This piece is very long and good read so definitely check out source link, but below is some takes from this. This interview / chat was had just 24h before firing of Comey.
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From where the 45th President works, eats and sleeps, everything is going just great. Now if only everyone else would see it that way.
When he held the job, Barack Obama tended to treat the Oval Office like a sanctum sanctorum, accessible only for a small circle of advisers to break its silence on a tightly regulated schedule. For Trump, the room functions as something like a royal court or meeting hall, with open doors that senior aides and distinguished visitors flock through when he is in the building.
In practice, it feels much like his old corner office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, minus all the clutter of memorabilia, a place to convene an audience, to broadcast his exceptionalism, to entertain, take photos, amaze and make deals. Some aides still call him Mr. Trump, and everyone turns to listen when he speaks. His presence always seems to consume the room.
Never had people, Trump likes to say of Obamas use of the space. I use the room. I use it a lot. I had the biggest people in the country here.
....
But few rooms have changed so much so fast as his dining room, where he often eats his lunch amid stacks of newspapers and briefing sheets. A few weeks back, the President ordered a gutting of the room. We found gold behind the walls, which I always knew. Renovations are grand, he says, boasting that contractors from the General Services Administration resurfaced the walls and redid the moldings in two days. Remember how hard they worked? They wanted to make me happy.
Trump says he used his own money to pay for the enormous crystal chandelier that now hangs from the ceiling. I made a contribution to the White House, he jokes. But the thing he wants to show is on the opposite wall, above the fireplace, a new 60-plus-inch flat-screen television that he has cued up with clips from the days Senate hearing on Russia. Since at least as far back as Richard Nixon, Presidents have kept televisions in this room, usually small ones, no larger than a bread box, tucked away on a sideboard shelf. Thats not the Trump way.
....
The first clip he shows is of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham speaking to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Graham asks if Clapper stands by his statement that he knows of no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump waits quietly, until Clapper admits that nothing has changed. Trump pantomimes a sort of victory.
Yes. He was choking on that, the President chortles. Is there any record at all of collusion? He was the head of the whole thing. He said no. Thats a big statement. Trump leaves unmentioned the fact that there is an ongoing FBI counterintelligence investigation into possible collusion, which has not yet reached any conclusions. Nor does he note that Clapper, out of government for nearly four months, could not possibly know everything the FBI has learned, and likely would have not known all even when he was in office. Trump also leaves unmentioned that he had a meeting that day with his new Deputy Attorney General about firing Comey, the director of that investigation.
But for now, Trump is focused on his TV. He watches the screen like a coach going over game tape, studying the opposition, plotting next weeks plays. This is one of the great inventions of all timeTiVo, he says as he fast-forwards through the hearing.
The next clip starts to play, this time showing Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley asking Clapper and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates if they ever requested that the names of Trump, his associates or members of Congress be identified by name, or unmasked, in a legal intelligence intercept. Watch them start to choke like dogs, Trump says, having fun. Watch what happens. They are desperate for breath.
Clapper, on the screen, pauses several beats to search his memory. Ah, hes choking. Ah, look, the President says.
....
In his view, the past months have included a steady string of successes, broken only by occasional missteps, which are invariably overplayed and misinterpreted. After a rough start, an Obamacare replacement passed the House. A red line against the use of chemical weapons has been re-established in Syria. Political prisoners have been released from Egypt.
To cope with this new reality, the President says he is trying a mindfulness trick: he has tried to tune out the bad news about himself. Ive been able to do something that I never thought I had the ability to do. Ive been able not to watch or read things that arent pleasant, he will say later in the night, listing off the networks he tries to tune out and the newspapers he struggles to skim.
....
About residence:
During the Obama years, the second and third floors of the executive mansion were treated as private housing, not a governing space. Obamas daughters and mother-in-law lived in a few of the extra bedrooms. The first time most staff ever got to see the place was the night Obamacare passed in March 2010, when the Obamas decided to throw a party.
The current President has taken a different tack, inviting staff up regularly for meetings; hosting dinners for old friends, staff and supporters; giving tours; calling foreign leaders from Lincolns old desk in the Treaty Room, where he will also stay late into the night doing work with his longtime personal aide and bodyguard Keith Schiller. The phone system is so amazing here, Trump confides as he enters the space. This one phone, it splits the wordsa reference to scrambling technology meant to disrupt eavesdropping.
In about four weeks, Trump expects his wife and youngest son to join him in the mansion, and when they arrive, life is almost certain to change.
The waiters know well Trumps personal preferences. As he settles down, they bring him a Diet Coke, while the rest of us are served water, with the Vice President sitting at one end of the table. With the salad course, Trump is served what appears to be Thousand Island dressing instead of the creamy vinaigrette for his guests. When the chicken arrives, he is the only one given an extra dish of sauce. At the dessert course, he gets two scoops of vanilla ice cream with his chocolate cream pie, instead of the single scoop for everyone else. The tastes of Pence are also tended to. Instead of the pie, he gets a fruit plate.
....
This is the part of the job that he has clearly come to enjoy, playing businessman for the American people. He brags about the close relationships he believes he has formed with foreign leaders, complimenting Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel on inviting his daughter Ivanka to speak overseas. He boasts of convincing Egypts leader, General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, to release several political prisoners, including an American. He even runs through the many ways he has revised the rules of engagement in the war on the Islamic State. They keep coming to me, at weird times too, he says of requests for approval for drone strikes and Special Forces raids in his earliest days in office.
His priority was ensuring that the military didnt wait long for the operations to commence. I authorized the generals to do the fighting, he says. Trump has shifted the authority for final approvals from the White House back to combatant commanders.
....
When asked directly if he feels his Administration has been too combative, he makes a brief allowance. It could be my fault, he says. I dont want to necessarily blame, but theres a great meanness out there that Im surprised at. The inner conflict is clearly evident. This is the same man who just a couple hours earlier had joked about former federal officials choking like dogs.
Is this real introspection or just more performance for his guests? The answer isnt long in coming. Within a day of the plates being cleared away, Trump takes to Twitter to attack Cryin Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader. He belittles Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal for once misrepresenting his military servicehe cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness.
No truce is around the corner. President Trump fights on.
Source and more: http://time.com/donald-trump-after-hours/
------
From where the 45th President works, eats and sleeps, everything is going just great. Now if only everyone else would see it that way.
When he held the job, Barack Obama tended to treat the Oval Office like a sanctum sanctorum, accessible only for a small circle of advisers to break its silence on a tightly regulated schedule. For Trump, the room functions as something like a royal court or meeting hall, with open doors that senior aides and distinguished visitors flock through when he is in the building.
In practice, it feels much like his old corner office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, minus all the clutter of memorabilia, a place to convene an audience, to broadcast his exceptionalism, to entertain, take photos, amaze and make deals. Some aides still call him Mr. Trump, and everyone turns to listen when he speaks. His presence always seems to consume the room.
Never had people, Trump likes to say of Obamas use of the space. I use the room. I use it a lot. I had the biggest people in the country here.
....
But few rooms have changed so much so fast as his dining room, where he often eats his lunch amid stacks of newspapers and briefing sheets. A few weeks back, the President ordered a gutting of the room. We found gold behind the walls, which I always knew. Renovations are grand, he says, boasting that contractors from the General Services Administration resurfaced the walls and redid the moldings in two days. Remember how hard they worked? They wanted to make me happy.
Trump says he used his own money to pay for the enormous crystal chandelier that now hangs from the ceiling. I made a contribution to the White House, he jokes. But the thing he wants to show is on the opposite wall, above the fireplace, a new 60-plus-inch flat-screen television that he has cued up with clips from the days Senate hearing on Russia. Since at least as far back as Richard Nixon, Presidents have kept televisions in this room, usually small ones, no larger than a bread box, tucked away on a sideboard shelf. Thats not the Trump way.
....
The first clip he shows is of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham speaking to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Graham asks if Clapper stands by his statement that he knows of no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump waits quietly, until Clapper admits that nothing has changed. Trump pantomimes a sort of victory.
Yes. He was choking on that, the President chortles. Is there any record at all of collusion? He was the head of the whole thing. He said no. Thats a big statement. Trump leaves unmentioned the fact that there is an ongoing FBI counterintelligence investigation into possible collusion, which has not yet reached any conclusions. Nor does he note that Clapper, out of government for nearly four months, could not possibly know everything the FBI has learned, and likely would have not known all even when he was in office. Trump also leaves unmentioned that he had a meeting that day with his new Deputy Attorney General about firing Comey, the director of that investigation.
But for now, Trump is focused on his TV. He watches the screen like a coach going over game tape, studying the opposition, plotting next weeks plays. This is one of the great inventions of all timeTiVo, he says as he fast-forwards through the hearing.
The next clip starts to play, this time showing Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley asking Clapper and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates if they ever requested that the names of Trump, his associates or members of Congress be identified by name, or unmasked, in a legal intelligence intercept. Watch them start to choke like dogs, Trump says, having fun. Watch what happens. They are desperate for breath.
Clapper, on the screen, pauses several beats to search his memory. Ah, hes choking. Ah, look, the President says.
....
In his view, the past months have included a steady string of successes, broken only by occasional missteps, which are invariably overplayed and misinterpreted. After a rough start, an Obamacare replacement passed the House. A red line against the use of chemical weapons has been re-established in Syria. Political prisoners have been released from Egypt.
To cope with this new reality, the President says he is trying a mindfulness trick: he has tried to tune out the bad news about himself. Ive been able to do something that I never thought I had the ability to do. Ive been able not to watch or read things that arent pleasant, he will say later in the night, listing off the networks he tries to tune out and the newspapers he struggles to skim.
....
About residence:
During the Obama years, the second and third floors of the executive mansion were treated as private housing, not a governing space. Obamas daughters and mother-in-law lived in a few of the extra bedrooms. The first time most staff ever got to see the place was the night Obamacare passed in March 2010, when the Obamas decided to throw a party.
The current President has taken a different tack, inviting staff up regularly for meetings; hosting dinners for old friends, staff and supporters; giving tours; calling foreign leaders from Lincolns old desk in the Treaty Room, where he will also stay late into the night doing work with his longtime personal aide and bodyguard Keith Schiller. The phone system is so amazing here, Trump confides as he enters the space. This one phone, it splits the wordsa reference to scrambling technology meant to disrupt eavesdropping.
In about four weeks, Trump expects his wife and youngest son to join him in the mansion, and when they arrive, life is almost certain to change.
The waiters know well Trumps personal preferences. As he settles down, they bring him a Diet Coke, while the rest of us are served water, with the Vice President sitting at one end of the table. With the salad course, Trump is served what appears to be Thousand Island dressing instead of the creamy vinaigrette for his guests. When the chicken arrives, he is the only one given an extra dish of sauce. At the dessert course, he gets two scoops of vanilla ice cream with his chocolate cream pie, instead of the single scoop for everyone else. The tastes of Pence are also tended to. Instead of the pie, he gets a fruit plate.
....
This is the part of the job that he has clearly come to enjoy, playing businessman for the American people. He brags about the close relationships he believes he has formed with foreign leaders, complimenting Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel on inviting his daughter Ivanka to speak overseas. He boasts of convincing Egypts leader, General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, to release several political prisoners, including an American. He even runs through the many ways he has revised the rules of engagement in the war on the Islamic State. They keep coming to me, at weird times too, he says of requests for approval for drone strikes and Special Forces raids in his earliest days in office.
His priority was ensuring that the military didnt wait long for the operations to commence. I authorized the generals to do the fighting, he says. Trump has shifted the authority for final approvals from the White House back to combatant commanders.
....
When asked directly if he feels his Administration has been too combative, he makes a brief allowance. It could be my fault, he says. I dont want to necessarily blame, but theres a great meanness out there that Im surprised at. The inner conflict is clearly evident. This is the same man who just a couple hours earlier had joked about former federal officials choking like dogs.
Is this real introspection or just more performance for his guests? The answer isnt long in coming. Within a day of the plates being cleared away, Trump takes to Twitter to attack Cryin Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader. He belittles Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal for once misrepresenting his military servicehe cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness.
No truce is around the corner. President Trump fights on.
Source and more: http://time.com/donald-trump-after-hours/
