How do you solve a problem like Trump?

Roopinder Singh

He is a misogynist; so in love with his ideas that he does not listen to any other; doesn't even read the ‘day book’ briefings presented to him at night; is prone to changing his mind and spinning his opinion on a dime; suffers from a siege mentality, regularly insults you and your colleagues and on top of all this, he is a liar! What do you do? He is the President of the United States and you have to serve him, even as you try to protect him and his presidency from himself.

“You are fired,” he said to the cadre of officials that was with him when he was sworn in. They have gone, but their memories have not. They provide a fertile ground for writers to mine for information about the White House spectacle that Trump has created. 

Of all the jobs that President Donald Trump promised, one that never popped up was the one of chronicling the hullabaloo around his actions as a candidate and later, as President. Oh! What a veritable industry it has come to be! The attention-seeking President has found a public that seeks to know more and more about him. Michael Wolff’s fly-on-the-wall account was the first off the block, followed by one by  a former staffer, Omarosa Manigault Newman. Former FBI Director James Comey added his bit, and now Pulitzer prize-winner Bob Woodward has given us a runaway bestseller — Fear. 

The title is justified. Cabinet members are selected on whether they “look the part” or not. Cronyism at its crassest, adhocism and a mind as fickle as can be — statecraft has been reduced to stagecraft, with predictable results. 

At the Trump White House, Woodward says officials were “trying to make policy on a string of one-sentence clichés.” The agenda was set early. “Number one, we’re going to stop mass illegal immigration and start to limit legal immigration to get our sovereignty back. Number two, you are going to bring manufacturing jobs back to the country. And number three, we’re going to get out of these pointless foreign wars.” No, this was not the President talking, but his now-fired chief advisor Steve Bannon. 

Trump’s simplistic worldview, heavily influenced by what he (the US) can get from others, makes frequent appearances. “Prime Minister Modi of India is a friend of mine. I like him very much. He told me the US has gotten nothing out of Afghanistan. Nothing. Afghanistan has massive mineral wealth. We don’t take it like others—like China. The US needed to get some of Afghanistan’s valuable minerals in exchange for any support.”

Geopolitical strategy took a back seat to perceived business imbalances. In one instance, the then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson raised the concern that the administration was targeting China with steel tariffs at a time when they needed its help to corral North Korea. He was ignored. No wonder he was later to declare “He’s a fu**ing moron.” The Chief of Staff would put it in milder words: “The president’s unhinged.”

One interesting aside is how President Donald Trump's lead lawyer, John Dowd, who has resigned over the handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, is convinced that Mueller “never had a Russian case or an obstruction case. He was looking for the perjury trap,” and he played Dowd and the president, for suckers.

The picture that emerges from Bob Woodward’s extensively documented book is of a whole group of people trying to manage the person who was supposed to provide leadership, use what they can of his thoughts and statements to make policy even as they strive to avoid damaging the delicate fabric of international cooperation and strategic alliances that the United States has cultivated over decades.

The detailed, researched book reflects the reality that the world is living. It is a disquieting read, but a necessary one, given the manner in which what is being described impacts our lives. The 45th US president has scored significant victories on trade and his push for his US Supreme Court nominee’s Senate confirmation. They were divisive, bruising and polarising, but he won. That’s Trump for you!