Although I didn’t vote for Donald Trump and am a bit concerned about some of his early appointments to key administration posts, I’ve found myself reading and seeking out stories about this most unusual presidential transition.
From the continuous hubbub around Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, to Trump ducking the press and sneaking out to Club 21 for dinner last week, to who has the president-elect’s ear, to Trump’s daily routine, I find every aspect of the transition fascinating. Because of Trump’s outsize personality and his “outsider” status, this is a decidedly unique period in presidential politics.
Sunday, for example, The New York Times had an insightful story about Trump’s 35-year-old son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who appears to be the single most influential person in Trump’s inner circle.
Jared Kushner with father-in-law Donald Trump
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, seems to have a sort of counterpoint personality to Trump: Where Trump is bold, brash and big — big about everything — Kushner is laid back and reflective. You can see how Kushner’s relaxed style would be calming to Trump, who undoubtedly gets worn out by the bombardment he must get from people like Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie and Stephen Bannon.
The Times story said: “Mr. Kushner projects a very different image from his…father-in-law. He speaks in a near-whisper, punctuated by long pauses, conveying both intimacy and awkwardness.”
And this: “Unlike most of Mr. Trump’s advisers, Mr. Kushner is unfazed by Mr. Trump’s frequent fits of anger, sitting silently rather than flinching or fighting back when he is being dressed down.”
His greatest value seems to be his ability to keep Trump positive in the face of adversity. The story opened with an anecdote about the low point of Trump’s campaign, the October weekend when the Access Hollywood recordings had been made public and many people across the country (including me) were thinking Trump’s death knell had sounded.
His inner circle — including Christie, Giuliani, Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus and Kushner– had gathered at Trump Tower to discuss what to do.
Where Christie, Giuliani and Priebus were urging Trump “to express contrition,” the story said, Kushner reminded Trump “of what he had built.” Trump left the meeting for a while to greet a group of supporters in front of Trump Tower. When Trump returned to the meeting, reporting that a large group of hard-core supporters were gathered outside, Kushner said, “Those are the people who are going to elect you president. Don’t worry about the other people.”
Trump, of course, did apologize for his offensive and outlandish remarks, but Kushner’s urging that he put the incident in the context of how far he had come almost certainly buoyed his confidence that he would overcome the setback. And, as we saw, Trump continued to push doggedly ahead and then steadfastly denied all ensuing allegations made by several women who came forward with accounts of Trump having inappropriately touched or advanced on them.
A vivid example of the clout Kushner wields was the recent trap-door-like descent of Chris Christie as a candidate for a plum Cabinet post. Kushner, it seems had a score to settle with Christie. When Christie was U.S. Attorney for New Jersey in the mid 2000s, he successfully prosecuted Mr. Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, on charges of tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign donations. Charles Kushner ended up going to prison.
During the presidential campaign, Kushner argued against Christies’s appointment to oversee the transition team, but Trump gave Christie the job anyway. Last week, however, according to The Times’ story, Kushner successfully urged Trump to oust Christie from that role.
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Another dimension of Trump I find interesting is his daily, weekday routine. Yet another front-page story in the Sunday Times lent insight into that.
Trump apparently starts his day very early, about 5 a.m., by reading The New York Post and — somewhat surprisingly — The Times. Surprising because The Times campaigned against him in the news columns as well as on the editorial and Op-Ed pages, and Trump has been doing all he can to discredit and bring down the newspaper by repeatedly calling it “the failing New York Times.” (For the record, it is not failing. Although it is planning a staff reduction in the coming months, its stock price has gone up since the election.)
Trump lives on the 58th floor of the tower, amid ornate furnishings, but his office is on a corner of the 26th floor. There, The Times story said, “aides, his children and his longtime assistant, Rhona Graff, move busily in and out as he holds court behind his desk.”
You may have heard or read this: He does not use a computer or read online. On the other hand, as we well know, he’s a slave to Twitter.
It will be interesting to see how he takes to Washington D.C., where 93 percent of people who went to the polls voted for Hillary Clinton. The Times said Trump “continues to discuss with the Secret Service how much he can return on weekends to Trump Tower.”
My guess is this is going to be just as much a Big Apple as a U.S. Capitol administration.
…I don’t know how things are going to shake out, but I love watching the process unfold.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I think it would be great if you just shut off comments right now! Let your post ring out…
The way the comments are pouring in, Tracy, it would impossible to shut off the spigot.
What happened to the deluge I was looking forward to? Were that many unprintable?
I think your insights into this will be very interesting. Looking forward to hearing more.
Fitz, I went back to your archive and found a post you wrote about Trump on February 29. Here is what I had to say:
“Unfortunately, I think Trump has at least a 40 percent chance of winning the whole thing. To quote H.L. Mencken, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
I hate it when my political predictions come true.
I didn’t recall that, Mike, but, uh, congratulations…You had a better feel for it than most of us city folk. I wouldn’t have put his chances at 5 percent, even on Election Day. I had fallen under the spell of The New York Times.
If one simply looked at the relative success here locally of pathetic candidates like Milton Wolf against Pat Roberts and Jay Sidie against Kevin Yoder and then Trump’s successes against all comers in the Republican primaries (particularly in open primaries where independents and disaffected Democrats could vote) it was clear that the pitchforks and torches were out and looking for blood. Throw in Hillary as the very symbol of a corrupt establishment (and being supported by hated media outlets like NYT and CNN) and it was predictable.
When Hillary called off the fireworks displays in NY I had an idea that their own internals were signaling a long evening, if not an outright upset.
Bottom line, we get the candidates we deserve and neither party has been holding their weasels accountable, or giving a damn about who ran as long as they won.
They announced over the weekend that Melania and his son are staying in NY so the kid can finish his school there, but that she will come to DC when needed. I’m thinking your prediction is correct, he’s not planning on spending a lot of time in DC.
One excuse he can use is that The Oval Office is also due for an upgrade that Obama refused to do during his regime and so it will not be available to Trump for approximately a year so he will be working in Nixon’s old office.
There was also a story that indicated that every time he showed up in NYC that they would have to shut down several blocks of a couple of major traffic ways, so he may be bringing a little pain to both of America’s major liberal enclaves.
Everything we’ve seen from the president-elect’s transition team points to a brutal four years.