Quotes About Strategy

Bannon, Kushner and Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs executive, presented Trump with a plan for him to give $25 million to the campaign. "No way," Trump said. "Fuck that. I'm not doing it." Where were the famous Republican high-donor guys? "Where the fuck's the money? Where's all this money from these guys? Jared, you're supposed to be raising all this money. Not going to do it.

Conway agreed with Bannon that if the Trump campaign could make the race about Hillary, not Trump, they would win with those hidden Trump voters. If the race stayed about Trump, "we'll probably lose.

For Mr. Trump, though, bringing in Mr. Bannon was the political equivalent of ordering comfort food." Bannon tried to sit down with Trump and walk him through refinements of the strategy and how to focus on particular states. The candidate had no interest in talking about it.

I would recommend you run as if you are running for governor in three states - Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. There were the first three caucus or primary states. Run and sound local, like you want to be their governor. A lot of candidates make the huge mistake of trying to run in 27 states. Run three governor's races, and you'll have a really good shot. Focus on three. Do well in three. And the others will come.

Cohn concluded that Trump just loved to pit people against each other.

Ryan began, on his own, to research how to deal with someone who is amoral and transactional.

We need to know if the commander in chief is fully with us or not," Mattis said. "We can't fight a half-assed war anymore." In order for the military to succeed, Mattis needed Trump to be all-in on the strategy. "I'm tired of hearing that we have to do this or that to protect our homeland or to ensure our national security," Trump said.

Pence was staying out of the way. He didn't want to be tweeted about or called an idiot.

Trump had a way of appearing to strengthen his own hand by creating a situation, often risky, that did not previously exist.

Trump had failed the President Lincoln test. He had not put a team of political rivals or competitors at the table, Priebus concluded. "He puts natural predators at the table," Priebus said later. "Not just rivals—predators.

If you have natural predators at the table," Priebus said, "things don't move." So the White House was not leading on key issues like health care and tax reform. Foreign policy was not coherent and often contradictory. "Why?" asked Priebus. "Because when you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody. That's what happens.

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. Real

The Chinese thought that Trump in desperation would create a crisis, present himself as the savior, and use the gambit to win reelection.

The tweets were not incidental to his presidency. They were central. He ordered printouts of his recent tweets that had received a high number of likes, 200,000 or more. He studied them to find the common themes in the most successful. He seemed to want to become more strategic, find out whether success was tied to the subject, the language or simply the surprise that the president was weighing in. The most effective tweets were often the most shocking.

He puts natural predators at the table," Priebus said later. "Not just rivals—predators.

their heels," Priebus said. "Put all the chips on the table. And then slowly but surely pick off each chip individually." It could be a person, a policy, a country, a foreign leader, a Republican, a Democrat, a controversy, an investigation—Trump would try to leverage anyone, by any means, and at times he would succeed.

If a problem can't be solved easily, make it bigger

We should just declare victory, end the wars and bring our troops home.

Barbara Tuchman's book The Guns of August

Some 24 hours after Trump wins, we call the question on Ryan and he's finished. We take over the House of Representatives. And then we have a real revolution." Bannon was still worried, though he saw some positives

Esper had not learned how to play the necessary politics that went with the job of being Trump's secretary of defense.

His attention span is like a minus number. His sole purpose is to get reelected.

reducing the total vote count for Democrats. The same could potentially be activated to reduce Trump votes in Republican districts.

For those of you who were critical that nobody paid enough attention to the generals at the beginning of the war, has it occurred to you that you don't want to make that mistake at the end of the war? Secretary Robert Gates