Fear Quotes

“But in the man and his presidency Dowd had seen the tragic flaw. In the political back-and-forth, the evasions, the denials, the tweeting, the obscuring, crying “Fake News,” the indignation, Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president: “You’re a fucking liar.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“The reality was that the United States in 2017 was tethered to the words and actions of an emotionally overwrought, mercurial and unpredictable leader. Members of his staff had joined to purposefully block some of what they believed were the president’s most dangerous impulses. It was a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“The president was speaking as if the U.S. military was a mercenary force for hire. If a country wouldn’t pay us to be there, then we didn’t want to be there. As if there were no American interests in forging and keeping a peaceful world order, as if the American organizing principle was money.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Next, Cohn repeated what everyone was saying: Interest rates were going to go up over the foreseeable future. I agree, Trump said. “We should just go borrow a lot of money right now, hold it, and then sell it and make money.” Cohn was astounded at Trump’s lack of basic understanding. He tried to explain. If you as the federal government borrow money through issuing bonds, you are increasing the U.S. deficit. What do you mean? Trump asked. Just run the presses—print money.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Cohn and Porter worked together to derail what they believed were Trump’s most impulsive and dangerous orders. That document and others like it just disappeared. When Trump had a draft on his desk to proofread, Cohn at times would just yank it, and the president would forget about it. But if it was on his desk, he’d sign it. “It’s not what we did for the country,” Cohn said privately. “It’s what we saved him from doing.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Trump liked signing. It meant he was doing things, and he had an up-and-down penmanship that looked authoritative in black Magic Marker.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who was a commander in the Naval Reserves, tried several times to persuade Mattis to appear on Sunday talk shows on behalf of the administration. The answer was always no. “Sean,” Mattis finally said, “I’ve killed people for a living. If you call me again, I’m going to fucking send you to Afghanistan. Are we clear?”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“When Trump called Mexicans “rapists” in the speech announcing his candidacy on June 16, 2015, Priebus called him and said, “You can’t talk like that. We’ve been working really hard to win over Hispanics.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Grievance was a big part of Trump’s core, very much like a 14-year-old boy who felt he was being picked on unfairly. You couldn’t talk to him in adult logic. Teenage logic was necessary.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Cohn removed the letter draft from the Resolute Desk. He placed it in a blue folder marked “KEEP.” “I stole it off his desk,” he later told an associate. “I wouldn’t let him see it. He’s never going to see that document. Got to protect the country.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Bannon added that Trump had another advantage. He spoke in a voice that did not sound political. This was what Barack Obama had in 2008 in the primary contest against Clinton, who spoke like the trained politician she was. Her tempo was overly practiced. Even when telling the truth, she sounded like she was lying to you. Politicians like Hillary can’t talk naturally, Bannon said. It was a mechanical way of speaking, right out of the polling and focus groups, answering the questions in political speak. It was soothing, not jarring, not from the heart or from deep conviction, but from some highly paid consultant’s talking points—not angry.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“All the air seemed to have come out of Tillerson. He could not abide Trump’s attack on the generals. The president was speaking as if the U.S. military was a mercenary force for hire. If a country wouldn’t pay us to be there, then we didn’t want to be there. As if there were no American interests in forging and keeping a peaceful world order, as if the American organizing principle was money.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“In another discussion with the president, Cohn unveiled a Commerce Department study showing the U.S. absolutely needed to trade with China. “If you’re the Chinese and you want to really just destroy us, just stop sending us antibiotics. You know we don’t really produce antibiotics in the United States?” The study also showed that nine major antibiotics were not produced in the United States, including penicillin. China sold 96.6 percent of all antibiotics used here. “We don’t produce penicillin.” Trump looked at Cohn strangely. “Sir, so when mothers’ babies are dying of strep throat, what are you going to say to them?” Cohn asked Trump if he would tell them, “Trade deficits matter”? “We’ll buy it from another country,” Trump proposed. “So now the Chinese are going to sell it [antibiotics] to the Germans, and the Germans are going to mark it up and sell it to us. So our trade deficit will go down with the Chinese, up with the Germans.” U.S. consumers would be paying a markup. “Is that good for our economy?” Navarro said they would buy it through some country other than Germany. Same problem, Cohn said. “You’re just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Nearly all economists disagreed with Trump, but he found an academic economist who hated free trade as much as he did. He brought him to the White House as both director of trade and industrial policy and director of the National Trade Council. Peter Navarro was a 67-year-old Harvard PhD in economics. “This is the president’s vision,” Navarro publicly said. “My function really as an economist is to try to provide the underlying analytics that confirm his intuition. And his intuition is always right in these matters.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“NAFTA was another enduring Trump target. The president had said for months he wanted to leave NAFTA and renegotiate. “The only way to get a good deal is to blow up the old deal. When I blow it up, in that six months, they’ll come running back to the table.” His theory of negotiation was that to get to yes, you first had to say no. “Once you blow it up,” Cohn replied, “it may be over. That’s the most high-risk strategy. That either works or you go bankrupt.” Cohn realized that Trump had gone bankrupt six times and seemed not to mind. Bankruptcy was just another business strategy. Walk away, threaten to blow up the deal. Real power is fear.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Coming back from the G20 summit, Trump was editing an upcoming speech with Porter. Scribbling his thoughts in neat, clean penmanship, the president wrote, “TRADE IS BAD.” Though he never said it in a speech, he had finally found the summarizing phrase and truest expression of his protectionism, isolationism and fervent American nationalism.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Ailes said they were there for their weekly debate prep. The first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton was a month and a half away, on September 26. “Debate prep?” Bannon said. “You, Christie and Rudy?” “This is the second one.” “He’s actually prepping for the debates?” Bannon said, suddenly impressed. “No, he comes and plays golf and we just talk about the campaign and stuff like that. But we’re trying to get him in the habit.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Having failed in efforts to control or curtail the president’s tweeting, Priebus searched for a way to have practical impact. Since the tweets were often triggered by the president’s obsessive TV watching, he looked for ways to shut off the television. But television was Trump’s default activity. Sunday nights were often the worst. Trump would come back to the White House from the weekend at one of his golf resorts just in time to catch political talk on his enemy networks, MSNBC and CNN.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“As an extreme measure, Hicks, Porter, Gary Cohn and White House social media director Dan Scavino proposed they set up a committee. They would draft some tweets that they believed Trump would like. If the president had an idea for a tweet, he could write it down or get one of them in and they would vet it. Was it factually accurate? Was it spelled correctly? Did it make sense?”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“For Priebus, it was the worst meeting among many terrible ones. Six months into the administration, he could see vividly that they had a fundamental problem of goal setting. Where were they going? The distrust in the room had been thick and corrosive. The atmosphere was primitive; everyone was ostensibly on the same side, but they had seemed suited up in battle armor, particularly the president. This was what craziness was like, Priebus concluded”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Despite almost daily reports of chaos and discord in the White House, the public did not know how bad the internal situation actually was. Trump was always shifting, rarely fixed, erratic. He would get in a bad mood, something large or small would infuriate him, and he would say about the KORUS trade agreement, “We’re withdrawing today.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“McMaster said that he believed Mattis and Tillerson had concluded that the president and the White House were crazy. As a result, they sought to implement and even formulate policy on their own without interference or involvement from McMaster, let alone the president.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Trump said, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” He had just met with the prime minister of Norway. Why not more Norwegians?”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“He’s a fucking moron,” Tillerson said so everyone heard.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“It seems clear that many of the president’s senior advisers, especially those in the national security realm, are extremely concerned with his erratic nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learn, as well as what they consider his dangerous views.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Paris was one of the justifications the Obama administration used as part of the regulatory record to justify the cost and benefits of the Clean Power Plan.” That was an Obama-era 460-page rule to lower carbon dioxide emitted by power plants that the EPA estimated would save 4,500 lives a year. Pruitt was already moving to end the policy.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Cohn concluded that Trump was, in fact, going backwards. He had been more manageable the first months when he was a novice.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“Cohn had a packet of Goldman Sachs–style charts and tables to educate the president on taxes. Trump was not interested and did not read it.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House

“What do you mean? Trump asked. Just run the presses—print money.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House