Hitmen on the grift
by digby
Lewandowski and Bossie have a new book coming out:
“Trump’s Enemies,” which is 288 pages and published by Center Street, is a sequel to the first book Lewandowski and Bossie wrote together, the campaign memoir “Let Trump Be Trump,” which was released last year.
Lewandowski and Bossie met with Trump in the Oval Office on Sept. 20 for a friendly interview, an edited transcript of which appears in the new book. Trump told the authors that he considers the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to have helped him politically.
“I think it makes my base stronger,” Trump said in the interview. “I would have never said this to you. But I think the level of love now is far greater than when we won. I don’t know, what do you think, Mike?”
Vice President Pence, who sat in for a portion of the interview, replied, “As strong or stronger.”
Good God, he loves the taste of Trump’s boots.
Trump spent much of the interview complaining about the news media. When Bossie asked him who or what is his biggest enemy, Trump replied: “The greatest enemy of this country is Fake News. I really mean it.” He went on to say, “I think that one of the most important things that I’ve done, especially for the public, is explain that a lot of the news is indeed fake.”
Trump told Lewandowski and Bossie that he regrets not immediately dismissing James B. Comey as FBI director. “I should have fired him the day after I won and announced please get the hell out,” Trump said. The president also said congressional Republicans “let me down” by not fighting harder to secure funding to construct a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Lewandowski and Bossie use their book to settle scores with a number of fellow Trump advisers. They refer to Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who are cooperating with Mueller’s investigation, each as a “rat.”
The authors describe a cohort of White House aides — including former press secretary Sean Spicer and former deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin — as “the November Ninth Club,” arguing that they are establishment Republicans who did not fully support Trump until the day after he was elected, when they began angling for powerful government jobs.
Lewandowski and Bossie also savage former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn as a “limousine liberal” and “the poster boy for the disloyal staff conspiring against President Trump.” And they accuse former staff secretary Rob Porter of working to thwart Trump’s agenda and style to make him more traditionally “presidential.”
The narrative reads in part like Trump’s Twitter grievances in book form. Lewandowski and Bossie write at length about the same FBI and Justice Department officials whose names pepper so many presidential tweets — Comey, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and Sally Yates. And they go after the same intelligence officials that Trump often targets — James R. Clapper Jr. and John Brennan — and accuse them of wanting to “nullify the election and bring down the president” by detailing Russia’s interference.
The authors also go after many of Trump’s Democratic foes. They refer to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) as “crazy”; call Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) “many people’s favorite liberal wacko”; and label Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) an “enemy of President Trump.” They also spell out former president Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, echoing a common Republican tactic meant to falsely suggest that the 44th president is a Muslim.
Like Trump, the authors use colorful language to dismiss the Russia investigation, specifically the notion that the Trump campaign conspired with Russians, as a made-up excuse for Democrats losing the 2016 election. They call it “a sweeping work of fiction so complex, so audacious, so unbelievable that if they gave out awards for bad excuses, the Democrats would win an Oscar, an Emmy, and maybe even the Heisman Trophy.”
I’m sure Trump’s cult will love it.
Bossie is a professional character assasin. That he’s using his dark gifts to hit Republicans is new. I guess he figures Trump is the GOP future.
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