The leaks are starting from the Bob Woodward book, Fear: Trump in the White House ,that is about to be released.
The first leak is a doozy (and a problem for Trump fanboys).
Via The Washington Post:
After Syrian leader 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.But Trump did question the massive military presence on the Korean Peninsula.
It is interesting that this Woodward report paints Trump, via Mattis, as having the understanding of "a fifth- or sixth-grader." Is the military now throwing Trump under the bus?
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.’ ”
It had appeared that military was the one part of government that was supporting him.
-RW
(ht Jay Stephenson)
"Fifth or sixth grader"... That's a compliment, Bob.
ReplyDeleteWoodward never interviewed Trump for his book and doesn't know him. Now, anything concerning Assad was Top Security and Woodward does not have Security clearance, nor can anyone divulge Top Security conversations without going to jail. Notice how Woodward and John Kerry refer to Trump as a fifth-grader ...Woodard did say that he had looked hard for two years to find the Trump-Russia collusion and did not find anything. It is just a book and most journalists are calling it a work of fiction.
DeleteThere's a much simpler interpretation of this book: Woodward is a professional liar (aka "journalist").
ReplyDeleteAnyone who believes for a second that a fool could outmaneuver the well-oiled political and propaganda machine and get elected to the post of head of state is, well, a fool.