To What End? Understanding Trump’s endgame Dan Rather and Team Steady May 27 Credit: Getty Images We have talked early, often, and a lot about the chaos being wrought by Donald Trump. Every day we wake up to yet another norm-destroying executive order that thumbs its nose at checks and balances and continues to feed the administration’s everything-at-once offensive. We have called out Trump’s contempt for the rule of law. We have conveyed his disdain for those he believes are less than. We have pointed out the ineptitude of his Cabinet. We have exposed his blatant corruption. We have criticized his gutting of the executive branch. We have explained what tariffs will actually do. We have condemned his take-from-the-poor-to-give-to-the-rich policies. And we will continue to do so, because we know he won’t stop. But today let’s look at why, because all of this adds up to what? It doesn’t fully or even partially make sense. Why burn down the house while you’re standing in it? First, Trump has a clear agenda. It is about garnering power. And with the absolute power granted to him by a pliant Supreme Court and a subservient Congress, he is, in his mind anyway, King of America. But power alone is not the endgame. He is using his power to amass enormous personal wealth and enact revenge. Trump believes the one who dies with the most toys wins, and he is determined to win. He wants to be rich, very rich, even richer than he is today. On paper. And in real life. Trump and his family have, according to The New York Times, “monetized the White House more than any other occupant.” And he’s been back in power for only four months. He wants to move up on Forbes’ list of the richest people in the world. And if he can’t quite make the top 10 — he’s currently 319th — then he wants the people at the top to be beholden to him. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg are the top three, so he’s checked that box. His desire for more wealth has become even more brazen and unapologetic. He is openly using the power of the White House to get richer. And daring anyone to question his actions. Unquestioning fealty is the bare minimum. Lying for him moves you to the top of the class. But if you question him, you are considered an enemy, which brings us to his second agenda item: vengeance. Trump has his run-of-the-mill enemies: politicians who have opposed him, judges who have thwarted him, lawyers who have sued him. But he has expanded the list to include most of American higher education and charities doing the work the government used to do. So you have a narcissist who can’t get rich enough with an unending capacity for sycophantic flattery and an unhealthy sense of entitlement. This explains a lot, but by no means all, of his policy choices. Because Donald Trump can’t be bothered with much of the day-to-day governing — he famously doesn’t like briefings — he’s tapped a triumvirate of lieutenants to deal with the boring stuff: Russell Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget; Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff; and Elon Musk, though he is now supposedly stepping away from his government role. These three have spent the past four months doing everything in their purviews to destroy the government as we know it, doing things that make no sense, upending policies and programs that work. Like the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Trump and Co. are trying to get rid of FEMA. So what happens when the next deadly hurricane hits? We already know from recent tornadoes and other storm disasters: slowness and inefficiency, when help comes at all. While Trump picked them, these three quickly recognized that their boss does not sweat the small, medium, or even large stuff. They were given carte blanche to do as they see fit, and none has held back, all with varying degrees of arrogance. Musk took a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy with disastrous effects. He believes artificial intelligence is the future and humans doing jobs is an obsolete concept. So he got rid of as many of the humans as possible, believing he and the other tech bros will fill the need. Miller is the architect of the administration’s xenophobic immigration policy. He has utilized antiquated statutes and unleashed a torrent of policy changes, hoping some court, somewhere will rule in Trump’s favor. Miller is a racist zealot who wants to purge the country of most if not all non-white immigrants. He has said, “America is for Americans and Americans only.” Vought is the stealthiest of the three and arguably the most dangerous. He is the author of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which became the blueprint for Trump 2.0. Vought is now in the perfect position to implement it, from the inside. He is a true believer patiently playing the long game. He is a so-called Christian nationalist who believes government workers are a villainous liberal cabal intent on pushing a far-left agenda. He recently told Tucker Carlson, “We have to solve the woke and the weaponized bureaucracy.” His goal is to purge said bureaucracy and replace it with an army of other Christian nationalists. And he doesn’t want to be nice about it. “We want to put them [bureaucrats] in trauma.” Trump, Musk, Miller, and Vought do not believe in the concept of government as an altruistic force to help those in need. They believe in using the levers of power to secure their own agendas. Sometimes those agendas align, but even if they don’t, the means are the same: tear it up, burn it down, and bury the United States of America we have known. James Madison said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Men aren’t angels. Especially the ones now running and ruining our country. To support my team’s efforts to protect our democracy through the power of independent journalism, please consider joining as a paid subscriber. It keeps Steady sustainable and accessible for all. Thank you. No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading. Stay Steady, Dan