From "Let's F**king
Kill Him" to "We're in Crazytown"
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"He's an idiot. It's pointless to try to convince him of
anything. He's gone off the rails. We're in Crazytown."
—John Kelly, White House chief of staff
—John Kelly, White House chief of staff
According to the Post—where Woodward has worked as a
reporter and editor for decades—the "thrust" of Fear: Trump
in the White House "mostly focuses on substantive decisions and
internal disagreements, including tensions with North Korea as well as the
future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan."
But these substantive decisions and disagreements often produced
startling moments in which the president revealed his total ignorance and lack
of fitness for office.
"He's an idiot. It's pointless to try to convince him of
anything," White House Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly complained
during a small group meeting. "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."
Here are some of the most revealing and disturbing excerpts from
Woodward's book, which will be published on Sept. 11.
After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was accused of carrying out a chemical attack against civilians last April, Trump told Defense
Secretary James Mattis that he wanted to invade Syria and assassinate Assad,
Woodward writes.
"Let's fucking kill him! Let's go in. Let's kill the
fucking lot of them," Trump reportedly told Mattis in a phone call.
According to Woodward's account—which he says is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with top White House officials—Mattis told Trump he
would get right on it, but then hung up the phone and told a senior aide,
"We're not going to do any of that."
"You don't need a strategy to kill people."
During a meeting last July, Trump's national security advisers attempted to
"educate" the president on foreign policy.
The gathering quickly went awry, however, when Trump decided to
unload on his generals for attempting to discuss Afghanistan strategy.
"You should be killing guys. You don't need a strategy to
kill people," Trump said, according to Woodward.
"Don't testify. It's either that or an orange jumpsuit."
Despite Trump's reported insistence that he would be "a
real good witness" in an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller,
the president's former lawyer John Dowd—who resigned in March—firmly believed
that Trump would commit perjury if he talked to Mueller.
According to Woodward, Dowd explained to Mueller in January that
he did not want the president to do an interview because he didn't want to
"sit there and let him look like an idiot."
The president's attorney also worried that if a transcript of
the interview leaked, as it inevitably would, people would say, "I told
you he was an idiot. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell. What are we dealing
with this idiot for?"
Dowd later pleaded with Trump directly: "Don't testify.
It's either that or an orange jumpsuit."
"He's this dumb Southerner"
Trump has a well-known habit of berating Attorney General Jeff
Sessions in public, but according to Woodward, Trump uses far more abrasive and
offensive language to ridicule Sessions behind closed doors.
"This guy is mentally retarded," Trump said of the
former Alabama senator he picked to lead the Justice Department. "He's
this dumb Southerner... He couldn't even be a one-person country lawyer down in
Alabama."
"An administrative coup d'etat"
Reportedly alarmed by Trump's volatile combination of ignorance
and impulsiveness, Woodward reports that top White House aides devised a
strategy of stealing documents from the president's desk so he wouldn't see or
sign them.
In Woodward's account, last spring former National Economic
Council director Gary Cohn swiped "a letter off Trump's desk" the
president planned to sign that would have withdrawn the U.S. from a trade
agreement with South Korea.
Cohn later told an associate that Trump never noticed the letter
was missing.