Quotes About Power

Bypassing lawyers, regulators, and the agencies and personnel responsible for enforcing it, President Trump—with Bannon's low, intense voice behind him, offering a rush of complex information—signed what was put in front of him.

In an age when all successful political candidates are surrounded by, if not at the beck and call of, difficult, even sociopathic, rich people pushing the bounds of their own power—and the richer they were, the more difficult, sociopathic, and power-mad they might be—Bob and Rebekah Mercer were quite onto themselves.

The daughter will take down the father," said Bannon, in a Shakespearian mood.

If the new right had elected Trump, it was the older Fortune 100 executives who most pleased him

Media is personal. It is a series of blood scores. The media in its often collective mind decides who is going to rise and who is going to fall, who lives and who dies.

But now there seemed to be a new understanding: Donald Trump believed he had vastly more power, authority, and control than in fact he had, and he believed his talent for manipulating people and bending and dominating them was vastly greater than it was. Pushing this line of reasoning just a little further: senior staff believed the president had a problem with reality, and reality was now overwhelming him.

Kushner was going to pursue as his first leadership mark a meeting with the Mexican president, whom his father-in-law had threatened and insulted throughout the campaign.

chronic naysayer, he viewed each member of his inner circle as a problem child whose fate he held in his hand. "We are sinners and he is God" was one view; "We serve at the president's displeasure," another.

Jared and Ivanka had made an earnest deal between themselves: if sometime in the future the time came, she'd be the one to run for president (or the first one of them to take the shot).

Trump did not want a White House that ran by any method other than to satisfy his desires.

Michael Wolff

It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything.… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.

Dopey Don Jr. (Fredo, as Steve Bannon would dub him, in one of his frequent Godfather borrowings) was simply trying to prove he was a player and a go-to guy.

I now understand what it is like to be in the court of the Tudors," reflected Bannon.

In an age when all successful political candidates are surrounded by, if not at the beck and call of, difficult, even sociopathic, rich people pushing the bounds of their own power—and the richer they were, the more difficult, sociopathic, and power-mad they might be—Bob and Rebekah Mercer were quite onto themselves. If Trump's ascent

Bannon's strategic view of government was shock and awe. Dominate rather than negotiate. Having daydreamed his way into ultimate bureaucratic power, he did not want to see himself as a bureaucrat. He was of a higher purpose and moral order. He was an avenger. He was also, he believed, a straight shooter. There was a moral order in aligning language and action—if you said you were going to do something, you do it.

Michael Wolff

David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest.

But if Halberstam defined the presidential mien, Trump defied it—and defiled it. Not a single attribute would place him credibly in the revered circle of American presidential character and power.

in a world increasingly swayed by private wealth and personal brands.

Trump admired her not because she had the political skills to protect him, but for her pliant dutifulness. Her job was to devote herself to his care and feeding.

Donald Trump believed he had vastly more power, authority, and control than in fact he had, and he believed his talent for manipulating people and bending and dominating them was vastly greater than it was. Pushing this line of reasoning just a little further: senior staff believed the president had a problem with reality, and reality was now overwhelming him.

Trump demanded subservience, but when he got it he was suspicious of the person providing it.

Confused to find that the power of the presidency had limitations, he came to see the limitations as his own