Inside Trump’s Hour-by-Hour Battle for Self-Preservation<br />Mr. Trump is an avid newspaper reader who still marks up a half-dozen papers with comments in black Sharpie pen, but Mr. Bannon has told allies<br />that Mr. Trump only “reads to reinforce.” Mr. Trump’s insistence on defining his own reality — his repeated claims, for example, that he actually won the popular vote — is immutable and has had a “numbing effect” on people who work with him, said Tony Schwartz, his ghostwriter on “The Art of the Deal.”<br />“He wears you down,” Mr. Schwartz said.<br />Once this fall, Mr. Trump lashed out at an aide he had not seen for weeks, asking, “Where the hell have you been?” When the aide told him<br />that Mr. Kelly had limited the meetings he could attend, the president cooled off and said, “Oh, O. K.,” according to an aide told of the exchange.<br />Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the president opined, would definitely run — “even if he’s<br />in a wheelchair,” Mr. Trump added, making a scrunched-up body of a man in a wheelchair.<br />Despite chafing at the limits, the president actually craves the approval of Mr. Kelly, whom he sees as a peer, people close to Mr. Trump said.<br />To the adviser who recounted it, the story revealed what Mr. Trump expected being president<br />would be like — ruling by fiat, exacting tribute and cutting back room deals.<br />Mr. Trump, Mr. Kelly and Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, met for more than an hour on Nov. 1<br />as Ms. Pirro whipped up the president against Mr. Mueller and accused James B. Comey, the former F. B.I.<br />Several advisers said the president may curse them for a minor transgression — like bringing an unknown aide<br />into his presence without warning — then make amiable small talk with the same person minutes later.
