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Disturbingly stoic, violent and seeking absolution hes not sure he needs, the mob killer Frank Sheeran allowed Robert De Niro to deliver a majestic, subtle performance in The Irishman that has the feel of a crowning achievement and for reasons that go beyond the screen. Based on Sheerans memoir, I Heard You Paint Houses, the film is haunted by the cinematic moments that De Niro, the director Martin Scorsese and the co-stars Al Pacino and Joe Pesci have made in so many movies about hard men with hollowed hearts. The fact that me, Joe and Al were doing this film is something in and of itself, said the halting, taciturn De Niro, who also played a key role in this falls controversial, Scorsese-indebted Joker. Marty directing it says something. It all sets a tone. The audiences perception of each character, us actors being together and what the story is the film is all those things. Its also a reminder, as if we needed one, of the brutal and beautifully unsentimental revelations that only a peak De Niro performance can provide.

In getting ready to play Frank Sheeran, you dug deep into the source material, and you also spoke with people who knew the guy. But Im curious how your thinking about preparation has changed over the years. Youve said in the past that you dont kill yourself with it the way you did when you were younger. What I meant was that maybe its not as necessary to be so obsessed. Its better at times to be relaxed. Do all the preparation before, and then just do the scene, and dont be anxious about it or amped up about what it is. Getting so concerned about an emotional scene you can kind of short-circuit whatevers going to come.

Was there a performance that led to that realization? No. I just felt that a real emotional situation in life comes due to the circumstances around you. If you prepare too much you know the joke about the actor who couldnt remember any lines?

No, I dont know it. This actor cant remember lines, so he cant get a job. A director he knows runs into him at the gas station where hes working. The director says: I have a play that in the third act, what you do is go and say, Hark, I hear the cannons roar. Can I count on you to do that? The actor says hell do it. He goes and rehearses, rehearses, rehearses. Hark, I hear the cannons roar. Hark, I hear the cannons roar. On the day of the play, the third act comes, and the actor runs out onstage. Boom! The cannon goes boom, and the actor goes, What the [expletive] was that?! The point is, you dont want to lose spontaneity.

Jack Davison for The New York Times

Earlier in your career, there was a lot of attention paid to how you changed your body for your work in, to pick just the most famous example, Raging Bull. In The Irishman, your body changed too, but the changes were made digitally, to allow you to look younger. How did it affect the performance not to be able to feel those changes physically? Well, its harder to act younger than it is the other way round. We had a guy named Gary Tacon who was a movement coach. He would tap you and say, Youre 39 in this scene. In one case, I was walking down the stairs a little more carefully than my character wouldve, and Gary showed me that you kind of fall down the stairs when youre younger. So I did that. I did it well. Marty cut it out because he didnt need it. But it was that kind of stuff. You have to be aware of having a certain spryness.

And you felt that you could credibly achieve that? I felt that, but even so, some people felt it was not they werent criticizing it. They were saying they could see my real age. O.K., fine, thats interesting. I shouldve taken steroids or something. Theyll youth-ify you or de-age you or whatever, but you still cant look like youre crotchety. Its a good thing. You know, Marty would see, and I saw it, too, that there would be an expression in my eyes during a scene, but after they youth-ified me, my eyes had a different emotional expression. Marty was concerned about that. I had the right emotional intention, the right attitude, but when that de-aging came, the expression in the eye changed. So they had to figure out a way to make sure that after I was youth-ified it would not alter the intention of the scene as we acted it. It was an interesting problem.

You could think about a character like Frank or a lot of people youve played as fundamentally inhumane as written on the page. But you have a way of infusing all these vicious characters with something approaching soul. Are there keys to doing that? The rule in acting is you never make a judgment about your character. The characters have their reasons, and you understand them. Youre trying to look at their point of view. I mean, in The Irishman, Frank has a problem with his daughter. He has problems that anybody can relate to. I never thought of him as being amoral or immoral. He lives in a world where the penalties are harsh if you dont do what youre supposed to do. He says hes going to do something, he does it. I dont like to go to Trump, but he is a person who, to me, has no morals, no ethics, no sense of right and wrong, is a dirty player.

Could you find your way into the character of President Trump? I wouldnt want to play him. Hes such an awful person. Theres nothing redeemable about him, and I never say that about any character.

You found redemptive qualities in Travis Bickle, and youre saying you couldnt do the same if you were playing President Trump? I cant compare. Theres not one moment that Trump said: Im sorry. I realize Ive done something that I shouldnt have done. He has not one speck of redeemability in him. Hes not owed one speck of redeemability.

People have argued that some of Trumps rhetoric has emboldened others to make threats or enact violence. Those arguments are not a world away from ones that people made about Travis Bickle or Joker. Do you think those arguments hold water? They might, but Trump has people who follow him who are crazy and want to do crazy things. What were doing in film, its like a dream. We know its not real. There are people who will take anything to be real and that we have no control over. The president is supposed to set an example of trying to do the right thing. Not be a nasty little bitch. Because thats what he is. Hes a petulant little punk. Theres not one thing that I see in him or his family, not any redeeming qualities. Theyre out on the take. Its like a gangster family.

To shift subjects a bit, what about if somebody were looking to play you? Would you be willing to talk with them and help out with their preparation? Thats a good question. I dont know. Ive always experienced that people are open because they want you to get it right. They want to give you information. With Raging Bull, Jake LaMotta was great with me and Marty. He was happy that we were making a movie about him. Certain things, maybe it was our interpretation. Thats the same with Frank Sheeran and The Irishman. In acting they say: Make it your own. Personalize it. Its the same thing with these stories. There has to be some I dont like to say poetic license, because that has a negative connotation when it shouldnt but its a way of expressing how you see it. It doesnt mean its right. But its how you see yourself.

What did you see in yourself that you put into Frank Sheeran? Aha! That is the question.

Jack Davison for The New York Times

Whats the answer? That is the question, but the answer is personal. I mean, when I talked to Marty about certain things about the film sometimes hes like a priest. We talk, and I have to be honest with him in order to get stuff in the film that we need to say. But its personal stuff that I would express through the character. Its not stuff Id tell other people.

I know youve thought about one day sitting down and watching all your own movies. What would you hope to see? I would probably be apprehensive, because Im critical about what I did. But the other thing is what I could learn if I looked at all my stuff and got an idea of what Ive done, what the pattern is. Because Id like to do something thats really different from what Ive done or been known to do.

If you watched all your performances, do you think youd feel any pride? I have reasons that I look at my stuff and Im not happy. Other people look at my stuff and say they dont even know what Im talking about. I dont know. Its not for me to say.

David Marchese is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and the Talk columnist. Recently he interviewed Pete Townshend on rocks legacy, Patti LuPone about being bullied on Broadway and Whoopi Goldberg about creative fulfillment. Jack Davison is a British photographer. His work has been featured in British Vogue, Modern Weekly China and recently in the magazine with a cover photograph of Glenda Jackson. His first book, Photographs, was published by Loose Joints earlier this year.

Stylist: Brian Molloy. Grooming: Lynda Eichner. Clothing: Charvet.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.

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Robert De Niro Thinks Donald Trump Is Worse Than Any Gangster He's Played - The New York Times

Martin Scorseses new film, The Irishman, conjures up a lost world. It depicts an era when the Mafia was so powerful that it set off alarms in the Kennedy White House, and Scorsese even hints that organized crime was behind JFKs assassination.

But by the end of the three-hour-plus movie, the nostalgia fades and so does the pinkie-ring finery. Every made man Scorsese introduces to the viewer is snuffed out until all thats left is Frank Sheeran (played by Robert DeNiro), a disheveled, wheelchair-bound ex-hit man whos haunted by his memories. At the films end, a pair of FBI agents plead with Sheeran to talk about his victims, telling him theres no reason to keep silent anymore because theres no one left to protect. Everybodys dead, Mr. Sheeran, one agent says. Theyre all gone.

Well, many still remember. One person who knew the real-life mob families that show up in The Irishman is President Donald Trump.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Trumps buildings and his casinos attracted underworld figures like Fat Tony Salerno, the Fedora-wearing, cigar-chomping boss of the Genovese crime family. Salerno, whos portrayed in the film by Domenick Lombardozzi, supplied the fast-drying concrete that built Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Salerno also controlled the local concrete workers union, and when a strike shut down construction in Manhattan in 1982, the one of the few buildings that wasnt affected was Trump Tower.

The Irishman is based on the 2003 book I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank The Irishman Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa, by Charles Brandt. (The title is a reference to the special kind of painting Sheeran did that left his victims brains on the wall.) The book is full of characters who didnt make it into the movie, but they did surface in Trumps world. One is Philadelphia mob boss Philip Testa, the chicken man whose 1981 murder by nail bomb Bruce Springsteen sings about in the song Atlantic City. Testas son sold Trump premium land that became a casino parking lot. Another figure in the book is Testas successor, Nicodemus Little Nicky Scarfo, whose associates tried to lease Trump land for his casino in Atlantic City until New Jersey casino regulators quashed the deal.

Trump wasnt the only one who knew the people in the world of The Irishman. In addition to being a hit man, Sheeran was president of a local Teamsters union in Delaware. In 1972, shortly before Election Day, a prominent lawyer who was very big in the Democratic Party came to see him. There were some political ads that would run in the local newspaper every day in the last week before election, and the lawyer didnt want them to run. So Sheeran set up a picket line outside the newspaper, and he knew the Teamsters union drivers who delivered the paper wouldnt cross it. So the ads were never delivered, and on Election Day, Delaware had a new senator: a young man named Joe Biden. After that, Sheeran said Bidens door was always open. You could reach out for him, and he would listen, he wrote.

The Biden story isnt in the movie. There wasnt room enough for everyone to make it into Scorseses epic Mafia biopic, but Salerno does and with good reason. Salerno ran the most powerful of New Yorks five Mafia families. Im the fucking boss, thats who I am, Salerno once boasted in a secretly recorded conversation. Connecticut is mine; New Jersey is mine. Nothing got built in New York without Salerno dipping his meaty hand into the till.

In 1983, the year Trump Tower opened its doors, the future president reportedly met the Genovese family boss. The common thread linking Salerno and Trump was Roy Cohn, the infamous lawyer who represented both men. Cohn, the heavy-lidded henchman to Senator Joseph McCarthy, introduced the two men in his Manhattan townhouse, according to the late journalist Wayne Barrett. Under oath, Trump swore that wasnt true, but he also swore that he didnt know that Cohn represented Salerno, a fact that had been widely reported in Cohns obituary a few years earlier.

And its not just Trump who has links to the world depicted in The Irishman. It also overlapped with some of the figures in Trumps world, past and present. Roger Stone, Trumps longtime political adviser, also met Salerno when he visited Cohns Manhattan brownstone. This was in 1979, and Stone had been tapped to run Ronald Reagans political operation in New York. Cohn, dressed in a silk bathrobe, introduced Stone to the mobster and then offered to help him with the Reagan campaign. Cohns advice would change the course of Stones life: What you need is Donald Trump. Cohn sent the young political operative off to meet the up-and-coming real estate developer. It was a path that would lead 40 years later to Stones conviction last month on charges of lying to Congress about his contacts with WikiLeaks.

Rudy Giuliani, the presidents personal lawyer, also crossed paths with Salerno as New Yorks top federal prosecutor in the 1980s. Giuliani was obsessed with Salerno. Tony was the Tip ONeill of the underworld and would reside forever in Rudy Giulianis mind, wrote the legendary New York columnist Jimmy Breslin. Giuliani went after Salerno with such zeal that the mobsters defense attorney complained that the prosecutor has made it his personal mission to bury my client.

In March 1986, Giuliani announced that a grand jury had indicted Salerno and others on charges that included rigging construction bids. Trump Plaza, a co-op apartment building on Manhattans East Side, was specifically mentioned in the 29-count indictment. Salerno arranged things so his concrete company got a $7.8 million contract at Trump Plaza. It just so happens that while these bids were being rigged, the building was under construction, right around the time that Trump met Salerno in Cohns townhouse. Even so, the indictment makes it clear that the bid-rigging occurred without the knowledge of developers.

The FBI had uncovered the concrete bid-rigging scheme at Trump Plaza by secretly bugging Mafia homes and hangouts, including the Palma Boys Social Club, where DeNiro and his rabbi Russell Bufalino, played by Joe Pesci, sit down with Salerno in Scorseses film. Giuliani, by his own account, listened to countless hours of secretly recorded conversations of mobsters, and he reportedly was able to pull off a convincing impression of the mobsters scratchy voice. When you listen to those guys for thousands of hours, you cant help but sound like them, Giuliani once said.

More than three decades later, its Giuliani who is under federal investigation for his dealings in Ukraine, Trump is the president on the brink of impeachment, and bosses like Salerno are dead and gone, except for in the movies. As Giuliani finds himself in the crosshairs of prosecutors with the U.S. attorneys office he once ran, its worth pondering what was on those tapes. Salerno died in prison in 1992, but his words captured on tape live on. When Giuliani says he has insurance on his famous client, is it to Trumps connection to the lost word of The Irishman that hes referring?

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The Real-Life Mob Families of The Irishman? Donald Trump Knew Them - Rolling Stone

Rear Admiral Collin Green had a problem. Green, a Navy SEAL and commander of Naval Special Warfare, knew that his community 3,000 active duty SEALs, their families, and the several thousand former and retired SEALs who make up their elite military tribe was locked in a culture war over one notorious SEAL. What could he do about Eddie Gallagher?

Gallagher, a sniper and medic, was accused of stabbing an injured and unarmed ISIS detainee who may have been as young as 14 during a deployment in Mosul, Iraq, in 2017. The case had made headlines internationally, and Gallagher had won prominent support from President Donald Trump and Fox News.

During Gallaghers court martial, witness testimony and evidence made clear that the veteran SEAL, who had eight combat deployments and was the chief of his platoon, had gone to Iraq hoping to get a knife kill. The mainquestion during the military trial was whether Gallaghers stabbing killed the detainee, who was already suffering from internal injuries from a U.S. military rocket attack when he sustained the knife wound.

In July, Gallagher was acquitted of murder, convicted of posing with the ISIS fighters corpse, and sentenced to a reduction in rank and time served. Trump congratulated him on Twitter.

After the verdict, senior Navy officials demanded that Green clean up the SEAL command, which had been getting bad press for the Gallagher case as well as a string of criminal allegations against other deployed SEALs, including murder, drug use, and sexual assault.An entire SEAL platoon was sent home from a deployment in Iraq for heavy drinking.

So Green issued a letter and a directive to all Navy SEALs this summer. We have a problem, he wrote, adding that a portion of SEALs were ethically misaligned. With that, Green took the first step to correcting a problem that had been building for years: He publicly acknowledged it. No admiral before him had had the courage to do so.

The sordid tale of Trumps repeated Twitter interventions on Gallaghers behalf is both an affront to the rule of law and tragically ironic. The firing of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer last month over the SEAL commands efforts to pull Gallaghers Trident pin, the symbol of the SEALs, may be the final chapter in the Free Eddie saga. But the Pentagon, Congress, and the American public arenow catching on to the fact that the Navy SEALs most closely guarded secrets are not theirclandestine missions andclassified gear but the leadership failures and cover-ups that are endemic to their organization.

Over the last 20 years, the SEALs have moved further from accountability as a result of their battlefield exploits, which have been publicized and lionized by three successive presidents.There was no single moment when the community was cast adrift, but rather a steady string of incidents during deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. SEAL units, and especially SEAL Team 6, became the war on terrors entire strategy instead of being deployed as an elite unit in rare and specialized cases. Especially in the aftermath of the 2011 SEAL Team 6 mission in which Osama bin Laden was killed, the men who did the killing became the shiny object civilian leaders flashed to distract us from the governments lack of any strategy beyond waging more war and killing more people.

This was not inevitable. At the risk of oversimplifying a dynamic problem affecting a highly skilled force, the SEAL crisis breaks down into three components:leadership failure, an endless war, and the drive by both previous SEAL admirals and retired operators to profit from the SEAL brand, which has become a highly sought-after financial and cultural commodity.

First, there has been agenuine leadership failure in both the officer corps and the senior enlisted ranks, where accountability and justice have steadily eroded since the post-9/11 wars began. In an effort to be liked, respected, and admired, officers commissioned bythe presidentto uphold good order and discipline have abdicated their responsibility to seasoned enlisted operators who have far more tactical experience on the battlefield.

That happened during Gallaghers 2017 deployment to Mosul. SEALs in Gallaghers platoon reported concerns about him, including allegations that he shot unarmed Iraqi civilians, to their platoon commander, Lieutenant Jacob Portier, but the reports went nowhere. Gallagher, who had been Portiers main instructor at Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALs training, frequently berated the lieutenant in front of the platoon, according to a SEAL on the deployment. The SEALs were asking a young officer on his first combat deployment to stand up to his former instructor, who had an outsized reputation as a super SEAL.

Second, Navy SEALs make up a significant proportion of the special operations community fighting the countrys forever wars. The war in Iraq is over and the war in Afghanistan may be nearing its end, at least for U.S. forces, but SEALs are still fighting around the world. Most enlisted SEALs spend their careers exclusively in special operations and rarely experience the military away from their insular world and its self-reinforcing values.

As a result, their killing skills are finely honed, but the historically unprecedented combat exposure of the post-9/11 years has taken physical and emotional tolls that SEAL leaders are just starting to understand. Gallagher was at the center of at least three problematic incidents during his seven previous combat deployments, which, according to a retired SEAL familiar with his record, are now viewed by SEAL leaders as red flags.

One of those incidents involved 2010 deploymenttoAfghanistan during which Gallagher was accused of killinga child.Gallagher shot at a Taliban fighter who was holding a girl in his arms as a human shield, killing both the child and the militant, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Gallaghers lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, told the paper that Gallagher felt remorse, adding: He tried to take a head shot; it went low.Gallagher was investigated and cleared of wrongdoingin connection with the shooting, according to the Union-Tribune.

But two SEALs with direct knowledge say that Gallagher continued to revel in the story and retell it, using it to promote his image as a tough, battle-hardened SEAL.One of those SEALs toldThe Intercept that when Gallagher was a BUD/S instructor, another instructor who had served with Gallagher in Afghanistan told a group of trainees about the operation in which the girl was killed.He described a Taliban fighter or other militant who used his small children, including a baby, as human shields in an effort to avoid a U.S. attack. The instructor described two SEAL snipers in his platoon setting up for a shot on a day when the target cradled a very small child against his chest. One of the snipers was a young SEAL, new to the platoon, the instructor said. The new SEAL refused to shoot the target while he held the child. But the second sniper was willing and fired through child to hit the target, killing them both. The instructor derided the young SEAL and told the class, Thank God we had a real Team guy, willing to shoot the child. Gallaghersubsequently confirmed that he had been the shooter, telling his trainees, I got him.

Later, Gallagher told the story again to his new platoon in SEAL Team 7, adding that he shot the very young girl in the skull because you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, according to a SEAL who heard Gallagher tell the story. In hindsight, each red flag should have been an indication that Gallagher needed to be disciplined or removed from his leadership position in the platoon.

Shortly after Alpha Platoon arrived in Mosul in 2017, it became clear that Gallagher was troubled. Hed wake us up in the middle of the night screaming from night terrors, said the SEAL who served with Gallagher in Iraq. It was well known within the platoon that Gallagher consumed a cocktail of anabolic steroids, painkillers, and uppers during the deployment. Navy investigators later seized steroids and prescription painkiller Tramadol in a search of Gallaghers home, as well as other evidence of drug use.

Gallagher also suffered a traumatic brain injury, or TBI a result of being blown up during another deployment, according to a current SEAL officer familiar with Gallaghers medical status. At his court martial, witnesses and text messages portrayed a grizzled veteran who lusted for combat. When he deployed to Iraq in 2017, he brought along a customized short blade knife made by a former SEAL teammate. And when an opportunity arose a badly injured young ISIS fighter who had been captured by Iraqi government forces Gallagher told his team, Nobody touch him, hes all mine. Two witnesses at his court martial testified they saw Gallagher then stab the captive in the neck at least once(two other witnesses said Gallagher did notstab the militant).

Investigators obtained a text message Gallagher sent a friend after the deployment,with a picture of the dead detainee,thatsaid, Good story behind this. I got him with my hunting knife.

Parlatore called the text an attempt at dark humor, the Associated Press reported.

Finally, the unwinding of the SEALs has been driven by old-fashioned brand loyalty at the expense of the health and stability of the force. That the SEALs are a commodity is evident in a network television show (SEAL Team on CBS), Hollywoods highest-grossing war film (the Clint Eastwood-directed American Sniper), bestselling books of embellished or disputed accounts of operations (Lone Survivor), and even more books about so-called leadership based on SEAL creeds.Gallagher and his wife are currently searching for a ghostwriter to shop a book of their own, according to person familiar with the effort.

The fame and monetary success of a few former SEALs has helped build a public myth about the heroism, sacrifice, and overall greatness of the force, whose members often believe the distorted version of reality with greater fervor than the American public. The result, as one member of the SEAL community told me recently, was that many who want to speak out about corruption inside the SEAL ranks are admonished to keep quiet and protect the brand.

SEAL operators rely on their brothers. Over time, theyve built a culture in which the primary goal is protecting the man standing next to them. Its a culture that elevates loyalty to fellow SEALs over all other concerns, such as the need for justice and accountability when SEALs commit crimes.

Trumps intervention in Gallaghers case interrupted a rare moment when a SEALs peers wanted to mete out discipline for dishonorable acts. When Gallagher was set to retire two weeks ago, Adm. Collin Green saw a chance to restore good order and discipline to his force. He needed to demonstrate that the SEALs were capable of calling one of their own to account.

Although Gallagher was the only member of SEAL Team 7 to be tried and convicted for posing with the dead ISIS fighter,several other SEALsalso posed with the body.Green determined thatthose who held a position of rank orresponsibility, including Gallagher, would go before a review board of senior enlisted SEALs in a Navy justice process similar to a civil trial, and be judged as to whether they deserved to keep their Tridents.If the board deemed their conduct unworthy of the SEAL identity, all would be stripped of their Tridents and removed from Naval Special Warfare. The measure would allow Green to send a message that Gallaghers conduct was beneath the Navy SEALs.

Collin was trying to let the senior enlisted take ownership over Eddie, said the retired Navy SEAL familiar with plans for the review board. All he was doing was following a standard military process until the president stopped him midstream.

Instead of accountability, the elite military unit got the same message from Trump that their leaders had been sending for the last two decades: Youre above the law.

I have reported extensively about SEAL Team 6 and the larger SEAL community for the last five years, and my sources range from senior officers and enlisted men to young seamen just entering the unit. The SEALs include plenty of courageous, honorable officers and operators but that majority (however slim it may be) has been overpowered by a pernicious minority who cling to the code of the SEAL brotherhood. Members of this minority took to a private Facebook group to denounce as traitors the six young SEALs in Gallaghers platoon who reported their chief to SEAL superiors for what they believed were war crimes. The six SEALs, who also testified against Gallagher at his court martial, did so despite being quietly counseled by their own chain of command to back off. They were warned that going up against their Navy SEAL chief would effectively end their careers.

Besides the SEALs who reported Gallagher to their chain of command, and then went further up when they were rebuffed, few involved in the case against Gallagher covered themselves in glory. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service was heavily criticized during the court martial for holding back exculpatory evidence. The lead prosecutor was removed shortly before it began for sending emails containing malware to defense attorneys and others in an effort to track leaks to the press about the case. The prosecution finally fell apart when one of the six SEAL witnesses, Corey Scott, testified that after Gallagher stabbed the prisoner, Scott himself closed a breathing tube that had been inserted in the ISIS fighters chest, killing him.Scott had not previously told prosecutors that hed ended the captives life.

Those who have defended Gallagher have described the Navys transgression in charging and prosecuting him as second-guessing our warfighters, a hollow argument against investigating a case in which an elite Navy SEAL was credibly accused of stabbing an unarmed and dying detainee as an act of dominance. There was no heroism or glory in Gallaghers conduct.

What the president and Gallaghers supporters cant see is they are failing the SEALs they so admire. Domestic violence and suicide within the force have been downplayed or covered up because they challenge the communitys self-image. Some of Gallaghers friends are concerned that he is a suicide risk, the toll of his brain injury compounded by drinking and drugs a self-medicating cocktail familiar to many veteran SEALs.

It is the SEALs themselves, and their families, who continue to bear the cost of Americas endless wars, as they struggle, with no preparation, for the horrors of lifeafteryears of killing.

Correction: December 5, 2019, 3:47 p.m.An earlier version of this story failed to credit the San Diego Union-Tribune for being the first to report Gallaghers killing of a child in Afghanistan in 2010. The story has also been updated to include a statement Gallaghers lawyermade tothe Union-Tribune about the shooting.

Correction: December 7, 2019An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Gallaghers attorneys did not dispute that he stabbed a wounded ISIS captive in Iraq in 2017. The story has been updated to reflect that two witnesses testified that Gallagher did not stab the detainee. The story also incorrectly stated that several other members of Gallaghers platoon posed for a trophy photo with the dead fighter and Admiral Collin Green determined that all of them should go before a review board. In fact, although several other SEALs did pose for a photo with the body, it was only Gallagher and others in positions of responsibility who Green decided should face the review board.

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Donald Trump Keeps the Navy SEALs Above the Law - The Intercept

Donald Trump has one big blessing to count this Thanksgiving, despite the scandals ricocheting around his White House. The US economy's almost supernatural resilience is keeping him in the game with the 2020 election looming.

A general rule of US politics is that a strong economy all but guarantees reelection for a first-term President. And while Trump hasn't consistently produced the 4% growth rates he promised, a projected expansion of around 2% for 2019 isn't bad in fact, it's better than most US competitors. But 2020 might be a wild card.

Trump takes a victory lap every time the Dow leaps into new territory, but his approval ratings aren't keeping up the way they should. The CNN poll pegged him at just 42% perilous territory for a President seeking a second term. While the impeachment drama has not seemed to damage his viability, Trump has never enjoyed majority approval, largely because he alienates so many voters with his scorched earth approach.

Dark clouds are also looming. Several US regional Federal Reserve banks predict growth may dip below 1% in the fourth quarter. Experts warn Trump's trade war with China is also a drag meaning he may be tempted by a deal that he can bill as a big win, even if it's fairly modest. And manufacturing, a vital economic driver in Midwestern states that Trump must win, is beginning to hurt.

If the economy stays strong, it can be a launchpad for a narrow Trump election victory. If it dips, he could be in trouble. If there's a recession, he's likely toast.

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Donald Trump has one big blessing to count this Thanksgiving - CNN

There is one good thing about President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump puts Kushner in charge of overseeing border wall construction: report Trump 2020 national spokesperson gives birth to daughter New McCarthy ad praising Trump includes Russian stock footage MORE going into 2020. It is that he is consistent. Consistency in some philosophies connotes reliability. His divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, bullying mockery of others during campaign rallies, combative foreign policy, his rejection of diplomacy, and his demand for unequivocal loyalty have seriously disturbed the political establishment. This is an establishment that, in the minds of Americans on both the right and the left, has become consumed by its own interests.

Despite the disappointment and feelings of grievances, Americans have come to expect a certain level of civility in political life. They expect prevarications and empty promises masked by the warm embrace of civility. Both civility and character have been political standards that Americans have used to judge the body of politics in this country.

These guiding principles have become the critical appropriation and embodiment of traditions that have shaped the character and shared meaning of a people in these United States. Political communication should be grounded in our personal narratives. Citizens do not emerge from a historical vacuum. They arise from particular traditions. As such, some are taught to speak authoritatively yet compassionately, and they take action responsibly with the aim of serving the collective good.

Trump clearly does not abide by these standards. He questions the very legitimacy and agency of tradition and its meaning in the United States. He is a creature unwedded to basic conservative or liberal doctrines and is unconcerned with orthodoxy. From his view and that of his supporters, Washington tradition has not worked, and it is that grievance toward the status quo that has given Trump sustenance today. The peculiarity of this phenomenon is not relegated to just the political right. Similar sentiments are growing on the left and have given rise to Senator Bernie SandersBernie SandersSaagar Enjeti: Bloomberg exposes 'true danger' of 'corporate media' Doctor calls for standardizing mental fitness tests for elected officials Warren: Bloomberg is betting he 'only needs bags and bags of money' to win election MORE, Senator Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann WarrenWhy Democrats are not actually serious about uniting the nation Warren: Bloomberg is betting he 'only needs bags and bags of money' to win election Bloomberg campaign chief: Trump is winning 2020 election right now MORE, and other emerging progressive stars in the Democratic Party such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

Americans have far deeper issues than partisan divides. Though their grievances are disparate, they share one commonality in their dislike for all things closely aligned with the elite media, politicians, and business. This is one of the reasons for the cultish following of the president, who can do no wrong in the eyes of his worshippers. It does not bother them because Trump exposes the disguise of civility, just as Sanders and Warren do. They stick it to the man by castigating political elites.

As for African Americans and members of other racial minority groups, we have fared no better or worse under Trump than we have under previous administrations. We may have felt better under President Obama because of symbolic racial pride, but we agree that many expectations fell short. The economy did well under President Clinton, but we acknowledge the dangerous crime bill and tough law enforcement stances that decimated the black community. The point is simple in that feeling good or having pride in our national leader does not necessarily yield good results.

What Trump says and does, through his rhetoric and behavior, can be brutally honest. While it may wound the vanity of some, he has complete disregard for business as usual. We must ask ourselves if we would rather have a president who does not care about political civility and tells it like it is or a president who is polished and hides the truth. Whatever you think about Trump and his supporters, it appears there is a growing number of Americans on both sides seeking a leader who is a street fighter, someone who will voice their grievances on center stage.

Americans are accustomed to the former civil politician. They smile at you, look you in the eyes, and tell you what you want to hear to make us feel comfortable. Whether we are willing to admit it or not, everything about the status quo before Trump signaled comfort. We were living in a country devoid of disruptive change. The reality was that it was business as usual, but those dynamics have been changing under the leadership of Trump. Despite the disdain some have for him, a similar movement has taken place on the left. The country needed Trump to shake things up.

In the blockbuster hit The Dark Knight, the Joker said to district attorney Harvey Dent, Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos? It is fair! Trump is indeed fair to Americans because his disruption brings a shared level of chaos to the elites on all sides.

Quardricos Driskell is an adjunct professor of legislative politics with the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. Shermichael Singleton is a Republican strategist and a political analyst.

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Why America needed Donald Trump | TheHill - The Hill