Woodward’s new book reveals a ‘nervous breakdown’ of Trump’s presidency

An explosive book by journalist Bob Woodward has revealed new accounts of backbiting and insults among Donald Trump's senior staff – with many of the most cutting digs directed at the president. The Watergate journalist dug up multiple instances of senior aides trashing Trump. Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly called him an 'idiot' and compared his job situation to 'Crazytown.' Trump reportedly called AG Jeff Sessions a 'dumb Southerner' and 'mentally retarded.' 

• Bob Woodward's latest book adds to the existing literature of dysfunction and backstabbing inside the Trump White House. 
• Defense Secretary James Mattis said Trump acted like 'a fifth- or sixth-grader'
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• Former top economy advisor Gary Cohn snatched a memo off Trump's desk to preserve a trade deal. Trump did not notice that it was missing. 
• Under orders from the president, staff secretary Rob Porter drafted a notification letter withdrawing from NAFTA. But he and other advisers worried that it could trigger an economic and foreign relations crisis. So Porter consulted Cohn, who told him, according to Woodward: “I can stop this. I’ll just take the paper off his desk.”
• Despite repeated threats by Trump, the United States has remained in NAFTA. The administration continues to negotiate new terms with its NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico. 
• 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 complained on a recorded phone call no one ever contacted him about veteran journalist Bob Woodward's interview request, then revealed he knew about it. Woodward, relying on his usual methods of deeply sourced reporting with use of information provided on 'background' – presents White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis each deriding the president's mental capacity.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.The book’s title derives from a remark that then-candidate Trump made in an interview with Woodward and Post political reporter Robert Costa in 2016. Trump said, “Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word, ‘Fear.’”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.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.

With Trump’s rage and defiance impossible to contain, Cabinet members and other senior officials learned to act discreetly. Woodward describes an alliance among Trump’s traditionalists — including Mattis [above] and Gary Cohn, the president’s former top economic adviser — to stymie what they considered dangerous acts.

“It felt like we were walking along the edge of the cliff perpetually,” Porter is quoted as saying. “Other times, we would fall over the edge, and an action would be taken.”

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.

Woodward illustrates how the dread in Trump’s orbit became all-encompassing over the course of Trump’s first year in office, leaving some staff members and Cabinet members confounded by the president’s lack of understanding about how government functions and his inability and unwillingness to learn.

Trump lawyer John Dowd urged him not to testify to Robert Mueller due to legal peril. 'Don't testify. It's either that or an orange jumpsuit'

• But Trump, concerned about the optics of a president refusing to testify and convinced that he could handle Mueller’s questions, had by then decided otherwise.
  “I’ll be a real good witness,” Trump told Dowd, according to Woodward.
• “You are not a good witness,” Dowd replied. “Mr. President, I’m afraid I just can’t help you.” 
  The next morning, Dowd resigned.

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