By John Harwood
Donald Trump didn’t surprise anyone by welcoming the death of Robert Mueller, an American hero who exemplified all the admirable qualities he does not possess.
But the president’s fresh demonstration of depravity underscored a defining characteristic of his presidency. I do not mean corruption, or dishonesty, or ignorance, though Trump is thoroughly corrupt, dishonest, and ignorant.
I mean his anger. For all the wealth, fame, and power he has accumulated, Trump is an angry man directing an angry administration.
He was angry at Mueller, a decorated combat veteran and former FBI director, for obvious reasons. As Justice Department special counsel, Mueller documented the extensive interactions between Trump’s Russian benefactors and his 2016 campaign, and prosecuted some of his closest aides and allies.
But Trump seethes at anyone who spotlights his failures, investigates his crimes, or interferes with his self-aggrandizement. That includes partisan opponents (“radical left lunatics”), Supreme Court justices (“unpatriotic and disloyal”), journalists (“fake news”), and television comedians (“late night morons”).
All expose facets of his life as a con man, so he uses his influence to menace them legally, politically, financially, or physically.
You don’t need a psychological degree to understand his aggression. He is self-evidently a narcissist, an illness the Mayo Clinic describes this way: “Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance… But behind this mask of extreme self-confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.”
Trump understands, without ever acknowledging, that his claims of business acumen, high intelligence, bravery, and athletic achievement represent just a facade. Colossal dissonance between public grandiosity and private insecurity would torment anyone.
It also torments his subordinates, who must demean themselves with sycophancy to hold their jobs. To note that powerful Trump Cabinet members do not meet minimal standards of dignified public service is neither a partisan nor ideological statement. It is observable reality.
The sputtering rage of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the former Fox TV host who favors the made-up title “Secretary of War,” has become a running gag on Saturday Night Live. No wonder he calls Trump’s shambolic war against Iran “Operation Epic Fury.”
When Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin chided Attorney General Pam Bondi for ducking questions at a House hearing, Bondi shouted back, “You don’t tell me anything, you washed-up loser lawyer.” Her Justice Department colleagues Todd Blanche and Harmeet Dhillon display similar belligerence.
For many other Trump officials, their deficiencies of character and competence apparent, the default response to scrutiny is a hostile sneer.
Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr answers Trump critics with mob-style threats. Ric Grenell handled his job running the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts like an insult comic before Trump shut the place down and replaced him. FBI Director Kash Patel lashes out at Democratic lawmakers while abusing his post for taxpayer-funded entertainment.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s fanatically anti-immigrant policy adviser, smears rebukes from federal courts as “legal insurrection” by “communist, Marxist judges.” On the somber occasion of the late Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, he gave political antagonists an ominous warning.
“You have no idea the dragon you have awakened,” Miller barked. “You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred.”
Reactionary anger helped build the modern GOP. Embittered conservative whites flocked to the party after national Democrats embraced the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1960s.
A generation later, truculent resistance to affirmative action, immigration, and feminism fueled Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” in Congress. A USA Today headline about the 1994 elections assessed the outcome this way: “Angry White Men: Their Votes Turn the Tide for GOP.”
President George W. Bush later tempered the GOP’s image with a theme of “compassionate conservatism.” When candidate Donald Trump spurned that approach in his 2016 candidacy, former Bush aide Pete Wehner warned publicly, and presciently: “If Mr. Trump heads the Republican Party, it will no longer be a conservative party; it will be an angry, bigoted, populist one.”
Like angry populist leaders around the world, Trump harvests voters most threatened by economic, demographic, and cultural change. The violent Jan. 6 insurrection by supporters refusing to accept the 2020 election outcome displayed their rage most vividly.
The irony is that Trump’s animating emotion may boomerang this fall.
Most Americans disapprove of his chaotic job performance. Supporters who expected him to focus deportations on violent criminals have seen the administration itself act violently. Others who anticipated release of the Epstein files and an end to foreign wars have watched Trump reverse course.
And voters who backed him hoping he would reduce their expenses have faced the opposite from his tariffs and disrupted energy markets. Plenty of anger now points straight toward the White House.
– John Harwood is the former chief Washington correspondent for CNBC and White House correspondent for CNN. He has interviewed every president from George H.W. Bush to Joe Biden.
