Fear: Trump in the White House(64)

Trump talked to Gore, who reported to others that he actually thought Trump seemed like he might stay in.

Ivanka and Jared gave a newspaper story to the president with highlighted quotes from an unnamed White House source. You know who this is? This is Steve Bannon, they said. In a West Wing filled with leakers, these tactics slowly but surely planted a distrust of Bannon with the president.



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Porter noticed Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator, in the West Wing lobby on April 5. He had been Pruitt’s Sherpa when Pruitt was barely confirmed by the Senate 52 to 46. Pruitt had been Oklahoma attorney general for six years, where he ran a war against EPA regulations.

They made small talk. When Pruitt walked down to the Oval Office, Porter followed. Pruitt was not on the regular schedule. This was clearly an off-the-books meeting. That was evident when Bannon showed up in the Oval Office.

“We need to get out of Paris,” Pruitt said, handing the president a plain sheet of paper he wanted him to read withdrawing from the Paris Accord. We need to get out, he said. “This was a campaign commitment.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Bannon said several times. “We’ve got to do this now.”

Make this statement, Pruitt said. This could be your press statement. Maybe read it to reporters in the Oval Office, and have the press secretary put it out as a written statement.

Porter was taken aback. As staff secretary he knew there had been no process. No one had been consulted. There had been no legal review. Pruitt and Bannon had snuck into the Oval Office and wanted an instant decision on the major international and national environmental issue of the day.

Porter knew the paper on the president’s desk was incendiary. Trump could pick it up, decide to read it out loud to the press or take it to Press Secretary Sean Spicer and say, put this out. When he had a chance, Porter took Pruitt’s draft statement from Trump’s desk.

Later he told Bannon and Pruitt they could not just walk into the Oval Office this way. It was a huge process foul. It was unacceptable.



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Gary Cohn gathered the principals for a meeting on the Paris Agreement in the Situation Room on April 27. Cohn’s National Economic Council had sent around a For Official Use Only six-page memo proposing two options. The first was to withdraw from Paris. The second was: “Remain in the Paris Agreement, but Adopt a Pledge that Does Not Harm the Economy and Puts a Hold on Further Financial Commitments and Contributions.”

“I want to turn first to the White House counsel,” Cohn said, opening the meeting, “to walk us through some of the legal issues.”

But Don McGahn was not yet there. His deputy, Greg Katsas, discussed technical issues until McGahn arrived.

“Great, McGahn’s here,” Cohn said. “Tee up the legal issues for us.”

McGahn supported getting out, though he had not yet revealed his hand. “Well,” he said, “we’re going to have these court cases. And if we don’t get out of Paris, then it’s really going to jeopardize some of the regulatory rollback that we’re likely to do at EPA.

“Paris was one of the justifications the Obama administration used as part of the regulatory record to justify the cost and benefits of the Clean Power Plan.” That was an Obama-era 460-page rule to lower carbon dioxide emitted by power plants that the EPA estimated would save 4,500 lives a year. Pruitt was already moving to end the policy.

“So unless we exit Paris, all of these sorts of cases are going to be in jeopardy,” McGahn said. He was for getting out immediately.

“You don’t know what you are talking about,” Tillerson said. “My State Department legal adviser, which was the office that negotiated this in the first place and has the relevant expertise, says we can’t just announce that we are getting out.”

The option paper clearly said the “United States cannot officially announce a withdrawal from the Paris Agreement until November 2019”—two and a half years away.

But the second option—remaining in the accord but doing nothing that harmed the economy and putting a hold on further financial contributions—would put the U.S. in good stead in terms of litigation, Tillerson said.

The secretary of state stood alone. Pruitt spoke strongly for getting out. Priebus, who saw the political benefits, was for getting out. Bannon saw Paris as one more globalist deal that screwed the United States.

At the end, Cohn said they obviously needed to get the legal issues squared away. “But I think we’re starting to get a consensus.” He was right. Paris was dead.



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McMaster and Porter huddled before a 10 a.m., June 1 meeting with the president in the Oval Office on the Paris Accord. Trump was due to make an announcement that day. We’ve got to make a last-ditch effort, they agreed.

Withdrawing will damage our relationships with so many other countries, McMaster said. He was inundated with calls from his counterparts. “You guys aren’t really thinking about doing this, are you?” Or more explicitly, “Please don’t do this.”

Porter had drafted some language for the president to use. “The United States will withdraw from the terms of the Paris Climate Accord, effective immediately.” Porter read his proposal, “As of today the United States will not adhere to any financial or economic burden the Paris Accord purports to impose, including its nationally determined contribution.”