Epstein Secrets

egic approach on the part of the president—quite an unlikely development. Meanwhile, the couple blamed everyone else in the White House. They blamed Priebus for the disarray that had produced a warlike atmosphere that propelled constant and damaging leaks, they blamed Bannon for leaking, and they blamed S

in his unquestioned certitudes. There was now a fair amount of back-of-the-classroom giggling about who had called Trump what. For Steve Mnuchin and Reince Priebus, he was an “idiot.” For Gary Cohn, he was “dumb as shit.” For H. R. McMaster he was a “dope.” The list went on. Tillerson would merely become yet an

OUSE_OVERSIGHT_020103 in the White House for two years and then leave to run Trump’s reelection campaign. “If you can get this idiot elected twice,” Nunberg marveled, you would achieve something like immortality in politics. But through another window, Bannon couldn’t possibly remain in place. He seemed

, 222 Nooyi, Indra, 88-89 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 77 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 99 North Korea, 291-93, 297 Nunberg, Sam, 11, 13, 16, 22, 144, 237-38, 248, 282, 291, 300 Nunes, Devin, 170 Obama, Barack, 27, 35-36, 41-45, 54, 61-63, 67, 90, 101, 104, 128, 164, 187

it off: it was Reince Priebus’s fault, not hers. She had spent a good part of the day calling friends and allies in the political world and blaming Priebus. Now she briefed some of the television producers and anchors with whom she’d built strong relationships—and with whom, actively interviewing in the

ce director and then finance director of the Republican National Committee, and finally, pre-White House, chief of staff of the RNC and its chairman, Reince Priebus. In retrospect, the key moment in saving the Trump campaign might be less the Mercer- led takeover and imposition of Bannon and Conway in mid-August

most famous man in the world,” Trump told his on-again, off-again aide Sam Nunberg at the outset of the campaign. “But do you want to be president?” Nunberg asked (a qualitatively different question than the usual existential candidate test: “Why do you want to be president?”). Nunberg did not get an answ

ive. As well, he could turn him off, and Bannon would be tactically quiet until turned on again. Kushner had neither Bannon’s policy imagination nor Priebus’s institutional ties. But, of course, he had family status, carrying its own high authority. In addition, he had billionaire status. He had cultivate

e president left the West Wing for Marine One, which was soon en route to Andrews Air Force Base. Accompanying him were Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Reince Priebus, Hope Hicks, and Kellyanne Conway. Vice President Pence and his wife joined the group at Andrews for the brief flight on Air Force One to Harrisburg,

e into the Trump administration? (Much of this was retailed to reporters by Sam Nunberg, the former Trump factotum who was now doing duty for Bannon. Nunberg was frank about his tactics: “I beat the shit out of Gary whenever possible.”) It is a measure of the power of blood (or blood by marriage), and lik