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Bob Woodward's New Book "Fear" Features Explosive Trump Quotes From Secretary of Defense General Mattis and W.H. Chief of Staff General Kelly

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  krishna  •  6 years ago  •  26 comments

Bob Woodward's New Book "Fear" Features Explosive Trump Quotes From Secretary of Defense General Mattis and W.H. Chief of Staff General Kelly
"Gen'l Kelly allegedly called Trump 'unhinged'. "He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



TrumpMattisKelly.jpeg


WASHINGTON, DC. -  U.S. President Donald Trump (C), White House chief of staff John Kelly (R) and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis attend a briefing with senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House. (Getty Images).

Legendary reporter Bob Woodward writes notoriously long books about presidents, filled with juicy dirt obtained from White House staffers who keep their anonymity but enthusiastically sell out their co-workers. The tradition goes all the way back to Nixon (Woodward made his name covering the Watergate scandal) and covers every single president since.

Now it's President Trump's turn and " Fear " is due in stores on September 11. Copies have leaked to the press and the media is enthusiastically pulling out the most outrageous quotes. The title comes from the president himself, taken from an interview Woodward had with Trump in 2016: "Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word, 'Fear.'"

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly are the two generals who have stayed in power during the course of the Trump presidency. Woodward has collected some shockingly severe quotes that he attributes to the two men in the new book.

Mattis: "Fifth- or Sixth-Grader"


Woodward writes about a National Security Council meeting on January 19th, where the staff tried to explain to President Trump why the United States need to have a physical military presence on the Korean peninsula “Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ”

Kelly: An Idiot in Crazytown


White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly allegedly called the present "unhinged." Woodward writes that, in a small meeting, Kelly really unloaded on his boss: "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.” (Note: Kelly still  denies  that he ever called President Trump an "idiot" but doesn't come out and refute the rest of the quote.)



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Krishna
Professor Expert
1  seeder  Krishna    6 years ago

Mattis: Captured Heroes 

At a dinner with SecDef Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, the president explained that he found Sen. John McCain to be a coward because he'd accepted early release from a North Vietnamese P.O.W. camp. (Since McCain's Navy admiral father was Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Command, it would be a propaganda coup for the North Vietnamese if the future Senator left his fellow captives behind).

Trump thought his was awful. Mattis spoke up,"No, Mr. President, I think you’ve got it reversed."

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
2  seeder  Krishna    6 years ago

Mattis: Measured Response

President Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on Syrian civilians in April 2017 and President Trump wanted to assassinate the leader in response, "Let’s f**king kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the f**king lot of them." After telling his boss he'd get right on it, Mattis told a senior aide, "We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured."

 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
3  bbl-1    6 years ago

Woodward's revelations won't matter all that much.  The Trump base is stuck in retrograde and the republicans are stuck with themselves.

Money laundering with Russian connections however, is another story.  So for the moment, Woodward's book is a much needed deflection for 'the sliding president.'  And also provides another target for the president to attack and belittle.  Trump is lucky though, Kellyanne Conway is still roaming the halls and Ben Carson is safely ensconced somewhere else trying to figure how the lights work.

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
3.2  seeder  Krishna  replied to  bbl-1 @3    6 years ago
Woodward's revelations won't matter all that much.  The Trump base is stuck in retrograde and the republicans are stuck with themselves.

I don't think anything can move the "Trump Base". Heck, he could even shoot someone on 5th Avenue and they'd still support him (pretty clever of me to make up that saying, eh? :-). And Democrats already are opposed to Trump.

But those facts might have an effect on some of the "independents" and previously "undecideds", plus some of the more intelligent Republicans. (Maybe not that info all by itself-- but its part of the cumulative impact of recent news..)

 
 
 
lennylynx
Sophomore Quiet
4  lennylynx    6 years ago

Bob Woodward is a national treasure.

 
 
 
Skrekk
Sophomore Participates
4.1  Skrekk  replied to  lennylynx @4    6 years ago

This summary has some juicy stuff:

John Dowd was convinced that President Trump would commit perjury if he talked to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. So, on Jan. 27, the president’s then-personal attorney staged a practice session to try to make his point.

In the White House residence, Dowd peppered Trump with questions about the Russia investigation, provoking stumbles, contradictions and lies until the president eventually lost his cool.

“This thing’s a goddamn hoax,” Trump erupted at the start of a 30-minute rant that finished with him saying, “I don’t really want to testify.”

.

Woodward depicts Trump’s anger and paranoia about the Russia inquiry as unrelenting, at times paralyzing the West Wing for entire days. Learning of the appointment of Mueller in May 2017, Trump groused, “Everybody’s trying to get me”— part of a venting period that shellshocked aides compared to Richard Nixon’s final days as president.

.

A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump’s inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.

Woodward describes “an administrative coup d’etat” and a “nervous breakdown” of the executive branch, with senior aides conspiring to pluck official papers from the president’s desk so he couldn’t see or sign them.

Again and again, Woodward recounts at length how Trump’s national security team was shaken by his lack of curiosity and knowledge about world affairs and his contempt for the mainstream perspectives of military and intelligence leaders.

At a National Security Council meeting on Jan. 19, Trump disregarded the significance of the massive U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula, including a special intelligence operation that allows the United States to detect a North Korean missile launch in seven seconds vs. 15 minutes from Alaska, according to Woodward. Trump questioned why the government was spending resources in the region at all.

“We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told him.

After Trump left the meeting, Woodward recounts, “Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ”

.

In Woodward’s telling, many top advisers were repeatedly unnerved by Trump’s actions and expressed dim views of him. “Secretaries of defense don’t always get to choose the president they work for,” Mattis told friends at one point, prompting laughter as he explained Trump’s tendency to go off on tangents about subjects such as immigration and the news media.

Inside the White House, Woodward portrays an unsteady executive detached from the conventions of governing and prone to snapping at high-ranking staff members, whom he unsettled and belittled on a daily basis.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly frequently lost his temper and told colleagues that he thought the president was “unhinged,” Woodward writes. In one small group meeting, Kelly said of 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.”

.

A near-constant subject of withering presidential attacks was Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump told Porter that Sessions was a “traitor” for recusing himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, Woodward writes. Mocking Sessions’s accent , Trump added: “This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner. . . . He couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.”

.

After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017, Trump called Mattis and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator. “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump said, according to Woodward.

Mattis told the president that he would get right on it. But after hanging up the phone, he told a senior aide: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.” The national security team developed options for the more conventional airstrike that Trump ultimately ordered.

.

Cohn, a Wall Street veteran, tried to tamp down Trump’s strident nationalism regarding trade. According to Woodward, Cohn “stole a letter off Trump’s desk” that the president was intending to sign to formally withdraw the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Cohn later told an associate that he removed the letter to protect national security and that Trump did not notice that it was missing. [..]

Cohn came to regard the president as “a professional liar” and threatened to resign in August 2017 over Trump’s handling of a deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Cohn, who is Jewish, was especially shaken when one of his daughters found a swastika on her college dorm room.

When Cohn met with Trump to deliver his resignation letter after Charlottesville, the president told him, “This is treason,” and persuaded his economic adviser to stay on. Kelly then confided to Cohn that he shared Cohn’s horror at Trump’s handling of the tragedy — and shared Cohn’s fury with Trump.

“I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times,” Kelly told Cohn, according to Woodward. Kelly himself has threatened to quit several times but has not done so.

.

The book vividly recounts the ongoing debate between Trump and his attorneys about whether the president would sit for an interview with Mueller. On March 5, Dowd and Trump attorney Jay Sekulow met in Mueller’s office with the special counsel and his deputy, James Quarles, where Dowd and Sekulow reenacted Trump’s January practice session.

Dowd then explained to Mueller and Quarles why he was trying to keep the president from testifying: “I’m not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot. And you publish that transcript, because everything leaks in Washington, and the guys overseas are going to say, ‘I told you he was an idiot. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell. What are we dealing with this idiot for?’ ”

“John, I understand,” Mueller replied, according to Woodward.

Later that month, Dowd told Trump: “Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit.”

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
5  MrFrost    6 years ago

Trumps own staff urged him to NOT agree to meet with Mueller because trump is incapable of telling the truth.

That's fucking sad. Even sadder? There are trump supporters that literally think he has never told even ONE lie. 

 
 
 
Skrekk
Sophomore Participates
5.1  Skrekk  replied to  MrFrost @5    6 years ago

This part was revealing.....apparently Trump's only regret in life is that he once condemned neo-Nazis:

Gary Cohn came to regard the president as “a professional liar” and threatened to resign in August 2017 over Trump’s handling of a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Cohn, who is Jewish, was especially shaken when one of his daughters found a swastika on her college dorm room. Trump was sharply criticized for initially saying that “both sides” were to blame. At the urging of advisers, he then condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis, but almost immediately told aides, “That was the biggest fucking mistake I’ve made” and the “worst speech I’ve ever given,” according to Woodward’s account.
 
 
 
Bob Nelson
Professor Guide
6  Bob Nelson    6 years ago

Does anyone still imagine that the WH is anything other than a madhouse?

We elected a nutcase, and now we are surprised to find that he runs the country like a nutcase would...

Gosh.

 
 
 
Skrekk
Sophomore Participates
6.1  Skrekk  replied to  Bob Nelson @6    6 years ago

Here's a good article series about the political divide:

The numbers don't add up well for the GOP, not in the short or the long term.

 
 
 
Bob Nelson
Professor Guide
6.1.1  Bob Nelson  replied to  Skrekk @6.1    6 years ago

Excellent link - it deserves a seed.

I'm afraid that the numbers don't matter any more. The Republicans hold the judiciary, and will continue to hold it for decades... and most importantly, the judges are not democrats (lower-case "d").

Trump has shredded one democratic norm after another, while the Republican Party has looked on. The shredding will continue, with the judges leading the movement. Democracy is finished in America, and is only pretending to continue to exist...

 
 
 
Bob Nelson
Professor Guide
7  Bob Nelson    6 years ago

Some sage advice for Donald Trump about picking a fight with Bob Woodward, from Donald Trump

Legendary journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book about the Trump White House portrays President Donald Trump as a petulant hothead . Trump’s response is to go on the attack against Woodward, as he did in an interview with the Daily Caller Monday:

“It’s just another bad book. He’s had a lot of credibility problems,” Trump declared, adding, “I probably would have preferred to speak to him, but maybe not. I think it probably wouldn’t have made a difference in the book. He wanted to write the book a certain way.” “It’s just nasty stuff. I never spoke to him. Maybe I wasn’t given messages that he called. I probably would have spoken to him if he’d called, if he’d gotten through. For some reason I didn’t get messages on it.”

In doing so, Trump is (unsurprisingly) ignoring the counsel of everyone from reporter Jonathan Swan of Axios to former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer , who have warned that it won’t be as easy to blow off Bob Woodward as it was to blow off unflattering portrayals in books from Michael Wolff and Omarosa Manigault.

But perhaps the president might listen to a man he once named as his No. 1 adviser : Donald J. Trump.

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For the record, the “attack” Trump referenced in his 2013 tweet didn’t come from Obama himself. The “attack” was a shouting match between Woodward and Gene Sperling, who at the time headed Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, after Woodward wrote a piece blaming Obama for a failure to compromise on the federal budget. (In the absence of a deal between Obama and congressional Republicans, automatic and painful budget cuts went into effect via the sequester.)

Sperling then emailed Woodward and predicted he “will regret staking out that claim” — a quote that conservative commentators portrayed as a threat (even though Sperling said it in the context of apologizing to Woodward for raising his voice).

Is Trump’s recent statement more of an “attack” on Woodward than when Trump personally told Woodward by phone (months before the book came out) that his book was inaccurate because it didn’t portray him as the best president ever, then accused Woodward of having had “a lot of credibility problems”? That’s a matter for 2018 Donald Trump and 2013 Donald Trump to hash out.

As much fun as the find-the-old-Trump-tweet game is, though, Trump probably will get away with attacking Bob Woodward. He’s gotten away with attacking pretty much every other publication and journalist who’s gotten enough insight and access into the Trump White House to reveal what an absolute shambles the day-to-day management of it is, and how impetuous and capricious the president can be.

As appealing as it might be to believe that Woodward’s Watergate record will give him more credibility with voters than everything else we know about how Trump makes decisions, the publication of Woodward’s book — in the absence of action from Republicans in Congress (or, theoretically, within the Cabinet) — won’t automatically make Donald Trump any less of a president of the United States.

 
 
 
luther28
Sophomore Silent
8  luther28    6 years ago

I really see no revelations here that most of us were not already aware of (that is if you have been paying attention).

A plus here is Mr. Woodward's credibility, while previous authors claims may have come into question, the only question here should be: When will that spineless group in the Legislative branch actually stand up and do something about it?

 
 
 
Bob Nelson
Professor Guide
8.1  Bob Nelson  replied to  luther28 @8    6 years ago
When will that spineless group in the Legislative branch actually stand up and do something about it?

Never, of course.

They agree.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
9  Kavika     6 years ago

Donald-Trump-Memes10.jpg

 
 

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