begin quote from:
Inside Trump's two days of fury
Opinion: Nothing affects Trump more than what people say
Inside Trump's two days of fury
Story highlights
- Trump's venting began Tuesday with a 16-tweet onslaught
- The anger as Trump helped draft a blistering statement about Steve Bannon
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump started 2018 in a fury partly fueled by anger at his legal team for offering shifting timelines about when the Russia investigation would end, according to two sources familiar with the President's mindset.
The anger continued until midday Wednesday as Trump helped draft his blistering break-up letter
to former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who offered a scathing attack
on Trump and his family's handling of the Russia investigation.
That followed his taunting tweet Tuesday evening directed at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un,
which caught many top administration officials off guard and prompted
renewed worry among staff and allies about whether the President fully
comprehends the risks he's taking in provoking adversaries. After
Trump's North Korea broadside, aides inside the White House reached out
to some of Trump's allies seen as having influence over the President to
talk to him about his tweets and the risks they carry.
It's
a bitter shift for a President who, just days ago, merrily rang in the
New Year at his Florida resort dancing alongside a party-hatted first
lady to Gloria Gaynor's persistence anthem "I Will Survive" and told The New York Times he
felt Mueller would treat him "fairly." Trump, who always loves his time
at Mar a Lago, is readjusting to life in an icy Washington where the
Russia probe looms and global flashpoints test his leadership skills
with sometimes harrowing results.
This
account of Trump's explosive first days of 2018 is based on interviews
Wednesday with a dozen White House officials, lawmakers and other
Republicans. It depicts a volatile President intent as ever on shaking
the country's political norms, even as he faces crucial deadlines in the
coming weeks on immigration and government funding.
Trump's
venting began Tuesday with a 16-tweet onslaught that White House
officials largely saw as an attempt by a media-obsessed President to
whip up new storylines that center on him. But the fury escalated
Wednesday as the first excerpts emerged from a bombshell portrait of Trump's first year in office.
Chafing at the Russia probe
Returning
to the White House after more than a week at his Palm Beach estate,
Trump has continued to chafe at the continuing Russia probe, which his
legal team once told him would be over by the end of 2017. Trump's
lawyers held talks with members of Mueller's team a few days before
Christmas, a source briefed on the matter told CNN, and are no longer
putting specific dates on when they expect the investigation to end.
Trump's White House lawyer did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
As CNN reported in December,
some in Trump's inner circle prepared for him to explode in early 2018
if his lawyers' optimistic timeline about the Russia investigation
wrapping up didn't come to fruition.
Trump's
agitation at the Russia matter was only stoked Wednesday by Bannon's
assertion, contained in author Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury:
Inside the Trump White House," that a 2016 meeting between Trump
associates and Russians was "treasonous."
People
close to the President say the damning account of his first months in
office contained within the book did not necessarily come as a surprise,
though acknowledge the specific accusations lobbed by Bannon provided
fresh reason to distance themselves from the onetime presidential aide.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, speaking at Wednesday's briefing, described Trump as "disgusted" by Bannon's remarks.
"Steve
Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired,
he not only lost his job, he lost his mind," Trump wrote in a blistering
statement, which he crafted with the help of aides.
As
is often the case, Trump's mood this week has gone through rapid
upheavals. On Wednesday morning, Trump was described as furious at the
allegations contained the excerpts from Wolff's book. Later, visitors to
the West Wing described Trump as cheerful, even amid the tumult left in
the wake of his tweets and the public falling-out with Bannon. The
aides with whom Bannon sparred, including senior adviser Jared Kushner,
carried with them an air of vindication that their disdain for the
Breitbart chairman appeared well-founded, the people said.
Crossing a line
A
source close to the White House said Bannon crossed a clear line by
going after the President's family. "Once Bannon got personal, the
gloves were off. They are holding nothing back," this source said.
The
Bannon dust-up came as the White House was still grappling with Trump's
declaration the night before that his "nuclear button" was larger than
North Korea's Kim Jong Un's, a childish taunt that sent tremors of
distress through national security circles.
Most
White House aides concede there's been little formal attempt at this
stage to rein in Trump's tweets, despite past consideration of imposing a
system of vetting on the more controversial ones. Trump largely
controls his Twitter account himself with the help of Dan Scavino, the
director of social media, who enjoys top-ranking "assistant to the
President" status.
During Trump's
working days in the Oval Office, his tweets stick largely to script,
including messages yesterday about the work his Veterans Affairs
secretary and congratulating retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch on his long
career.
Trump arrived back in the
Oval Office just past 11 a.m. Tuesday and spent the day moving back and
forth between the West Wing and his private residence, according to
aides, who said he returned to Washington after a largely news-free
vacation eager to reinsert himself in the days headlines and newscasts.
As
is his custom, Trump returned to his third-floor residence just after 5
p.m. and clicked his large flat-panel television onto Fox News. Midway
through the 7 p.m. hour, discussion turned to Kim's comment about his
"nuclear button," which the North Korean leader boasted on Sunday was at
his immediate disposal.
Twelve minutes later, the President had a response.
"North
Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the 'Nuclear Button is on
his desk at all times,'" Trump wrote. "Will someone from his depleted
and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear
Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my
Button works!"
Blindsided advisers
The
only button on Trump's Oval Office desk summons a valet who most often
comes bearing a Diet Coke. Still, the taunt prompted immediate concern.
Trump's top national security advisers were blindsided. Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson was returning to Washington from Texas on Tuesday
evening. And Kirstjen Nielsen, the newly installed Homeland Security
secretary, appeared unaware of the bombastic rhetoric while speaking
with reporters in California.
"I
have not seen the tweet as I've been working with you all this
afternoon," she said after surveying damage from last month's wildfires.
"The President speaks for himself — I think we have to continue as he
said to take the threat from North Korea very seriously."
On
Wednesday, the White House and the State Department insisted the
administration's policy toward North Korea has not changed — a statement
that obscured the worry among some officials that Trump's tweet could
provoke nuclear war.
"I think it
shows really poor judgment for the President to perform the way he does.
Particularly with tweets," former Vice President Joe Biden told CNN on
Capitol Hill on Wednesday. "I think the President has to come to better
understand that words matter coming from a president. There's a reason
why it's important to be presidential. It's not just style. There's
consequences. Severe consequences."
One
White House official insisted on Wednesday morning there were no
heightened anxieties in the West Wing after Trump's nuclear tweet, even
amid hand-wringing by national security experts inside and outside the
administration.
"I wouldn't
psychoanalyze it," one official said of the President's Twitter feed,
despite the tremors it prompts in foreign capitals and in the hallways
of the State Department and Pentagon. Another official shrugged off the
tweet as another of Trump's attempts to speak unfiltered to his
supporters.
On Sunday evening,
Trump appeared unaware of Kim's button comments when asked about them on
a red carpet leading into his glamorous New Year's Eve gala at
Mar-a-Lago.
"We'll see, we'll see,"
the tuxedo-clad President said, without elaborating. Standing alongside
his wife Melania, festooned in sequins, and his 11-year-old son Barron,
Trump instead invited reporters to join him at the party.
People
who spoke with Trump over his 10-day stay in Florida described him as
upbeat and relaxed-seeming. Inside the cosseted Mar-a-Lago grounds,
Trump was surrounded by family — including sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and
daughter Ivanka and her husband Kushner — as well as the longtime
friends he's relied on for advice over the first year of his presidency.
Inside his club and on his golf course, Trump told his confidants that he has relished his first year in office.
"He
said he loves it," said Fred Funk, the professional golfer who played
with Trump on Monday. "He said he loves the aspect of being the
President, and all the pressures that go along with it."
But
privately, some of Trump's associates said they sensed a change in
Trump. While he seemed at times the same garrulous host from earlier
years, at other moments he was more withdrawn and less eager to engage
with the members of his club, some of whom chafed at the less-accessible
owner.
Speaking at his New Year's
Eve dinner, Trump made little attempt to bury last year's grievances.
Instead, he previewed the combative days ahead.
"We
have some pretty good enemies out there, but step by step they're being
defeated," he told the black tie crowd. "They're some bad people. Bad
people. But that's ok. Someday maybe they'll love us."
No comments:
Post a Comment