Trump is an asshole Part MXXIV
Then-President Donald Trump nearly fired his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner from the White House via tweet, according to a new book from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
Trump raised the prospect of firing Ivanka Trump and Kushner, who were both senior White House aides, during meetings with then-chief of staff John Kelly and then-White House counsel Don McGahn, Haberman writes. At one point, he was about to tweet that his daughter and son-in-law were leaving the White House – but he was stopped by Kelly, who told Trump he had to speak with them directly first.
Trump never had such a conversation – one of numerous instances where he avoided interpersonal conflict – and Ivanka Trump and Kushner remained at the White House throughout Trump’s presidency. Still, Trump often diminished Kushner, mocking him as effete, Haberman writes.
“He sounds like a child,” Trump said after Kushner spoke publicly in 2017 following his congressional testimony, according to the book.
He doesn’t like Kushner, apparently. So I suppose he only put him in charge of virtually everything to please Ivanka?
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The book is littered with examples dating back decades that document Trump’s obsession with looks, his fixation on racial issues, his gravitation toward strongmen and his willingness to shift his beliefs to fit the moment. Trump tried to recreate the country to mimic New York’s five boroughs, Haberman writes, imagining a presidency that functioned like he was one of the city’s powerful Democratic Party bosses in control of everything.
The aides and advisers who spoke to Haberman for the book – she writes that she interviewed more than 250 people – offer a damning portrait of a commander in chief who was uninterested in learning the details of the job, who expected complete loyalty from those around him and who was most concerned with dominance, power and himself.
Haberman reports campaign aides once called Trump a “sophisticated parrot.” Trump lashed out at his top generals during an infamous meeting in the “tank,” the Pentagon’s secure conference room, because he was being told something he didn’t comprehend. “Instead of acknowledging that, he shouted down the teachers,” Haberman writes.
Kelly, his former chief of staff, is said to have described Trump as a “fascist” – uniquely unfit for the job of leading a constitutional democracy, according to Haberman, citing several who spoke to the retired Marine general.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said of the book: “While coastal elites obsess over boring books chock-full of anonymously-sourced mistruths, America is a nation in decline. President Trump is focused on saving America, and there’s nothing the fake news can do about it.”
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Haberman depicts all the organizations Trump has run – his businesses, his campaign and the White House – as dysfunctional and staffed by people who often disdained one another. His company executives referred to Trump’s company as the “Trump Disorganization,” according to the book, which includes examples of several unusual and eyebrow-raising business practices.
That dysfunction spilled into Trump’s campaign and ultimately the White House, where Trump churned through aides and Cabinet secretaries alike, dismissing the advice offered by his own staff.
When then-candidate Trump was under pressure in 2016 to denounce White supremacists like David Duke who were supporting his campaign, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was dispatched to urge Trump to be more forceful distancing himself. Trump was heard responding to Christie on the phone that he would get to it – but it didn’t have to happen too quickly, Haberman writes.
“A lot of these people vote,” Trump told Christie, before ending the call.
Following the 2017 White supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, when Trump claimed there were good people on “both sides,” Trump’s then-chief economic adviser Gary Cohn prepared a letter of resignation. Trump appealed for Cohn to stay. “If you leave, you’re committing treason,” Trump said, according to Haberman.
Cohn agreed to stay through the administration’s efforts to pass its signature tax overhaul later that year. As Cohn left the Oval Office, Kelly whispered to him: “If I were you I’d have shoved that paper up his f**king ass,” Haberman writes.
Here’s a shocker:
According to the book, several Cabinet officials believed Trump had issues with female leaders. He disliked former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and described her in a meeting as “that bitch,” Haberman writes.
Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper believed Trump’s push to withdraw US troops from Germany was purely out of personal spite, according to the author.
The book shows Trump’s failure to grasp basic policy concepts, such as Trump suggesting in an interview with Haberman that the Senate’s minority party could block legislation by skipping votes. “The vice president’s vote doesn’t count. It doesn’t count. You might want to check this,” Trump said.
When the House introduced articles of impeachment against Trump for the first time in 2019, Trump reacted with a familiar refrain, according to the book: “I’ll just sue Congress. They can’t do this to me.”
In the final year of his presidency, Trump tried to wish away the topic of coronavirus, Haberman writes, minimizing it publicly out of an apparent belief that things only existed if they were discussed openly.
Before Ginsburg’s death in 2020 created a last-minute Supreme Court vacancy that Trump filled just ahead of the presidential election, Haberman writes that Trump would make light of the justice’s deteriorating health.
Trump would clasp his hands and look skyward, Haberman writes. “Please God. Please watch over her. Every life is precious,” Trump said, before almost winking and looking at his aides. “How’s she doing?”
When another visitor came to the Oval Office, Trump asked, “She gonna make it? How much longer you think she has?”
He needed her to die because he thought he needed another vote to keep him in the White House. And yet, he is a despicable human being in every way.