Bob Woodward Just Saying Trump More Braindead Than You Ever Imagined
HOLY RACHEL MADDOW INTERVIEW.
Please stop what you are doing, because if you did not see Rachel Maddow's interview with Bob Woodward, you need to DO THAT, because Woodward has things to say to us. He's been writing about presidents going back to Nixon, but in his own words, his new book is different. This time it's a warning.
Maddow introduced the interview by breaking some more news from the book. For instance, this scene when Trump suddenly tweeted something about a secret Ukrainian influence campaign to help Hillary Clinton and hurt Trump -- you know, like the Opposite Day Ukrainian version of what Russia did and continues to do for Trump!
He did tweet that, on July 25, 2017, and he @'ed Sean Hannity in it.
Trouble is, it was Russian propaganda, and it had somehow ended up inside the president's small childish brain. And everybody on Trump's national security team knew it already!
Maddow reports that the very next line in the book was McMaster saying he wasn't sure how much longer he could stay working there in Fucking Crazy Land.
Dwell on that for a second. Trump literally tweets Russian propaganda, and even his own people in the White House know he's doing it, and they can't seem to stop him. (We guess "Anonymous" from theNew York Times was off work that day.)
Maddow shared a couple more book excerpts, including a very enticing thing that suggests maybe Donald Trump was in on Michael Flynn's secret conversations about Russian sanctions with the Russian ambassador when they were happening (during the transition, before Flynn was hired and then fired supposedly for lying to Mike Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador), and then introduced Woodward.
The point Bob Woodward wants us to understand is that it's not that Donald Trump is a stupid dumb idiot who doesn't know things. A lot of people don't know things! It's that even now, almost two years into his failed presidency, Trump is completely unwilling or unable to learn new things, even when his own people present him with reality. Woodward is particularly horrified by a conversation we read in the first excerpts that leaked, where Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had to explain to a president who refused to understand that the reason we invest so much in a military presence on the Korean peninsula isn't just for shits and giggles, but rather to literally prevent World War 3. Mattis reportedly came out of that meeting "exasperated and alarmed" that the president is dumber than a fifth grader.
Maddow said that, "as a citizen," she's much more worried about a president that's "wrong in the head" than she is about one who's simply "wrong," and clarified that she wasn't just being a silly goose when she said that. Woodward responded:
WOODWARD: There's a scene in the book where he starts talking about the World Trade Organization. [...] And he said, "This is the worst organization in the world!" And the advisers who were experts say, "No!" And Trump says, "Well, we lose our cases there!" And they bring out the document. "No, we win 85.7 percent of the cases." [...] And Trump says, "No, that's not true!" And they say, "Bring in your trade representative. Call him. Ask him." Trump: "I won't do that! I don't want to!" He closes his mind to the information that makes it possible for the president to weigh arguments and data.
There's one point where he's literally saying, they're saying, "Where did you get these ideas?" "I've had them for 30 years!" That's it . "YOU'RE WRONG!" That's it. If you are the most ardent Trump supporter, that has got to give you pause that the White House and government are being managed this way.
In other words, when Wonkette uses this picture of Trump, we are being SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE, because it really, really is this bad.
And this is how everything is, says Woodward. Trump wakes up on the wrong side of the shitter and decides to do something. He's told by HIS OWN EXPERTS, no, please don't do that. He goes ahead and announces the thing anyway, and then the people in the White House are responsible for walking it back or covering it up or pretending it never happened.
Here's the full interview, which will be removed from YouTube five minutes from now:
We'll end this post with one more little tidbit Maddow shared from the book, of what happened when Donald Trump learned from his former Russia lawyer John Dowd (who seems to be a major source for this book) that his conversations with former White House Russia lawyer Ty Cobb weren't privileged the same way his conversations with Dowd were:
LOL sad! Bet Ty Cobb's been spending a lot of time in Robert Mueller's office like a common Don McGahn!
In summary and in conclusion, the president is a fucking moron, please put him in jail now.
And America, BE AFRAID. Be VERY AFRAID.
Oh, and buy Bob Woodward's book if you wanna.
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This was every bit as bad a situation as we've been lead to believe. Why we can't just send some burly dude into the White House with a straight-jacket is beyond my comprehension.
I suspect someone had to tell Usay what a shekel was first.