Lying has been part of Trump’s act all his life. “People ask me if the president lies. Are you nuts? He’s a fucking total liar,” Anthony Scaramucci said. “He lies all the time. Trump called me one night after I was on Bill Maher and he said, ‘How come you always fucking figure me out?’ I said, ‘I’ve seen you around for twenty years. I know your act. I know when you’re saying shit you don’t really mean, and I know when you’re saying bullshit.’ He laughed.”
Scaramucci recalled that he then asked Trump, “Are you an act?” Trump replied, “I’m a total act and I don’t understand why people don’t get it.”
In his back-and-forth with Dowd over the interview in mid-January, Trump continued to fume about the shift in plans. He was confused and angry that he couldn’t proceed and get the interview over with. Dowd later called a colleague to complain about the tongue-lashing he had received from Trump. “I don’t need this shit. I’m seventy-six years old,” Dowd told the colleague. “I don’t need to be treated like this.” Dowd later contested this account and claimed Trump always treated him courteously.
Trump begrudgingly resigned himself to the notion that his lawyers were making the right call in deciding to cancel the interview. However, he then tried to convince the public of the opposite, announcing that the interview was very much still on the table even after Dowd had privately canceled it.
On the afternoon of January 24, Trump was meeting with some of his advisers when he abruptly stood up and said, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Down the hall in the chief of staff’s office, Kelly had been meeting with a group of about twenty reporters for a briefing on the administration’s immigration policy. Trump was loath to have a group of reporters’ tape recorders running for someone other than himself, so he surprised the journalists—and their host, Kelly—by swinging open the door and walking in.
“Hello, everybody,” the president said cheerfully. “How’re we all doing?”
Trump was in a jovial mood and began an impromptu question-and-answer session. He bragged about how well the economy was doing and talked up his efforts to secure the border and set new standards about “chain migration.” Less than ten minutes into the freewheeling session, a reporter asked Trump one of the questions dominating press coverage that month: Was the president still willing to sit down for an interview with Mueller?
“I’m looking forward to it, actually,” Trump said. “Here’s the story, just so you understand. There’s been no collusion whatsoever. There’s no obstruction whatsoever, and I’m looking forward to it.”
Kelly pursed his lips. He knew Trump had just stretched the truth, suggesting an interview was just over the horizon. “I guess they are talking about two or three weeks,” Trump said about when the interview would likely take place. “I have to say, subject to my lawyers and all of that, but I would love to do it.”
That caveat—“subject to my lawyers and all of that”—was a major one for Trump. To the reporters and the public, Trump sounded as if he were planning an interview. To his lawyers, his careful word choice telegraphed that he was finally on board with their plan to resist the interview.
Trump also told the reporters that he felt it was “disturbing” that the FBI investigation of his campaign was so biased, with two FBI officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, discussing their fear of a Trump presidency. Trump insisted that he had defeated Hillary Clinton entirely on his own merit.
“The fact is you people won’t say this, but I’ll say it,” Trump added. “I was a much better candidate than her. You always say she was a bad candidate. You never say I was a good candidate. I was one of the greatest candidates. Nobody else would have beaten the Clinton machine, as crooked as it was. But I was a great candidate. Someday you’re going to say that! Goodbye, everybody.”
And then he was gone.
The president’s sudden visit with reporters led to another classic White House cleanup. By the time press aides learned that Trump had said he was looking forward to his interview with Mueller, it was leading the cable news channels. Cobb issued a statement explaining that Trump had spoken hurriedly off the cuff and intended to say only that he was willing to meet with Mueller, not that he would be meeting with Mueller.
“He’s ready to meet with them, but he’ll be guided by the advice of his personal counsel,” Cobb said.
Later that afternoon, Trump headed up to the residence to get ready for a big trip. The president was scheduled to fly out that evening to Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he was slated to meet with a number of foreign counterparts. With Trump up in his room, Kelly returned to his long list of chores. He called Goodlatte to talk with the Republican congressman about a budget resolution. Standard preparation for the legislative week ahead. Then Kelly let down his guard a bit. In a woe-is-me tone, he shared with Goodlatte that Trump’s pop-in to the press and claim of doing an interview with Mueller came out of nowhere and were not part of any plan or strategy.
“I don’t envy you,” Goodlatte told Kelly.
* * *
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That evening, January 24, waiting in the White House before departing for Davos, Trump fumed at the television screen. He was engaging in one of his guilty pleasures: hate-watching CNN. He called Kelly, this time incensed. He cursed the Justice Department.
White House aides sometimes informally measured the power of Trump’s moods on an informal scale of one to ten. When Trump rated a one or two, advisers worried that he was so bored he had stopped listening entirely. At a nine or ten, he sounded over the phone to his advisers as if he might be jumping up and down, and some fretted whether they should ask a Secret Service agent to check on him.
This night, Kelly was experiencing Trump at a nine.
By now Kelly had gone home for the day. He was skipping the Davos trip to stay in Washington and work with lawmakers on an immigration plan. Trump shared with Kelly that he found the guest on CNN’s 7:00 p.m. newscast riveting and the topic infuriating. The Republican congressman Trey Gowdy was criticizing the latest “Deep State” insurgency against the president: The Justice Department’s senior leaders and the FBI director were saying that House Republicans could not make their secret memo public because it could reveal sensitive secrets about an ongoing probe. Gowdy told the CNN host Erin Burnett that the Justice Department appeared to be trying to hide something. Trump was supposed to walk out to the South Lawn to board Marine One, but first he conferred with Kelly about Gowdy’s comments.
What followed was Trump once again plotting to snuff out a federal investigation, an episode that apparently went undetected by Mueller, for it garnered no mention in the special counsel’s final report.
Trump howled to Kelly, with the chief of staff able to hear Gowdy talking on the television in the background.