Fear: Trump in the White House(75)

“I don’t want to hear that,” Trump replied. “It’s all bullshit.”

As the meeting was winding down, Tillerson leaned back in his chair. He seemed to be speaking to the president but did not make eye contact with him. Instead he looked at Mattis.

“Your deal,” the secretary of state said. “It’s your deal.”

It was a Texas walk-back—as if to say, I will obey and execute, but it is your design, not mine.

“We spend $3.5 billion a year to have troops in South Korea,” Trump said angrily. The South could not decide if they wanted the THAAD antimissile system or not! And whether they are going to pay for it or not!

Some South Koreans believed the system could provoke war with North Korea and had protested the installation, arguing it was for the benefit of the U.S. and Japan.

“Pull the fucking thing out!” Trump said. “I don’t give a shit.”

“The South Koreans subsidize the hell out of us,” Cohn said, challenging the president directly. The trade deal was good for the United States economy, he said again. “We buy the most amazing TVs in the world for $245. Which means that people are spending less money on TVs and more money on other products in the United States.”

If the U.S. pulled its troops out, it would require more Navy carrier groups in that part of the world to feel comfortable. That might cost 10 times as much, Cohn stated.

Then there was the ultra-sensitive intelligence gained through the Special Access Programs South Korea allowed the U.S. to run. Trump seemed not to comprehend the value and the necessity.

“Like $3.5 billion, 28,000 troops,” the president said. He was really hot. “I don’t know why they’re there. Let’s bring them all home!”

“So, Mr. President,” Cohn said, “what would you need in the region to sleep well at night?”

“I wouldn’t need a fucking thing,” the president said. “And I’d sleep like a baby.”

Priebus called an end to the meeting. Mattis seemed completely deflated.

Trump got up and walked out.

All the air seemed to have come out of Tillerson. He could not abide Trump’s attack on the generals. The president was speaking as if the U.S. military was a mercenary force for hire. If a country wouldn’t pay us to be there, then we didn’t want to be there. As if there were no American interests in forging and keeping a peaceful world order, as if the American organizing principle was money.

“Are you okay?” Cohn asked him.

“He’s a fucking moron,” Tillerson said so everyone heard.



* * *



Trump left the meeting with Priebus, Bannon and Kushner just before 12:45 p.m. He spent a few moments greeting service members lined up in the corridor.

“The meeting was great,” Trump told reporters. “A very good meeting.”

He moved toward the presidential limousine.

“I’m glad you fucking decided to say something,” Trump said to Bannon. “I needed some backup.”

“You were doing great,” Bannon said.

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin had followed them out. He wanted to make sure it was clear he was with Trump on the European allies. “I don’t know if they’re allies or not,” he said. “I’m with you.”

In the car, Trump described his advisers, “They don’t know anything about business. All they want to do is protect everybody—that we pay for.”

He said that the South Koreans, our allies, won’t cut a new deal with us on trade. “And they want us to protect them from that crazy guy in the North.”



* * *



Cohn concluded that Trump was, in fact, going backwards. He had been more manageable the first months when he was a novice.

For Priebus, it was the worst meeting among many terrible ones. Six months into the administration, he could see vividly that they had a fundamental problem of goal setting. Where were they going?

The distrust in the room had been thick and corrosive. The atmosphere was primitive; everyone was ostensibly on the same side, but they had seemed suited up in battle armor, particularly the president.

This was what craziness was like, Priebus concluded.



* * *



A senior White House official who spoke contemporaneously with participants in the meeting recorded this summary: “The president proceeded to lecture and insult the entire group about how they didn’t know anything when it came to defense or national security. It seems clear that many of the president’s senior advisers, especially those in the national security realm, are extremely concerned with his erratic nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learn, as well as what they consider his dangerous views.”





CHAPTER


28




After the meeting in the Tank, Tillerson, an Eagle Scout, left to attend the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia and his son’s wedding in Texas. He was thinking of resigning.

“Listen,” Priebus said later in a call to him, “you can’t resign right now. That’s ridiculous. Come over to my office.”

Tillerson came to see him. “I just don’t like the way the president talks to these generals. They don’t deserve it. I can’t sit around and listen to this from the president. He’s just a moron.”