Labor Day week was a bad one for the Donald Trump administration.
On September 4, the PBS Newshour carried the following story: “Woodward’s White House Book Portrays Officials Trying to Rein in Trump.”
Specifically: Bob Woodward, the two-time Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter and associate editor for The Washington Post, had written a new book about the Trump White House. Its title gave away the contents: Fear: Trump in the White House.
The book will hit bookstores on September 11. But advance copies had clearly been leaked to reviewers.
Among the revelations:
- Former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn believed that Trump would sign a letter canceling a free-trade agreement with South Korea. So he stole the letter from Trump’s desk. Trump “did not notice it was missing.”
- Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described Trump as “a fucking moron.”
- After failing to explain to Trump the importance of American defenses in South Korea, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that Trump “acted like—and had the understanding of—‘a fifth or sixth-grader.'”
- White House Chief of Staff John Kelly privately vented his contempt for Trump: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”
- Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow tried to argue to Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Trump could not be asked to give an interview because he is a compulsive liar.
Woodward’s book is the third to attack Trump this year.
In January, Michael Wolff’s scathing volume, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, sent the Trump and his lackeys into a frenzy.
Then, in August, came Omarosa Manigault-Newman’s Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House. Unlike Wolff, Manigault-Newman had been a longtime Trump follower privy to some of his darkest secrets. Now she chose to reveal them.
Trump predictably slandered Woodward: “It’s just another bad book. He’s had a lot of credibility problems.” And: “The book means nothing, it’s a work of fiction … He had the same problem with other presidents.”
Actually, it’s Trump who has a credibility problem—with The Washington Post finding that, by August 1, he had told 4,229 lies since taking office on January 20, 2017.
Bob Woodward
And Trump had undercut himself during a recorded interview with Woodward. On August 14, he called Woodward after hearing reports about the upcoming book.
Woodward said he was sorry that Trump refused to give him an interview for the book, despite his making several requests.
“It’s really too bad, because nobody told me about it,” said Trump. “You know I’m very open to you. I think you’ve always been fair.”
And then, on September 5, Trump was rocked by another scandal: The New York Times published an anonymous Op-Ed essay.
The Op-Ed confirmed much of what reviewers had said appeared in Woodward’s book. And what made it devastating was that the author was identified as “a senior official in the Trump administration.”
The writer called himself a member of “The Resistance.” And he claimed that “many of the senior officials in [Trump’s] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
Among his revelations:
- “The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”
- “From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.”
- “Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.”
- Trump had opposed expelling “so many of Mr. [Vladimir] Putin’s spies” in retaliation for the poisoning of a former Russian spy living in Britain. He also opposed putting further sanctions on Russia “for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better—such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.”
The publishing of the Op-Ed by an anonymous writer touched off a furious guessing game among Washington reporters and ordinary citizens.
Donald Trump
It also triggered a volcanic rage in Trump, who told reporters: “If the failing New York Times has an anonymous anonymous can you believe it, meaning gutless! A gutless editorial.”
Trump labeled the editorial an act of treason—although no State secrets had been revealed, and “leaking” is a routine occurrence among officials at every government agency.
Two days after the editorial appeared, on September 7, Trump told reporters on Air Force One: “Yeah, I would say [Attorney General] Jeff [Sessions] should be investigating who the author of this piece was because I really believe it’s national security,”
Asked if the Justice Department would investigate a case where no national security secrets had been leaked, Sarah Flores, the agency’s spokeswoman, said only: “We do not confirm or deny investigations.”
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AP, BOB WOODWARD, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DONALD TRUMP, ERIC COHN, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEAR: TRUMP IN THE WHITE HOUSE (BOOK), FRANCE, FRANZ HALDER, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, GUNTER MEISNER, HERMAN WOUK, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOHN DOWD, KIM JONG ON, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, RUSSIA, SALLY YATES, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOUTH KOREA, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WINDS OF WAR, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WALTER VON BRAUCHITSCH, WORLD WAR 11
“BOXING IN” HITLER AND TRUMP
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 12, 2018 at 12:10 amAfter Donald Trump won the 2016 election, many people feared he would embark on a radical Right-wing agenda. But others hoped that the Washington bureaucracy would “box him in.”
The same sentiments echoed throughout Germany after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.
The 1983 TV mini-series, The Winds of War, offered a dramatic example of how honorable men can be overwhelmed by a ruthless dictator.
Based on the bestselling 1971 historical novel by Herman Wouk, the mini-series factually re-created the major historical events of World War II.
One of those events took place on November 5, 1939.
General Walther von Brauchitsch is summoned to the Chancellery in Berlin to meet with Adolf Hitler. He carries a memorandum signed by all the leaders of the German Wehrmacht asserting that Case Yellow—Hitler’s planned attack against France—is impossible.
Meanwhile, at the German army headquarters at Zossen, in Berlin, the Wehrmacht’s top command wait for word from von Brauchitsch.
ZOSSEN:
Brigadier General Armin von Roon: I must confide in you on a very serious matter. I have been approached by certain army personages of the loftiest rank and prestige with a frightening proposal.
Chief of the General Staff Franz Halder: What did you reply?
Von Roon: That they were talking high treason.
Gunter Meisner as Adolf Hitler in “The Winds of War”
THE WHITE HOUSE:
Fast forward 79 years from Adolf Hitler’s stormy confrontation with Walter von Brauchitsch to September 5, 2018.
On September 5, 2018, The New York Times publishes an anonymous Op-Ed essay by “a senior official in the Trump administration.” This spotlights massiver dysfunction within the White House—and put the blame squarely on the President.
Among the revelations:
ZOSSEN:
Von Roon: The conspiracy has been going on that long—since Czechoslovakia [1938)?
Halder: If the British had not caved in at Munich [where France and Britain sold out their ally, Czechoslovakia]—perhaps. But they did. And ever then, ever since his big triumph, it has been hopeless. Hopeless.
Von Roon: Empty talk, talk, talk. I am staggered.
Halder: A hundred times I myself could have shot the man. I can still at any time. But what would be the result? Chaos. The people are for him. He has unified the country. We must stick to our posts and save him from making military mistakes.
THE WHITE HOUSE:
On September 11, 2018, legendary investigative reporter Bob Woodward publishes a devastating take on the Trump administration: Fear: Trump in the White House. The text features explosive revelations about the President’s ignorance and mistreatment of staffers:
General Walther von Brauchitsch fails to convince Hitler to postpone “Case Yellow”—the invasion of France. Hitler insists that it commence in seven days—on November 12.
And he issues a warning to the entire German General staff: “I will ruthlessly crush everybody up to the rank of a Field Marshal who dares to oppose me. You don’t have to understand. You only have to obey. The German people understand me. I am Germany.”
Due to foul weather, Hitler is forced to postpone the invasion of France until June, 1940. But the German General staff can’t ultimately put off the war that will destroy them—and Germany.
President Donald Trump has:
Like Hitler, he can equally say: I am the destiny of America.
History has yet to record if Trump’s subordinates will prove more successful than Hitler’s at preserving “our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
Share this:
Like this: