President Donald Trump reacted with fury and a barrage of expletive-laden tweets to two straight days of humiliating revelations that portrayed him as an incompetent lying idiot and as a pariah intensely distrusted and despised by his own White House staff.
Trump's days of rage began Sept. 4 when excerpts from a bombshell book by that iconic investigative reporter, Bob Woodward, made its way to mainstream media. The book, Fear: Trump in the White House, cited interviews with Trump's senior advisers and White House staff to reveal how intensely hated Trump is by the people he works with,
Woodward's book, which gets to bookstores on Sept. 11, shows how senior administration officials are increasingly frustrated with Trump and are increasingly worried about his mammoth ignorance and penchant for lying.
The book quoted Chief-of-Staff John Kelly calling Trump an "idiot" and "unhinged." Kelly said it's pointless to try to convince Trump of anything because he can't seem to understand anything. He said Trump's gone off the rails (meaning he's crazy), and because of this "We're in Crazytown."
An exasperated Defense Secretary James Mattis told his staff Trump has the mental capabilities of "a fifth- or sixth-grader" after Trump's failure to grasp seemingly simple basics. John Dowd, Trump's former personal lawyer, described Trump as "a fucking liar" and "incapable of telling the truth." Dowd's observation was echoed by another Trump lawyer, Jay Sekulow, who said his boss is, in effect, a congenital liar.
As expected, Kelly, Mattis, Dowd and the others cited by Woodward denied they said those things about Trump. Mattis, for example, said the quotes attributed to him were "a product of someone's rich imagination." The White House accused Woodward of spreading "fabricated stories" about Trump.
But Trump's travails worsened by a factor of 100 the very next day when The New York Times published a letter from a high-ranking White House officer that revealed the existence of a "resistance" consisting of apparently patriotic staffers bent on undoing Trump's most dangerous actions to protect America's security and prosperity.
The unidentified officer also delivered a scathing takedown of Trump in the piece titled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration." He or she says the resistance is working to undercut Trump's reckless, and sometimes insane, demands in order to maintain the security and prosperity of the United States.
He revealed there is a quiet resistance of people choosing to put country first. He said Americans should know there are adults in the room. The resistance fully recognizes what's happening, and is trying to do what's right even when Trump won't.
The resistance consists of conservatives and right-wing Republicans and isn't the resistance of the left. This group of people believes their first duty is to this country. They noted that Trump continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
The author declares Trump's impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic, hence his affinity for dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, and his hatred of the democracies.
At the root of the problem is the president's amorality, said the writer. This person pointed out that anyone who works with Trump knows Trump doesn't have bedrock beliefs that guide his decision making.
The author said there is widespread support among the resistance for invoking the 25th Amendment that will start the complex process for removing Trump from office. But since none of them wanted to ignite a constitutional crisis, the resistance resolved to steer the administration in the right direction until -- one way or another - Trump is gone.
"The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility."
