Top Highlights

• Three days later, on January 31, the president did impose restrictions on travelers from China, a move opposed by a number of his cabinet members. But his public attention was focused on just about everything except the virus: the upcoming Super Bowl, the technological meltdown in the Democratic caucuses in Iowa, his State of the Union address and,...
• were on our sixth of what would be 17 interviews.
• “There’s dynamite behind every door” seemed the most self-aware statement about the jeopardy, pressures and responsibilities of the presidency I had heard Trump make in public or private. Yet the unexpected headline from the call was also his detailed knowledge of the virus and his description of it as so deadly so early in February, more than a mo...
• The greatest threat to the national security apparatus, Coats believed, was that Trump wanted to ignore any kind of process that went through experts—people steeped in certain issues or certain parts of the world, often for their whole careers. In effect, and often literally, the president said, I don’t need that to be done. I don’t need these peop...
• The deep-seated hatreds of American politics flourished in the Trump years. He stoked them, and did not make concerted efforts to bring the country together. Nor did the Democrats. Trump felt deeply wronged by the Democrats who felt deeply wronged by Trump. The walls between them only grew higher and thicker.