fuck. You could tell him...
It was part hortatory, part personal testimony, part barstool blowhard, a rambling, disjointed, digressive, what-me-worry approach that combined aspects of cable television rage, big-tent religious re...
It was insidious. It was, to them, although they didn’t put it this way, similar to the kind of dark Clinton-like conspiracies that Republicans were more wont to accuse liberals of—Whitewater, Benghaz...
Indeed, in his first weeks in the White House, an inattentive Trump was already trying to curtail his schedule of meetings, limit his hours in the office, and keep his normal golf habits.
In politics somebody has to lose, but invariably everybody thinks they can win. And you probably can't win unless you believe that you will win - except for the Trump campaign.
In mutually codependent fashion, Ivanka relied on Dina to suggest management tactics that would help her handle her father and the White House, while Dina relied on Ivanka to offer regular assurances...
In front of the grand jury, prosecutors from the special counsel’s office drilled down into the details of Trump’s sexual behavior—where, how often, with whom, and of what nature. This was, speculated...
In a continuing sign of Trump’s Rashomon effect—his speeches inspiring joy or horror—witnesses would describe his reception at the CIA as either a Beatles-like emotional outpouring or a response so co...
If I told Trump that, he might have the job.
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.
I can’t say, ‘I want to put a Protestant on the Court for better representation.’ No, you can’t say that. But I should be able to. You should be able to have the main religion in this country represen...
How’s the kid? asked Ailes, referring to Trump’s son-in-law and paramount political adviser, thirty-six-year-old Jared Kushner. He’s my partner, said Bannon, his tone suggesting that if he felt otherw...
His sons, Don Jr. and Eric—jokingly behind their backs known to Trump insiders as Uday and Qusay, after the sons of Saddam Hussein—
He’s supposed to be a fixer, said Trump about Cohen, but he breaks a lot of stuff. All of Trump’s people
He’s not only crazy, declared Tom Barrack to a friend, he’s stupid.