David McCormick, a Republican, is Pennsylvania’s junior U.S. senator. Last November, he defeated Bob Casey, Jr., the 18-year Democratic incumbent, by less than a quarter-point. Two years earlier, Mehmet Oz beat McCormick in the GOP Senate primary by an even narrower margin, 0.1 percent and 951 votes. Once upon a time, McCormick was the CEO of Bridgewater, one of the largest hedge funds, and a member of Bush 43’s administration. McCormick graduated from West Point and holds a Ph.D. from what was then the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton.
His wife, Dina Powell McCormick, a Goldman Sachs alumna, also worked for George W. Bush and was a deputy national security adviser in the first Donald Trump White House. At Goldman, she emerged as a partner and as president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, its non-profit arm. Currently, she sits on the board of directors of ExxonMobil and Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
They are an it couple admired for their sterling resumes. But they are also representative of how old-school Bush-era Republicans have managed to get along in the Donald Trump era by going along.
Who Believed in You: How Purposeful Mentorship Changes the World is their joint effort. Their book received a serious rollout. CNBC hosted the couple as part of their book tour. Dina also appeared on The Today Show. On the page together, they acknowledge a “crisis of trust” within the U.S. and assert that effective mentorship “can help fix it” and “help people become their best selves.”
“Throughout my career, in the military, government, and business, I was fortunate enough to have great mentors, many of them prominent,” the senator writes. “Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson; President George W. Bush; and Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio.” Talk about a rarified company. Or a can of worms.
In his recent book, How Countries Go Broke, Dalio wrote: “When I say that the policies President Trump is using to ‘make America great again’ are remarkably like the policies that those of the hard-right countries in the 1930s used, that should not be controversial.” Pre-war Italy, Germany, and Japan immediately come to mind.
Not surprisingly, TrumpWorld isn’t the greatest fan of Dalio. In 2022, Peter Schweizer, author of Clinton Cash and acolyte of Republican donor Rebekah Mercer and Steve Bannon, took Dalio and Bridgewater to task for their cozy relationship with China. A year later, Marco Rubio unloaded on Dalio and Bridgewater in Decades of Decadence, an audition for a post in a future Trump administration. If Rubio’s transformation from Trump primary opponent in 2016 to being both secretary of state and national security adviser in Trump’s second term is a gold medal performance in political gymnastics, the Powell-McCormick duo has a shot at silver.
Interestingly, Who Believed in You barely mentions the 47th president. “In 2017, I served on the senior staff of the White House under President Donald Trump,” Dina writes. “In 2024, he worked hard to support David’s campaign for the Senate in Pennsylvania.” A fact ignored by the authors, Trump backed Oz in the 2022 primary.
Mr. and Mrs. McCormick also hope that folks have short memories. In 2021, he was like many Republicans at the time who thought Donald Trump was a goner, highly critical of Trump and the Capitol Hill insurrection.
“I think what we have to not embrace is the divisiveness that’s characterized, you know, the last four years and the polarization, and I think the president has some responsibility, a lot of responsibility for that, and I think that, you know, this last dark chapter on the Capitol will be, history will look very unfavorably on that and all that, all the people that were involved in that.” Can you say, forgive and forget?
Not surprisingly, Who Believed in You is decidedly upbeat and occasionally self-satisfied. “In addition to the data, this is a book comprised primarily of inspirational stories,” the McCormicks share. “Most chapters end with a ‘Spotlight on Mentoring,’ allowing today’s top leaders to speak to you directly in a question-and-answer format.”
The duo slathers it on thick. “Imagine sitting down for coffee with them and letting these leaders pour their wisdom into your life.” Is there a decaf version?
Regardless, the book’s subheadings read like a who’s who of the establishment. There is “Walter Isaacson and reaching your full potential,” “Christine Lagarde and the secret of confidence,” and “Nikki Haley and offering a place at the table.”
Condoleezza Rice, a key mentor of Dina at the Bush White House, leads off a chapter titled “Commitment”. Beyond that, Dr. Rice blurbs on the back jacket of the book. For their part, General H.R. McMaster, a former Trump national security adviser and critic, makes a cameo appearance; ditto Wes Moore, Maryland’s Democratic governor.
For the record, Isaacson is the past CEO of the Aspen Institute, former chairman of CNN, and ex-editor of Time magazine. Lagarde is the current president of the European Central Bank and a past managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
As for Haley, she unsuccessfully ran against Trump in 2024 for the Republican presidential nomination after serving as Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina. Left unmentioned by the McCormicks, Trump loathes her. In the heat of the 2024 primaries, he branded her a “bird-brain” and questioned the state of her marriage. Trump also made clear that she would not serve in the current administration.
Anomalously for the Trump era, the McCormicks repeatedly voice support for diversity and immigration. “From my earliest days in the Army to my days as a CEO, I’m a firm believer in diversity,” the senator states unequivocally. “People from diverse backgrounds make us better and stronger as a team, because different experiences offer different perspectives and strengthen a team’s overall effectiveness.” Just wondering what Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, and Linda McMahon would say about that.
Then there is the issue of immigration. Together with her family, four-year-old Dina McCormick emigrated from Egypt to the U.S., claiming persecution because they were Coptic Christians, a religious minority. Not skipping a beat, Who Believed in You glowingly portrays the immigrant experience.
Dina McCormick, a Texan who had worked for Representative Dick Armey, the House Majority Leader, joined the Bush 2000 presidential campaign and worked in the Bush White House. She glowingly adds, “President Bush remains a mentor and friend and included a portrait of me in his book Out of Many, One, about immigrants who have contributed greatly to America.”
Again, unmentioned, her husband’s 2022 GOP primary bid. This from the New York Times describing a meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago: “At one point, Ms. Powell McCormick … pulled out a picture that showed Dr. Oz alongside others wearing Muslim head coverings, according to four people briefed in detail on the exchange, which has not previously been reported.”
But it didn’t end there. Shane Goldmacher of the Times continues: “The people briefed on the conversation said Ms. Powell McCormick told Mr. Trump that the fact that Dr. Oz was Muslim would be a political liability in parts of Pennsylvania.”
As a bonus, Stephen Miller, the godfather of Trump’s immigration policies, lent his hand to the 2022 McCormick campaign. This is what plutocrat-populism looks like.
