President Donald Trump spent his last weeks in office in the same way as in previous years: igniting the relationships that sustained his rise to power.
In the past few days, the president has launched the primaries against high-ranking Republicans, expelled government officials who were key allies, threatened important projects worked out with his team, and accused officials who would not help him seize power. Inside the White House, the reaction to all of this has been raising the alarm, along with the resignation that this is the modus operandi of the 45th president of the USA. Trump’s deep self-interest is no secret. But this trait has never been more visible against such a consequent background, with its legal team and the government’s attack on democratic processes so blatantly undemocratic.
“The president spent much of the Christmas weekend [at Mar-a-Lago] talking about other Republicans who weren’t doing what he wanted and acting like losers and losers, ”said one person at his private club in Florida who was receiving his complaints. Even behind closed doors, the source said, “he wasn’t finding much to be happy about this Christmas.”
“You don’t want to go out with him like that. It’s not like you’re in a bunker at the end of World War II. You are in Crazy Town.“
– Sam Nunberg, a former Trump political adviser
But Trump’s actions also raise questions about his future. And they illuminated – once again – the fundamental paradox behind their political rise: how can anyone burn so many bridges and not end up alone?
“He is no longer the celebrity mogulate tycoon he was in New York and is now part of… that exclusive Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush [one term president] club, ”said Sam Nunberg, a Trump supporter and former political adviser. “He stopped dealing with it in a way that would have helped him to maintain that power base he had now, going through conspiracy theories and handing the portfolio over to two clumsy idiots in Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell … You don’t want to go out with him like that. It’s not like you’re in a bunker at the end of World War II. You are in Crazy Town. “
Trump has always considered himself a little iconoclastic. His boldness stood out even in New York City in the 1980s. His love of attention made him indecisive among his contemporaries. He first considered running for president as an independent. And even when he secured the Republican Party’s nomination, it was under the framework of a hostile takeover.
One surprise of his time in office is that he has clung firmly 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. He was also not a traditional politician. He showed no loyalty to his Republican advisers or fellow legislators, or to members of his cabinet. He fired people on Twitter, mocked his Republican detractors, expelled his apostates and punished the leadership when they disagreed.
And yet, even by those standards, the past few days have seemed shocking in their capacity for destruction. Trump attacked Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for admitting that Joe Biden is the elected president; he threatened Senator John Thune (RS.D.) for not agreeing with efforts to block certification of the election; he expelled Attorney General Bill Barr for not doing enough to skew the election with departmental resources; he denounced White House lawyer Pat Cipollone for not supporting authoritarian initiatives like the confiscation of electronic voting machines; and he made a deal to give the annexation of Western Sahara to Morocco partly in retaliation against Senator James Inhofe (an opponent of the annexation), who would not use a major defense bill to pursue social media giants as Trump wanted. He attacked the Republican leadership in Georgia as the state prepares for the second round of elections that could determine control of the US Senate.
More recently, he attacked a COVID relief bill negotiated by his own treasury secretary and threatened not to sign a government financing bill for provisions that largely corresponded to requests made by his own budget office. And for those who complained that his behavior was erratic and deeply problematic, he extended two giant middle fingers.
“I don’t care,” Trump said in particular in recent days about conservative criticisms of his opposition to funding bills, according to two people familiar with the matter. Instead, Trump accused his Republican Party strongholds of not doing enough to he, the sources said. A person who spoke to Trump kindly reported to the president that his change in relief legislation could make life difficult for his Republican allies in DC and Georgia, only to have Trump respond by saying (as he paraphrased this source), “Well, that’s life “The president then quickly began to complain about how these elected Republicans should focus more on the 2020 election” fraud “and overturn Joe Biden’s clear victory, and complain that they were not fighting aggressively enough or maintaining a front. united about it, the source said.
The fact that Trump disregarded his party and turned to key advisers at a time of duress certainly could not have come as a surprise to those at the end of the exchange. Few relationships with Trump end in a better place than where they started.
See Nunberg. When he joined the Trump campaign, it was despite the fact that Trump – in his words – “screwed up my dad’s business with no money.” But the past can be passed, and Nunberg said he saw something historic in what Trump was doing. Then he embarked. And, for a while, it worked. Until that didn’t happen. He was fired after racist Facebook posts were discovered on his page. He claimed they were not his at the time, but later apologized for the posts in an interview with MSNBC.
Trump’s campaign was quick to distance 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 case at the end of the same year.
Looking back now, Nunberg believes that Trump “ruined my career”. Nor will he be the only one, he predicts. “Hope Hicks,” he said, “should have stayed at Fox [Corps]. Corey Lewandowski, he predicted about former Trump 2016 campaign manager and his enemy, “it will be cheap rent in New Hampshire in no time.”
Others have an even less certain future. Senior management officials, such as John McEntee and Dan Scavino, operated at the Trump White House with great influence, with the former serving as leader of the president’s purge, the latter one of Trump’s most trusted advisers and a leading conductor part of -house social media and MAGA messages. Both are avatars of the Republican operator who, at this point, is so attached to the president that he is leaving office that it is difficult to imagine their public lives without him as a vehicle. Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale suffered notable public infamy after being removed from his post and when the police were called to his home. Other advisers were forced to endure legal dramas – and the huge bills they brought about – political isolation and uncertain returns to the private sector. Some have been forgiven in the past few days. But these pardons carry a trace of infamy.
Nunberg, for his part, has failed to explain why people are attracted to Trump knowing the damage he will do to them. Some, he suspected, want the proximity of power. Others believe they can shape it. Many see that money is made from it. 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 mistreated worse than anyone.”