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President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Valdosta, Ga., on Dec. 5, 2020. Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Valdosta, Ga., on Dec. 5, 2020.

Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, Michael Wolff Henry Holt & Co. hide caption

Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, Michael Wolff

No matter how many tell-all books are published trashing former President Donald Trump and his gang, the market will make room for one more by Michael Wolff, the magazine writer whose bestselling Fire and Fury established the subgenre back in 2018.

Wolff penned a sequel, Siege, a year later that again depicted shambolic and often shameless goings-on within the White House. Both books depended largely on unnamed sources and generated considerable controversy.

Wolff's latest salvo is Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, and while it may not be the most important or valuable work in the summer library of Trump lit, it should stand as the worthiest among Wolff's own Trump trilogy, borrowing much of its seriousness from the harrowing events it describes.

Just this month, Wolff is competing with the release of two other major works by front-line reporters: Michael Bender of The Wall Street Journal (Frankly, We Did Win This Election) and Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker of The Washington Post (I Alone Can Fix It). The titles of all three volumes riff on famous Trump lines that got attention when first uttered and that echo as highly ironic in the here and now.

This is heady and highly competitive company, and Wolff has not been in the daily trenches as others have. His account lacks the degree of systematic reporting and the breadth and depth of sourcing that inform rival works, ultimately coming across as more of a beach read.

But Wolff has his gifts as a writer: a novelistic eye for scene and detail, an ear for dramatic dialogue. His story keeps moving, free of constraints common to courtroom lawyers or newspaper reporters.

He also keeps his focus tight on Trump and the shifting cast in the Oval Office from the fall of the 2020 campaign (covered briefly in the first chapter) to the end of the second impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate in February of this year. Though clearly anticlimactic, that awkward Senate ritual gets a full chapter of its own, with Trump playing Greek chorus by cellphone and at one point trying to switch lawyers because one's suit looks terrible on television.

All this summer's big Trump books thus far have had head-spinning anecdotes about Trump's performance in office and his madcap machinations in the weeks after his electoral defeat in November 2020. Wolff has his share, including a vivid re-creation of the White House meltdown when the vote count begins to turn against the incumbent in the late hours of election night.

The president, his close family and top aides are seen celebrating prematurely when early tallies show him ahead. But everything goes wobbly at 11:20 p.m. when Fox News suddenly calls Arizona for Democrat Joe Biden.

"What the f***?" says Trump, using the word that seems to stud his every conversation in these tell-alls. "How can they call this? We're winning. And everybody can see we are going to win. Everybody's calling to say that we're winning. And then they pull this."

Readers know, of course, that losing Arizona (solid Republican in all but one of the previous 17 presidential elections) would not just dent Trump's expectations but cast doubt on other states where much of the vote was uncounted at that hour. That list included Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nevada. Until Fox's call on Arizona, Trump could plausibly argue he was leading in all of them. In the end, he lost all but one.

The Arizona call brought this possibility front and center, making it impossible for Trump to go on national TV at midnight and declare himself reelected. And that declaration had been very much part of the strategy by which the White House had urged same-day, in-person voting and had insisted on a clear election night verdict.

Wolff describes the midnight scene in the hallway outside the presidential bedrooms: "Trump, fulminating, crossing over into fury, directed everybody to call somebody. ... Call. Do Something. Call everybody. Fight this. They have to undo this. They have to!"

Trump's immediate family and inner circle dial up the Fox anchors, reporters and news managers, all the way up to members of the Murdoch family, which owns Fox News. Their entreaties are relayed all the way to Rupert Murdoch, the patriarch who, Wolff writes, rejects them with a grunt and adds: "F*** him."

Wolff tells us that Murdoch was "open in his contempt for the president, whom he deemed stupid, venal, ludicrous, dangerous" even as his Fox network frequently functioned as a Trump cheering section.

There have been denials of all this from Fox and the Murdoch spokespersons. But Wolff is fine with that, saying he trusts his unnamed sources and telling The New Abnormal podcast that as "Rupert Murdoch's biographer," he is "deeply sourced" in that organization. One of Wolff's eight previous books is a biography of Rupert Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News.

Of course, "according to Wolff" has become a familiar and problematic phrase for those who have followed his career. Some of the salient assertions in his first two books were denied or at least disputed by officials with some authority. Wolff is scarcely alone in relying on unnamed or partially identified sources, although he does seem to attract more objections.

That may be because he does not represent a major media institution. Or perhaps it is because his tone is so much more personal. His tales are conveyed as shared confidences rather than offers of evidence.

And we should add that his narrative tends to be more entertaining, sailing swiftly ahead where others tend to grind. Much of this is about the novelistic sorts of judgments he offers freely about anything and everything. And that often means keeping story sources obscure, if not totally secret.

Throughout the text, Wolff is often inside someone else's head, describing the person's innermost thoughts and even feelings. At one point, he writes: "sourness about [House Republican leader Kevin] McCarthy continues to move through [Trump's] body like an uncomfortable meal."

Perhaps all of Wolff's subjects have shared these thoughts with him in interviews, but we simply don't know. Landslide has only the briefest note of acknowledgments beyond the names that are included in the text.

All good stories are rich in colorful characters, whether seen as good guys or bad, and Wolff gives us a gallery that does not disappoint.

The one personality who competes with Trump for sheer outlandish behavior in Landslide is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who emerged on election night insisting that Trump declare victory in all the swing states, regardless of the numbers.

"We won, and they are trying to steal it from us," the onetime prosecutor and later failed presidential candidate tells Trump (and anyone else who will listen), Wolff writes. Serving as Trump's personal attorney, Giuliani had already done enough backroom maneuvering in Ukraine and elsewhere to bring on the first impeachment in 2019. Now, with the chance of a second term slipping away, he seems willing to do or say anything to bring it back.

Giuliani becomes the point man for a team of unproven lawyers promoting increasingly fantastic theories about what might have happened to Trump's vote. Truth be told, Trump himself is often divided between trumpeting his 74 million votes ("more than any incumbent in history") and complaining that many of his votes were not counted (or counted somehow for Biden).

If Giuliani is the villain of the piece, here as in other Trump tell-alls, Wolff assigns a mildly heroic role to Trump's much-derided Number Two, Vice President Mike Pence. A former congressman and one-term governor of Indiana, Pence came to the ticket in 2016 as a link to and a lock on the votes of white evangelicals (a major and still-rising force within the Republican Party). Known for his pious pronouncements and orthodox conservatism, Pence represented an unctuous redemption for Trump's personal transgressions, not only in 2016 but before and after as well.

Pence comes off as dull and subservient, but in the endgame he plays a counterpoint role to Giuliani & Crew's febrile accusations of fraud. Trump pressures Pence endlessly to interrupt the certification of the Electoral College vote count on Jan. 6, in Wolff's account. But when the moment comes, Pence plays it straight and follows the precedents set by two centuries of constitutional law and practice. Trump, it seems, cannot and will not forgive him for it.

If Pence comes off as having "done the right thing," that impression may come at least in part from Marc Short, an expert legislative and political operative who was Pence's chief of staff in 2020. Short had previously served as Trump's legislative director, driving home the 2017 tax cuts and helping shepherd judicial and executive appointments through the Senate. After a brief academic interlude, Short returned to the White House as Pence's man and performs as a consummate professional in the presence of all too many amateurs.

Short is seen and heard often in Landslide as the post-election plot thickens and Trump pressures Pence to "stop the steal." Short is among the adults explaining to Pence and others that the vice president has no power whatsoever to reject state-certified results, contradicting the flights of fantasy emanating from Giuliani.

If Short seems a likely source of much of the material (whether directly or via another confidant), so does one Trump aide whom most readers may find hard to recall. Jason Miller, a fixture in the 2016 campaign communications operation, did not get a role in the White House until late in Trump's term. Restored to the inner circle, in this retelling, Miller pops up in more chapters than not in Landslide, including in the epilogue, set at Mar-a-Lago, where Wolff actually has a sit-down with the fallen king in exile.

There are also brief flashes of Steve Bannon, the erstwhile campaign manager from 2016 who also survived seven months as "chief strategist" in the 2017 Trump White House. Bannon bulked large in Fire and Fury, speaking perhaps too candidly and contributing to his early exit. Wolff's sequel, Siege, seemed at times to be as much about Bannon as Trump. One direct quotation from Bannon runs almost uninterrupted for five pages.

One notably missing person here is Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is being hailed these days for resisting Trump's impulses toward domestic deployment of troops. Rucker and Leonnig's account has Milley pushing back hard when Trump wants to use the regular Army, rather than the National Guard, against Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. Even more dramatic is his rejection, as cited in Rucker and Leonnig's book, of the notion that the military might buttress Trump's attempt to stay in power after the election. Wolff does not take on these events.

Wolff does spend a whole chapter, however, on the second impeachment, a curious sequence of events in which Democrats in Congress tried to punish Trump for the Jan. 6 riot by removing him early and perhaps also banning him from federal office for life. Wolff ridicules this as an obvious mistake, giving Trump oxygen and allowing him to play the victim.

Successful in the House, the effort fell short of the required supermajority in the Senate, much as the first effort to impeach Trump had a year earlier. This episode provides a kind of coda on the six-year saga of Trump's rise and fall, but Wolff sees it as theater of the absurd, highlighting how far the nation's 45th president had fallen in his final days.

Read the original here:
Michael Wolff's Third Strike At Trump White House Has Hits And Misses - NPR

In early 2020, former Vice President Mike Pence made a curious argument on social media: According to Pence, Irans top general Qassem Soleimani knew about al-Qaedas plans for the Sept. 11 attacks beforehand and worked to facilitate them. For those of us who have watched the executive branch, administration after administration, expand its authority to make war without congressional authorization, the intent was clear. Pence was trying to tie Iran to the 2001 attacks in order to justify starting a new war with Iran without coming to Congress for authorization first.

This phenomenon, of course, is not new. The entire Vietnam War was fought without an explicit declaration of war by Congress. But today, when the definition of enemies and the parameters of war are harder to define than ever, the pace of executive warmaking has become dizzying. In 2001, Congress passed an Authorization for Use of Military Force against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. Since then, the executive branch has deployed combat-equipped troops to more than 20 countries for counter-terrorism missions and has stretched the logic of that authorization to justify operations in at least seven countries, including Syria, Somalia, and Niger. In not a single one of those deployments was there a comprehensive public debate about the wisdom of the decision.

Other major national security decisions are more frequently being made without public debate. Multi-billion dollar arms sales to oppressive regimes go forward without almost any input from voters. In 2017, President Donald Trump posed for a photo-op with the Saudi crown prince to tout $110 billion in arms sales to the country, even as the Saudi air force was pummeling civilian targets in Yemen. Before that, President Barack Obama presided over a massive scale-up of arms sales to Gulf countries unnerved by the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and Irans regional aggression, without almost any up or down votes in Congress on the sales.

Presidents declare vague national emergencies more frequently than ever giving the executive branch massive, unchecked power. There are at least 123 statutory powers that become available to the president when he declares a national emergency, including a wide-ranging power to impose economic sanctions. Today, there are no fewer than 39 ongoing national emergencies, including those declared in connection with the war in Syria (since 2004); instability in Iraq (since 2003); Russian election meddling, cyberattacks, and aggression against Ukraine; charcoal exports from Somalia; and the use of child soldiers in the Central African Republic.

All of this expanding executive power should worry Americans. It certainly would have worried our founders. Our nations fathers knew that decisions about war and peace, and foreign entanglements, came with such grave consequences that public input was required. That is why the Constitution gave only Congress the power to send American troops to war, and that is why theres a long list of congressional national security powers well before the executive branch ever gets its first mention in our founding document. The writers of the Constitution knew that it was dangerous to give such sweeping authorities to one person.

While both Democratic and Republican presidents have shared the task of expanding presidential emergency powers, the fault for congressional marginalization lies with our body, too. The era of permanent war and non-state antagonists makes declaring war more difficult and nuanced. Avoiding oversight of arms sales is convenient, absolving Congress of backbreaking work and allowing the legislative branch to simply armchair quarterback and provide 20/20 hindsight criticism when deals go wrong. Congress has done a pretty good job of making itself increasingly irrelevant over the years as it regards national security choices.

Congress should start clawing back its constitutional national security prerogatives. This task should start with updating the antiquated statutes that make real the powers given to the legislative branch by the Constitution.

The National Security Powers Act, the first modern, comprehensive outline of Congresss national security powers, is the vehicle by which Congress can rein in this nearly blank check authority. Over the past year, Sen. Mike Lee, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and I have met with advocates, experts, and scholars to craft a sweeping, but achievable, proposal to reset the foreign policy balance between the Congress and the executive branch.

On warmaking, the bill would require that any authorization for the use of force abroad be bound by specific objectives and geographic limits and be re-evaluated after two years. Congress could renew the authorization, but only by a vote of both chambers. If theres a strong case to be made for that war to continue beyond two years, the administration should have to make it to the American public, and Congress should vote on the matter. No more endless wars. This bill replaces the current War Powers Act, closing loopholes long used by the president to circumvent Congress while also forcing members of Congress to stop abdicating its duties and take the tough votes on matters of war and peace.

With respect to arms sales, current law only applies to the biggest weapons transfers and requires Congress to pass a resolution of disapproval through both houses in just 30 days. Thats too limited and cumbersome. It should come as no surprise that Congress has never successfully stopped an arms sale through this process. But the National Security Powers Act would flip the script and require Congress to take a limited number of affirmative votes before the proposed sales could proceed. And we wouldnt need to vote on every sale, just those that pose the highest risks, as in cases where the administration proposes to sell the most lethal or technologically advanced weapons to countries other than our NATO allies, Israel, and key defense partners in the Asia-Pacific region.

Finally, the National Security Powers Act would require that national emergencies be authorized by Congress after 30 days, and that such declarations and the authorities they temporarily confer on the president would have to be renewed annually (with a five-year total limit on states of emergency). To prevent another fake emergency being used to justify taking funds from our troops to construct a wall on the border with Mexico, the National Security Powers Act would also repeal Title III of the National Emergencies Act.

The commander in chief should always have the right to defend the United States and our armed forces under immediate threat of attack. But the country makes better national security decisions as a whole when Congress has a seat at the table. American democracy is stronger for it. President Joe Biden, perhaps more than any president in modern history, understands this. After all, it was Biden who stood up in 2007, after President George W. Bush proposed bombing Iran, and declared: Except in response to an attack or the imminent threat of attack, only Congress may authorize war and the use of force.

Congress should reform a system that gives us endless wars, unlimited arms sales, and ill-advised trade wars that leave America weaker in the world. Members of Congress owe it to the American people to ensure that these consequential decisions to bring American power to bear are made carefully, thoughtfully, and sparingly. Bold legislation like the National Security Powers Act is long overdue.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Image: U.S. Marine Corps (Photo by Cpl. Jacob Yost)

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National Security Is Stronger When Congress Is Involved. Here's How We Get Back to the Table. - War on the Rocks

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted Tuesday on a two-state solution in Cyprus and threw his weight behind plans for a coastal resort that was emptied of its original Greek Cypriot residents to be partially reopened.

His speech in the north of divided Nicosia marked another step towards opening up the ghost town of Varosha in defiance of UN resolutions and EU disapproval.

Speaking at a parade to mark the 47th anniversary of the Turkish invasion that divided the island, Erdogan took aim at failed UN efforts to reunite the two sides, saying "we don't have another 50 years to waste".

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (C-L) and US Vice President Mike Pence (C-R), joined by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (4R), Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay (4L), Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu (3L) and senior aides, meet at the presidential complex in Ankara, Turkey, on October 17, 2019 Photo: POOL / Shaun TANDON

"No progress can be made in negotiations without accepting that there are two peoples and two states with equal status," he said.

The island is divided between the Greek Cypriot-run Republic of Cyprus and the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognised only by Ankara.

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, an Erdogan ally who supports a two-state solution rather than the federation long sought in UN-led negotiations, said an initial 3.5 percent of Varosha would "be removed from its military status".

Erdogan said this showed "how sensitively Turkish Cypriot authorities approach this issue".

Map of Cyprus, an island divided since 1974 Photo: AFP / Paz PIZARRO

The speech sparked bickering with the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell, who said any such move was "an unacceptable unilateral decision".

Turkey's foreign ministry hit back, accusing Borrell of "acting as a spokesperson or advocate for the Greek Cypriot administration".

The United States condemned the plan by Tatar and Erdogan, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying in a statement that the move "was clearly inconsistent" with UN Security Council resolutions.

"The United States views Turkish Cypriot actions in Varosha, with the support of Turkey, as provocative, unacceptable, and incompatible with their past commitments to engage constructively in settlement talks," Blinken said.

Soldiers parade in the northern part of Cyprus's divided capital Nicosia on July 20, 2021 Photo: AFP / Iakovos Hatzistavrou

To cheers from Turkish flag-waving supporters, Erdogan accused the Greek Cypriots of "blocking any route to a solution" with a "maximalist approach... that is disconnected from the reality".

He dismissed a warning this month from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that Brussels would "never accept" a two-state solution for Cyprus, an EU member since 2004.

Turkish aircraft overfly a military parade in the northern part of Cyprus's divided capital Nicosia on July 20, 2021 Photo: AFP / Iakovos Hatzistavrou

In contrast to celebrations in the north, mournful sirens blasted across southern Nicosia at 5:30 am (0230 GMT) to commemorate the invasion anniversary.

Turkish troops seized Cyprus's northern third in response to an aborted coup in Nicosia aimed at attaching the country to Greece.

"Life will restart in Varosha," Erdogan said on the second day of a visit to the north, renewing an offer of financial compensation for Greek Cypriots who lost properties in 1974.

Once a playground that hosted Hollywood celebrities, Varosha lay abandoned for decades.

But the Turkish army restored public access to parts of its beachfront last year, weeks ahead of Tatar's election.

The UN Security Council responded by calling for a reversal of the decision and "for the parties to avoid any unilateral action that could raise tensions on the island."

Erdogan visited Varosha the following month in a move denounced by the Republic of Cyprus as a "provocation without precedent".

Since then a major thoroughfare has been cleared and workers raced to spruce up the street ahead of a possible second visit.

Erdogan insisted that moves to revive the town would respect property rights.

"We don't have an eye on anyone's land, rights or property, but nobody can touch the rights of Turkey or the TRNC," he said.

The internationally recognised government in Nicosia has stressed that Varosha is a "red line", and strongly condemned Erdogan's previous visit to northern Cyprus.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's office on Tuesday "underscored its adherence to the strict implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions" in a phone call with Cyprus Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides, a statement in Moscow said.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias is due in Nicosia on Wednesday, hot on the heels of Erdogan's trip.

Originally posted here:
Erdogan Presses Hard Line On Cyprus, Pushes To Reopen Ghost Town - International Business Times

Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger on Sunday asked fellow GOP lawmakers and "MAGA tribe" members to tell their constituents the truth about the 2020 election and stop campaigning like "zombies" desperate to get re-elected.

Kinzinger, a frequent critic of former President Donald Trump's power over the GOP, told Meet the Press on Sunday that Republican lawmakers across the country are "scared to do anything" that might upset the fanatical Trump base. Kinzinger said the fickle whims of Trump and the party were put on full display recently when "MAGA" supporters turned on former Vice President Mike Pence following the release of a book that detailed Trump and Pence getting into a fight in the Oval Office.

Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked Kinzinger to respond to the Oklahoma Republican Party becoming the latest state to censure members of their own party for "failing to delay the certification" of the 2020 presidential election.

"It's just like Donald Trump's method, right? The biggest enemy to MAGA world right now is not even me or Liz Cheney, it's Mike Pence. Mike Pence is one of the most faithful people to Donald Trump. But if you ever turn an ounce against Donald Trump, you're out of the tribe," Kinzinger said.

"So to all of my colleagues in politics, let me say this to you: You either have to be a zombie for the MAGA belief system, whatever that is today or tomorrowit varies every day based on Donald Trump's whimsor actually stand up and tell your constituents the truth. And that's what we have to do is tell people the truth. We all know what the truth is. You guys know what the truth is. The American people and your base deserve to hear it," Kinzinger continued.

Todd said January 7 was supposed to be the "turning point" when a majority of Republicans in Congress realized "Trumpism is a virus inside the Republican Party that needs to be eradicated." But instead, he said, Trump's stranglehold on the GOP appears to have gotten even tighter, as this week's CPAC event showed.

Todd asked Kinzinger to respond to a censure resolution in Osage County, Oklahoma, where local GOP officials drafted a resolution to censure Senators James Lankford and Jim Inhofe "for failure to delay the certification of fraudulent electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election."

"That's the moment we're in," Kinzinger replied. "Just this kind of chaotic people scared to do anything, people scared of their own shadow, absolutely desperate to get re-elected, and meanwhile the innocent people in our base that in many cases have been led to believe that the election was stolen, is not hearing anything from any of the people that they trust."

A new book from Michael Bender of the Wall Street Journal details a scene that reportedly took place between Trump and Pence in the White House over an article about GOP lobbyist Corey Lewandowski. Bender writes:

"[Trump] crumpled the article and threw it at his vice president. 'So disloyal,' Mr. Trump said. Mr. Pence lost it...Mr. Pence picked up the article and threw it back at Mr. Trump. He leaned toward the president and pointed a finger a few inches from his chest. 'We walked you through every detail of this. We did this for youas a favor. And this is how you respond? You need to get your facts straight."

Trump on Friday responded to the book's claims about the fight, saying, "The story written by third-rate reporter Michael Bender, that Mike Pence and I had a big fight over Corey Lewandowski, is totally false. No such fight ever happened, it is fiction as are so many others stories written in the vast number of books coming out about me."

Newsweek reached out to Kinzinger's and Pence's representatives for any additional remarks Sunday afternoon.

See more here:
Mike Pence Treatment Shows Need to Be MAGA 'Zombie' to Stay in Trump 'Tribe': Adam Kinzinger - Newsweek

According to a report on a new book from reporter Michael Bender titled, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election," former Vice President Mike Pence got into a heated exchange with Donald Trump when the then-president threw a crumpled up newspaper at him, theWall Street Journalreports.

The incident reportedly took place in early 2021 when Pence was set to preside over the certification of the 2020 election. Pence's political committee had just hired Trump's adviser Corey Lewandowski, prompting Trump to reportedly hold up an article about the news while complaining it made him look like "his team was abandoning him."

Trump reportedly then "crumpled the article and threw it at his vice president," saying, "So disloyal." That's when Pence "lost it," according to the book.

"Mr. Pence picked up the article and threw it back at Mr. Trump," Bender writes. "He leaned toward the president and pointed a finger a few inches from his chest. 'We walked you through every detail of this,' Mr. Pence snarled. 'We did this for you as a favor. And this is how you respond? You need to get your facts straight.'"

Read more at theWall Street Journal.

Continue reading here:
Mike Pence "lost it" after Trump threw crumpled up newspaper at him: report - Salon