The president takes to Twitter to condemn speculation over
his wellbeing and governing style in wake of Wolff book release.
By CRAIG HOWIE and ANDREW
RESTUCCIA
Enraged by widespread speculation
about his mental state and fitness for office, President Donald Trump defended
himself on Twitter Saturday morning as "very smart" and "a
stable genius" amid allegations contained in an incendiary book about the
Trump administration released this week.
“Now that Russian collusion,
after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American
public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are
taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and
intelligence.....” the president tweeted at 7:19 a.m., hours before a scheduled
meeting with congressional GOP leaders at Camp David.
Several minutes later, Trump
added: “...Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been
mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also
played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I
went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....
....to President of the United
States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but
genius....and a very stable genius at that!"
Although Trump seemed to imply
that the questions about Reagan's health were political smears, Reagan died of
complications related to Alzheimer's disease and there is speculation that that
its early stages could have afflicted him in office. Reagan's son, Ron, wrote
in 2011 that he noticed "something was amiss" with his father while
he was still in the White House, and even some Reagan aides contemplated the
possibility of invoking the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which allows
for the removal of a president who shows a lack of competency.
Four of Reagan’s doctors,
however, told the New York Times in 1997 that they never detected signs of
Alzheimer’s or other mental illness during his presidency.
Trump is scheduled to undergo his
annual physical exam on Jan. 12. The White House aides have not said whether
the exam will include mental acuity tests.
Trump had spent much of Friday
attacking Michael Wolff, whose book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White
House,” has captivated Washington. In a late Friday night tweet, Trump branded
the author a “total loser" who had written a "really boring and
untruthful book."
Questions about the president's
mental health had for months been relegated to the sidelines of the country's
political debate. But Wolff's book has thrust the issue into the mainstream,
forcing White House aides to address it head-on in television interviews and at
the daily press briefing.
Even Fox News, the conservative
news channel and the president's most vocal media cheerleader, has started to
acknowledge the questions about the president's state of mind, running a
segment early Saturday morning titled, "Media questions Trump's mental
state."
Trump unleashed his Twitter rant
just minutes after the Fox segment, further elevating the issue and ensuring
that the topic gets more attention than ever, even as the White House tries to
focus on crafting a legislative agenda.
Wolff’s book, which has sold out
in bookstores across the country, has rocked the Trump White House with its
portrait of Trump as possessing a child-like attention span, unwilling or
unable to process written information and presiding over a West Wing staff that
ridicules and derides him.
White House Press Secretary Sarah
Huckabee Sanders has said the book is ridden with falsehoods and is “complete
fantasy and just full of tabloid gossip.” Wolff said Friday that he stands by
his reporting.
The book has also plunged the
president into a public feud with his former top strategic adviser and campaign
chief Steve Bannon. The president, who is known for his colorful sobriquets
when targeting foes, labelled Bannon "Sloppy Steve" in multiple tweeets
since the book's release. Late on Friday, Trump tweeted that Bannon
"cried" when he was fired, and "begged like a dog" to keep
his job, having previously tweeted that Bannon had "lost his mind."
Bannon, a firebrand conservative
with his own following on the hard right, has since been disowned by prominent
backers and Republican donors, including the Mercer family, which issued an
unusual public statement cutting ties with him Thursday.
Trump is meeting with Republican
Party leaders at Camp David over the weekend to plot strategy for the 2018
midterm elections. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, among others, will deliver presentations on the party's path forward
in an electoral landscape where the president's controversial actions and
public statements loom large.
Trump began tweeting at 6:49 a.m.
Saturday by touting the statistic contained in Friday’s jobs report that
African American unemployment had fallen to 6.8 percent, which the president
said made him “so happy.”
He followed that eight minutes later with a tweet attacking ABC
reporter Brian Ross, who misreported in December that Trump’s fired National
Security Adviser Michael Flynn had sought meetings with Russian officials
before the election (it was later revealed to be early in the transition):
“Brian Ross, the reporter who made a fraudulent live
newscast about me that drove the Stock Market down 350 points (billions of
dollars), was suspended for a month but is now back at ABC NEWS in a lower
capacity. He is no longer allowed to report on Trump. Should have been fired!”
ABC news apologized for the
report and suspended Ross. It was reported Friday that Ross has been demoted on
his return to the network.
Source: https://www.politico.com
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