Summertime in The Swamp has always been sticky. But by midday on July 20, things had gotten so bad for President Donald Trump that even the fake news was proving real.
The thermometer had soared to 97 by the time Trump's motorcade crossed the Potomac and arrived at the Pentagon on that Thursday for yet another war-and-peace briefing. Before that meeting was over, the president would reportedly talk about significantly increasing the U.S. nuclear arsenal (according to an NBC News scoop). His staff would be shocked and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would reportedly be moved to later opine to other attendees that his boss was a "moron."
But what is little-understood is the crucial context in which that historic footnote to the American presidency occurred. For it came in a chaotic week emblematic of Trump's self-delusional, wackadoodle presidency.
Things had really begun spinning out of control the day before, on which Trump had about as big a bad news day as you could imagine. Wednesday morning's headlines were that Senate Republicans were giving up hopes of fulfilling Trump's (and Republicans') campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. (Who knew health care could be so complicated?) Meanwhile, Trump's staff was in disarray-nobody could do anything the way The Boss really wanted it.
Trump met in the Situation Room with his top national security team on what to do about the apparently unstoppable yet unwinnable Afghanistan War. "Trump rattled his national security advisers by suggesting he might fire the top U.S. commander of the war and comparing the decision-making process on troop levels to the renovation of a high-end New York restaurant," this week's NBC News scoop, sourced to meeting participants, said.
Meanwhile, another New York Times front-page headline focused new attention on the topic Trump most wants us all to forget-the Russia thing: "Trump and Putin Had Second, Undisclosed Private Conversation." For Trump, the timing was the worst-he was doing an interview with Times reporters that day. He went into the interview steaming about the Russia stuff, not Obamacare or Afghanistan. (Trump may have his own reasons for seeming so concerned about all the probes into his team's Russian contacts and deals with Russian billionaires who invested in his properties.)
Trump was especially steamed that his attorney general, Jeff Sessions-the first and only senator to endorse him early in the campaign-wouldn't lift a finger to stop the Russia probes. Indeed, Sessions recused himself from any role in monitoring the Russia probe. And Trump hated that!
On Thursday, a New York Times front-page headline said, "Trump Lashes Out at Russia Inquiry and Its Overseers," and the subhead added, "In Times' interview, he declares Sessions' Recusal 'Very Unfair' to President." So Tillerson knew Trump was not above publicly criticizing (front-stabbing) one of his own Cabinet members.
And this gets us back to that Pentagon briefing.
Because Trump's attention reportedly wanders in substantive meetings, advisers frequently present facts in colorful charts. They used a chart to show the history of America's nuclear arsenal-a climbing line showed U.S. nuclear weapons peaking at 32,000 in the late 1960s, declining to 4,000 now.
Oh-oh. Trump couldn't like seeing himself presiding over the power curve's lowest end. He wanted to be atop another peak-which would mean a tenfold increase. So he talked about reversing the trend line. Stunned officials rushed to explain that decades of nuclear arms treaties prohibited such increases. Also, nuclear arsenal modernization was in the works (thanks to Barack Obama).
Then the Pentagon meeting broke up. Trump left, and officials who remained told NBC News they heard Tillerson say the president is a "moron." (Note: This week, Trump says modernization-only of the nuclear arsenal is just fine.)
Meanwhile, back at the White House on July 20, Trump moved to his next decision. On Friday, he appointed his new director of communications, Anthony Scaramucci-"The Mooch," a fellow Long Islander who shares Trump's fondness for talking like the Fonz. Trump was in a new comfort zone. What could go wrong?
Before you could say badda-boom!, The Mooch, being woefully impolitic, forced the departures of press secretary Sean Spicer and chief of staff Reince Priebus. But Trump wisely convinced retired Gen. John Kelly to be his chief of staff-and in a flash, The Mooch was scooched.
Trump had backed into his only real chance to get his staff under control. But there is no indication that even the four-star general will ever be able to control the self-destructive impulses that will be the ultimate unmaking of our president.