Fear: Trump in the White House

“I always knew Gary was a fucking globalist,” Trump said. “I didn’t know you were such a fucking globalist, Rob.”

Trump turned to Kelly. Get a load of this guy. He’s a globalist!

Kelly nodded and smiled. He wanted this meeting wrapped up.

The meeting broke up without a real resolution except to remind Trump that he had signed a decision memo to move forward on the 301 investigation with China and announced it. That had to come before steel tariffs. That was the strategy and agreement.

Porter left the White House on February 7 after two ex-wives went public with allegations that he had physically abused them. One released a photo showing a black eye that she said Porter gave her. Each, one to the press and one in a blog post, gave graphic descriptions of domestic abuse.

Porter quickly concluded it would be best for all—his former spouses, his family and close friends, the White House and himself—to resign. He wanted to focus on repairing relationships and healing.

The New York Times wrote, “Abuse Claims End Star’s Rise in White House” and “Aide’s Clean-Cut Image Belied His Hot Temper, Former Colleagues Say.”

In a statement, Porter said, “I took the photos given to the media nearly 15 years ago, and the reality behind them is nowhere close to what is being described.”

“Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation,” Trump tweeted.

The Washington Post editorial board accused the White House of “shrugging off domestic violence” and The New York Times said “Trump Appears to Doubt the #MeToo Movement.”

Cohn saw that one of the main restraining influences on Trump was now gone.

After 6:30 on the night of Wednesday, February 28, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro went to the Oval Office and convinced the president to move ahead with steel tariffs before the 301 investigation was complete, imploding the whole trade strategy. Ross had earlier produced a study maintaining that the rising imports of steel and aluminum were a threat to the national security, giving Trump the authority to impose them without Congress.

Ross and Navarro had arranged for the main U.S. steel executives to come to the White House the next day.

When Cohn got word of the plan, he called Kelly around 10 p.m.

“I don’t know anything about a meeting,” Kelly said. “There’s no meeting.”

“Oh, there’s a meeting.”

“What are you talking about, Gary?”

Cohn tried to kill the meeting, and for a while he thought he had succeeded. But then it was back on.

More than a dozen executives showed up the next day. At a meeting in the Cabinet Room, Trump announced that he had decided to impose a 25 percent tariff on foreign-made steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

“You will have protection for the first time in a long while,” Trump told the executives. “And you’re going to regrow your industries,” he said, even though all the data Cohn had gathered showed it was not practical or even possible.

Cohn believed if they had completed the work on the intellectual property case against China, they would have had the allies on board for a blockbuster trade case. It would have been most of the world against China. Their economic rival would be isolated. Steel tariffs upended all of that.

Cohn concluded that Trump just loved to pit people against each other. The president had never been in a business where he had to do long-term strategic thinking. He went to see Trump to explain that he was resigning.

“If this is the way you’re going to run the place,” Cohn said, he was going to leave. “I can deal with losing a battle in the White House as long as we follow proper protocol and procedure. But when two guys get to walk in your office at 6:30 at night and schedule a meeting that the chief of staff and no one knows about, I can’t work in that environment.”

Cohn knew the importance of Hope Hicks, who had been elevated to White House communications director. Cohn often asked her to join him when he was heading into a tough conversation with Trump, saying, “Hope, come on in with me.” He found Hicks softened the president and that Trump treated Cohn differently when she was there.

On Tuesday, March 6, he went to see Hicks. They crafted a statement for the president to issue with Cohn’s resignation.

“Gary has been my chief economic adviser and did a superb job in driving our agenda, helping to deliver historic tax cuts and reforms and unleashing the American economy once again. He is a rare talent, and I thank him for his dedicated service to the American people.”

They fiddled with the language, then took a printed copy into the Oval Office. They took seats at the Resolute Desk.

“Mr. President,” Cohn said, “today’s probably the right day for me to put out my resignation.”

“Gary’s been so great,” Hicks said, soothing the moment. “We’re going to miss him so much. This is a shame. We’ve got to find a way to bring him back.”

“Of course,” the president said, “we’re going to bring him back.”