Bob Woodward’s Reporting Shows Trump’s Very Good Brain Is Trapped in the 1980s

Esquire

Bob Woodward’s Reporting Shows Trump’s Very Good Brain Is Trapped in the 1980s

Most of Donald Trump’s “knowledge” is just fragments of reality that have been fermenting, completely unexamined.

By Jack Holmes       September 5, 2018

Donald J. Trump;Kate Wollman [Misc.]Getty ImagesTed Thai.

As the President of the United States flails about wildly in response to a new book on his White House, desperately insisting that he has never called his own attorney general “mentally retarded,” there’s somehow a school of thought that there’s nothing much to see here. We already knew Donald Trump was a vindictive know-nothing, the thinking goes. We knew members of his staff work to prevent him from wreaking even more havoc on the world. But in addition to the revelations about how senior staffers literally steal documents off Trump’s desk to stop him from unleashing chaos on a whim, there are further insights into how the president’s brain works.

Surprise, surprise: it doesn’t work all that well. Axios also got its hands on a copy of Bob Woodward’s Fear:

“Several times [chief economic adviser Gary] Cohn just asked the president, ‘Why do you have these views [on trade]?’ ‘I just do,’ Trump replied. ‘I’ve had these views for 30 years.’ ‘That doesn’t mean they’re right,’ Cohn said. ‘I had the view for 15 years I could play professional football. It doesn’t mean I was right.'”

This is a stunning reminder that what constitutes Donald Trump’s knowledge is mostly just fragments of reality he internalized around 1982. They have been fermenting there ever since, continually filtering through his kaleidoscopic reasoning faculties as he dispenses crank observations at cocktail parties, never to be altered or removed because the governing forces of his psyche are almighty stubbornness and delusional ego. The president’s views on trade are his views because they’ve been his views for 30 years. They’re right because they’re his views and always have been. For Christ’s sake, this is trade. No wonder he’s said climate change is a Chinese hoax.

President Trump Holds Listening Session With Business Leaders

He also just doesn’t believe in reality. He’s also incredibly lazy.

Trump to Tom Bossert, the president’s adviser for homeland security, cyber security and counterterrorism, who asked Trump if he had a minute: “I want to watch the Masters. … You and your cyber … are going to get me in a war — with all your cyber shit.”

Jesus Christ almighty, the man thought that once you get elected the job basically involves watching TV coverage about how great you are. Plenty of time for golf, too. And there’s even golf on the teevee!

It’s easy to take a more passive approach when you genuinely don’t care about what happens to people you’re not related to—which is what longtime Trump chronicler Tim O’Brien highlighted in Bloomberg this morning:

Trump – about to be on the receiving end of a potentially damaging book written by a Washington insider with bipartisan, established credentials – is utterly calm on the recording. And he’s calm, despite daily temper tantrums over media coverage, because he generally doesn’t care about the long-term damage he might inflict on himself or those around him as long as he’s the center of attention.

This plays out in larger and more troubling ways as well, according to Woodward’s book, and history may judge most of Trump’s White House team and political party harshly for enabling the president’s radical solipsism. After Trump criticizes the U.S.’s military commitment to South Korea, one White House adviser asks Trump what he would “need in the region to sleep well at night.”

“I wouldn’t need a [expletive] thing,” Trump replies. “And I’d sleep like a baby.”

He knows nothing about anything and cares less. That’s just as true if the thing is a person. It’s even debatable whether he’d bat an eye if the kid who shares his name is thrown in the slammer. Meanwhile, he’s retweeting his chief of staff and Secretary of Defense as they boldly deny ever calling him “unhinged,” an “idiot,” or having the mental sophistication of a “sixth-grader.” It’s all about him, and anything in the world can be contorted, however implausibly, to keep the air in his heaving balloon of an ego. It’s all as it seems, but that doesn’t make it any less horrifying.


Trump blasts critical op-ed from anonymous senior official

Yahoo News – Associated Press

Trump blasts critical op-ed from anonymous senior official

Zeke Miller and Catherine Lucey, Associated Press,    September 5, 2018
Trump blasts critical op-ed from anonymous senior official

President Donald Trump listens to Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a striking anonymous broadside, a senior Trump administration official wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times on Wednesday claiming to be part of a group of people “working diligently from within” to impede President Donald Trump’s “worst inclinations” and ill-conceived parts of his agenda.

Trump said it was a “gutless editorial” and “really a disgrace,” and his press secretary called on the official to resign.

Later, Trump tweeted: “TREASON?”

The writer, claiming to be part of the “resistance” to Trump but not from the left, said, “Many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.” The newspaper described the author of the column only as a senior official in the Trump administration.

“It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room,” the author continued. “We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”

A defiant Trump, appearing at an unrelated event at the White House, lashed out at the Times for publishing the op-ed.

“They don’t like Donald Trump and I don’t like them,” he said of the newspaper. The op-ed pages of the newspaper are managed separately from its news department.

The essay immediately triggered a wild guessing game as to the author’s identity on social media, in newsrooms and inside the West Wing, where officials were blindsided by its publication.

And in a blistering statement, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused the author of choosing to “deceive” the president by remaining in the administration.

“He is not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of the will of the American people,” she said. “The coward should do the right thing and resign.”

Sanders also called on the Times to “issue an apology” for publishing the piece, calling it a “pathetic, reckless, and selfish op-ed.”

A “House of Cards”-style plot twist in an already over-the-top administration, Trump allies and political insiders scrambled late Wednesday to unmask the writer.

The text was pulled apart for clues: The writer is identified as an “administration official”; does that mean a person who works outside the White House? The references to Russia and the late Sen. John McCain — do they suggest someone working in national security? Does the writing style sound like someone who worked at a think tank? In a tweet, the Times used the pronoun “he” to refer to the writer; does that rule out all women?

The newspaper later said the tweet referring to “he” had been “drafted by someone who is not aware of the author’s identity, including the gender, so the use of ‘he’ was an error.”

Hotly debated on Twitter was the author’s use of the word “lodestar,” which pops up frequently in speeches by Vice President Mike Pence. Could the anonymous figure be someone in Pence’s orbit? Others argued that the word “lodestar” could have been included to throw people off.

Showing her trademark ability to attract attention, former administration official Omarosa Manigault Newman tweeted that clues about the writer’s identity were in her recently released tell-all book, offering a page number: 330. The reality star writes on that page: “many in this silent army are in his party, his administration, and even in his own family.”

The anonymous author wrote in the Times that where Trump has had successes, they have come “despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.”

The assertions in the column were largely in line with complaints about Trump’s behavior that have repeatedly been raised by various administration officials, often speaking on condition of anonymity. And they were published a day after the release of details from an explosive new book by longtime journalist Bob Woodward that laid bare concerns among the highest echelon of Trump aides about the president’s judgment.

The writer of the Times op-ed said Trump aides are aware of the president’s faults and “many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. I would know. I am one of them.”

The writer also alleged “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment” because of the “instability” witnessed in the president. The 25th Amendment allows the vice president to take over if the commander in chief is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It requires that the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet back relieving the president.

The writer added: “This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.”

If Trump Ever Got Impeached?

Randy Rainbow

August 27, 2018

***NEW VIDEO***

Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking.

IF YOU EVER GOT IMPEACHED – Randy Rainbow Song Parody

***NEW VIDEO***Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking. 🌪🌈🎵❤️🧠

Posted by Randy Rainbow on Monday, August 27, 2018

The GOP tax cuts for the wealthy is helping them funnel that money into the 2018 midterms.

August 28, 2018

The GOP tax cuts for the wealthy has another layer: It’s helping them funnel that money into the 2018 midterms

Robert Reich on the GOP Tax Cuts for the Rich and the 2018 Midterms

The GOP tax cuts for the wealthy has another layer: It's helping them funnel that money into the 2018 midterms

Posted by NowThis Politics on Tuesday, August 28, 2018

What does Big Sugar have to do with Florida’s toxic water problems?

Everglades-Trust shared a video.

August 27, 2018

What Floridians are enduring is decades in the making. Agricultural runoff polluting the water and Big Sugar blocking its natural flow. Bianca Graulau with 10News in Tampa Bay does a remarkable job telling the story here.

What does Big Sugar have to do with Florida's red tide?

You've been hearing a lot about the toxic algae situation in Florida. But what's causing it? @Bianca Graulau explains.https://on.wtsp.com/2oddXNH

Posted by 10News WTSP on Sunday, August 26, 2018

Paying for groceries with plastic waste! Wonderful!

World Economic Forum

August 8, 2018

You can trade it for groceries, fuel or even school fees. Learn more about the fight against plastic waste:

These stores accept plastic waste as money

You can trade it for groceries, fuel or even school fees. Learn more about the fight against plastic waste: https://wef.ch/2JC1fEx

Posted by World Economic Forum on Wednesday, August 8, 2018

A lesson on happiness from a 92 year old

Power of Positivity

A Lesson on Happiness From a 92 Year Old

I agree with her 100%!

Posted by Power of Positivity on Monday, October 30, 2017

Vote today to save the everglades and Florida waters!

Everglades-Trust

August 25, 2018

Like George was calling out Big Sugar by name: “They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else.

But I’ll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.”

VOTE ON TUESDAY AUGUST 28!

Like George was calling out Big Sugar by name: “They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.”

Posted by Everglades-Trust on Saturday, August 25, 2018

Costa Rica will be 100% renewable by 2021

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders — US Senator for Vermont

August 26, 2018

Despite Trump and Scott Pruitt, the world is making progress to address climate change. Costa Rica is proving that it’s possible to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. (via The Years Project)

Costa Rica 100% Renewable

Despite Trump and Scott Pruitt, the world is making progress to address climate change. Costa Rica is proving that it's possible to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. (via The Years Project)

Posted by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Sunday, August 26, 2018