Fear: Trump in the White House(83)

“Everyone wants your position,” Trump continued. “I made a huge mistake giving it to you.”

The president continued with venom. It was chilling. Cohn had never been talked to or treated like that in his life. “This is treason,” Trump said.

Trump turned to trying to make Cohn feel guilty. “You are driving our policy and if you leave now, taxes are over. You can’t do this.” Cohn had spent months working a tax cut plan and was in the middle of negotiations on the Hill, a massive, complex undertaking. “How could you leave me hanging like that?”

“Sir, I don’t ever want to leave you hanging. I don’t want anyone to ever think I betrayed them. I have a reputation I care more about than anything in the world. I’m working for free here in the White House. It’s not about money. It’s about helping the country. If you think I’m betraying you, I will never do that.” And relenting, he added, “I will stay and get taxes done. But I can’t stay here and say nothing.”

Vice President Pence walked in and stood next to Cohn and touched him affectionately. They needed to keep Cohn, Pence said, but he understood the position Cohn was in. Yes, Cohn should say something publicly.

“Go out there and say whatever you want,” Trump said. “Mnuchin said something.”

Mnuchin had put out a statement: “I strongly condemn the actions of those filled with hate. . . . They have no defense from me nor do they have any defense from the president or this administration.” He quoted and commended Trump’s initial response to Charlottesville and added, “As someone who is Jewish . . . while I find it hard to believe I should have to defend myself on this, or the president, I feel compelled to let you know that the president in no way, shape or form believes that neo-Nazi and other hate groups who endorse violence are equivalent to groups that demonstrate in peaceful and lawful ways.”

Trump cited others who had distanced themselves from him.

“I don’t have a platform,” Cohn replied.

“What do you mean?” asked Trump.

The cabinet secretaries had press departments, Cohn said. “They can go out and make statements whenever they want. I’m an assistant to the president. I’m not supposed to be making press statements.”

“I don’t care,” Trump said. “Go to the podium right now, and make a statement.” He was inviting Cohn to go to the podium in the press room of the White House.

“I’m not going to do that, sir. That’s embarrassing. That’s not what you do. Let me do it my way.”

“I don’t care what way you do it,” Trump said. “I just don’t want you leaving until taxes are done. And you can say whatever you need to say.”

“Do you want to see it before I say it?”

Trump seemed to be of two minds. “Nope,” Trump replied at first. “Say whatever you want to say.” But then he asked what it might be. “Could we see it first?”

Cohn said he would work with the White House communications department.

On the way out of the Oval Office, General Kelly, who had heard it all, pulled Cohn into the Cabinet Room. According to notes that Cohn made afterward, Kelly said, “That was the greatest show of self-control I have ever seen. If that was me, I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times.”

A few minutes later, Pence showed up in Cohn’s West Wing office. He reiterated his support. Say whatever you need and want to say, and continue to serve your country, he said, thanking him for everything.

Cohn chose to make his views known in an interview with the Financial Times. “This administration can and must do better. . . . I have come under enormous pressure both to resign and to remain. . . . I also feel compelled to voice my distress . . . citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK.”

Cohn could tell that Trump was angry because the president would not talk to him for a couple of weeks. At regular meetings, Trump would ignore him. Finally one day, Trump turned to him and asked, “Gary, what do you think?”

The inner administration shunning was over, but the scar remained.



* * *



To Rob Porter, Charlottesville was the breaking point. Trump rejected the better judgment of almost all of his staff. He had done that before. His perverse independence and irrationality ebbed and flowed. But with Charlottesville the floodgates just opened. For just the sake of a few words, he had drawn a stark line. “This was no longer a presidency,” Porter said. “This is no longer a White House. This is a man being who he is.” Trump was going ahead no matter what.

As Porter saw it from up close—perhaps as close as anyone on the staff except Hope Hicks—the Trump election had rekindled the divide in the country. There was a more hostile relationship with the media. The culture wars were reinvigorated. There was a racist tinge. Trump accelerated it.

Porter wondered if trying to repair any of those divisions after Charlottesville was almost a lost cause. There was no turning back. Trump had crossed the point of no return. To the Trump opponents and haters, he was un-American, racist. There was so much fuel on that fire already, and Trump had added so much more. The fire was going to burn, and it was going to burn brightly.

It was now an almost permanent state of suspicion, disbelief and hostility. “It’s just all-out war now.”