Home > Work > Siege: Trump Under Fire
1 " you don’t know what he hears because he just talks. "
― Michael Wolff , Siege: Trump Under Fire
2 " Trump’s key supporters worked for him because nobody else would have them. "
3 " By Sunday evening, a feeling perhaps most reminiscent of election night 2016, desolate and confounded, spread through the mainstream media, the liberal establishment, and among all those who were confident that they had surrounded Donald Trump and left him nowhere to run. This was—and there could hardly be any better illustration—defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. "
4 " But Trump was a simple machine. Whitestone understood his singular interests—sports and girls—and learned they could be used as reliable distractions. "
5 " He can’t walk down steps … can’t walk down hills. [He’s got] mental blocks … [He] can’t handle numbers … they have no meaning to him. "
6 " A twelve-year-old in a man’s body, all he does is takedowns of people based on their physical appearance—short, fat, bald, whatever it is. There weren’t producers who could say, Don’t say that … We would just send him through the doors and hit Record … It’s like being in the backseat of a car being driven by a really drunk driver … holy shit. He was as incoherent then … no more, no less … as he is now, repeating thoughts and weird phrases … His weird sniffing thing (‘I have hay fever’) … [He was] always eating Oscar Mayer baloney … [Once he] pulled a slice of baloney out and shoved it in my mouth… "
7 " —crowded out most other voices on the subject of whatever new crisis was engulfing the Trump administration. These quotes functioned as something like a stage whisper that Trump could pretend he didn’t hear. Trump, in fact, was always desperately seeking Bannon’s advice, "
8 " Trump, one guest noted, always more salesman than politician, seemed to have the capacity to focus only on the good news. "
9 " For the media, Cohen was a reliable leaker about Trump and the campaign. Among senior campaign aides, he was later regarded as a central voice in NBC correspondent Katy Tur’s book about the campaign, "
10 " He’s supposed to be a fixer,” said Trump about Cohen, “but he breaks a lot of stuff.” All of Trump’s people "
11 " All mustaches annoyed Trump, "
12 " No national emergency, no solution, no offer, no progress. Trump was, for the entire nation to see, trapped. "
13 " many around Trump were surprised to record an unexpected character note: he wasn’t paranoid. He was self-pitying and melodramatic, but not on guard. Negativity and betrayal always startled him. "
14 " In a way, Robert Mueller had come to accept the dialectical premise of Donald Trump—that Trump is Trump. It was circular reasoning to hold the president’s essential character against him. Put another way, confronted by Donald Trump, Bob Mueller threw up his hands. Surprisingly, he found himself in agreement with the greater White House: Donald Trump was the president, and, for better or for worse, what you saw was what you got—and what the country voted for. "
15 " And then he delivered a scornful critique of Robert Mueller: “What an asshole.” And there, perhaps, Trump had something of a point. If this was the result—a pass on conspiracy and equivocation on obstruction—how could you not have hastened it along, or, worse, how could you have fostered the exact opposite impression? "
16 " Pelosi, Bannon felt, saw the greater truth: the Trump administration would undo itself. "
17 " Kushner’s analysis was the same as nearly everyone’s who spent a significant amount of time around the president. He was childlike—a hyperactive child at that. There was no clear reason for why something caught his interest, nor was there any way to predict his reaction or modulate his response to it. He had no ability to distinguish the important from the less important. There seemed to be no such thing as objective reality. "
18 " The issue was not that he might act precipitously and recklessly because he didn’t understand the consequences of doing so. The issue was that he could not comprehend the actual choices that needed to be made in order to act; indeed, he could not even stay in the room long enough to decide on a course of action. For Trump, the fog of war would waylay him before the first command could be given. "
19 " A contemptuous Hannity, with grandiose ambitions of his own, insisted that this scenario was ludicrous. He would top the ticket, with Bannon, “if he’s lucky,” taking the second spot. "
20 " estimated Hannity’s net worth at $300 million to $400 million. From his earliest days as a big earner at the network, Hannity had invested in rental properties across the country. “He may own every shitty piece of real estate in America,” said Ailes, fondly. Bannon, never one to miss the obvious joke, wondered, “How many illegals live in Hannity’s rentals? "
