And is there anybody in charge at the White House who was doing anything but kissing his fat butt all over this? - Bob Woodward

Then there was the ultra-sensitive intelligence gained through the Special Access Programs South Korea allowed the U.S. to run. Trump seemed not to comprehend the value and the necessity. "Like $3.5 billion, 28,000 troops," the president said. He was really hot. "I don't know why they're there. Let's bring them all home!" "So, Mr. President," Cohn said, "what would you need in the region to sleep well at night?" "I wouldn't need a fucking thing," the president said. "And I'd sleep like a baby." Priebus called an end to the meeting. Mattis seemed completely deflated. Trump got up and walked out. All the air seemed to have gone out of Tillerson. He could not abide Trump's attack on the generals. The president was speaking as if the U.S. military was a mercenary force for hire. If a country wouldn't pay us to be there, then we didn't want to be there. As if there were no American interests in forging and keeping a peaceful world order, as if the American organizing principle was money. "Are you okay?" Cohn asked him. "He's a fucking moron," Tillerson said so everyone heard.

Despite almost daily reports of chaos and discord in the White House, the public did not know how bad the internal situation actually was. Trump was always shifting, rarely fixed, erratic. He would get in a bad mood, something large or small would infuriate him, and he would say about the KORUS trade agreement, “We’re withdrawing today.

The president has no moral compass,” Mattis replied. The bluntness should have shocked Coats, but he’d arrived at his own hard truths about the most powerful man in the world. “True,” Coats agreed. “To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.