He had little doubt that Trump was guilty of most of what he was accused of. How did he get the dough for the primary and then for the general with his ‘liquidity’ issues? asked Bannon with his hands...
Good management reduces ego. But in the Trump White House, it could often seem that nothing happened, that reality simply did not exist, if it did not happen in Trump’s presence.
Frank Sinatra was wrong, said David Bossie, one of Trump’s longtime political advisers. If you can make it in New York, you can’t necessarily make it in Washington.
Elon Musk, in Trump Tower, pitched Trump on the new administration’s joining him in his race to Mars, which Trump jumped at.
Donald Trump’s marriage was perplexing to almost everybody around him—or it was, anyway, for those without private jets and many homes. He and Melania spent relatively little time together. They could...
Donald Trump produced on a daily basis an astonishing, can’t-stop-following-it narrative.
But Ailes was convinced that Trump had no political beliefs or backbone. The fact that Trump had become the ultimate avatar of Fox’s angry common man was another sign that we were living in an upside-...
Bannon’s presence on the council was just as much driven by the need to babysit the impetuous Flynn, prone to antagonizing almost everyone else in the national security community. (Flynn was a colonel...
Bannon’s deconstruction of the administrative state meant to take with it media, academic, and not-for-profit institutions.
Bannon, Conway, and Hicks—along with an assortment of more or less peculiar ideologues that had attached themselves to Trump and, of course, his family, all people without clearly monetizable reputati...
Bannon veered from Mad Dog Mattis—the retired four-star general whom Trump had nominated as secretary of defense—to a long riff on torture, the surprising liberalism of generals, and the stupidity of...
Bannon invariably found some reason to study papers in the corner and then to have a last word; Priebus kept his eye on Bannon; Kushner kept constant tabs on the whereabouts of the others.
Bannon had announced himself as Trump’s brain, a boast that vastly irritated the president.
Bannon didn’t much question Donald Trump’s bona fides, or behavior, or electability, because, in part, Trump was just his latest rich man. The rich man is a fixed fact, which you have to accept and de...
Anyone studying the position would conclude that a stronger chief of staff is better than a weaker one, and a chief of staff with a history in Washington and the federal government is better than an o...
Almost all the professionals who were now set to join him were coming face to face with the fact that it appeared he knew nothing. There was simply no subject, other than perhaps building construction...
All mustaches annoyed Trump,
A pro wrestling fan who became a World Wrestling Entertainment supporter and personality (inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame), Trump lived, like Hulk Hogan, as a real-life fictional character.
A happy wife is a happy life, he said, echoing a popular rich-man truism.
A contemptuous Hannity, with grandiose ambitions of his own, insisted that this scenario was ludicrous. He would top the ticket, with Bannon, if he’s lucky, taking the second spot.