A senior White House official who spoke contemporaneously with participants in the meeting recorded this summary: "The president proceeded to lecture… - Bob Woodward

It seems clear that many of the president’s senior advisers, especially those in the national security realm, are extremely concerned with his erratic nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learn, as well as what they consider his dangerous views.

Overall, Hamas killed more than 1,200 Israelis and dragged more than 240 hostages and back across the border into underground tunnels in Gaza. It was the deadliest attack in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

There it was: "We did not do this." There is a deep feeling among some senior Bush administration officials that somehow we had not started the Iraq War. We had been attacked. Bin Laden, al Qaeda, the other terrorist and anti-American forces- whether groups or countries or philosophies- could be lumped together. It was one war, the long war, the two-generation war that Wolfowitz's Bletchley Group II had described after 9/11. "You sure it's the right war at the right time?" I asked Chairman Pace. "Yes, absolutely," Pace said. "Fundamentally, yes. I said that before we started. And I'll say that today. It may not surprise you to understand that taking my country's battles to my country's enemies on their playing field is where I think we should be. To protect my country, to do my oath to my country, and to protect my kids and my grandkids and your kids and your grandkids, I have zero doubt that we have done the right thing."

Trump had gone bankrupt six times and seemed not to mind. Bankruptcy was just another business strategy. Walk away, threaten to blow up the deal.