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He refused to fully acknowledge that Russia had tried to help him win the 2016 election, despite conclusive evidence. He sought to thwart the Justice Department’s investigation of Russia’s election interference—and, after Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel, tried to have him removed. Yet
Behind-the-scenes revelations of tumult and lawlessness spilled forth daily. Whistle-blowers stood up in dark corners of the federal bureaucracy to bring light to corruption and malfeasance. The president’s state of mind was obvious to anyone. But the greater and perhaps more shocking meaning of the events of Trump’s first term, beyond the daily news cycle, has not yet been made clear. “I’ve served the man for two years. I think he’s a long-term and immediate danger to the country,” a senior national security official told us.
sprinkle in compliments of him. “It was all advice on how to handle a difficult teenager—a very sensitive, touchy teenager,” Araud recalled. “So you have six adults trying not to excite him, and they are facing somebody who has no restraint and no limits. To be the adult in the room is to suffer the tantrum of the kid and not to take it seriously.”
think that would qualify as not smart, but genius . . . and a very stable genius at that!”
Trump invoked the “stable genius” phrase at least four additional times.
Peter Wehner, who served in the Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations. An early and outspoken critic of Trump’s, Wehner was one of the first Republicans to warn publicly about his psychological unfitness
“He is a transgressive personality, so he likes to attack and destroy and unsettle people,” Wehner said.
So he doesn’t have any regard for institutions, the role they play, why they’re important, and he delights in tearing them down.”
“Rage and phrenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”
recommendation. It was around 6:00 p.m. Trump said he wanted both on his desk
Ruddy said in an appearance on the PBS NewsHour that Trump was weighing whether to terminate the special counsel, a revelation that transfixed Washington.
