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President Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One travels to Fargo, N.D. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images)
It turns out that studying the workings of the presidency for a senior member of the board of directors orders. My first reaction, like that of many, was, "wow." After careful deliberation, supported by a career of worth of research into the US presidency, "Wow." Or as my colleague Elizabeth Saunders wrote, "What we're seeing is essentially unprecedented."
What is so unprecedented about this statement of the author, as the author put it, internal "resistance"? Let me explain.
It's not that every member of the board has been loyal to the president.
Some have been betting that Mike "Lodestar" Pence wrote the op-ed. It's certainly true that past vice presidents have worked against their bosses. Andrew Jackson cut off communication with his vice president, John C. Calhoun, over the latter's machinations; much later, Franklin D. Roosevelt's first vice president, John Nance Garner, lobbied Congress against administration priorities. (This is why it was not FDR's last VP.)
And past presidential aides have also thought they should save the country from the president. Many (but not all) observers believe that President Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger, fearing Nixon's state of mind as he lurched toward resignation in August 1974, of Nixon's orders. John F. Kennedy responded to obstructionism by remarking that "I now understand that for a President to get something done … he's got to say it."
Further, the White House is often full of infighting. The Executive Director of the President can be used as Richard Nathan called "counterbureaucracy," insulating the president from the relying on the more diverse 3 million-plus-person executive branch bureaucracy, which can try to shirk the West Wing's guidelines.
But having grown steadily since it was founded in 1939, the EOP itself has many sub-units that are often fiercely disagree with each other. The Economic Council, the Economic Council, the National Economic Council, the National Trade Council, the National Council, the National Council, and the National Security Council, all have their own staffs and vantage points. Trump added to the National Trade Council, now called the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. Journalist Chris Whipple's account of White House chiefs of staff since Nixon details factional battles in nearly every chapter. A 1985 Ronald Reagan Library memo I unearthed has a help to new White House chief of staff Donald Regan urging Reagan to fix "the internecine warfare that [has become] part of the public domain of this administration. "
And sure, leaking is the D.C. way.
Many of these people have spoken to Bob Woodward since approximately 1972. More broadly, leaking is a bespoke Washington currency. President Lyndon Johnson once noted that "Washington leaks like a worn-out boot," while Reagan looked at the tests of the executive branch, having "had it up to my keister" with unauthorized press reports.
But leaking is normally a way of bargaining, or to get a better view. It is a way to change the subject for a policy argument, expanding what E.E. Schattschneider called the "scope of conflict."
As a result, bad management provokes more leaks. But they are often used by the president because the president is being poorly served. ace David Lewis puts it, "All of them would be doing their job and would not be able to do it."
Then what's so shocking in this week's revelations?
First, these attacks are exceptionally personal. The anonymous op-ed and the comments to the President. Criticism by training staffers is hardly new, but most often it centers on how other helps. In 1979, James Fallows wrote an essay criticizing the presidency of his train boss, Jimmy Carter – made clear that "With his moral virtues and his intellectual skills, [Carter] is a wonderful place to have a job. "
By contrast, while Trump is given for some policy achievements, it is described as "petty and ineffective," "erratic," "ill-informed," prone to "repetitive rants." On Thursday, Axios quoted other Trump officials confirming the picture "Anonymous" painted – which is wholly consisting of Bob Woodward's new book, and Omarosa Manigault Newman's, and Michael Wolff's. Wolff's account prompted Trump to kick off by "a very stable genius." Many of the president's men, and women, have a different assessment. As Sen. Ben Sasse (R.-Neb.) Said Thursday about the op-ed, "It's just so much about what we hear from people around the White House, you know, three times a week."
All this hurts the president's "professional reputation" – which Richard Neustadt's classic book "Presidential Power" argued for. That reputation for "skill and will" builds on a pattern over time, persuading others that the president knows how to operate the levers of government, will stick by his commitments and has a firm grasp on policy and process. Neustadt could only have a dream of a case study in which White House officials attack the president's morality and even sanity – and few come to his defense.
Just as startling are the revelations that Trump insiders are directly undermining the president's formal powers. To be sure, the Republican Party has given Trump some leeway where he has used his powers to fulfill his party's wish list – as with Brett Kavanaugh's appointment and the use of executive privilege to speed it along. Nevertheless, his highest-ranking helps now actively seek to block or constrain presidential guidelines, from refusing to implement his / her / his / her / its preferences to – quite literally – removing options from the table.
[The “two-track” presidency that “Anonymous” describes is dangerous.]
Insulting the president, anonymously or not, does not constitute treason. ace Lewis notes, the oath that staffers take care of the president – but to the Constitution and the law.
But this is a national security concern, if not the one Trump claims. A weak president can still command. And if he does not trust his staff, the chances that he will be well-informed diminish accordingly.
[This is why the Senate should care about Brett Kavanaugh’s time as Bush’s staff secretary.]
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