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"This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner" and other hot takes from Bob Woodward's upcoming "Fear: Trump in the White House"

PaladinSolo
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PaladinSolo

PaladinSolo

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Posted

Everyone thinks hes a fucking moron, and they even treat him as one.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodwards-new-book-reveals-a-nervous-breakdown-of-trumps-presidency/2018/09/04/b27a389e-ac60-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html?utm_term=.40dab7806faf

 

At a National Security Council meeting on Jan. 19, Trump disregarded the significance of the massive U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula, including a special intelligence operation that allows the United States to detect a North Korean missile launch in seven seconds vs. 15 minutes from Alaska, according to Woodward. Trump questioned why the government was spending resources in the region at all.

“We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told him.

After Trump left the meeting, Woodward recounts, “Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ”

In Woodward’s telling, many top advisers were repeatedly unnerved by Trump’s actions and expressed dim views of him. “Secretaries of defense don’t always get to choose the president they work for,” Mattis told friends at one point, prompting laughter as he explained Trump’s tendency to go off on tangents about subjects such as immigration and the news media.

Inside the White House, Woodward portrays an unsteady executive detached from the conventions of governing and prone to snapping at high-ranking staff members, whom he unsettled and belittled on a daily basis.

 

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly frequently lost his temper and told colleagues that he thought the president was “unhinged,” Woodward writes. In one small group meeting, Kelly said of Trump: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”

 

After Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017, Trump called Mattis and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator. “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump said, according to Woodward.

Mattis told the president that he would get right on it. But after hanging up the phone, he told a senior aide: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.” The national security team developed options for the more conventional airstrike that Trump ultimately ordered.

 

Under orders from the president, Porter drafted a notification letter withdrawing from NAFTA. But he and other advisers worried that it could trigger an economic and foreign relations crisis. So Porter consulted Cohn, who told him, according to Woodward: “I can stop this. I’ll just take the paper off his desk.”

 

When Cohn met with Trump to deliver his resignation letter after Charlottesville, the president told him, “This is treason,” and persuaded his economic adviser to stay on. Kelly then confided to Cohn that he shared Cohn’s horror at Trump’s handling of the tragedy — and shared Cohn’s fury with Trump.

“I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times,” Kelly told Cohn, according to Woodward. Kelly himself has threatened to quit several times, but has not done so.

 

The book vividly recounts the ongoing debate between Trump and his lawyers about whether the president would sit for an interview with Mueller. On March 5, Dowd and Trump attorney Jay Sekulow met in Mueller’s office with the special counsel and his deputy, James Quarles, where Dowd and Sekulow reenacted Trump’s January practice session.

 

Dowd then explained to Mueller and Quarles why he was trying to keep the president from testifying: “I’m not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot. And you publish that transcript, because everything leaks in Washington, and the guys overseas are going to say, ‘I told you he was an idiot. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell. What are we dealing with this idiot for?’ ”

“John, I understand,” Mueller replied, according to Woodward.

Later that month, Dowd told Trump: “Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit.”

But Trump, concerned about the optics of a president refusing to testify and convinced that he could handle Mueller’s questions, had by then decided otherwise.

“I’ll be a real good witness,” Trump told Dowd, according to Woodward.

“You are not a good witness,” Dowd replied. “Mr. President, I’m afraid I just can’t help you.”

The next morning, Dowd resigned.

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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Posted

THE MOST STABLE OF GENUISES.

 

I've heard he's, like, really smart.

 

Alternative facts.

 

Truth isn't truth. 

 

McCabe is Comey!!

 

Covfefe. 

 

What you're seeing and what you're hearing isn't what's happening. 

 

Yeah, I don't see how he should be impeached or forced to resign as president due to mental degradation. Sure. Can't see it at all. 

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MarSolo

MarSolo

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Okay, so all these people think he's an idiot and unfit to serve and if he testifies before Mueller he's going to go to jail...

 

...so what's stopping them from, oh I don't know, invoking the 25th Amendment and getting him out of there? Are people that terrified of Pence?

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CayceG

CayceG

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3 minutes ago, MarSolo said:

Okay, so all these people think he's an idiot and unfit to serve and if he testifies before Mueller he's going to go to jail...

 

...so what's stopping them from, oh I don't know, invoking the 25th Amendment and getting him out of there? Are people that terrified of Pence?

 

He's doing what they want, and invoking the 25th would be admitting a mistake. Why would they admit a mistake?

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Ghost_MH

Ghost_MH

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Posted
4 minutes ago, MarSolo said:

Okay, so all these people think he's an idiot and unfit to serve and if he testifies before Mueller he's going to go to jail...

 

...so what's stopping them from, oh I don't know, invoking the 25th Amendment and getting him out of there? Are people that terrified of Pence?

 

People are terrified of his base turning against them. That base won't ever vote Democrat, but it could certainly lead to a new Tea Party-like wave driving out many of those currently in office.

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MarSolo

MarSolo

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So does this book confirm a lot of that other book or contradict it? Because this stuff seems more damning if anything.

 

6 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

People are terrified of his base turning against them. That base won't ever vote Democrat, but it could certainly lead to a new Tea Party-like wave driving out many of those currently in office.

 

His base will latch onto the next big thing when Trump goes away. That's what they do, they're locusts.

 

7 minutes ago, CayceG said:

 

He's doing what they want, and invoking the 25th would be admitting a mistake. Why would they admit a mistake?

 

Even with the country at stake?

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MarSolo

MarSolo

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John Kelly continues to be the most spineless general in the history of the United States.

 

Quote

“I spend more time with the President than anyone else, and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship," he said in the statement. "I'm committed to the President, his agenda, and our country. This is another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes."

 

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Ghost_MH

Ghost_MH

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4 minutes ago, MarSolo said:

His base will latch onto the next big thing when Trump goes away. That's what they do, they're locusts.

 

There's a difference between Trump goes away and the deep state stole the presidency from Trump's grasp. That would be a story no news agency could ignore. Trump loves to be in front of the camera, so he'd be on every station talking about how horribly unjust it all is. Unless he's going to jail, the GOP can never allow him to be in that position and there's just about no chance he'd ever go to jail. The best they could hope for, as far as removing him from office while saving face, is to just convince him to not run for a second term.

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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2 minutes ago, Chris- said:

I don’t know why they are picking a fight with a dude who’s carrying receipts. It sounds like Woodward has notes and tapes on every damn thing he wrote about. 

I don't know why they supposedly let Woodward wander around the White House without a "shepherd" as previous administrations have done.

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