Oh My God, he’s even dumber and more unstable than we knew. This is bad.
This excerpt from the new book by Leonnig and Rucker called “A Very Stable Genius” is stunning. It had been leaked before that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had called Trump a “fucking moron” after a meeting at the Pentagon when members of the administration attempted to educate him about — well, everything. We knew that he said he wanted to bring the nuclear arsenal back to the level it was at the cold war but it’s always been a mystery as to what exactly made Tillerson blurt out that comment in a room full of Generals and other high-level members of the administration.
Now we know:
Trump organized his unorthodox worldview under the simplistic banner of “America First,” but Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn feared his proposals were rash, barely considered, and a danger to America’s superpower standing. They also felt that many of Trump’s impulsive ideas stemmed from his lack of familiarity with U.S. history and, even, where countries were located. To have a useful discussion with him, the trio agreed, they had to create a basic knowledge, a shared language.
So on July 20, 2017, Mattis invited Trump to the Tank for what he, Tillerson, and Cohn had carefully organized as a tailored tutorial. What happened inside the Tank that day crystallized the commander in chief’s berating, derisive and dismissive manner, foreshadowing decisions such as the one earlier this month that brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. The Tank meeting was a turning point in Trump’s presidency. Rather than getting him to appreciate America’s traditional role and alliances, Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses. […]
What follows is such an amazing story that it makes it even more shocking that Republicans have circled the wagons so tightly around him. They are all traitors as far as I’m concerned:
Just before 10 a.m. on a scorching summer Thursday, Trump arrived at the Pentagon. He stepped out of his motorcade, walked along a corridor with portraits honoring former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and stepped inside the Tank. The uniformed officers greeted their commander in chief. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. sat in the seat of honor midway down the table, because this was his room, and Trump sat at the head of the table facing a projection screen. Mattis and the newly confirmed deputy defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, sat to the president’s left, with Vice President Pence and Tillerson to his right. Down the table sat the leaders of the military branches, along with Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon was in the outer ring of chairs with other staff, taking his seat just behind Mattis and directly in Trump’s line of sight.
They had put together a presentation using terms they thought would appeal to the braindead president. It wasn’t good. They wrote things like “the post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation” and gave a 20-minute presentation about the alliances that keep the world safe. They greatly misunderstood how he thinks:
…His ricocheting attention span led him to repeatedly interrupt the lesson. He heard an adviser say a word or phrase and then seized on that to interject with his take. For instance, the word “base” prompted him to launch in to say how “crazy” and “stupid” it was to pay for bases in some countries.
Trump’s first complaint was to repeat what he had vented about to his national security adviser months earlier: South Korea should pay for a $10 billion missile defense system that the United States built for it. The system was designed to shoot down any short- and medium-range ballistic missiles from North Korea to protect South Korea and American troops stationed there. But Trump argued that the South Koreans should pay for it, proposing that the administration pull U.S. troops out of the region or bill the South Koreans for their protection.
“We should charge them rent,” Trump said of South Korea. “We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.”
Trump went into his usual idiotic rap about NATO, saying they were worthless freeloaders because they didn’t “pay their dues.” He yelled at the Generals for letting them get away with it and scolded top officials for the fact that they didn’t collect the money.
It was all money, money, money, that’s all he knows or cares about. He is unable to see the world in any other terms.
“We are owed money you haven’t been collecting!” Trump told them. “You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business.”
He would know. His businesses went bankrupt four times and his daddy bailed him out of every other hare-brained scheme he got into.
Mattis tried to explain that alliances are important to American defense.
“This is what keeps us safe,” Mattis said. Cohn tried to explain to Trump that he needed to see the value of the trade deals. “These are commitments that help keep us safe,” Cohn said.
Trump ignored them and started babbling about how he wanted to tear up the Iran nuclear deal.
“It’s the worst deal in history!” Trump declared.
“Well, actually . . .,” Tillerson interjected
“I don’t want to hear it,” Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement. “They’re cheating. They’re building. We’re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.”
Then he jumped to Afghanistan demanding to know why American hadn’t “won” yet.
Trump unleashed his disdain, calling Afghanistan a “loser war.” That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military leaders at the table but also the men and women in uniform sitting along the back wall behind their principals. They all were sworn to obey their commander in chief’s commands, and here he was calling the war they had been fighting a loser war.
“You’re all losers,” Trump said. “You don’t know how to win anymore.”
Then he started in on the war crimes:
Trump questioned why the United States couldn’t get some oil as payment for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. “We spent $7 trillion; they’re ripping us off,” Trump boomed. “Where is the f—ing oil?”
Trump mused about removing General John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in charge of troops in Afghanistan. “I don’t think he knows how to win,” the president said, impugning Nicholson, who was not present at the meeting.
“I want to win,” he said. “We don’t win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we’re not winning anymore.”
That’s your isolationist peacenik president expressing his belief that America should be a kinder, gentler nation that doesn’t use the military to achieve its goals.
Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn’t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.
“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass.
Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”
The book describes the scene that followed and it’s really something:
For a president known for verbiage he euphemistically called “locker room talk,” this was the gravest insult he could have delivered to these people, in this sacred space. The flag officers in the room were shocked. Some staff began looking down at their papers, rearranging folders, almost wishing themselves out of the room. A few considered walking out. They tried not to reveal their revulsion on their faces, but questions raced through their minds. “How does the commander in chief say that?” one thought. “What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?”
[…]
Tillerson in particular was stunned by Trump’s diatribe and began visibly seething. For too many minutes, others in the room noticed, he had been staring straight, dumbfounded, at Mattis, who was speechless, his head bowed down toward the table. Tillerson thought to himself, “Gosh darn it, Jim, say something. Why aren’t you saying something?”
Still a good question. This makes me wonder if they really would refuse to follow an unlawful order as everyone assures us they would do.
The more perplexing silence was from Pence, a leader who should have been able to stand up to Trump. Instead, one attendee thought, “He’s sitting there frozen like a statue. Why doesn’t he stop the president?” Another recalled the vice president was “a wax museum guy.” From the start of the meeting, Pence looked as if he wanted to escape and put an end to the president’s torrent. Surely, he disagreed with Trump’s characterization of military leaders as “dopes and babies,” considering his son, Michael, was a Marine first lieutenant then training for his naval aviator wings. But some surmised Pence feared getting crosswise with Trump. “A total deer in the headlights,” recalled a third attendee.
A profile in courage to be sure. But what would anyone expect from him? Anyone who would agree to be Trump’s lapdog is not someone we could expect to ever stand up to him. I hope everyone remembers this when Pence inevitably runs for president.
Others at the table noticed Trump’s stream of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by a president who had not. They felt sick to their stomachs. Tillerson told others he thought he saw a woman in the room silently crying. He was furious and decided he couldn’t stand it another minute. His voice broke into Trump’s tirade, this one about trying to make money off U.S. troops.
“No, that’s just wrong,” the secretary of state said. “Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.”
Tillerson’s father and uncle had both been combat veterans, and he was deeply proud of their service.
“The men and women who put on a uniform don’t do it to become soldiers of fortune,” Tillerson said. “That’s not why they put on a uniform and go out and die . . . They do it to protect our freedom.”
There was silence in the Tank. Several military officers in the room were grateful to the secretary of state for defending them when no one else would. The meeting soon ended and Trump walked out, saying goodbye to a group of servicemen lining the corridor as he made his way to his motorcade waiting outside. Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn were deflated. Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard.
“He’s a f—ing moron,” the secretary of state said of the president.
They thought they could educate him that they could make him understand what the job of president actually is. It was impossible. He is a headstrong, spoiled little child, in over his head, but such an egomaniac that he thinks he can bluster through it by simply making decisions on the fly without any consideration of the facts or grasp of the consequences.
“We were starting to get out on the wrong path, and we really needed to have a course correction and needed to educate, to teach, to help him understand the reason and basis for a lot of these things,” said one senior official involved in the planning. “We needed to change how he thinks about this, to course correct. Everybody was on board, 100 percent agreed with that sentiment. [But] they were dismayed and in shock when not only did it not have the intended effect, but he dug in his heels and pushed it even further on the spectrum, further solidifying his views.”
The people in the meeting decided to cover up what they knew. They described his ignorant temper tantrums like this in public:
“He asked a lot of hard questions, and the one thing he does is question some fundamental assumptions that we make as military leaders — and he will come in and question those,” Dunford told Mitchell on July 22. “It’s a pretty energetic and an interactive dialogue.”
These people should have to answer for their cowardice. I know there’s no rulebook for some like Trump but there was no rules book for Hitler or Osama bin Laden either. These leaders are expected to stand up when the country is threatened. And there is no doubt that it was threatened and still is, maybe more than ever.
The whole story is even worse than what I’ve excerpted above. If you can read the Washington Post story or even the book, I urge you to do it. I only wish the Republican establishment cared enough about this to read it as well but they don’t. They care about their own political futures and are afraid that Trump will destroy them with his cult.
And many of them may actually be as mind-blowingly stupid as he is as well and they don’t see what a problem it is to have such an arrogant moron running the world’s only superpower. If there’s one thing right-wingers take as an article of faith it’s that expertise is nothing but a scam and the guy at the end of the bar can run the world better than the pointy-headed elites. They got what they wanted.
We won’t find out if a majority of Americans agree until next fall. I’m not sure if enough of them do, honestly.