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Our man at the White House
The BBC’S North America editor, Jon Sopel, tells Martin Fletcher about his daily dealings with The Donald. Plus, an extract from his new book
For the past five years, every one of Jon Sopel’s days has been dominated by The Donald. As the BBC’S North America editor, he’s been spat at, hacked and gone head-to-head with the President – all while trying to keep up with the daily, dizzying dramas of Trump’s America. He tells Martin Fletcher how he makes sense of it all, and shares an exclusive extract from his revealing new book
The problem with writing a book about Donald Trump is that it is out of date almost before it is published, so utterly frenetic is his presidency.
Jon Sopel, the BBC’S dapper and debonair North America editor, managed to include Trump’s state visit to Britain in June in his new book on the US President, A Year at the Circus, which is published next week. He managed to mention Sir Kim Darroch’s resignation as Britain’s ambassador in July, following the leak of his unflattering cables about the White House, and Trump’s furious reaction.
But Trump’s most recent intervention in British political affairs – his offer of an expedited trade deal with post-brexit Britain made via John Bolton, his national security adviser, last month – came too late. Which is a shame, as Sopel has some valuable insights to offer on Trump and the so-called ‘special relationship’.
Talking in the study of his Georgetown home, its walls festooned in political memorabilia from his five and a half years in Washington, DC as well as a Spurs shirt signed by Gareth Bale, he says Boris Johnson is right to seek a free-trade deal with the US. However, he warns that Trump is a man who ‘can scent weakness from a mile away’ and will drive a very hard bargain.
‘He’s not going to say, “Hey, Britain, just because you’ve done Brexit here’s the most fabulous trade deal on the most preferential terms.” He has different sections of industry who’re saying to him, “We want to get into the UK market on pharmaceuticals, on crops, on foodstuffs, we’re going to want to sell more cars to the UK.” So the idea that Donald Trump is going to roll on his back and say, “Just tickle my tummy, Boris, and you can have whatever you want” is fanciful.’
Nor is Trump encouraging Brexit simply because he has Britain’s best interests at heart, Sopel suggests. He is doing so because he is ‘allergic to multilateral, multinational organisations’. He regards the European Union as ‘an organisation set up to rip off America’, Sopel says. ‘He sees everything as a zero-sum game. Either I win or I lose. There are no win-wins. I think he sees a weakened EU as good for America because they’ll be less of
a pain in the backside and less forceful in selling their goods abroad.’
Sopel acknowledges that Trump, whose mother was Scottish, feels a degree of affection for Britain, but cautions: ‘We saw the “special relationship” in its true colours over Kim Darroch. One minute you’re celebrating its glory and saying there’s no more important, enduring relationship on the planet, and the next you’re kicking the UK around, slagging off the then-prime Minister, piling into our ambassador and causing turmoil.’
Sopel was born in Stepney 60 years ago, the son of parents he has described as ‘pillars of the East End Jewish community’. When he was 11 his family moved to north London. He was educated at Christ’s College in Finchley then Southampton University, where he became president of the Students’ Union.
He has worked for the BBC his entire career, starting as a reporter on Radio Solent. He worked his way up to become the BBC’S Paris correspondent and then one of its top political correspondents, writing a biography of Tony Blair. He replaced Mark Mardell in Washington in 2014, when Barack Obama was still president, but had no inkling of what he was letting himself in for.
‘If I’d gone to the BBC when they said, “We want you to go to North America,” and said to them, “By the way, I think Donald Trump is going to be president and it all might go bats—t crazy,” the BBC would have shown me the door. How could you foresee any of this?’ he says.
He compares his present job to ‘servicing a car that’s travelling at 35 miles per hour’. Trump’s presidency has been a non-stop sequence of outrages, scandals, sackings, provocations, confrontations and shattered taboos, with Sopel never quite knowing what stunning new presidential tweet he will wake up to each morning.
There have been numerous accounts of the Trump White House, many of them written by insiders, but one of Sopel’s goals in writing this book (his second on Trump – the first covered his election) is to recount some of the ‘untold gems’ that got lost in the relentless tumult.
Who now remembers Harold Bornstein, Trump’s former doctor, and his claim that three Trump aides had raided his office to secure the President’s medical records? Or the fate of Admiral Ronny Jackson, the White House physician nominated to become veterans affairs secretary after giving Trump a glowing medical report, only to withdraw amid allegations of bullying, drunkenness and improperly dispensing opioids? Or Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted 10 days as White House communications director and lent his name to a unit of Washington time: ‘When someone says, “We’re going for half a mooch” that equals five days away,’ Sopel writes.
Another entertaining chapter chronicles the record number of cabinet secretaries forced from office for misusing private planes, living high on the taxpayers’ dime, charging outrageous expenses and committing other egregious ethical transgressions. Recalling Trump’s election promise
to ‘drain the swamp’, Sopel observes that ‘the swamp looks more swampy than it’s ever been’.
Better men are meanwhile sacked through tweets – or worse. Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, learnt of his firing via Twitter when he landed in Washington after a long trip to Africa and his staff turned on their phones. James Comey, the FBI director, saw his sacking announced in a television newsflash while he was delivering a speech.
Sopel’s book also expands on issues of specific interest to British readers. He recalls, for example, how Sir Kim Darroch’s stock in Washington had soared after the success of the June state visit, and how the embassy alerted the White House the moment it learnt of the impending leak of his cables describing the Trump administration as ‘uniquely dysfunctional’ and ‘inept’.
Sopel asserts that Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s chief of staff, assured Sir Kim the affair would blow over, but even he underestimated the ‘gossamer-like thinness of the President’s skin when it comes to criticism… Donald Trump went utterly ballistic.’ The ‘norm-shattering’ President savaged not just Sir Kim but also Theresa May, on whom he had lavished praise during the previous month’s state visit. He was effectively ‘telling the UK who it could have as its ambassador’.
In conversation, Sopel adds a further observation. ‘The weekend when the story broke, endless administration officials, who have all had cham
‘Trump sees everything as a zero-sum game. Either I win or I lose. There are no win-wins’
pagne at the ambassador’s residence, got in touch saying, “Not a problem, not a problem.” [Then] Trump tweets, and not one of them has ever got back in touch with him since. You just think, what a cruel town this is!’ he exclaims.
But Sopel also believes his book has merit because of his objectivity. ‘American journalism has become consumed by Trump but also, to some extent, made mad by Trump,’ he says. There has been some fine investigative reporting, he adds, but many US media outlets now see themselves as the opposition and resort to outright hostility and invective. Sopel prefers to pursue what he calls ‘aggressive impartiality’.
He gives Trump credit where it is due: the economy is growing, tensions with North Korea appear to have subsided and the Isis caliphate has been destroyed. For the most part, Trump is seeking to keep his election promises, and Sopel ‘loves’ the manifest authenticity of his tweets – replete with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes – compared to those of other world leaders.
He says Trump is a tactical genius who manages to turn even defeats into victories by blaming his opponents. Speaking not long after a white nationalist gunman killed 22 people in El Paso, Texas, Sopel even refrains from joining those blaming Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. A president’s words have consequences, he says, but gun violence has many causes and did not begin with Trump’s presidency. ‘It’s simplistic and crude to say he has blood on his hands.’
However, Sopel also insists the BBC should ‘call it as we see it’, so Trump does not get away with his more outrageous assertions. ‘When he says a massive new border wall has been built and we’ve nearly finished it, that’s not true. There’s been 55 miles of wall that’s been repaired and about 13 new miles of wall under construction,’ Sopel argues. He says journalists should challenge his claims, but in a measured way. ‘It’s not our job to say, “You’re a bloody liar, liar, liar pants on fire,” in a slightly hysterical way, because that tends to play into the fakenews narrative that has served Trump very well.’
Sopel is a model of measured, clinical condemnation when he writes about Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump election campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia, and the President’s subsequent alleged obstruction of justice. He sets out the facts in a way that leaves readers more than able to make up their minds about the validity of those allegations.
‘I think Mueller made it pretty clear where he stood. He said, “If I’d wanted to exonerate the President I would have done,”’ says Sopel, who incidentally became the first BBC correspondent to use the word ‘f—d’ on the Ten O’clock News following the Mueller investigation. The report had revealed Trump’s reaction when told of Mueller’s appointment to investigate: ‘This is the end of my presidency. I’m f—d.’
Sopel says Trump has survived scandals that would have destroyed any other presidency because, ‘He’s not treated like a politician. People just go, “Yep, well, that’s Donald Trump...” He has a latitude I’ve not seen any other politicians have.’
Sopel calls this the best of times to be doing his job, and the worst. He is reporting on an amazing story, but he is also operating in a uniquely toxic atmosphere where the President incites hatred against the mainstream media and undermines it with accusations of ‘fake news’.
Sopel’s cameraman was roughed up at a Trump rally. ‘We are jeered and booed, insulted and spat at,’ he writes. His mobile phone was mysteriously hacked. He had an altercation with Trump at a White House press conference, with the President labelling him ‘another beauty’ and adding, ‘I know who you are.’ The media enclosures at Trump rallies now have to be protected by armed police. ‘It’s extraordinary, but that’s the environment in which we’re now operating,’ says Sopel, a note of incredulity ever present in his voice.
That and the endless drama do exact a toll, he admits. ‘It’s simultaneously incredibly stimulating and exhausting. There are times when I just think I need a break from all of this. Let me go a whole day without saying the words “Donald Trump”. There’s not been a day, not even when my son got married a few weeks ago, when we don’t discuss Donald Trump and what he’s doing. It’s like you’re living with Donald Trump the whole day.’
His wife, Linda, pays a price too. ‘The noise and cacophony of US politics drives her mad,’ says Sopel. Their two grown-up children live in London and Australia. Linda is a trained teacher, but has no work visa so she does voluntary work and takes solace in Washington’s parks and museums.
There is little respite in sight. Next year’s presidential election looms, and – barring some sensational development – Sopel expects Trump to be re-elected.
‘The biggest fight, whoever the Democrats choose, is to get enough oxygen to breathe, because Donald Trump is brilliant at stealing all the oxygen from the room,’ he explains. ‘He’s a formidable operator. Do we underestimate him on this side of the pond? Yes. He’s a killer. In political campaigning he’s brutal. So, given where we are now – the tax cuts, the stock market, him seeming to deliver on his promises, America not at war… I think he’s going to be formidably hard to beat in 2020.’
The impending battle will give Sopel the material for a third Trump book, a diary of the 2020 election. He has already written the first pages.
Trump launched his re-election bid before 20,000 adoring supporters in Orlando, Florida, on 18 June. The media were locked into their heavily guarded enclosure two hours before Trump even landed in the city, and for more than four hours in total. During that time they were banned even from using the toilets. ‘I thought, that’s a fantastic start to the endurance test that is covering a US presidential election,’ Sopel chuckles.
A Year at the Circus, by Jon Sopel (BBC Books, £20), is published on Thursday. Order yours for £16.99 at books.telegraph.co.uk or call 0844-871 1514. Turn the page for an exclusive extract
SINCE ITS COMPLETION in 1934 the Oval Office has changed very little. Except in the way it is furnished, the room is the same. There are three large windows looking out on to the gardens at one end of the room and a door which opens on to the colonnade linking the East and West Wings. At the far end of the room, opposite the presidential desk, is the fireplace. And that is where you will see the two armchairs, in one of which sits the President and in the other a visiting head of state as they chat in a somewhat stilted manner with the cameras clicking and a mass of microphones seeking to record the conversation between the two. We call this a ‘pool spray’. Either side of the fireplace there are two doors, linking to outer offices. Set into the ceiling is the Presidential Seal.
An incoming president can choose the curtains and the oval rug, and what paintings to hang. Even what desk to use. John F Kennedy’s new decor was just being installed on the day he was assassinated. Barack Obama caused controversy with the British when he had a Jacob Epstein bust of Winston Churchill removed, to be replaced with one of Martin Luther King Jr.
When Donald Trump moved into the White House, the Churchill bust was restored to the Oval Office. Also moving in, at Donald Trump’s insistence, was a portrait of the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson – someone the 45th president seems to have an affinity with. When the remark is made that politics has never been so dirty, those making that assertion would do well to look back at the 1828 presidential election, in which Jackson defeated the incumbent, John Quincy Adams. ‘Old Hickory’, as Jackson was known, was described at the time as bullish, defensive, quick-tempered, thin-skinned, a populist and unfit to govern. He felt that the world was against him, and that he was looked down on by the ruling elites. Jackson would talk about putting American interests first and warned against ‘alien enemies’. Sound familiar? That said, so far (at time of writing!) Donald Trump hasn’t killed anyone in a duel – as Jackson did.
The 45th president has replaced the carpet and brought in the rug designed by Nancy Reagan when her husband was president; the curtains now hanging were first used by Bill Clinton, and Mr Trump hasn’t yet changed the beige and cream stripy wallpaper that Obama had installed. And the President is still sitting behind the Resolute desk, a gift to the American people from Queen Victoria – it is made from the timbers of HMS Resolute, which once upon a time patrolled the Arctic. Behind the desk on an occasional table are two photographs. One is of his mother, Mary, who came to the US from Scotland – and the other is of his father Fred. Aside from that – for the first year or so – there were few personal touches. A far cry from his cluttered office in Trump Tower, piled high with papers and walls decorated with magazine covers – all of which have one thing in common: they all have photographs of him on the front.
The other thing about the room – and it might sound counter-intuitive to say so given the grave global crises that have played out from the Oval Office over the decades – is that it feels like a place of serenity. Obviously more so when it is empty. Light streams in through the windows and you look out on to the wonderfully landscaped gardens with mature magnolia and crab apple trees, and beautiful lawns that go down to the Ellipse and then on to the Washington Monument. It can feel more like the elegant drawing room of an upscale country house than the crackling nerve centre of global power.
When Donald Trump speaks to acquaintances on the phone, or meets new people he wants to impress, one of the first things he will ask is, ‘Have you visited the Oval Office?’ If your answer is no, he will invite you. And who doesn’t want to go to the Oval Office? One well-known American CEO who received the invitation told me that when he was arranging the visit, a White House staffer advised him to bring someone else along with him. The counsel was unusual – better to have a witness with you who can back up your account of the meeting, in case the President makes claims about it you don’t recognise. Another corporate titan told me how the President was almost childlike in his excitement at showing him his new office. ‘Can you believe I’m here?’ he asked his guest in wide-eyed wonderment.
He also likes to show off the power that is at the fingertips of the Commander in Chief. On one occasion when the press was allowed in, the President had been due to take a call from the then Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto. We had been called in to witness what was meant to herald the start of a new chapter in trade between the US and Mexico. The cameras rolled, the President looked at the speakerphone, and this happened.
President Trump presses a button on his phone, and after waiting a moment, says ‘Enrique?’ There’s more silence, followed by Trump telling someone off camera, ‘You can hook him up.’ That is then followed by more dead air – Trump says, ‘Tell me when’ to the mysterious, out-of-vision person – and then more awkward silence. ‘It’s a big thing, a lot of people waiting,’ Trump says. More buttons are pressed. He says ‘Hello?’ multiple times. Eventually he suggests people ‘be helpful’. And then someone comes over to help, who, miraculously, is able to properly set up the speakerphone and the call begins. As these things tend to, it went viral on the internet.
The one button that Donald Trump knows how to work is housed in a small wooden box on the Resolute desk. It is the red button. And as he has
The greatest show on earth… An extract from A Year at the Circus
noted wryly, it can cause guests some anxiety when he moves to press it. However, this is not an order to launch nuclear Armageddon. It is a call to one of the White House butlers that the Commander in Chief is in need of another Diet Coke. The President is famously teetotal, having seen the damage that booze did to his brother, who died an alcoholic in 1981. And he is also famously un-famous for being self-deprecating, but he did crack a joke over what his relationship might have been with alcohol: ‘I’m not a drinker. I can honestly say I never had a beer in my life. OK? It’s one of my only good traits. I don’t drink. Whenever they’re looking for something good, I say, “I never had a glass of alcohol.” I’ve never had alcohol… Can you imagine if I had, what a mess I’d be?’ But Diet Coke he can’t get enough
The most senior official in the White House skulks off, tail between his legs, humiliated
of – apparently drinking up to 12 cans a day.
Something else that I have picked up is how well he treats the foot soldiers who work at the White House. Not so much his generals. There was a telling moment when the President was doing an interview with one of the US networks in the Oval Office. His acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, has a cough, and out of vision he splutters a few times. It is barely picked up by the microphones. But Trump stops the recording and berates Mulvaney, telling him to get out. ‘I don’t like that, you know,’ says the President. ‘If you’re going to cough, please leave the room. You just can’t. You just can’t cough.’ And shaking his head adds, ‘Boy, oh boy.’ The most senior official in the White House skulks off, tail between his legs, publicly reproached and humiliated. It was a vivid example of what it must be like to serve this president.
But the lowlier staff? Well they can’t speak highly enough of the Trumps. He remembers people’s names, is appreciative when things are done for him, asks how they’re doing – and I have heard from ordinary household staff that he and the First Lady are much easier to work for than the Obamas, who were apparently never at ease with all the flunkies around. The most junior staff, the housekeepers and gardeners get the politeness and the respect that his most senior officials don’t.
I don’t know whether logs are kept for the sheer numbers who have visited Donald Trump in the Oval Office, but I would wager under this president it has been more than any other. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the People’s House, and to his great credit he likes to throw open its doors – even if on occasion it is with slightly chaotic results.
There have been the visiting heads of state. When Angela Merkel came for her first visit since Donald Trump took over, he just scowled at the woman who had been Barack Obama’s closest ally. And when she leans over to him, as camera shutters click and TV cameras record the moment, and says, sotto voce, ‘Should we shake hands?’ Donald Trump ignores her and keeps his hands firmly between his legs, palms planted together, fingers out straight. He clearly has no intention of going near his German guest.
With Emmanuel Macron, the French president, the body language couldn’t have been more playful – you almost felt like saying, ‘Get a room.’ Donald Trump struck up an early rapport with him, and he was afforded the first state visit of this presidency. Mr Trump summoned up his inner European, and everywhere you looked he was kissing M Macron on both cheeks (goodness knows what his macho, not ever so metrosexual, redneck base made of that). They had arms round each other. But there was also – unmistakably – the assertion of seniority by the US President. As they stood together in the Oval Office, Mr Trump started picking dandruff off the French president’s lapel. ‘In fact, I’ll get that little piece of dandruff off – you have a little piece. We have to make him perfect. He is perfect.’ If there were any silverback gorillas watching their flat-screen TVS in the forests of sub-saharan Africa they’d have said, ‘You see, those humans aren’t so very different from us.’ Stephen Colbert, the late-night TV satirist, would joke that it wasn’t dandruff. ‘After two days in Donald Trump’s company,’ he said, ‘it was cocaine.’