Authors of 'A Very Stable Genius' give insight into Trump years

Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig had covered controversies and crises surrounding President Donald Trump’s first three years when they decided to apply their complementary expertise to take a deeper dive. What they learned in the process of chronicling those days for their recently released book A Very Stable Genius was that the president posed a far greater danger to American security and democracy than they had realized in their daily reporting.

“When we learned what was going on behind the scenes – what the president was telling his advisers, how they were scrambling to try to avert catastrophe – was many magnitudes worse and more dangerous for the country than we imagined and that we knew about in real time,” said Rucker, Washington Post White House bureau chief, during a virtual discussion about the New York Times bestseller on Wednesday.

The authors were joined National Press Club Board member Del Wilber.

“There was a lot more under the surface that was going on; it was much more complicated and actually sometimes much more frightening," Leonnig added. She is the national investigative reporter.

The authors interviewed more than 200 people including senior administration officials, advisors, and friends of the president, often spending five to eight hours with each source, and accumulating hundreds of hours of interviews.

Rucker found it chilling that senior level advisors expressed that Trump was a threat to security and the Constitution because of his impulses, directives, sense of entitlement and power, and lack of knowledge.

“He not only would reject the intelligence briefings but he thought he already had the intelligence – that he was the most intelligent person there and that there was nothing that these generals, CIA operatives, intelligence officers, or regional specialists on the National Security Council could tell him that he didn’t already know,” Rucker said.

Leonnig was particularly struck by the psyche of a person who rejects information. “In Donald Trump’s world, it is an insult to come to him with information, because he knows best,” she said.

She recalled a scenario where Rex Tillerson, former secretary of state, tried to explain Russia President Vladimir Putin’s motives to Trump, only to be brushed off after the president insisted he knew Putin better after one meeting.

Leonnig and Rucker also spoke about the pressure to be particularly fastidious with their research and reporting in light of Trump’s popularization of the term “fake news.”

The authors discarded content that did not meet standards they established to ensure the integrity of reporting. For instance, interview material was left out that was not corroborated by multiple people who had front row seats to what happened or were briefed immediately thereafter, and for which there were no calendar entries or emails to show it was contemporaneously shared.

“As much as we’ve spent our whole careers staking our reputations on accuracy, there is a new layer to the duty to be 100% bulletproof accurate. You let down the whole industry if you make a mistake; it’s not just your mistake which is embarrassing enough,” Leonnig said.

Upon the book’s release Trump tweeted “Almost every story is a made up lie… Fiction!” He also labeled the reporters “stone cold losers.”

In spite of the concern about the president’s character and actions among White House staffers, Leonnig said they did not speak out publicly because they were either not comfortable with criticizing a sitting commander in chief or afraid of what he would do. “He lets you know he’s coming for you, and reputationally, financially, that’s potentially painful for people,” she said.

However, Leonnig noted that many people had told the authors that former defense secretary (retired) Gen. James Mattis would come forward before the election, and that seeing Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, being used as a political prop in Lafayette Square on June 1 provoked Mattis to do so.

While refusing to speculate, she added “who knows, there may come another moment for others, where it is outrageous to them and they feel it’s time,” as news outlets reported on Thursday about Milley apologizing during the commencement of the National Defense University.