Trump's Loyalty Test

How The President’s Actions Are Straining Government Institutions And The People Who Work For Them By Michael Scherer And Alex Altman
 

- Michael Scherer and Alex Altman

IN THE OVAL OFFICE, SENIOR AIDES TO President Donald Trump sometimes steal glances at one another while he speaks. Silent and stone-faced, they dare not say what they are thinking, but they communicate nonetheless. Beyond the President’s earshot and eyeshot, the concern comes through in less subtle ways. The West Wing’s thick walls, even with the TV turned up, cannot muffle the sounds of staffers shouting behind closed doors.

It is a terrible thing to work every day for long hours in a hostile environment you can’t control. It is worse when the stakes are as consequential as those at the White House, when your public reputation is on the line and when the man in charge blames those around him for his self-made misfortune. The fourth month of the Trump presidency has unfolded with all the suspense of a reality show. No one knows what will happen next because the President changes his mind in real time. “We watch Twitter,” says one aide. “We’re just as in the dark,” allows another.

Senior officials walk through the building with funereal looks on their faces. Others complain that the White House is being “paralyzed” by the commotion. “He likes everyone always being on thin ice,” explains one adviser of the President’s management style. A few West Wing aides have begun to look for lifeboats, shopping résumés to think tanks, super PACs and corporate communications firms in the market for anyone who can make sense of the White House’s bizarre workings. When news broke on May 15 that the President had revealed sensitive classified information to the Russian Foreign Minister and the Russian ambassador in an Oval Office meeting, one White House staffer sent a message to a friend outside the building: FML, read the text—abbreviated millennial slang for an unprintable curse on one’s own life.