The Trump White House is turning on the commander-in-chief and finally telling the world how they really feel.
Leaks from the White House have come out in full force to The Huffington Post and they must be taken extremely seriously. White House and executive agency staff have shared, under the condition of anonymity, that they have profound concerns about Trump’s mental health and are of the belief he is unfit for office.
Donald Trump firstly can’t make properly informed decisions, according to a White House aide. It was claimed that Trump’s briefing materials must be “no more than a single page…They must have bullet points but not more than nine per page.” The President has previously said he did not like to read long memos, but likely no one believed he would require his briefings in a summary format.
There are also questions about his temperament. While this is a common topic of conversation outside of the White House, to have White House and executive agency staff mentioning it is frightening. He is obsessed with his image and media coverage and writes Saturday Night Live viewings and his staffer’s interviews into his schedule. He has claimed a fascination with the phone system inside the White House, but has filed a formal complaint to obtain softer hand towels for Air Force One. These are just some of the examples provided which tell us that tiny things provoke him to emotional extremes. He fluctuates between “great joy or …intense irritation” due to things as minuscule as the softness of hand towels.
Trump supporters who voted for Donald Trump because they believed he was a good, decisive business man are apt to find themselves at a loss. He had a pretty “yuge” question pertaining to the American dollar and didn’t know who to turn to. So instead of the hundreds of people around him with backgrounds in economics and finances, he called his national security advisor, Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn. Allegedly the phone call took place at 3 a.m. and Trump’s burning question was whether it is “a strong [dollar] that’s good for the economy…or a weak one?” Flynn allegedly told Trump that he ought to ask someone else, as it wasn’t his area of expertise, which displeased Trump greatly.
Only former White House staff were able to speak and be identified publicly in association with their statements which seek to define the issues with Trump and identify the cause of the leaks. One of these examples is Elliot Cohen, former State Department under George W. Bush who now works at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He asserted that:
‘I’ve been in this town for 26 years. I have never seen anything like this. I genuinely do not think this is a mentally healthy president.’
Cohen believes, like many, that the problem is not those who are leaking information, but the president. He referenced the diagnosis provided by Johns Hopkins’ top psychotherapist: that Trump is mentally ill and is plagued with “malignant narcissism.” Cohen wrote:
‘This is what happens when you have a narcissist as president.’
Counterterrorism expert, Elizabeth Rosenberg who worked in the Treasury Department under President Obama has a theory for why the leaks are happening. She states that she believes “it’s a cry for help” by staff who are driven by “incredulity and the need to share it.”
According to Rick Wilson, a former Pentagon official and now vocal Trump critic claims that the intelligence community is concerned and scrambling for any means to seize back control. He wrote:
‘The intelligence community is desperately looking for a way to get some leverage in altering dangerous policies away from a catastrophic vector.’
Finally, Richard Nephew, a state department expert on Iran sanctions under Obama, suggested the possibility they are coming from a place of trying to retain their good standing with the public. They want the public to know that the advice of those around Trump hasn’t been followed so that if anything bad happens, they are not held responsible for him.
‘This, I think, is about making it clear that these folks have tried to do the right thing and there is only so much they can do with a hostile administration.’
At this rate, assuming the country continues to validate the concerns of those leaking this information, it is not an impossibility for Trump to not finish his term and be facing impeachment. We only hope it happens sooner rather than later.
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