Fear

“Oppositional defiance syndrome” is characterized by excessive anger against authority, vindictiveness and temper tantrums. As far as she was concerned, that described the press.

the Clinton campaign did not use President Obama strategically. Obama had won Iowa in 2008 and 2012 by six to 10 points. “He never goes.”

Hil‍­lary Clin‍­ton’s line from her July 2016 con‍­ven‍­tion speech: “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuc‍­le‍­ar weapons.”

Forty-four percent of Americans did not pay federal income tax.

Tax reform was the only major legislation passed his first year

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.”

“All paper leaving the Oval Office must be submitted to the Staff Secretary . . . for compliance with the Presidential Records Act.”

Trump was determined to impose steel tariffs. “Look,” Trump said, “we’ll try it. If it doesn’t work, we’ll undo it.”

“Mr. President,” Cohn said, “that’s not what you do with the U.S. economy.” Because the stakes were so high, it was crucial to be conservative. “You do something when you’re 100 percent certain it will work, and then you pray like hell that you’re right. You don’t do 50/50s with the U.S. economy.”

“If we’re not right,” Trump repeated, “we roll them back.”

The day after the president’s speech, Tillerson found another way to declare that a win was not attainable. He addressed the Taliban at a press briefing: “You will not win a battlefield victory. We may not win one, but neither will you.”

Stalemate.

Trump had no understanding of how government functioned. At times he would just start drafting orders himself or dictating.