Trump was systemically attacking the courts, the press, and Congress — a vintage move by an autocrat to dismantle institutions constricting his power. - Bob Woodward

If you have natural predators at the table,” Priebus said, “things don’t move.” So the White House was not leading on key issues like health care and tax reform. Foreign policy was not coherent and often contradictory. “Why?” asked Priebus. “Because when you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody. That’s what happens.

Cohn concluded that Trump was, in fact, going backwards. He had been more manageable the first months when he was a novice. For Priebus, it was the worst meeting among many terrible ones. Six months into the administration, he could see vividly that they had a fundamental problem of goal setting. Where were they going? The distrust in the room had been thick and corrosive. The atmosphere was primitive; everyone was ostensibly on the same side, but they had seemed suited up in battle armor, particularly the president. This was what craziness was like, Priebus concluded.

At the heart of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign was his pledge to fix the economy and to use the presidency to do it. The fundamental difference between George Bush and himself, Clinton said, was his belief in an activist role for the government. "I know how President Lincoln felt when General McClellan wouldn't attack in the Civil War," Clinton said when he accepted the Democratic Party's nomination on July 16, 1992. "He asked him, 'If you're not going to use your army, may I borrow it?' And so I say: George Bush, if you won't use your power to help people, step aside, I will." This book is about President Clinton's effort to make good on his promise, "I will."