The sun is shining on Donald Trump. He knows his party daren’t convict
Close adviser gives rare glimpse of ‘happier’ Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the gold-leafed citadel for his comeback campaign.
On inauguration day, Donald Trump left Washington on the presidential plane, Air Force One, to the sound of Frank Sinatra’s My Way. The song begins: “And now the end is near” – but is it? Trump fully expects to survive and thrive politically after his impeachment trial for inciting the violent storming of the US Capitol opens on Tuesday in the Senate.
“He is going to be acquitted,” Jason Miller, Trump’s senior adviser, told me confidently last week. “There is no real scenario in which he is going to be convicted, so the pressure is completely off.” Far from raging in exile, Miller revealed, the former president “feels happier” than he did in the White House and is pleased no longer to be on social media.
Miller, a tough, combative campaign strategist, was with Trump when he won the election in 2016 — and at his side again for last year’s campaign. He was also aboard the jet on January 20, heading for the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with Melania, Ivanka, Don Jr and other close Trump family members and advisers.
“The president was in a very good mood upon leaving and there were some very tender moments with his family. It was fun to have a front-row seat for that,” Miller said. “The emotions ran the entire gamut. Some folks were very sad this day had come, but there was a sense of pride that this was the single most successful first term in US presidential history.”
Miller was able to make this boast with a straight face because millions of Americans agree with him. So does his boss. Others hope Trump will be barred for life from office after being the only president in US history to be impeached twice — and “the only one to be acquitted twice”, added Miller promptly, forecasting the outcome of the Senate trial.
It is his job to be bullish about the former president. Yet Miller also offered a rare glimpse into Trump’s private feelings about relinquishing the White House: “This was the first time in years that I saw the president truly relaxed. Only 45 other people in US history have experienced what it is like to have the world on their shoulders … and to be able to exhale, knowing that it’s not all on you for the first time in four years.”
Trump’s sunny mood has apparently continued at Mar-a-Lago, the ritzy private club that served as his winter palace and is now the gold-leafed citadel for his comeback campaign. Surely, I said, his fingers must be itching to get back on Twitter, so that he can address his 88-million-plus followers.
I was expecting Miller to respond with a furious attack on the “cancel culture” that has led the tech barons to ban Trump from Twitter and Facebook. Some commentators talk of little else, so his mellow reply was a surprise.
“The president has said he feels happier now than he’s been in some time. He’s said that not being on social media, and not being subject to the hateful echo chamber that social media too frequently becomes, has actually been good.
“That’s something the first lady has backed up as well. She has said she loves it, that he’s much happier and is enjoying himself much more.”
Miller describes Mar-a-Lago as “a beautiful place for a bit of rest and relaxation from the craziness of life”, where Trump can play golf and catch up with friends he has known for decades. Of course, he is also plotting his political resurrection and speaking to Miller – now back in Washington – and a tight circle of aides several times a day.
Did Trump miss having his hands on the levers of power? “There are a couple of aspects to political power,” Miller replied smoothly. “There is ‘having’ political power and ‘using’ political power. You don’t have to be actively using political power to still have immense political power.
“The fact is that President Trump is still the most sought-after endorsement in US politics. He has $78m in his leadership PAC [political action committee] that will help to elect Republicans to the House and Senate in 2022. He has a massive name brand, and his children – Ivanka, Don Jr, Eric and their spouses – are tremendous draws on the campaign trail. The president is going to be the single most powerful force in politics.”
I should clarify that Miller does not refer to Trump as the “president” out of a delusional belief that the election was stolen. During our interview, he never claimed directly it was, despite being given the opportunity to do so. It is simply a convention in America to call living former presidents by their honorific title.
The reality is that – with or without Twitter – Trump has a much louder megaphone than his predecessors. The online magazine Politico recently crowned him “the antipope of Mar-a-Lago”, comparing him to the popes of Avignon in medieval times who denied the legitimacy of the pontiff in Rome. The idea made me laugh, but Trump’s enduring political muscle poses a serious problem for the Republican establishment.
The long and short of it, according to Miller, is that “he is the Republican Party” – and still “far and away the frontrunner” for a tilt at the White House in 2024.
“It’s not even close. He is the one who has remade the party and brought new people in. He got nearly 10 million more votes than any other incumbent president in US history. The Republican Party now shares his ideals when it comes to trade, foreign policy and being an inclusive party that saw record African-American and Latino support.”
Those who refuse to board the Trump train are feeling the heat. Liz Cheney, the third most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives – and the daughter of Dick, the arch-conservative former vice-president – faces a primary challenge in Wyoming after voting to impeach Trump. “That vote will likely end her political career,” said Miller bluntly. “She is a dead woman walking.”
Lest there be any confusion, he stressed the line came from the prison film The Green Mile and was not to be taken literally. As well he might, because Trump’s impeachment trial hinges on the same disturbing questions about heated political rhetoric.
The main argument advanced by Trump’s defence lawyers – and backed recently in a vote by 45 out of 50 Republican senators – is that it is unconstitutional to impeach a president who has already left office. Arguably, this is true and represents a get-out-of-jail-free card for senators who are afraid to take on Trump and his army of supporters.
The Trump camp will also claim the president was exercising his right to free speech under the first amendment when he addressed the crowd at the “Stop the steal” rally on January 6. “Free speech is being put on trial by the Democrats,” Miller said. “If you look at the president’s remarks, he talked about being peaceful and cheering on lawmakers.”
Yet we also know that Trump made a number of inflammatory statements, such as: “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.” According to Miller, so does every politician.
“We’ll be presenting similar rhetoric used by almost every senator who’ll be in that room acting as a juror. There will be video clips for days stating exactly what Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, have said.”
Charges brought by the FBI against members of far-right groups, and the presence of pipe bombs outside Republican and Democratic party headquarters, suggest the Capitol riot was planned by “bad actors” before Trump made his speech, Miller added.
“I know the president thought the violence on January 6 was horrific. He was disgusted by it. Anybody who participated in mob violence should absolutely be prosecuted. The president is an advocate for law and order. You would have to be pretty thick in the head to think he would condone that sort of behaviour.”
Yet Miller was hesitant about the sequence of events that led Trump to wait nearly two hours before issuing a statement on video urging rioters at the Capitol to go home. Should he not have intervened earlier?
“I can’t speak to the exact timeline that day as I wasn’t with him in person,” he responded – uneasily, to my mind. “But the president did tweet and put out a video telling folks to behave responsibly.”
This is one of Trump’s biggest points of vulnerability, yet the outcome of this week’s trial is not in doubt, barring a last- minute shock. Miller is already turning his thoughts to a Trump run for the White House in 2024.
“I hope he runs. Absolutely. I’ve told him that. He doesn’t have to decide right now. My hunch is he would like to, but I think he wants to spend some time with the family, get a bit of golf in and enjoy the sun.”
His daughter Ivanka and son Don Jr are not planning anything “imminently” either, he said. “Whatever they want to do, the sky’s the limit. When they do decide to run for something, they will be power players, for sure.”
At the very least, Trump expects to be the Republican kingmaker, I suggested. “Yes, it could happen at the same time. He could be the kingmaker and he could run again.”
Trump relishes the power to promote and destroy candidates, but he has also retained the option of demolishing the entire Republican edifice. There have been threats to found a new Patriot Party – a likely boon to the Democrats.
“There hasn’t been any active planning for a third party and it will remain that way,” said Miller. “The only way it could become more serious is if Republican senators were to vote to convict President Trump.
“I don’t think Republican senators want to tear the party apart, so let’s go and dismiss this second impeachment witch- hunt.”
They have been warned. With Trump, it is “my way” or the highway. Now they must make their choice.