How Mark Meadows Became the Least Trusted Man in Washington

When reconstructing the In the 'Talented Mr. Mark Meadows' Ripley'-esque trajectory, I found that the usual elements of an upwardly mobile politics—origin story hyperbolization, shamelessness, promises made and soon broken—all emerge. Still, as a journalist who has watched Meadows' charm offensive at work in recent years, I have been struck by how much he is loathed by many people who once admired him. Some of these bad feelings can be traced back to what many have cited as Meadows' continued need to be liked, which in turn would seemingly force him to say what he thought someone would want to hear at that moment. After winning his western North Carolina congressional seat in 2012, he promised two different aides they would become his chief of staff, only to award the job to a third person. (Meadows informed one of the unhappy aides by text message that he was “going in a different direction.” The other aide, when confronting Meadows face to face, was met with a display of tears and an explanation that “Debbie is afraid we're having too much fun in Washington.” .”)

Seven years later, after withdrawing from Congress to make himself available to replace his friend Mick Mulvaney as Trump's chief of staff, Meadows promised two different Republican friends who hoped to fill his seat that he would stay out of the race. Instead, he endorsed a third candidate, his wife's friend Lynda Bennett, and then persuaded Trump to do the same. (Bennett was defeated in the primaries by a fourth Republican candidate, Madison Cawthorn, who would serve one short term.)

When I reached out to those who knew Meadows well, I expected wariness from Republicans who felt loyal to him and distrustful of the mainstream media, and there were certainly some who fit that category. It is also the case that many, if not most, Republicans see little to be gained and much to be lost by officially criticizing a key Trump ally like Meadows, whose influence, if not what it once was, is still not worth worth testing.

But just as often, I encountered conservatives who seemed to have an aversion to the subject of Meadows, as if simply acknowledging their former admiration for him would amount to some kind of self-contamination. Some of them noted how easily Meadows cried; Others noted how willing he was to lie, even when it seemed completely unnecessary for him to do so. Many of those I spoke with who soured on Meadows happened to be conservative Christians, like Meadows himself. Someone told me that he got over his bitterness toward Meadows by thinking of the other blessings in his own life, including his 51 years of marriage. Another, who worked with Meadows in the small western North Carolina resort town of Highlands when both were real estate agents, politely objected, saying in a text message, “Mr. Draper, I'm a Christian and I don't want to be involved in anything related to Mark. Yes, I worked with him in the beginning and I know him very well. I'm not protecting him, it's just not right. That's what's wrong with the country right now. One day he will be accountable. We all will.” When I then asked her if she could help explain how Meadows became such a successful real estate agent in such a short time, she replied, “That's a can of worms, and I don't want to go down that path.”

Although Meadows has never been shy about discussing his Christian faith, he has rarely acknowledged the role it played in his professional development. Instead, the streamlined story he has offered shows a young married couple from Tampa restarting their lives in the mountains of western North Carolina, where they spent their honeymoon eight years earlier. real estate and then, after accumulating wealth, into public service. His short path to prosperity was certainly made possible by Meadows' unctuous gift of gab; as he often bragged to staffers during his first congressional campaign in 2012, “I could sell ice cream to an Eskimo.”