PROFILES IN COWARDICE

House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Vice President Mike Pence, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus.

If Donald Trump is the political equivalent of a pathogen, just doing what’s in his nature, who’s responsible for letting him wreak havoc in

the national bloodstream? Calling out the president’s most powerful enablers— six seemingly rational men, who must surely realize how dangerous and corrupt

he is—SARAH ELLISON takes a long hard look at their motives for helping Trump gain, and hold on to, the White House

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MATT CHASE

B lame for the ongoing destruction wrought by the Trump administration will always attach to Donald Trump. But Trump cannot help himself. He is a pathogen, doing what pathogens do, and as surprised as anyone to have found himself replicating in the nation’s bloodstream. Equal blame will attach to a small group of experienced and seemingly rational politicians who knew exactly what Trump was like; who had cause to loathe and distrust him; who understood firsthand that he knew nothing about government and did not care to know anything; who could see clearly that he was dangerous, brutal, and corrupt; and who nonetheless decided, after occasional protests, to help him achieve and hold power. These are people who have been repeatedly belittled and mocked by Trump, who have sometimes been forced to voice their disgust at his words and actions, and who—for reasons that range from ambition and fear to denial and moral blindness—not only have declined to stand in his way but continue to prop him up. One or more of them may ultimately decide to defy him, but nothing will absolve them of the damage already done.

I. The Opportunist

The first time Donald Trump publicly criticized Paul Ryan was in March of 2012, shortly after Trump had decided not to run for president. Ryan had unveiled a Republican budget before Obama released the Democratic version. Trump thought it was a strategic mistake. “Whether @RepPaulRyan’s plan is sound fiscal policy is not the relevant issue,” Trump tweeted. “The issue is strategic timing. Why release it now?” The two men met personally early on during the next presidential campaign, and the relationship had already begun to curdle. Speaking in New Hampshire, and as a Republican presidential candidate, Trump let his disdain for Ryan be known. “When I heard Paul Ryan, and I like Paul Ryan as a person, but when I heard Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan—I mean, what he’s known for is killing entitlements— I said that election is over.” In July 2015, after Trump made his first comments about Mexicans’ sending “their rapists” to the U.S., Ryan said, “He doesn’t speak for the Republican Party, and I think his comments were extremely disrespectful, and I don’t think that’s the way to have an immigration conversation.” When Trump leveled an accusation of bias against Judge Gonzalo Curiel because Curiel’s ancestors were Mexican, Ryan was quick to repudiate the comments: “Claiming a person can’t do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment.” (At the time, Curiel was presiding over a lawsuit which alleged fraud by Trump University, and which Trump eventually settled for $25 million.) When Trump first suggested a ban on Muslims’ entering the United States—unconstitutional on its face—Ryan said, “What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for. And, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.” After the Access Hollywood tape was made public—in which Trump bragged to host Billy Bush that he could do anything he wanted to women, including “grab them by the pussy,” because he was famous— Ryan maintained that he was “sickened by what I heard today.” Add all this up and you have a man who has said in public what he surely believes in private: that by every measure Trump is unfit for high office. And yet Ryan—whom Trump has called “weak and ineffective”—gave Trump his endorsement and has covered for him repeatedly. After the election, at a meeting of the House Republican caucus, Ryan responded to the assertion by one member that Trump was on the Russian payroll with a warning to everyone in the room: “No leaks,” he said, according to a recording of the exchange obtained by The Washington Post. “This is how we know we’re a real family here.” After former F.B.I. director James Comey described what he said was a request by Trump to drop a criminal investigation into former national-security adviser Michael Flynn’s Russia contacts, Ryan excused Trump’s alleged behavior by noting simply, “He’s just new to this.” The bargain Ryan has made is clear—it’s the one spelled out by Grover Norquist back in 2012, when Norquist defended the choice of Mitt Romney by saying he’d also have endorsed a monkey, a plate of lasagna, or a potted plant. All Norquist wanted was “a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen” to sign legislation. Ryan wants to gut the safety net for the poor and cut taxes for the wealthy, and believes that with Trump he can do that. He said recently that he had dreamed of cutting Medicaid since his kegdrinking days. Having Trump’s digits on the Resolute Desk—whatever the existential risk to the principles of the country as a whole—is a small price to pay.

TRUMP’S ENABLERS WILL BE TREATED WITH THE SPECIAL CONTEMPT RESERVED FOR THOSE WHO ACTED KNOWINGLY.

II. The Cynic

Mitch McConnell, a deft and mercurial Republican senator and the majority leader since 2015, is a creature of Washington. As Alec MacGillis has documented in his shrewd and doggedly reported book The Cynic, McConnell has never had any longstanding political values. He has allowed himself to be filled—initially by hired consultants—with whatever positions would keep money rolling in and ensure his continual election and, now, his supremacy in the Senate. That is his enduring principle. Maintaining this status requires fealty to die-hard Trump voters who make up the most active portion of the Republican base. So be it.

McConnell’s track rec ord of disagreeing with Trump but continuing to support him is impressive. In 2015, when Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” McConnell told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “We’re not going to follow that suggestion that this particular candidate made. It would prevent the president of Afghanistan from coming to the United States. The King of Jordan couldn’t come to the United States.” In early 2016, McConnell reportedly laid out a plan for congressional lawmakers to break with Trump—if he became the nominee—in the general election. That effort failed, and Mc- Connell quickly came around, arguing that Trump wouldn’t have much impact one way or the other. “Trump is not going to change the institution,” McConnell said on Hugh Hewitt’s morning radio show, referring to the Republicans. “He’s not going to change the basic philosophy of the party.” When Trump hesitated before rejecting the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, McConnell stated that “Senate Republicans condemn David Duke, the K.K.K., and his racism”—but he didn’t mention Trump by name. In July, when Trump attacked the Gold Star parents of Captain Humayun Khan, who had been killed in the line of duty, McConnell called Captain Khan an “American hero”—but again didn’t mention Trump.

McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, is the secretary of transportation in the Trump administration, a prize that undoubtedly tilts Mc- Connell in Trump’s direction. But McCon nell believes most fervently in his own longevity, nothing else. Channeling Mc Connell’s view of himself with respect to Trump, one Republican strategist, who knows McConnell well, put it this way: “ ‘I was here long before he got here, and I’ll be here long after. I’m majority leader. Why do I give a damn about a president?’ ” Mc- Connell has proven his worth in one key move, by holding off a vote on the Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland until Trump was elected. That allowed Trump to nominate Neil Gorsuch, whose confirmation represents the sole clear achievement of the Trump presidency thus far. For someone who doesn’t care about presidents, Gorsuch alone makes Trump worth it. Like Ryan, Mc- Connell seems to regard Trump as a man who he hopes can be manipulated—signing the bills that others put before him. Nothing so far suggests the correctness of this view. But a Republican Senate—and McConnell’s tenure—is now inextricably yoked to Trump’s fortunes, so McConnell plays along.

III. The Stooge

Speaking recently with another Republican strategist, I raised the subject of Reince Priebus, now the White House chief of staff, and was advised to think of him as “not in the same category” as a Ryan or McConnell. Nor is Priebus, the strategist went on, “anyone who is ever going to stand up to Donald Trump.” Priebus is a perfect symbol of the Republican Party as a whole, never imagining he would find himself where he is today. Throughout the primaries, the role he played was to keep the Republican Party together at any cost—thwarting defections by the “Never Trump” movement and delivering the party more or less intact to the ultimate nominee.

Priebus, a Wisconsin political apparatchik who had become head of the Republican National Committee, oversaw a G.O.P. election “autopsy” after Mitt Romney’s defeat in 2012. The report concluded that it would be “increasingly difficult for the Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future” if the party did not reach out to ethnic minorities, women, and immigrants. When Trump—in the speech announcing his candidacy for president— made his comment about Mexican rapists, Priebus, after conferring with Republican donors about the possible damage to Latino outreach, privately urged Trump to “tone it down,” according to The Washington Post. Trump responded publicly after the Post story ran. “Totally false reporting,” he tweeted, even though a day later he conceded the main points of the story in an interview with The New York Times. Priebus, he said in that interview, “knows better than to lecture me.” He added that Priebus could be ignored because he was unworthy of respect: “We’re not dealing with a fivestar Army general.”

In September 2015, partly because of all the attention Trump had received over the summer, Priebus began asking Republican presidential candidates to sign a loyalty pledge—agreeing to support whoever the nominee might be. He visited Trump Tower in person to get Trump to sign. In April 2016, after Trump announced that he would abandon the loyalty pledge he had signed in September, Priebus responded lamely that actions like Trump’s “have consequences.” When Trump criticized Judge Curiel, Priebus reportedly called Trump family members to try to make him stop. He did not. When Trump criticized the Khan family, Priebus told CNN the Khans “should be off limits.” He did not criticize or demand an apology from Trump.

A campaign staffer who worked for John Kasich told Politico, “Every time Trump would do something dumb, Reince would be up in New York shining his shoes.” Republicans inundated Priebus with requests to say something—anything—to deter the bully who was clearing the field. Priebus did nothing. He later explained his strategy to The New York Times: “I have encouraged him to constantly offer grace to people that he doesn’t think are deserving of grace.” Playing the grace card was a novel approach. It did not work.

By October, Priebus was justifying Trump at every turn, calling him a “winner” and acknowledging he could be considered a role model—because “everyone is a role model in different ways”—just days before the release of the Access Hollywood tape. In response to that episode, Priebus told Trump privately that he should consider dropping out of the race, a conversation Trump has never forgotten. He did not ask Trump to apologize for his comments, and he assured R.N.C. members on a conference call that he was coordinating with the Trump campaign and “we have a great relationship with them.” As Election Day neared, he told colleagues that if Trump lost the R.N.C. should not be blamed. And he was right: more than anyone else, Priebus held the G.O.P. together as a vehicle for Donald Trump. After Trump’s victory, the president-elect named Priebus chief of staff. In that job, for which no previous experience had prepared him, and designed explicitly to be as weak as its occupant, Priebus must defend himself against both his White House colleagues and his boss. His role remains what it has been for years: to assuage differences, to keep as many people on board as he can, and to allow Trump to continue to be viable.

IV. The Accomplice

Perhaps no one has enabled Trump in his presidency more than Trump’s vice president, former Indiana governor Mike Pence, and perhaps no one has paid a greater price in terms of personal humiliation. Pence’s role has been to serve as the genial presenter of what are already known to be lies or what are soon to be revealed as lies. “How much can you look yourself in the mirror when your boss sends you out to say something in the media and within 24 hours he undercuts you?” one of the Republican strategists noted. Pence’s personal agenda is a vaulting ambition somewhat masked by a placid half-smile and a demeanor of practiced sincerity. In his native Indiana he was seen by some as a rung climber.

Despite heavy wooing by Trump, Pence had endorsed Ted Cruz in Indiana’s 2016 Republican primary—in a radio interview with a local host he heaped so much praise on Trump that options were clearly being left open. Cruz lost and dropped out of the race. In early July, Pence and his wife visited Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. Trump had said he wanted a vice president who could navigate the corridors of power in Congress. In Pence—a former congressman who once, back when he was a conservative radio host, described himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf”—he saw a reliable link to conservative and evangelical Republicans: a dicey demographic for a thrice-married former Democrat and alleged serial harasser of women who faced ongoing allegations of fraud.

During the vice-presidential debate in October 2016, Pence’s cool demeanor carried the day. He shook his head sadly throughout but especially when Tim Kaine repeated Trump’s most outrageous statements, including the bigoted and sexist remarks, responding that these were things Trump had never really meant or said. He dismissed Trump’s comments about Mexicans’ being rapists as “that Mexican thing.” He calmly denied statements by Trump that were a matter of public rec ord. When the Access Hollywood video became public, Pence professed himself to have been “offended by the words and actions described by Donald Trump.” But he got over it. When more women came forward to allege sexual harassment and assault by Trump— a dozen, all told—Pence said he believed Trump, not the women.

In January 2017, Pence was called on to defend the national-security adviser, Michael Flynn, saying in interviews that the allegation, reported by The Washington Post, that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, was false. Pence said he had spoken with Flynn, who had told him the subject of sanctions had never come up. Flynn’s account turned out to be untrue, as Trump and senior White House aides soon learned. But it was another 15 days before Pence himself was so informed, and he got the news not from his colleagues but from another story in the Post, according to Axios. When Flynn was fired, Trump and his surrogates used the fact that Flynn had misled Pence as the reason. But senior staff had left Pence in the dark for two weeks. Pence absorbed the disrespect and moved on.

In May, Trump fired F.B.I. director James Comey. The next day, Pence was sent out to defend his boss—arguing, as he had been told, that the president was merely “accepting the recommendation of the deputy attorney general” and that the firing had nothing to do with the bureau’s investigation of possible ties between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. The next day, in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump flatly contradicted Pence, stating that he had been planning to fire Comey regardless of any recommendation and that the Russia investigation was the reason he did it. Again, Pence was silent.

As William Saletan has pointed out in Slate, Pence’s behavior shows a pattern of being willing to vouch for people who say what is not true. Because Trump is a liar, he urgently needs a sidekick who possesses this genial capacity—it has virtually become Pence’s job description. The payoff for Pence will come when Trump leaves office, whatever the circumstances.

V. The Institutionalist

In July 2015, after Donald Trump attacked Senator John McCain’s war rec ord and insulted him as a non-hero for having been captured, his Senate colleague from South Carolina Lindsey Graham—a presidential candidate and one of the most respected voices on foreign policy on Capitol Hill—called Trump a “jackass” and declared that he “shouldn’t be commander in chief.” The following day, during a rally in South Carolina, Trump claimed that Graham had called him three or four years earlier, “begging” Trump to put in a good word for him with the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends. Trump called Graham a “lightweight” and an “idiot.” In October of that year, when Graham was interviewed on CNN’s New Day, he said of Trump, “He’s the most unprepared person in the entire field to be commander in chief, and over time I think that will matter. Americans better wake up.” In December 2015, Graham, again on CNN, called Trump a “racebaiting, xenophobic religious bigot.” As the primary season wore on, Graham’s warnings grew more desperate. He said on MSNBC, “I think Donald Trump is a con man. I think he would destroy the Republican Party.”

In the end, as Trump’s nomination became inevitable, Graham began to soften. He made a conciliatory call to Trump, who tweeted about the conversation: “Senator Lindsey Graham called me yesterday, very much to my surprise, and we had a very interesting talk about national security, and more!” On Election Day, Graham couldn’t bring himself to pull the lever for his party’s nominee, but the softening continued. Five days later, Graham conveyed his congratulations to the new president- elect on his choice of Reince Priebus as chief of staff, tweeting that the choice “shows me he is serious about governing.” In January 2017, after Trump needled Graham for how poorly he had done in the primaries, Graham responded, “Let it go.” He added, adopting Trump’s campaign slogan in what seemed like a pep talk to himself, “Let’s move on. We’re going to make America great again.”

Lindsey Graham is what is known as an “institutionalist.” He cherishes his role as an éminence grise in the Senate—he has said that he intended to stay long enough to make Strom Thurmond the second-longest-serving member of that body. (Thurmond served for 48 years, dying at the age of 100.) He has criticized President Trump on certain matters—the travel ban, for instance. He favors a robust investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election. But he also promotes the projection of U.S. military might, as Trump does, and he has a deep-seated respect for the office of the president. Graham, along with John and Cindy McCain, had dinner with Trump at the White House in April. Graham still sometimes critiques Trump, but it is for his style or lack of organization, rather than his basic character, as used to be the case. “The President has a hard time colluding with his staff,” Graham commented after Comey’s testimony, “so he couldn’t have been colluding with the Russians.” After Trump lashed out at Comey on Twitter, calling him a “leaker” and describing his actions as “cowardly,” Graham appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation and addressed Trump directly from the set: “You may be the first president in history to go down because you can’t stop inappropriately talking about an investigation that if you just were quiet, would clear you.” Graham said Trump’s continued outbursts were “frustrating” because he thought that Trump, if he didn’t sabotage himself, might “deliver us from a broken immigration system.” Recalling Graham’s earlier view of Trump—“racist,” “jackass,” “bigot,” “con man”—some have looked to Graham as a figure who might lead a form of opposition to Trump on Capitol Hill. Not a chance: Graham continues to protect Trump’s foreign-policy flank, recently banishing hopes of rebellion with the blanket affirmation to Fox & Friends, “I’m all in. Keep it up, Donald.”

Gone is the Lindsey Graham who, during the campaign, attacked Ted Cruz on CNN for not condemning Donald Trump and his lack of integrity: “So what Ted Cruz did is ignore the moral imperative here to speak out.... This doesn’t cut it for me. This is not a policy debate, Ted. This is about you and us and our character as a party. Up your game. Condemn it because it needs to be condemned.” He concluded, “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

VI. The Gambler

When Donald Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy—and, in the course of that speech, to declare Mexican immigrants to the United States to be rapists—McCain called the comment offensive but added that Trump was “entitled to say what he wants to say.” Trump responded with an insult: “Graduated last in his class at Annapolis—dummy!” Not long afterward, Trump encouraged a primary challenge to McCain, saying to conservative pollster Frank Luntz at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, “Somebody should run against John McCain, who’s been, in my opinion, not so hot. And I supported him for president. I raised a million dollars for him—that’s a lot of money. I supported him. He lost; he let us down. But he lost and I never liked him much after that ’cause I don’t like losers.... He’s not a war hero.” Trump then both managed to reverse himself and double down: “He’s a war hero—he’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, O.K.?”

In March of 2016, McCain said he shared the concerns of Mitt Romney about Trump— Romney had delivered a blistering denunciation— and he also put out a statement urging Republican voters to “pay close attention to” the open letter from Republican nationalsecurity leaders, which stated that Trump’s “vision of American influence and power in the world is wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle.” In April, McCain said he was not going to attend the Republican convention. In August, after Trump insulted the Khan family, McCain issued a statement: “It is time for Donald Trump to set the example for our country and the future of the Republican Party.” Trump eventually endorsed McCain in his Senate race, and McCain eventually endorsed Trump—but pulled the endorsement after the Access Hollywood tape surfaced. Trump responded on Twitter, “The very foul mouthed Sen. John Mc- Cain begged for my support during his primary (I gave, he won), then dropped me over locker room remarks!” After Trump was elected, Mc- Cain said he would show deference to the president, but “I am not a rubber stamp.”

In February, when Trump called a deadly military strike in Yemen “a success,” McCain took issue with that characterization. In May, The New York Times reported that Trump had asked F.B.I. director James Comey to drop his investigation into N.S.C. director Michael Flynn, and McCain said on Face the Nation, “I think we have seen this movie before. I think it’s reaching a point where it’s of Watergate size and scale.” Yet when McCain had the opportunity to question Comey directly, despite his obvious confusion, he displayed a knee-jerk defense of Trump. McCain has not been a rubber stamp. What he has been is a gambler—his default persona. McCain showed in 2008, when he selected Sarah Palin as his running mate, that he was willing to overlook deficiencies of character and stability in order to achieve his own ends. Taking dangerous risks has marked McCain throughout his career.

One Republican political strategist explained to me that what made Trump palatable to McCain—despite everything McCain dislikes about the man—is that Trump lacks any true convictions of his own, making McCain feel Trump can be swayed. McCain, with Graham, respects the generals who make up the nationalsecurity apparatus in the Trump administration. According to a White House adviser who has spoken to McCain and Graham, both men are “fired up” about the tax reform that Trump promises. After Graham and the Mc Cains’ dinner with Trump, the Daily Beast reported that Cindy Mc Cain was set to join Trump’s State Department as a U.S. ambassador-atlarge for human rights. Like Paul Ryan, Mc- Cain seems willing to tolerate almost anything in return for the working digits that hold a pen.

VII. The Verdict

The Trump administration may last for months or it may last for years. There will be crises and catastrophes. A corrosion of values and spirit has already set in. The outside world pulls away. John Boehner, the Republican former Speaker of the House, now retired and fortified with tobacco and Merlot, has called Trump “a disaster.” Donald Trump will suffer his own grim fate in the eyes of historians, but it will come with an asterisk: he is a profoundly damaged human being with no true understanding of his capacities, his emotions, his ignorance, his job, or the fundamentals of human decency.

His enablers will get no asterisk. They will be treated with the special contempt reserved for those who acted knowingly and cravenly, with eyes wide open.