Why it matters: Graham said it with a “what can you do,” the authors report — the mindset of so many of Trump’s allies and forces. The big picture: “The Divider” — a sweeping, easy-to-read 700-plus page history of Trump’s “almost cartoonishly chaotic White House” — shows that he came close to taking several aggressive military actions, as Glasser and Baker reported in an adaptation from the book last month in The New Yorker.
The book is based on 300 new interviews (including two with Trump) plus diaries, notes, contemporaneous notes, emails and text messages.
Cover: Doubleday More nuggets from Glasser, a columnist for The New Yorker, and Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times:
Trump infuriated then-Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joe Dunford with attacks on the generals’ integrity, including accusing the military of undermining him to the press. “You are burglars,” Trump said. “We’re not burglars,” Dunford replied. Melania Trump told former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, then a confidant of the president, that she had warned her husband about his response to COVID: “You’re blowing this.” Trump sometimes undermined Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, in meetings when he wasn’t there. “Jared, all he cares about is his liberal crowd in New York,” Trump said. “These are not my people.” White House chief of staff John Kelly was so furious when Trump refused to lower the flag after Senator John McCain’s death that he told the president: “If you don’t support John McCain’s funeral, when you die, the public he will come to the grave and urinate on himself.” Trump gave in.
More about the book … NY Times review (subscription): “It’s all here: the culture wars and corruption, the demagoguery and authoritarian love, palace intrigue and public tweets, the pandemic and impeachment (plural ).”
