Essay Questions

According to the author, what are the two kinds of people willing to take a job with the Trump administration?

Time has proven again and again that except for very rare cases those who choose to work in the Trump administration in any capacity from outside adviser to Cabinet Secretary tend to leave his orbit with a more tarnished public reputation than they took into the job. In some cases, in fact, the transformation has been so complete that very highly regarded people who have gone to work in some capacity for the administration have become public laughingstocks for much of the country. With the risk of tainting relatively untarnished legacies so high, what could possibly inspire people to accept job offer extended from within the Trump White House? The authors address this question in the book’s Prologue, before even settling down to their account of the day-to-day rollercoaster ride of history which comprises the bulk of the book. There are only two kinds of people who accept invitations to go to work for the Trump White House: true believers who wanted to be part of the history of Donald J. Trump saving the world and true patriots who felt compelled to do whatever was necessary to save the world from Donald J. Trump.

It took George Conway the amount of time required to do what everyday task done by thousands of people every day to decide he was not going to be either kind of person to accept a job in the administration?

George Conway, noted conservative attorney and husband of Kellyanne Conway—one of the longest serving members of the administration and still at work even as the 2020 re-election campaign began—had hoped he would be appointed the solicitor general but instead was offered the job of running the civil division of the Justice Department. This was just shortly prior to Trump firing FBI Director James Comey. Upon learning of this development, George began to have doubts about taking the job and these doubts were multiplied with the announcement that there a would be a special counsel appointed to conduct an investigation into Russian interference in the election. Under those circumstances, he would be in the uncomfortable position of working for the Justice Department while it was actively investigating his wife’s boss. George first heard the news of the appointment of the special counsel as he maneuvered his car onto the George Washington Bridge. By the time he exited the bridge on the other side, he had made up his mind that he was going to reject the offer.

What did Senator John McCain call “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory” before suggesting that no previous president had ever acted so submissively to a tyrant?

In a first term marked by egregious moments capable of making even a handful of his fellow Republicans do more than simply shake their heads and describe their feelings as “deeply trouble” there is one single moment that stands out above all the rest for a great many Americans. Many of those Americans at the time expressed same tone of outraged disgust as they recoiled in horror at the sight witnessed live in real time as it occurred halfway around the world. The disgraceful performance to which McCain here refers is the moment when Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin took the stage following a private summit together in Helsinki. When asked by a reporter if he would take advantage of this circumstance to publicly denounce Russian interference in the 2016 election and warn him not to try it again, Trump instead responded “My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others and said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”