President Donald Trump has spent his final weeks in office as he has in previous years, burning the relationships that have supported his growth in power.
In recent days, the president has held primaries against top-tier Republicans, government officials who were permanent allies, threatened with large bills drawn up in conjunction with his team, and called in officials who would not help him hold on to power. In the White House, the response to all this has become increasingly alarming, coupled with resignation, this is the modus operandi of the 45th US president. Trump’s deep self-interest is no secret. But never before has that trait been so visible against a background so consistent, with its legal team and administration attacking democratic processes so blatantly anti-democratic.
The president spent much of the Christmas weekend [at Mar-a-Lago] talk about other Republicans who didn’t do what he wanted and acted like failures and defeatists, ”said a person who attended his private Florida club and who was on the receiving end of his grievances. Even behind closed doors, the source said, “he didn’t think much to be happy this Christmas.”
“You don’t want to date him like that. It’s not like being in a bunker at the end of WWII. You are in Crazy Town.“
– Sam Nunberg, a former Trump political adviser
But Trump’s actions also raise questions about his future. And they have – again – highlighted the fundamental paradox behind his political rise: how can one burn so many bridges and end up not being alone?
“He’s no longer the famous magnate tycoon as he was in New York, and now he’s part of … that exclusive Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush [one term president] club, ”said Sam Nunberg, a Trump supporter and former political adviser. “He didn’t handle this in a way that would have helped him maintain this power base he now had to go through by going through conspiracy theories and handing over the wallet to two bumbling idiots in Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell … Right away with him. It’s not like being in a bunker at the end of WWII. You’re in Crazy Town. “
Trump has always shaped himself as somewhat of an iconoclast. His brashness was noticeable even in 1980s New York City. His love for attention made him a gauche among his contemporaries. He first considered running for independent president. And even when he secured the nomination of the Republican Party, it happened in the context of a hostile takeover.
One surprise of his tenure is that he stuck to a traditional Republican agenda. But Trump was never really part of the party, at least in no way recognizable to someone like his second-in-command Mike Pence. Nor was he a traditional politician. He showed no loyalty to his aides or fellow GOP lawmakers, or his cabinet members. He fired people via Twitter, mocked his opponents of the GOP, fled from his apostates, and punished the leadership if they didn’t agree.
And yet, even by those standards, insiders have found the past few days shocking for their destructiveness. Trump has attacked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for admitting Joe Biden is president-elect; he is threatened against First Senator John Thune (RS.D.) for not agreeing to attempts to block the certification of the election; he ousted Attorney General Bill Barr for not doing enough to tilt the election with departmental resources; He has incited his White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, for not supporting authoritarian initiatives such as seizure of voting machines; and he struck a deal to give Morocco an annexation of Western Sahara, in part in retaliation against Senator James Inhofe (an opponent of annexation), who wouldn’t use a major defense law to deal with social media giants like Trump. He has attacked the Republican leadership in Georgia as the state prepares for a second election that could take control of the US Senate.
Most recently, he took a torch to a COVID bill that his own Treasury Secretary had negotiated and threatened not to sign a government funding bill for provisions that largely matched requests made by his own budget office. And for those who have complained that his behavior was erratic and highly problematic, he has held out two giant middle fingers.
“I don’t care,” Trump said privately in recent days of conservative criticism of his backlash against the funding bills, according to two people familiar with the case. Instead, Trump has accused his GOP stalwarts of not doing enough for him, the sources said. One person speaking to Trump gently told the president that his move to emergency relief legislation could make the lives of his Republican allies in DC and Georgia more difficult, only to get Trump to respond by saying (as this source paraphrased): “Well, that’s life.” The president then quickly turned to grumble about how these elected Republicans should focus more on electoral fraud in 2020 and nullify Joe Biden’s clear victory, complaining that they were not fighting aggressively enough or holding a united front, said the source. .
That Trump would ignore his party and enlist top employees in a time of coercion certainly should come as no surprise to those on the short side of the exchange. Few relationships with Trump end better than where they started.
Take Nunberg. When he joined Trump’s campaign, it was despite the fact that Trump had – in his words – “knocked my father’s company out of the money.” But days gone by may be over, and Nunberg said he saw something historic in what Trump was doing. So he came on board. And for a while it worked. Until it didn’t. He was fired after racist Facebook posts dug up on his page. He claimed they weren’t his at the time, but later apologized for the messages in an interview with MSNBC.
The Trump campaign quickly distanced himself from Nunberg, and Trump sued his former campaign advisor for $ 10 million in 2016, claiming he violated a confidentiality agreement by speaking to the press. The two settled the lawsuit later that same year.
Looking back now, Nunberg believes Trump “ ruined my career. ” And he won’t be alone, he predicts. “Hope Hicks,” he said, “should have stayed with Fox [Corps]. Corey Lewandowski, he predicted about the 2016 one-time Trump campaign manager and his nemesis, “will be back to low rent in New Hampshire in no time.”
Others have an even less secure future. Top officials such as John McEntee and Dan Scavino have operated with great influence in the Trump White House, with the former serving as the president’s purge chief, the latter one of Trump’s most trusted advisors and a conductor of much of the in-house social media and MAGA messages. Both are avatars of the Republican operator who is currently so connected to the outgoing president that it’s hard to imagine their public life without him as a vehicle. Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale suffered notable public shame after being pushed from his post and when the police were summoned to his home. Other aides have been forced to endure legal drama – and the huge bills they entail – political isolation and uncertain returns in the private sector. Some have been pardoned in recent days. But those pardons carry a kind of shame.
Nunberg, for his part, couldn’t explain why people are attracted to Trump, knowing the damage he will do to them. Some, he guessed, want nearness to power. Others believe they can mold him. Many see it as making money. But much of it was a mystery.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know,” said Nunberg. “I was the one who was beaten even worse.”