This week had 2 big Trump news moments.
The 1st (now a bit forgotten) was @sbg1 & @peterbakernyt's story on Trump & his generals especially Gen. Mark Milley
The 2nd the FBI retrieving Top Secret docs from Mar-a-Lago.
These stories are more connected than they appear. How? 1/x While in office, Trump & Co. fought a war against the U.S. govt, namely the bureaucrats they called "deep state." This started in his first days in office but took off after the first impeachment. We've seen new reporting on this by @jonathanvswan. 2/x axios.com/2022/07/22/tru…

There are 2 stories about 9/11. One ended that day, & the one started the day after. The first one - of the 3000 who lost their lives - gets told often. Fewer know the second - about the hundreds of thousands who found their purpose. I'm going to try to tell some of it here 1/x What unites these 6 stories, and all the others, was what they saw that day but the choice they made the next. That story, and their choices, helps us understand what went wrong the last 20 years and who could still make it right in the next 20. 2/x

From what I'm seeing and hearing, the reasons for the mess in Afghanistan might be far more 'normal' than many are suspecting/suggesting -- driven more by typical pathologies in government & Washington. More to be learned. But a few thoughts. 1/x First a note. After 4 years of Trump, we all have a tendency to look for malice or at least mendacity in govt. It was easy to find & blame one bad actor for everything. That's tidy but it's probably not - and I'll admit to some bias -- how to think about Biden's Washington. 2/x

Lots of speculation about Biden firing people over for Afghanistan. It's unlikely. A few thoughts based on history:
Very clear Biden resolutely wanted this departure & accepted risks. People don't get fired by a guy like that unless they actively work against him. 1/x 1st crises are shakedown cruises not firing lines. Biden & each member of team is smarter about each other's strengths/weaknesses. On the next crisis, that should make them better off. But it if someone is a repeat weak link, they're at risk. E.g. Bay of Pigs. 2/5

My beautiful wife - a world class physician and mom - got the vaccine today. We're so very relieved, thankful & blessed.

I'm including the picture because being married to a doctor like her in 2020 has made me think about America differently today, in good ways & bad. 1/x When this all started to get bad in March, I said to my students that America in a crisis is a maddening place - I bet that too people would die, too many would get rich, too many of the wrong things would be tried. Not a novel argument if you know history but still. 2/x

A little story on why I'm so frightened about Pennsylvania's growing importance in this election but also why I'm still hopeful.

In 2008, I got asked to be a poll watcher for the Obama/DNC coordinated campaign in west Philadelphia.

1/x The training the night before the election was packed and hot -- everything about the Obama bandwagon was by then. I don't remember exact details but the jist was of the gig: convince people to stay line & make sure their questions get answered and they get to vote. 2/x

In 1970, a young U.S. Navy Lieutenant was waiting with a parcel outside the entrance to the Situation Room in the basement of the Richard Nixon’s White House. It was an anxious time for the country and for him. 1/x Vietnam still rolling the nation’s foreign policy and politics. And the young aide spent quiet moments wondering what he would do when his Navy service ended in a few months. However, the lieutenant was not alone or quiet for very long. 2/x

Genuinely believe Donald Trump's purge of the NSC -- more than 60 staffers (or 1/3 of the whole NSC) have been cut over the last 6 months -- is one of the under-reported stories in Washington and the mishandling of #coronavirus. A few thoughts below. 1/x The NSC’s downsizing appears to be part of Trump’s wider revenge campaign against what the president has reportedly called “snakes” in Washington. It makes sense to start with the NSC, because it’s the epicenter of government. 2/x

Yesterday, Robert O'Brien confirmed what we've all known -- the Trump administration has had no policy process over the past few years -- and he's tried to develop one over the last 5+ months on the job. What's it look like? A few observations. 1/x The Trump team struggled from the start with so-called “interagency relations,” the traditional give-and-take with the state, defense and other departments. He & the govt did so because of one of their few agreements about process. 2/x

For my NSC book, I visited 6 presidential libraries. In 2012, I spent a week @WJCLibrary in Little Rock looking for 1 document on Bosnia decision-making from Aug 1995. It took 8 years -- but it finally got declassifed. 1/x
clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/101… @WJCLibrary This is the "End Game" packet that @ARVershbow, Tony Lake, the late-Nelson Drew and many others developed to convince Bill Clinton to try one more time to try to bring peace to the Balkans. It also includes papers by @madeleine, @SecDef19 and many others.

The comparison to what is about to happen to the country is not Clinton's impeachment but Iran-Contra. At core, this appears to be a cooked-up foreign policy scheme that did not get run through channels, had the president's support, and broke the law. 1/x My book covers Iran-Contra, but I've learned two things in writing and promoting it: 1) everyone remembers Iran-Contra but no one understands it, and 2) no one understands how bad and how close to real reckoning that caused in the #natsec business. 2/x

As I've been asked for some historical perspective on @John_Hudson & @jdawsey1's important article on John Bolton that included sharp insights from @thomaswright08, so I wanted to share the story of when Henry Kissinger got frozen out by Richard Nixon. wapo.st/30SGytu?tid=ss… 1/1 @John_Hudson @jdawsey1 @thomaswright08 The news that essential business like Afghanistan is kept from Bolton-if true-is absolutely unprecedented. Though national security advisors have been on the outs before, no one's been so publicly sidelined, for so long, and with seemingly so little chance of getting back in. 2/2