| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019917)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
| eftaNumber: "HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019917" |
| ocrPages: 1 |
| ocrChars: 2972 |
| ocrElapsed: 0.0 |
| parseTier: "external-legacy" |
| engine: "engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)" |
| externalSource: "greg-ep-nov-12" |
| externalLicense: "not granted" |
| externalCredit: "ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| externalUrl: "https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| --- |
| |
| and Melania. Instead of wearing a game face, going into the inaugural events, the |
| president-elect wore what some around him had taken to calling his golf face: angry and |
| pissed off, shoulders hunched, arms swinging, brow furled, lips pursed. This had become |
| the public Trump-truculent Trump. |
| An inauguration is supposed to be a love-in. The media gets a new and upbeat story. |
| For the party faithful, happy times are here again. For the permanent government-the |
| swamp it's a chance to curry favor and seek new advantage. For the country, it's a |
| coronation. But Bannon had three messages or themes he kept trying to reinforce with his |
| boss: his presidency was going to be different as different as any since Andrew |
| Jackson's (he was supplying the less-than-well-read president-elect with Jackson-related |
| books and quotes); they knew who their enemies were and shouldn't fall into the trap of |
| trying to make them their friends, because they wouldn't be; and so, from day one, they |
| should consider themselves on a war footing. While this spoke to Trump's combative |
| "counterpuncher" side, it was hard on his eager-to-be-liked side. Bannon saw himself as |
| managing these two impulses, emphasizing the former and explaining to his boss why |
| having enemies here created friends somewhere else. |
| In fact, Trump's aggrieved mood became a perfect match for the Bannon-written |
| aggrieved inaugural address. Much of the sixteen-minute speech was part of Bannon's |
| daily joie de guerre patter-his take-back-the-country America-first, carnage-everywhere |
| vision for the country. But it actually became darker and more forceful when filtered |
| through Trump's disappointment and delivered with his golf face. The administration |
| purposely began on a tone of menace a Bannon-driven message to the other side that the |
| country was about to undergo profound change. Trump's wounded feelings his sense of |
| being shunned and unloved on the very day he became president-helped send that |
| message. When he came off the podium after delivering his address, he kept repeating, |
| "Nobody will forget this speech." |
| George W. Bush, on the dais, supplied what seemed likely to become the historic |
| footnote to the Trump address: "That's some weird shit." |
| * * * |
| Trump, despite his disappointment at Washington's failure to properly greet and celebrate |
| him, was, like a good salesman, an optimist. Salesmen, whose primary characteristic and |
| main asset is their ability to keep selling, constantly recast the world in positive terms. |
| Discouragement for everyone else is merely the need to improve reality for them. |
| By the next morning, Trump was soliciting affirmation of his view that the |
| inauguration had been a great success. "That crowd went all the way back. That were |
| more than a million people at least, right?" He made a series of phone calls to friends who |
| largely yes'd him on this. Kushner confirmed a big crowd. Conway did nothing to |
| dissuade him. Priebus agreed. Bannon made a joke. |
| HOUSE |
| _OVERSIGHT_019917 |
|
|
