Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

[Shogun]

Kushner called up the ninety-three-year-old Kissinger for advice. This was both to flatter the old man and to be able to drop his name, but it was also actually for real advice. Trump had done nothing but cause problems for the Mexican president. To bring the Mexican president to the White House would be, despite Bannon’s no-pivot policy from the campaign’s harshness, a truly meaningful pivot for which Kushner would be able to claim credit (although don’t call it a pivot). It was what Kushner believed he should be doing: quietly following behind the president and with added nuance and subtlety clarifying the president’s real intentions, if not recasting them entirely.

The negotiation to bring Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto to the White House had begun during the transition period. Kushner saw the chance to convert the issue of the wall into a bilateral agreement addressing immigration—hence a tour de force of Trumpian politics. The negotiations surrounding the visit reached their apogee on the Wednesday after the inaugural, with a high-level Mexican delegation—the first visit by any foreign leader to the Trump White House—meeting with Kushner and Reince Priebus. Kushner’s message to his father-in-law that afternoon was that Peña Nieto had signed on to a White House meeting and planning for the visit could go forward.

The next day Trump tweeted: “The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers . . .” And he continued in the next tweet . . . “of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting . . .”

At which point Peña Nieto did just that, leaving Kushner’s negotiation and statecraft as so much scrap on the floor.

 

[Shogun]

At the White House, he retreated to his own bedroom—the first time since the Kennedy White House that a presidential couple had maintained separate rooms (although Melania was spending scant time so far in the White House). In the first days he ordered two television screens in addition to the one already there, and a lock on the door, precipitating a brief standoff with the Secret Service, who insisted they have access to the room. He reprimanded the housekeeping staff for picking up his shirt from the floor: “If my shirt is on the floor, it’s because I want it on the floor.” Then he imposed a set of new rules: nobody touch anything, especially not his toothbrush. (He had a longtime fear of being poisoned, one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald’s—nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade.) Also, he would let housekeeping know when he wanted his sheets done, and he would strip his own bed.

If he was not having his six-thirty dinner with Steve Bannon, then, more to his liking, he was in bed by that time with a cheeseburger, watching his three screens and making phone calls—the phone was his true contact point with the world—to a small group of friends, among them most frequently Tom Barrack, who charted his rising and falling levels of agitation through the evening and then compared notes with one another.

Eat cheeseburgers in bed, brehs

 

[Robbie3000]

The audiobook version is hilarious just off the strength of the readers trump voice this book is great

When he recites Trump's speeches.

 

[re'up]

“Intoxicated by Trump’s flattery during the campaign, Flynn—a lower-tier general and quite a flaky one at that—had become something of a Trump dancing monkey. When former generals make alliances with political candidates, they customarily position themselves as providers of expertise and figures of a special maturity. But Flynn had become quite a maniacal partisan, part of the Trump traveling road show, one of the ranters and ravers opening Trump rallies. This all-in enthusiasm and loyalty had helped win him access to Trump’s ear, into which he poured his anti-intelligence-community theories.”

 

[Regular_P]

Eat cheeseburgers in bed, brehs

Then he imposed a set of new rules: nobody touch anything, especially not his toothbrush. (He had a longtime fear of being poisoned, one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald’s—nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade.)

I'm fukking dying.

 

[Serious]

I'm fukking dying.

ahahahahahaha

 

[re'up]

“He’s going to make peace in the Middle East,” Bannon said often, his voice reverent and his expression deadpan, cracking up all the Bannonites”

I think we have all made this joke lol

 

[Pressure]

Nap would literally be Bannon

Dec 18 poster..
Calling him nap...

You clowns don't even try with your alts.

 

[re'up]

“Ryan, “rising to a movie-version level of flattery and sucking-up painful to witness,” according to one senior Trump aide, was able to delay his execution.”

No one here doubts for a second this was true, that sniveling and begging hick from Jainseville.

 

[re'up]

“On the campaign trail, he recalled, Newt Gingrich “would come with all these dumb ideas. When we won he was my new best friend. Every day a hundred ideas. When”—by spring in the White House—“I got cold, when I went through my Valley of Death, I saw him one day in the lobby and he looks down, ”

this one got me

 

[Phoenix Rising]

If anything what this is showing is how great it is that Bannon is no longer in the White House...wow wild.

 

[Shogun]

At the same time, the president seemed to like Priebus more and more quite for the reason that he seemed entirely expendable. He took Trump’s verbal abuse about his height and stature affably, or anyway stoically. He was a convenient punching bag when things went wrong—and he didn’t punch back, to Trump’s pleasure and disgust.

“I love Reince,” said the president, with the faintest praise. “Who else would do this job?”

 

[2stainz]

If anything what this is showing is how great it is that Bannon is no longer in the White House...wow wild.

The immigration EO explanation shows that Bannon was actually methodical, and pretty effective (in comparison to the dumpster fire he left behind). He wanted chaos

Better to have him outside and neutralized than inside where he can influence policy directly

 

[DonKnock]

Nap’s GF Louise got a shoutout in here

 

[PS5 Pro]

I mean let's be honest, @PS4 is probably more qualified than 45 to run the WH......

I'd be a qualified substitute if Jesus got sick