Trump's Enemies review: president's pitbulls come out brawling and bawling

Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie are snarling Trump ultras, determined to boost their belligerent ex-boss

Autumn can be the cruellest season. On election day, a coalition of suburbanites, college graduates, minorities and millennials battered the president and his party. Three weeks later, neo-Confederate Cindy Hyde-Smith could only eke out a single-digit win in Mississippi, the heart of Dixie, once home to Jefferson Davis, John Stennis and James Eastland. Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation haunts the White House like Banquo’s ghost, and Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has again climbed above 60%.

Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie do not fault Trump for his myriad woes. Instead, Lewandowski, who preceded convicted felon Paul Manafort at the helm of the Trump campaign, and Bossie, who was deputy campaign manager, lay the blame for the president’s problems at the feet of those who oppose or otherwise fail to embrace him.

Trump’s Enemies: How the Deep State Is Undermining the Presidency, Lewandowski and Bossie’s second co-authored book, is a full-throated defense of the president. Unquestioning in their devotion to Trump and unsparing in their critiques of those who challenge their ex-boss, Lewandowski and Bossie provide a window into Trump World and an alternative narrative of how the president became so despised so soon.

As 2020 approaches, Trump’s Enemies is a preview of what to expect. These days, Lewandowski hangs his hat at Vice-President Mike Pence’s political action committee, among other places. Bossie is at the Citizens United political action committee. For all intents and purposes, the two are part of Trump’s messaging machine and campaign apparatus. Indeed, their interview with Trump is the book’s centerpiece.

In their telling, Trump’s travails are unrelated to his mien, his relentless embrace of “modern-presidential” or his disregard of what normal used to look like. Likewise, they hold the president blameless for his refusal to make even the slightest effort to co-opt the political center.

Taking their cues from Trump, grievance and resentment are the operative coins of their realm. If only those surrounding the president “let Trump be Trump”, if only the globalists inside the castle walls would vanish, if only the mainstream press would serve as an administration echo chamber. If only.

Without any sense of irony, the authors write of Trump delaying his appearance at a rally for 15 minutes “out of respect” for the “solemn” funeral procession of John McCain. Think of Trump as Richard Nixon, but devoid of the capacity to woo his adversaries for more than a single news cycle or to put country before self.

Lewandowski and Bossie extol Trump for the stock market’s highs, and thank him for bringing “a big, polished set of balls back to American foreign policy”. Looking at the stock market and America’s trade wars, the president comments favorably upon the Dow’s performance and notes: “Shows you how bad tariffs are, right?”

To be sure, all that was before General Motors announced that it planned to fire 15% of its workforce, including 6,700 factory workers, and shutter plants in Ohio and Michigan – states that voted for Barack Obama then went for Trump in 2016. Not surprisingly, Trump, Lewandowski and Bossie have little to say about the economy slowing down and America’s markets coming to mirror the turbulence of its politics.

Instead, the authors aim their firepower at the intelligence community, the Steele dossier, James Comey and Robert Mueller. Lewandowski and Bossie repeatedly reiterate Trump’s mantra of “no collusion”, embrace Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos as victims, not criminals, and denounce the Fisa court for a lack of due process. Synchronously, the book and Trump’s written answers to the special counsel dropped just days before former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trump and Russia.

Not surprisingly, Lewandowski and Bossie fail to explain why “lock her up” remains a suitable fate for Hillary Clinton in the absence of any charge or trial, and are silent about Trump relying upon WikiLeaks as a campaign adjunct. Indeed, for all the swirl and speculation that surrounds Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi, it was the candidate who shouted “I love WikiLeaks”. Consistency can be a nuisance.

As to be expected, Trump’s Enemies catalogs a litany of foes and sins, real and imagined. Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker are name-checked, as are Democrats on the House intelligence committee. But the book also savages those ostensibly in Trump’s corner. Lewandowski and Bossie give Sean Spicer a beatdown and pummel Manafort, tagging him as a “grifter” and a “rat”.

The pair also accuse Gen John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, of wrongly treating their hero as a “tiger” that needs to be caged. And they go after Gary Cohn – Trump’s former senior economic adviser by way of Goldman Sachs who dared to denounce the far-right in Charlottesville and Trump’s tariffs – as a “dark force”, a globalist and a “limousine liberal”. No dog whistle there.

For good measure, the authors personalize the personal as they tear into Rob Porter, the disgraced White House staff secretary who was romantically linked to Hope Hicks, the former director of communications. Left unstated by Lewandowski is his own purported nexus to Hicks, a former model whom Trump reportedly referred to “the best piece of tail”, Lewandowski would ever have, according to Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff’s kiss-and-tell.

Trump’s Enemies contains the likely themes of Trump’s re-election bid. Although Lewandowski was forced out of the 2016 campaign, he was not banished from the kingdom. Despite his reported scuffle with Kelly within the White House, there is no indication Trump will stop talking with Lewandowski any time soon.

Nor should he. Trump is the one president who has never won, for even a moment, the approval of a majority of Americans. Like the authors, he is a brawler. The upcoming presidential race will be a war for the ages.