Kate Andersen Brower - Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump

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To my team:

my husband, Brooke,

and our wonderful Graham, Charlotte, and Teddy

The country is far more important than any of us.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

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JIMMY AND ROSALYNN CARTER, NO. 39

In office 19771981

Secret Service code names: Deacon and Dancer

GEORGE H. W. AND BARBARA BUSH, NO. 41

In office 19891993

Secret Service code names: Timberwolf and Tranquility

BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON, NO. 42

In office 19932001

Secret Service code names: Eagle and Evergreen

GEORGE W. AND LAURA BUSH, NO. 43

In office 20012009

Secret Service code names: Trailblazer and Tempo

BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA, NO. 44

In office 20092017

Secret Service code names: Renegade and Renaissance

He probably wouldnt invite me. Why should he?

President Donald Trump, when asked if he would attend the opening of Barack Obamas presidential library

It was a brilliantly sunny day in the spring of 2019 when I sat across from President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. I was there to find out what he truly thought of the men who came before him. How did he think he would be received in the so-called Presidents Club when the time came for him to leave the White House? Had the years he spent in that awe-inspiring office, both literally and figuratively, given him empathy for what his predecessors went through?

When we spoke Trump sat behind the Resolute desk, which presidents have used in the Oval Office since John F. Kennedy had it installed, including Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. (George H. W. Bush decided to use the desk in the Treaty Room, a private study in the residence.) The ornate and iconic desk weighs a thousand pounds and was carved from the oak timbers of a British Arctic exploration ship named the H.M.S. Resolute. It was given as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880, and it has come to represent the presidency almost as much as the presidential seal or the White House itself. It became world-famous because of a playful photo of Kennedys son John F. Kennedy Jr. peeking his head out from the desks built-in panel as his father worked. There is a sense of awe that comes over you when you step into that room, so steeped in history. I could not help but think of the important decisions presidents agonized over there, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to Americas response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Now a man who has been called a carnival barker and a blowhard by his predecessors was sitting behind it looking at me intently. I was surprised that the interview had come together at all, especially since he occasionally seemed unsure of what I was writing about. I guess youre writing about first ladies, he said at one point, referring to a book I had written on the subject. No, I told him, this is about the former presidents. He asked me what I was working on more than once.

Trumps thenpress secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, scheduled the interview after it had been canceled twice at the last minute. She sat next to me, and his controversial, omnipresent aide Kellyanne Conway perched on one of the sofas behind us. Conway occasionally chimed in during our conversation to back up her boss. Trump was subdued and thoughtful; a glass of Diet Coke on ice was one of the only things on his desk. The room was so bright that it felt like there were television lights shooting down from the ceiling, which would have been appropriate for the first president to have been a reality TV star. There were also three U.S. flags and three presidential ones on displaythree times as many as in each of his predecessors offices.

We spoke shortly after the release of the Mueller Report, and Trump was in a buoyant, almost exuberant mood about its results. Youre here. And it was so calm. Its fake news, its all fake, he said, gesturing around the room, which was indeed calm, because there were only four of us present. We had a great exoneration, no collusionif they would have found one little thing, Im sure they would have loved to have said it. Barack Obama was behind the investigation, he said, referring to emails sent between two FBI officials looking into Russias interference in the 2016 election. In one exchange, one of the officials wrote, POTUS wants to know everything we are doing. Trump was indignant. They werent talking about me, cause I wasnt president yet. There was only one POTUS, and he wanted to know everything. A voice from behind me spoke up and said, Had you not won the election... It was Kellyanne. Trump peered over my head, flashed her a self-satisfied smile, and said, If I had not fired Comey, this stuff wouldnt have been found out.

One overlooked casualty of Trumps upturning of presidential norms is the way he has also upended the norms among living former presidents, who have traditionally enthusiastically welcomed one another, regardless of party, into the worlds most exclusive club. Surely Trump will not receive a warm welcome. He accused his predecessor of wiretapping his office ahead of the 2016 election and called his most recent Republican predecessors foreign policy the worst in history. When I asked whether he would go to Obamas presidential library opening, the question sounded preposterous once it was spoken. Presidents have always attended one anothers library openings as a sign of respect. I dont know. He probably wouldnt invite me. Trump mulled it over for a moment and said, as though he had never thought of the far-reaching ramifications of his ostracism from the club, Why should he? It was an astonishing reminder of just how much had changed.

Unlike the former presidents, Trump has few people in his inner circle, and he is surprisingly accessible to the press. All I had done to get my interview was send Sarah Sanders an emailgetting an interview with a president normally requires months of waiting and maneuvering around a slew of gatekeepers. Our interview was in keeping with his freewheeling, no-holds-barred style, which stands in such stark contrast to those of his most recent predecessors (with the notable exception of Bill Clinton). At one point Trump called out from behind the Resolute desk and asked his then-assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, who sat in what is called the outer Oval, to bring in a three-page, single-spaced document titled Trump Administration Accomplishments for me to read. I would say this: Nobody in the first two years in office has done anything close to what weve done. No other president would feel the need to present a journalist with such a list. It included some specifics, like wage growth, and some vague generalities like We have begun building the wall and support strong borders and no crime.

In addition to the list, Westerhout accidentally brought in top secret letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (At least Trump said it was a mistake, even though it was feeding into his narrative that he was handling the relationship with Kim Jong Un better than any president who came before him.) So... this is off the record, Trump told me as he slid the folder across the desk, not the least bit fazed. I was not meant to see this, he said, but I could have a look at the classified messages. Theyre very friendly letters, and think of where we were. When I came in, he was testing rockets every week. (The content of the letters was off the record, and when I asked if I could take a photo with my iPhone, Sanders quickly objected.) It was surreal, and it made clear that he wanted to talk about how much better he was at the job than the men who came before him, even if that meant showing a journalist sensitive material.

Trump is proud of his ostracism from the Presidents Club, and his contempt for his predecessors is obvious. The scorched-earth path hes chosen has made it impossible to maintain any friendships, or even civility, with the men who once occupied the Oval Office. Im a different kind of president, he declared. And fractured relationships were to be expected. He said he and Bill Clinton had once been good friends, until I decided to go into politics. Before he announced his campaign, in 2015, he said, he and Clinton got together relatively a lot. Wed play golf together at Westchesterthe course I have in Westchesterwed play in Florida. I got along with him fantastically until I ran for office and then, lo and behold, it was his wife that was running against me, so, you know, that can change your relationship rather quickly.