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Former Attorney General William Barr has a passage in his new book about the lengths his old boss would go in order to charm guests at meetings.
"Always the attentive host, he would constantly ensure that everyone had a Diet Coke to drink," Barr writes. "If he was feeling especially beneficent, he would open a cigar box and deal out his stash of big Hershey chocolate bars as if dealing cards. I always accepted; you have to play the hand you're dealt."
While parts of the Barr book — titled "One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General" — focus on disagreements he had with the former president, Barr takes a more sympathetic view when it comes to how Trump handled meetings.
"Despite allowing the frequent re-litigation of issues, the relaxed, ad hoc meetings in the President's little dining room, though always discursive, could be very productive," Barr writes. "President Trump would sit at the head of the table, the TV playing in the background and a huge stack of documents to his left, which he worked his way through methodically—using his big, bold Sharpie to sign photos or annotate news clippings to send to cabinet secretaries."
Trump was known to watch up to 7 hours of TV, mostly cable news, in just a single morning before heading down to the Oval Office.
Barr briefly notes that Trump having the TV on in the background did lead to some interruptions, but overall he recalls the meetings fondly.
"The conversation would meander along, winding through numerous diversions—some prompted by a TV item, some by new arrivals, some by the mysterious workings of the President's stream of consciousness," Barr writes. "But we would eventually reach a decision, and it was often fun getting there."
