Report: Everybody in the White House Considers Trump an Idiot

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Report: Everybody in the White House Considers Trump an Idiot
By Jonathan Chait@jonathanchait
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President Trump. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

It is relatively easy to get White House staffers to leak mind-blowing anecdotes about President Trump’s various derangements, and for that very reason, it is hard to find new anecdotes that register on the crazy-Trump scale. CNN and (unsurprisingly) the Washington Post have obtained early versions of Bob Woodward’s version of tales from the court of the mad king, and even by the high standard set by the many previous insider accounts, his portrait of Trump’s delusional state appears to be especially harrowing.

Woodward confirms that Trump’s former secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, described him as a “fucking moron,” a fact that has been reported previously. He adds several more officials to the list of people who have blurted out this obvious conclusion.

After security officials tried fruitlessly to explain to Trump the importance of American defenses in South Korea, including a system that reduces the warning time of a North Korean missile attack from 15 minutes to seven seconds, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told associates that Trump “acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ”

Former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn seemed to believe that Trump actually lacks object permanence. To prevent the president from signing a letter canceling a free-trade agreement with South Korea, he stole the letter from Trump’s desk. Trump “did not notice it was missing,” the Postreports.

Chief of Staff John Kelly has called Trump an idiot and also crazy:

“He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown,” Kelly is quoted as saying at a staff meeting in his office. “I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”

stating “that the former Navy pilot had been a coward for taking early release from a prisoner-of-war camp in Vietnam because of his father’s military rank and leaving others behind.”

This is in fact the opposite of the truth. The whole point of what makes McCain’s imprisonment so heroic is that North Vietnam offered to give him early release on account of his father’s rank, believing it would demoralize other members of the military, and McCain refused, even withstanding torture rather than give in and accept freedom. This is the most important and well-known fact about McCain and Trump got it backward. It’s like attacking Harriet Tubman for her refusal to help escaped slaves.

Woodward has repeatedly scolded the media for its unfairness to Trump, and expressed skepticism about the Russia investigation. Another reporter who did the same thing, before proceeding to publish a book stuffed with harrowing inside tidbits about Trump’s dysfunction, is Michael Wolff. Perhaps both of them were shrewdly planting favorable commentary in order to warm up potential sources. Wolff’s book, and its too-amazing-to-be-real anecdotes, was met with a fair amount of skepticism from the mainstream media. The additional support from Woodward seems to confirm its essential thrust, if not every detail. However dumb and crazy you might think Trump is, the reality always turns out to be even worse.
 

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New York Times:

recording Trump, invoking 25th Amendment

Shortly into his tenure as deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein reportedly talked about invoking the 25th Amendment to declare President Trump unfit to serve, The New York Times reports. Rosenstein additionally said in meetings that he might be able to get Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security, onboard with the effort, the Times reports.

He also reportedly suggested the idea of wearing a wire to secretly record Trump. The Times notes that an unnamed Justice Department spokeswoman said Rosenstein made the suggestion "sarcastically," but other sources told the paper that he was serious. Rosenstein told the Times in a statement that the story is "inaccurate," adding that "there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment."



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NY Times: Deputy AG Rosenstein suggested secretly recording Trump, possibly removing him from office

Rod Rosenstein (Internet Education Foundation/Flickr)
SEPTEMBER 21, 2018 MELISSA LEON

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reportedly suggested last year that he secretly record President Donald Trump, and he also allegedly discussed using the 25th Amendment to remove the President for being unfit, an explosive new report out Friday revealed.

The New York Times first broke the story, citing several anonymous sources who either had second-hand knowledge of the instances or were familiar with FBI memos about Rosenstein’s alleged comments.

He allegedly made remarks about getting officials to invoke the 25th Amendment because Trump was unfit, and wearing wires to secretly record the President; he made such remarks in meetings and in conversations with FBI and Justice Department officials, the Times said. Rosenstein reportedly made these comments last spring, in 2017, shortly after he became deputy attorney general.


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Breaking News: Rod Rosenstein, the official who appointed Robert Mueller, once proposed secretly taping President Trump and removing him via the 25th Amendmenthttps://nyti.ms/2zmtZeo

1:49 PM - Sep 21, 2018

Rosenstein Suggested He Secretly Record Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment
In the turbulent days after the firing of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general appeared conflicted about his role and wanted to expose administration dysfunction, people around him said.

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Rosenstein apparently went so far as to say he could get support from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and now-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who was at the time serving as Secretary of Homeland Security, to invoke the 25th Amendment, the Times said.

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In a statement to the Times, Rosenstein disputed the accusations.

“The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment,” he said in a statement to the Times, they reported.


NPR Politics

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https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1043204916339204097

JUST IN: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is denying a story in The New York Times about the early phase of his tenure, in which he was described as discussing that he might secretly record President Trump and that the Cabinet might need to invoke the 25th Amendment.

2:26 PM - Sep 21, 2018
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The 25th Amendment details when a President has a disability that prevents him from serving – he is “unfit,” and it says that the Vice President then becomes President. If the President “dies, resigns or is removed from office,” the Vice President shall be the President. The amendment was adopted in 1967.

Around that time last year was when Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey. Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017.

After he fired Comey, the President later tweeted that there may be “tapes” of their conversations. Comey then asked a “close friend” to leak a memo to the media.

Comey asked Columbia law professor Daniel Richman to leak the memo with the hope it would trigger a special counsel appointment, he admitted during his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in June 2017. The next day, Robert Mueller was named as Special Counsel of the Russia investigation.

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Rosenstein is overseeing Mueller’s investigation because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself last March.

The deputy attorney general took over the Russia investigation when Sessions recused himself, and he also appointed Mueller.

Rosenstein also wrote the memo that recommended Comey be fired.

It was also Rosenstein who gave the go-ahead to raid Michael Cohen’s office, who was Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant
 

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Trump’s latest morning of tweets was off the rails, even by his standards
Insults, lies, gaslighting, authoritarian threats — all before the coffee even hit.

By Aaron Rupar@atrupar Jul 11, 2019, 11:00am EDTSHARE
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Trump on Wednesday.
Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Two and a half years into the Donald Trump presidency, Americans are used to Trump posting off-the-rails tweets. But Thursday morning still stood out.

Trump body-shamed Sen. Elizabeth Warren while using a slur to demean her, mistakenly tagged a random retired teacher who is not of fan of his while insulting her fellow 2020 contender Pete Buttigieg, expressed confusion about when his presidential campaign began, joked about illegally staying in power beyond a second term, brazenly gaslighted about his indebtedness to banks, and said he thinks he’ll win in Minnesota in 2020 simply because a city council there decided to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance before meetings.

All of this happened before 8 am.

Each of these tweets, by themselves, would’ve been highly abnormal public statements coming from any other president. For Trump, they are not. Still, the volume with which he posted them on Thursday morning was remarkable.

Here’s a breakdown of Trump’s odd tweets on Thursday, in the order in which he posted them.

Trump is confused about when his campaign began
While hyping the sham social media summit that’s set to take place at the White House on Thursday, Trump tried to take shots at “The Fake News,” which he claimed has “lost tremendous credibility since that day in November, 2016, that I came down the escalator with the person who was to become your future First Lady.”

....The Fake News is not as important, or as powerful, as Social Media. They have lost tremendous credibility since that day in November, 2016, that I came down the escalator with the person who was to become your future First Lady. When I ultimately leave office in six......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2019
There’s just one problem: The escalator incident Trump referred to actually happened happened in Trump Tower 17 months before November 2016, in June 2015, just before the speech in which he launched his presidential campaign. While Trump’s election night victory speech also took place in Trump Tower, there was no footage of him coming down an escalator on that night. He appears to have mixed it up.

Remembering when your presidential campaign began seems like a pretty odd thing to get confused about. But Trump was just getting started.

Trump “jokes” about staying in office for for 14 more years
Trump segued from a tweet expressing confusion about when his campaign began to one in which he joked about staying in office for as many as 14 more years.

....years, or maybe 10 or 14 (just kidding), they will quickly go out of business for lack of credibility, or approval, from the public. That’s why they will all be Endorsing me at some point, one way or the other. Could you imagine having Sleepy Joe Biden, or @AlfredENeuman99,..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2019
This is far from the first time Trump has indicated that he’s interested in staying in office for more than two terms. He’s said he does so to troll the media, but given his open admiration for dictators abroad and repeated efforts to undermine the rule of law at home, his jokes about becoming president for life really aren’t funny.

Trump mistakenly tags a retired teacher who isn’t a fan of his
In the same tweet in which he joked about illegally extending his term in office, Trump, while trying to demean South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg for purportedly resembling cartoon character Alfred E. Neuman, mistakenly tagged an account belonging to a retired teacher who, based on his recent retweets, is clearly is not a fan of the president.





Aaron Rupar

✔@atrupar

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1149292344656748544

Trump mistakenly tagged a random retired teacher who hates him. This is the guy who has the nuke codes.


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This isn’t the first time Trump has mistakenly tagged the wrong account on Twitter — he did so as recently as two weeks ago. But that he continues to make easily avoidable mistakes like this is a sign of how little vetting his tweets get before they’re posted for the world to see, as well as a broader recklessness.

Trump body-shames Elizabeth Warren while using a racial slur
After insulting Buttigieg, Trump demeaned Elizabeth Warren by describing her as “a very nervous and skinny version of Pocahontas.”

...or a very nervous and skinny version of Pocahontas (1000/24th), as your President, rather than what you have now, so great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius! Sorry to say that even Social Media would be driven out of business along with, and finally, the Fake News Media!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2019
“Pocahontas” has become Trump’s go-to slur while mocking Warren and her ill-fated attempt to claim Native American ancestry. But attacking Warren’s demeanor and looks is a new twist, and comes while first lady Melania Trump is purportedly busying herself with anti-cyberbullying work as part of her broader “Be Best” campaign.

Trump went on to compare Warren unfavorably with himself, describing himself as “so great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius!” But note that in that very same tweet, Trump revealed a confusion about fractions. According to an analysis of the results of the DNA test Warren released, her fractional Native American ancestry is somewhere between 1/64 and 1/1024. But in writing “1000/24th,” Trump got it backward.


“Stable Genius,” indeed.

Trump thinks he’ll win Minnesota over a silly Pledge of Allegiance controversy
Trump then turned his attention to Minnesota, where the city council in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park recently voted to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance before meetings. The story has been a major topic this week on Trump’s favorite television show, Fox & Friends.

The latest polling indicates that Trump’s approval rating is 16 points underwater in Minnesota, but Trump seems to think that the St. Louis Park City Council’s move will be enough for him to overcome that deficit and win a state that hasn’t gone for a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972.




Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1149281529727766528

The Pledge of Allegiance to our great Country, in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, is under siege. That is why I am going to win the Great State of Minnesota in the 2020 Election. People are sick and tired of this stupidity and disloyalty to our wonderful USA!


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Trump’s tweet suggests that instead of using his power to do things that make people’s lives better, he thinks a winning strategy heading into 2020 is identity grievance issues. The polling in Minnesota begs to differ, but then again, Trump doesn’t buy polls that aren’t favorable to him.

Trump gaslights about his indebtedness to banks
Hours after the New York Times published a report about the business relationship between Deutsche Bank and Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender with ties to Bill Clinton and Trump, the president proclaimed that he doesn’t need to do business with banks because “I didn’t (don’t) need their money (old fashioned, isn’t it?).” He went on to acknowledge but downplay his dealings with Deutsche Bank.



Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

· 4h

The Fake News Media loves the narrative that I didn’t use many banks because the banks didn’t like me. No, I didn’t use many banks because I didn’t (don’t) need their money (old fashioned, isn’t it?). If I did, it would have been very easy for me to get.



Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump


....And remember, a bank that I did use years ago, the now badly written about and maligned Deutsche Bank, was then one of the largest and most prestigious banks in the world! They wanted my business, and so did many others!


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This is brazen gaslighting. In March, the New York Times reported that Trump took out an astounding $2 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank and was cut off on two separate occasions by the bank because executives realized he was a risky client. That reporting came a little less than a year after news that Trump still owed as much as $480 million to a number of banks and financial services firms, including but not limited to Deutsche Bank.

And, of course, while Trump tries to brag about his business acumen, it’s worth remembering the Times’s bombshell reporting from last October about how he was gifted at least $413 million by his father, then participated in “dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud” to increase that fortune.

Some of Trump’s most bizarre mornings of tweeting have come amid bad news cycles for him or when bad news is on the horizon; for instance, as I detailed at the time, Trump posted a string of increasingly bizarre tweets shortly after the Mueller report was released publicly in April. But these Thursday tweets come as his approval rating hits historic highs — he’s still 9 points underwater but, according to a new Washington Post/ABC poll, at the highest point of his presidency — and with no obvious reason for him to be melting down. Perhaps there is less method to the mayhem than there sometimes seems.
 

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White House insiders slam Trump: He’s like a “4-year-old” who is “losing his sh*t”
SEPTEMBER 7, 2019
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VINNIE LONGOBARDO
Vinnie Longobardo is a 35-year veteran of the TV, mobile…

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Believe it or not, even Donald Trump’s own aides are increasingly concerned about his mental deterioration.

None of them are brave enough, of course, to speak on the record for attribution, as have the president’s many Democratic opponents who have been expressing utmost concern about the danger of having a mentally unstable president at the helm of our nation for quite some time now.

According to Business Insider, however, Trump’s “aides and confidants are growing more and more worried about his mental state after days of erratic behavior, wild outbursts, and bizarre fixations.”

“No one knows what to expect from him anymore,” the publication quotes one former White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, as saying.

“His mood changes from one minute to the next based on some headline or tweet, and the next thing you know his entire schedule gets tossed out the window because he’s losing his shit,” the offical added.

Nothing more is indicative of the president’s unhinged demeanor than his inexplicable insistence that his tweet last week — claiming that Alabama was going to be threatened by the then-incoming Hurricane Dorian — was not outdated and incorrect by the time he warned the Alabama populace to prepare for its pending devastation.

While most sane and mentally balanced people would simply admit a mistake and move on, Trump turned the incident into an ongoing crusade to prove himself right against all facts and science.

“People are used to the president saying things that aren’t true, but this Alabama stuff is another story,” the former official said. “This was the president sending out patently false information about a national-emergency situation as it was unfolding.”

By last night, the president had posted 15 tweets and five maps about Hurricane Dorian and Alabama attempting to prove that his original tweet was not a mistake, even though he’d been publicly corrected by the National Weather Service. He went so far as to display a map of the storm’s path on Wednesday that was altered with a sharpie marker to bolster his claims, an action that may, in fact, be illegal under federal law.

The anonymous aides who spoke to Business Insider attribute Trump’s fixation on his infallibility to frustration and stress caused by the avalanche of negative poll results that have him losing to the top Democratic contenders in the 2020 presidential race and by the looming recession predicted by economists because of Trump’s trade policies and destructive tariffs.

One Republican strategist who frequents the White House told Business Insider that “He’s deteriorating in plain sight,” and when asked about Trump’s obsession with the Alabama tweet said:

“You should ask a psychiatrist about that; I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment.”

Of course, with a barrage of hundreds of tweets in the last week, the president provided plenty of other examples of his deteriorating mental state. His feud with Debra Messing, the actress who stars in NBC‘s Will and Grace, is another example.

Trump went after Messing with a series of antagonistic tweets after she called for the publicizing of the list of donors attending a Hollywood fundraiser on his behalf. In response, the actress tweeted a link to a New Yorker article that analyzed the list of Trump’s erratic actions during the past few weeks, punctuating her tweet with a brutal putdown saying that she hopes “his family gets him the help he needs. Sad.”

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Perhaps the most brutal assessment of the president’s mental state came from “one person who was close to Trump’s legal team during the Russia investigation,” according to Business Insider, who said that the president’s public utterances paled in comparison to “what he’s like behind closed doors.”

“He’s like a bull seeing red,” this person said. “There’s just no getting through to him, and you can kiss your plans for the day goodbye because you’re basically stuck looking after a 4-year-old now.”

Despite the inherent menace involved in allowing a president so far off the rails to have access to the nuclear codes, the GOP leadership and Trump’s cabinet members have yet to summon the courage to invoke the 25th Amendment that governs situations such as this when the president is too impaired to properly perform the duties of his office.

How much longer can they hold out pretending that there is nothing wrong, as the evidence mounts every single day? Time to work the phones, people, and call your elected representatives before it’s too late.

Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.

Original reporting by Sonam Sheth at Business Insider.

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Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez reacts to President Trump’s firing of National Security Adviser John Bolton: “The Situation Room shouldn’t be the place where the President plays out his reality tv show of ‘The Apprentice.’” https://cnn.it/2kFvnnP
 
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