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The Decline and Fall of Donald Trump Episode 2: Barbarians at the Oval
AxiosBeginning on election night 2020 and continuing through his final days in office, Donald Trump unraveled and dragged America with him, to the point that his followers sacked the U.S. Capitol with two weeks left in his term. This Axios series takes you inside the collapse of a president.
Episode 2: Trump stops buying what his professional staff are telling him, and increasingly turns to radical voices telling him what he wants to hear.
President Trump plunked down in an armchair in the White House residence, still dressed from his golf game — navy fleece, black pants, white MAGA cap. It was Saturday, Nov. 7. The networks had just called the election for Joe Biden.
In the Yellow Oval Room, the same room where FDR learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, stewards brought hors d’oeuvres on trays while Trump gathered his closest political advisers to assess what options he had left.
Top aides including campaign manager Bill Stepien, senior adviser Jason Miller, conservative political activist and external Trump adviser David Bossie, and Justin Clark, the deputy campaign manager, leveled with him. As they saw it, he had one last long shot at victory. It would require them to win enough outstanding votes in Arizona and Georgia to squeak home in those two states, and to win a legal challenge to election practices in Wisconsin.
"You have a 5% to 10% chance of this happening," Clark told the president. "But all of these things have to go right.” Trump listened calmly and told them their plan was worth a shot.
But it would never get off the ground. Plan B, driven by Rudy Giuliani and a parallel track of conspiracists, was already coming together, unfolding before the original advisers' own eyes.
It would soon overtake the campaign's legal operation, feeding the president false claims including the idea that the election could be overturned.
In the Yellow Oval Room, the same room where FDR learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, stewards brought hors d’oeuvres on trays while Trump gathered his closest political advisers to assess what options he had left.
Top aides including campaign manager Bill Stepien, senior adviser Jason Miller, conservative political activist and external Trump adviser David Bossie, and Justin Clark, the deputy campaign manager, leveled with him. As they saw it, he had one last long shot at victory. It would require them to win enough outstanding votes in Arizona and Georgia to squeak home in those two states, and to win a legal challenge to election practices in Wisconsin.
"You have a 5% to 10% chance of this happening," Clark told the president. "But all of these things have to go right.” Trump listened calmly and told them their plan was worth a shot.
But it would never get off the ground. Plan B, driven by Rudy Giuliani and a parallel track of conspiracists, was already coming together, unfolding before the original advisers' own eyes.
It would soon overtake the campaign's legal operation, feeding the president false claims including the idea that the election could be overturned.
