‘He Doesn’t Give a F**k’: White House Official Tells Washington Post Trump Has Reached Peak ‘Not Giving a F**k’
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
President Donald Trump has reached the “peak of not giving a fuck,” one White House official told The Washington Post for a lengthy report on what went on behind the scenes leading up to the president’s massive tariff announcement this week.
On Wednesday — or “Liberation Day,” as Trump calls it — the president announced massive tariffs on imports from a number of countries. He’s maintained that the massive shift in economic strategy will result in better trade deals and a boost in manufacturing for the United States.
The stock market has meanwhile taken major hits since Trump’s announcement as the tariffs have led to uncertainty among companies and investors.
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a fuck anymore,” a White House official familiar with Trump’s thinking told The Post. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a fuck. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.”
The Post story — by Natalie Allison, Jeff Stein, Cat Zakrzewski, and Michael Birnbaum — cites other White House officials and paints an administration that is very different from the one Trump oversaw in his first term. Despite strategizing on tariff policy up to just three hours before the president’s official announcement in the Rose Garden, there was reportedly very little disagreement with Trump making the final decisions himself.
“In the first term everyone thought they were president,” a senior White House official said.
Those internal disagreements are apparently a thing of the past now with Trump’s cabinet fully behind his trade war. Officials reportedly offered a variety of options on tariffs for each country and the president went through himself and pick and chose what he preferred.
The final meeting on tariffs included officials like Vice President JD Vance and senior trade advisor Peter Navarro.
“In their recruiting process, they made sure it would only be people who were totally Trumpers, because in the first administration there was a lot of trouble with people quitting, writing bad books, things like that,” Wilbur Ross, commerce secretary in Trump’s first administration, said. “The people now have been confirmed as true Trumpers.”
