An Oral History of the Trump Administration

“If he isn’t ineffectual, he sure is invisible.”

“He hasn’t stepped in it.”

​It’s “not clear that he has any more influence than any other senior staffer.”

​“For the first six months of the administration, Pence was sort of afraid to take any sort of substantive position on anything, in any deliberations.”

“If what the [New York Times] reported is true, Pence is probably rehearsing. It’s just like Nixon.”

“For somebody who was rumored to be on his way out week one, if he lasts six or seven months, it is a success.”

On his habit of sprinting into meetings—“He literally runs.”

​ “Nobody wants Reince’s job here. I can tell you that with certainty.”

“A little bit of under-competence and a slight amount of insecurity can breed some paranoia and backstabbing. We have to get Reince to relax into the job and become more competent, because he’s seeing shadows where there are no shadows.”

​“Every time there’s a palace intrigue story or negative story about Reince, the whole West Wing shuts down.”

“It’s gotten embarrassing.”

​“​Trump is casting his show. Generals are all-purpose actors in a supporting role."

"Kelly, being a mature general, may finally be able to get Donald to pivot into a presidential dynamic."

“Let’s remember, General Kelly executed the travel ban. It’s not like he walked away and said, ‘I’m a conscientious objector to the president’s agenda.’ ”

“[Kelly is] the Mrs. Doubtfire of the White House—General Doubtfire [because he’s] gentrified everything."

"I don't know what Rex does every day. [Defense Secretary] James Mattis is home alone."

​“I couldn’t name you a guy who would take the job or get confirmed.”

“Trump is a business guy; he judges things in quarters.” The military strike on Syria, the operative said, “was a solid way to end the first quarter for Tillerson.”

“For better or worse, Steve would try to take people out. No one else was quite as aggressive about it.”

“What it does not do is remove the person who’s creating the most drama in the White House, and that’s Donald Trump.”

"He's trying to bravado his way through his lack of experience."

“Everyone is jealous.”

“You’re not able to complain about Jared around here.”

"Spread the butter: He is toast.”

"He thinks he's a problem. I would be worried if I was Gen. Flynn."

"[In private conversations, he is referred to as] Globalist Gary."

“If Trump wants to fire him, he will, or he won’t.”

"He wants to send more troops to Afghanistan, so we're going to send him."

"Toward the end of the meeting Ivanka Trump entered the Oval Office to 'say hello' and the meeting careened off topic."

“Republican leaders were visibly annoyed by Ivanka’s presence.”

“Everyone knew that Jared’s father was a felon and her father was a buffoon, but you looked past that because they stood on their own two feet and were sophisticated and presentable. They were accepted despite their parents. Now, there’s no separating the two.”

“I know her well enough to know her relationship with her father, which is that she will never, ever, go against the grain.”

“She wanted to be the apple of her father’s eye. There’s no question, she worked hard to be the perfect image her father wanted.”

“Sometimes she and Jared are a big influence on Donald and sometimes he takes other opinions into account and does something they disagree with. They win some and they lose some.”

“She’s the person he listens to more than anyone.”

“If only he could've kept his mouth shut.”

"It really is a massive success story in terms of implementation on every single level."

"[Trump has complained about] how his people didn't give him good advice [and that he shouldn’t have] rush[ed] it like they wanted me to."

"For once, we had the wind at our sails. We decided not to sh*t on ourselves."

“I do not believe they are playing chess. I think they are playing Trivial Pursuit."

“We take [Republican lawmakers’] views seriously and we’re listening, but we do appreciate when those concerns are shared privately and with a smaller megaphone.”

“Our view is: There’s nothing as clarifying as the smell of Air Force One jet fuel. So if he needs to bring in the plane and do a rally, he’s going to think about doing that.”

After that defeat, Mr. Trump’s staff noticed that the president had adopted a practice of merging the two men’s names into one long “Ryan-ce.”

"It's like you're in a room with 2-year-olds, and one side complains about any attention you give the other.”

"I'm worried about everything right now.”

"I think the reality of the Senate process is setting in."

"[The party can't risk] looking like a clown car."

“It was a restatement of bullet points that Larry Kudlow and Stephen Moore drafted on the back of a cocktail napkin at the 21 Club.”

“The reason your head is spinning on this is that the plan isn’t even written yet. This was all about doing something in the first 100 days and really it’s doing the process backwards.”

“It is a debacle."

“[Is Trump] in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion?”

“They just barely got the tiniest bit of momentum going after the House health care bill, and now it's like the engine has fallen out of the car.”

“This is probably the most egregious example of press and communications incompetence since we’ve been here. It was an absolute disaster. And the president watched it unfold firsthand. He could see it.”

"The team are rank amateurs who picked a fight with the intelligence agencies and the FBI. Hard to unite those historically competitive organizations. And they have the ability to find out almost anything!"

“They were running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”

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“For those of us that want this administration to succeed, this is incredibly self-destructive behavior.”

“It’s just insanity.’’

"No need to let this bill fester if it's going to fail."

"Does Trump team think it's smart to attack the most endangered GOP senator [Nevada’s Dean Heller], from a state Trump lost? This is the second-dumbest thing Trump has done since firing Comey."

"Unpopular presidents pushing unpopular proposals usually fail."

“That definitely didn’t result from any policy discussions. It’s not that [Trump’s] aides lack confidence in knowing what he wants, but what he wants today and what he wants tomorrow are not going to be the same thing.”

"We are walking into an autumn of discontent.... They are in this terrible box on health care and they're about to get blamed for it because they did what I've been calling that Bon Jovi rally at the White House—because they were halfway there."

"I think he just wanted to show North Korea he was tired of it.”

"There was no sense of panic.”

"Tone seems to be moving from tough to shrill.... He muddled his own message."

“People have tried to assuage him by saying, ‘You're just not helping yourself.’ He doesn't care.”

“In some ways, Trump would rather have people calling him racist than say he backed down the minute he was wrong. This may turn into the biggest mess of his presidency because he is stubborn and doesn't realize how bad this is getting.”

“[Trump is a] caged animal [under Kelly].”

"He's just not as good as he thinks he is. And no one can tell him."

"Trump's not as evil as portrayed."

“It’s always been like this. I’m anesthetized.”

“You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill."

"If you see a guy about to stab someone with a knife, you don't need to huddle to decide to grab the knife."

“[The CEOs decided they] couldn't justify the capital they were spending, hoping that this guy can function in a somewhat mature and statesmanlike way."

“I would be very uncomfortable saying where the president is leaning. I don’t have a clear sense of where he’ll go.”

“[Trump seems to view DACA recipients as a] sympathetic or unusual case.”

"He f----d us."

"Democrats got more done in a single Oval Office visit in one afternoon than the congressional Republicans have achieved all years."

"I've never heard members and senators so angry at the president of their own party.”

"He read the room. Instinctual.... He's a dealmaker. He saw a deal."

“[Trump] didn’t just ruin his credibility. He ruined our credibility—because we’ve been publicly supporting him. He humiliated us.”

“He’s not giving up on the wall, and we’re not giving up on the wall. But it doesn’t have to be on DACA."

“He’s just not a good negotiator. They got out-hustled by the Democrats in how they’re framing this.”

"He knows it'll get people stirred up and talking about it."

“[The process was] ridiculously slapdash.”

"We really aren't sure what the impact will be.”

"Very uphill battle right now."

“I think it would be a mistake to have another failed vote. But we have to show the base we’re trying.”

“It is a political nightmare for both Trump and [Florida Governor Rick] Scott. [Trump's] asinine response to criticism [has given Democrats] a way to 1) energize Puerto Rican voters in Florida and 2) motivate Puerto Rican residents who will be Florida residents after this disaster."

“Trump is simply not going to let the San Juan mayor define the U.S. relief efforts when he feels like he is being attacked. His comments are divisive, yet they redefine the mayor’s intent as partisan to his base, which is really what matters to him."

"Trump is like Ollie North. He actually believes the stuff he's lying about."

“The president likes maps.”

"He only asks you a lot of questions when he's unhappy. If he thinks things are going well, he just tells you how well it's going.”

“You're not going to see Trump come out and say, 'I was wrong. If you're waiting on him to take the blame, you're going to be waiting a long time."

"These people are insecure because Trump does not respect them. He does not because they have not made any money. He respects [Steve] Bannon and Gary Cohn because they are financially successful."

"Trump is thinking through his frustrations. The team didn't put the windows in right."

“Once he goes upstairs, there’s no managing him.”

“If you’re an adviser to him, your job is to help him at the margins. To talk him out of doing crazy things.”

"He's never going to say he did a bad job."

“The possibility that the president is annoyed and angry and yells at someone in the building is not of a lot of consequence to me because it happens all of the time.”

“[Trump is] like when there's a new strange kid in the class nobody likes. You behave civilly when teachers [i.e., media watch but don't spend time with him in private because he's so different.”

"You never know when you're going to get thrown under the bus. He has this constant need for reassurance and affirmation that he takes out on the staff."

“[Trump is looking for] original gangsters [and] wants people who will take bullets for him.”

"He used to love Oreos but he really did stop eating them once they moved [their plants] to Mexico."

“[Trump has] probably taken 10,000 pictures."

"'Check the lighting.' 'Are your eyes closed?' 'Do you want another? Do you want another?' He knows these are special moments for people."

“He feels like this is not what he signed up for, and his accomplishments are being underplayed. He just looks around and says, ‘When is this going to get better?’”

“He’s not a details guy.”

“People are scared. [It’s] a pretty hostile environment to work in.”

“I wouldn't call it paranoia under the circumstances. It’s not paranoia if people really are out to get you, and everybody actually is out to get everyone else."

“We chose to hire a lot of alphas. People in politics are insecure and will either adapt to the fact that this is an entrepreneurial White House and survive, or they won’t. The cream will rise and the [expletive] will sink.”

"We've added a little due process. The question still is: Can we herd all the cats?"

“Why were they there? Now the expectation is you have to be in every picture and every meeting.”

"No one says 'Yes, sir' in this White House. We say: 'F--k you.'"

“In general, there is a lot of insecurity.”

“It’s a campaign administration. You walk in and there’s a pastor from Des Moines, Iowa, and a couple of small-business guys. You’re waiting for the cats and dogs to walk through.”

"This is becoming The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. It's starting to remind people of the Carter administration."

“I kind of pooh-poohed the experience stuff when I first got here. But this sh*t is hard.”

“The real question is, how long do you put up with it? Every one of those people could get a better-paying job and work less hours.”

Many aides are “deeply, deeply miserable. But it’s not easy to just walk out of the White House. You think you’re helping.”

"The White House says they have the investigation under control. Volunteering to sit down with a special prosecutor is kind of the definition of things not being under control."

“It’s basically all he talks about on the phone.”

"A week ago, we were talking about the agenda grinding to a halt. Now, the train is going down the hill backwards."

“We are kind of helpless.”

"We're getting street fighters ready to go."

“It feels like people should be more worried to me. No one has told me to hire a lawyer or not to hire a lawyer. So I’m not hiring one yet.”

“Their complete inability to get ahead of the Russia story is so strange to people."

“Please, don’t, you’re not helping things.”

"Another week, and no progress on the GOP agenda. Infrastructure Week turned into Comey Week. No one really knows Trump and came to D.C. with him. He is a president on an island, all alone. ... [T]he ability to get anything done is in double jeopardy."

"The president has no context for operating in the environment he's currently in—as head of state and head of government of the most powerful enterprise in all of history. And because he has no context, he's not good at compartmentalizing information."

"He just rambles.... He doesn't care."

"[T]ranquilize the president so he does not tweet about it."

"They say, don't do this, don't do that, and then he tweets. And then the conversation happens again.”

“Everyone in there is going to blame it on everyone else.”