That Oct. 6 call, just like his July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, would have played out very differently if Trump had listened to the warnings of his advisers at the White House and appointees in the national security apparatus.
“Mr. Trump’s error, some aides concede in off-the-record conversations, was entering the Oct. 6 call underprepared, and then failing to spell out for Mr. Erdogan the potential consequences — from economic sanctions to a contraction of Turkey’s alliance with the United States and its standing in NATO. He has since threatened both, retroactively,” David Sanger reports in today’s New York Times. “The horrors that have played out with lightning speed were clearly not anticipated by Mr. Trump, who has no fondness for briefing books and meetings in the Situation Room intended to game out events two or three moves ahead. Instead, he often talks about trusting his instincts. ‘My gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me,’ he said late last year.”
