In case you missed it, in Monday’s Poynter Report, I highlighted the work of The Atlantic’s Caitlin Dickerson in “‘We Need To Take Children Away’” — a 30,000-word piece that exposes the family separation policy during the Trump administration. It’s a gut-wrenching and infuriating story that can be difficult to read, but it’s too important to not read.
Today, here’s another highly recommended piece involving former President Donald Trump. The New Yorker ran an excerpt from a book due out next month from The New Yorker’s Susan B. Glasser and The New York Times’ Peter Baker. The excerpt, “Inside the War Between Trump and His Generals,” is from the book “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.”
Glasser and Baker wrote, “The four years of the Trump Presidency were characterized by a fantastical degree of instability: fits of rage, late-night Twitter storms, abrupt dismissals. At first, Trump, who had dodged the draft by claiming to have bone spurs, seemed enamored with being Commander-in-Chief and with the national-security officials he’d either appointed or inherited. But Trump’s love affair with ‘my generals’ was brief, and in a statement for this article the former President confirmed how much he had soured on them over time. ‘These were very untalented people and once I realized it, I did not rely on them, I relied on the real generals and admirals within the system,’ he said.”
One time, according to Glasser and Baker, Trump complained to his chief of staff, John Kelly, who was a retired Marine Corps general:
“You (expletive) generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?” Trump said.
Kelly asked, “Which generals?”
Trump said, “The German generals in World War II.”
“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said.
Trump never knew that and told Kelly, “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him.”
Does anything that you read about the Trump White House surprise you anymore?
But you should still read the compelling excerpt from Glasser and Baker’s book.
Speaking of Trump
Big news Monday evening when the former president confirmed that the FBI raided his Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida. In a statement, Trump said, “My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”
Trump was not in Florida at the time. It’s reported that he was in New York. More will come in the days ahead, but check out this story from The Washington Post’s Devlin Barrett, Mariana Alfaro and Josh Dawsey. The Post wrote, “A person familiar with the investigation said agents were conducting a court-authorized search as they probe the potential mishandling of classified documents that were shipped to Mar-a-Lago. Such a move — a court-ordered search of Trump’s property to look for possible evidence of a crime — is deeply unusual for a former president. It represents a historic moment in Trump’s tortured relationship with the Justice Department, both in and out of the White House.”
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, Ben Protess and Adam Goldman wrote that the FBI broke open a Trump safe, adding “an account that, if accurate, would be a dramatic escalation in the various investigations into the former president.”
By the way, this should be noted. The story of the FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago was actually broken by Peter Schorsch, who runs a website called Florida Politics. Before news had broken anywhere else, Schorsch tweeted Monday evening, “Scoop — The Federal Bureau of Investigation @FBI today executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, two sources confirm to @Fla_Pol. ‘They just left,’ one source said. Not sure what the search warrant was about. TBH, Im not a strong enough reporter to hunt this down, but its real.”
And more Trump …
Check out Axios’ Mike Allen with “Exclusive photos: Trump's telltale toilet.”
In her upcoming book, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman wrote that White House staff used to find wads of paper clogging up the toilet and believed that Trump was flushing Oval Office documents. Trump said his flushing papers down the toilet was a “fake story.”
But now Allen has photos that he says Haberman shared with him.
Haberman’s much-anticipated book — “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America” — is due out Oct. 4.
One more thought on Trump. This from USA Today columnist Carli Pierson: “Don't believe Trump and the GOP: Biden and the Democrats are winning.”
Media tidbits
- Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo has a major profile in his exclusive piece: “Rachel Maddow gives her first interview as she steps back from the nightly grind and revs up for her next act.” It also includes some stellar photos (Maddow swinging an ax?) from the legendary Annie Leibovitz.
- NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben with “Republicans have long feuded with the mainstream media. Now many are shutting them out.”
- The New York Times-Washington Post rosters continue to switch players. The latest? Post nonfiction book critic Carlos Lozada is leaving the Post to join the Times as an Opinion columnist. Lozada’s new gig starts in September. Lozada won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2019 and was a finalist in 2018. In a note announcing the hire, Times Opinion editors Kathleen Kingsbury and Patrick Healy wrote, “It can be difficult in journalism to do something truly distinctive. It’s even harder to pull that off consistently at unparalleled levels of excellence. In his explorations of ideas, culture and text, Carlos Lozada has achieved both, to award-winning results that have delighted readers for years.”
- New York Times contributing writer Rachel L. Swarns writes about a compelling topic — old newspaper ads — in “The Search for a Meaningful Clue to the Mystery of an Enslaved Ancestor.”
- CNN’s Oliver Darcy with “Alex Jones’ texts have been turned over to the January 6 committee, source says.”
- Gannett has named Romi Ruiz-Goiriena the White House editor for USA Today. Ruiz-Goiriena joined USA Today as a national enterprise reporter in 2020. She previously worked at The Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald. She also has done work for CNN and The Associated Press. In a statement, Ruiz-Goiriena said, “As an editor, my aim is for our coverage to be reflective of the people we serve. Our readers should feel like we're their line to the White House. Their questions will be our questions.”
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be a guest on this morning’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC to discuss her trip to Taiwan.
- Monday was the 17th anniversary of the start of CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” Blitzer tweeted out an appreciation.
Death of a legend
David McCullough has died. He was 89. The cause has not been made public.
McCullough won Pulitzer Prizes for two presidential biographies: “Truman” in 1992 and “John Adams” in 2001. Aside from his pain-stakingly researched books, McCullough is known for narrating Ken Burns’ 1990 PBS series “The Civil War.”
In his excellent obituary for The New York Times, Daniel Lewis writes, “Critics saluted him as a literary master, adept at imbuing the familiar with narrative drama and bringing momentous events to life through small details and the accounts of individual witnesses.”
Lewis goes on to note, “Mr. McCullough was himself often held up as an exemplar of solid values. He received many awards from professional historical societies and some 40 honorary doctorates. In 2006, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
And one more note. Michael Barbaro — host of The New York Times’ “The Daily” podcast — tweeted out this detail from Lewis’ obit: “Throughout his career Mr. McCullough and his wife would read his early drafts aloud to each other — a practice he credited with improving his writing enormously.”
More sad news
