How the First Day of the Trump Presidency Foreshadowed the Four Years to Come

[demmiblue]

Behind the scenes at the last inauguration—as remembered by the Obama and Trump aides who were there.

Donald Trump’s presidency was always going to be … atypical. But few, if anyone, outside his orbit got as early a taste of what was to come as Brian Mosteller.

Described by colleagues as fastidious almost to the point of obsessiveness, Mosteller served as President Barack Obama’s special assistant and director of Oval Office operations. That meant that on the day of Trump’s inauguration in 2017, he was one of just a handful of aides left there to help with the transition.

On that Jan. 20 morning, Mosteller recalled Trump and Obama, along with a smattering of top political leaders, congregating in the Blue Room of the White House for the ceremonial tea. As the group began filtering out to get into their motorcade for the trip to the Capitol, the incoming and outgoing president lingered in the Grand Foyer. There, Obama quickly briefed Trump on a pending national security matter.

“Trump,” Mosteller recalled, “says, ‘Well what would you do in this situation?’”

To Mosteller it was unnerving; not just because Trump hadn’t given much thought to the issue, but also because “it was evident that he wasn’t really interested in the answer.” He exchanged a glance with Obama’s longtime photographer Pete Souza. “We had this realization that this was really bad,” Mosteller said. “If this is the question taking place discreetly behind closed doors on day one, the country is going to be in rough shape.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/19/trump-2017-inauguration-presidency-460248

[underpants]

1. Nice article.

Very telling all of it. Trump isn’t very hard to figure out.

[dhill926]

2. we are lucky the republic survived....

talk about a stress test....

[dalton99a]

3. "I just felt I was in the presence of the mafia"

And that's exactly how he ruled

[nam78_two]

4. A fascinating read

A leader like this comes along once in maybe a 100 years or so and we actually lived to see it. This is the one individual I have seen where the Hitler comparisons are probably not wildly ott in some ways. Though, actually no..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

I guess he is his own thing - a unique fascist of a particular type. I suppose historians and psychologists will study and analyze him a whole lot. He will be getting all the attention he apparently craves. It is just not precisely what he expected or wanted.