Tue, Feb 25, 2020Trump Regularly 'Can't Remember What He's
Said or Been Told,' White House Insider SaysThe original link to the article can be found here.Originally reported By Chantal Da Silva
On 11/20/19 at 1:00 AM ESTPresident
Donald Trump regularly struggles to "remember what he's said or been
told," an anonymous senior government official behind a new exposé on
the inner workings of the White House has claimed.
Much of the
nearly 260 pages of the anonymous official's tome, A Warning, which hit
bookshelves on Tuesday, has been dedicated to sounding the alarm about
Trump's alarming behavior.
While the anonymous author, who is
described only as a "senior official in the Trump administration"
admits they are not "qualified to diagnose the president's mental
acuity," they can say that "normal people who spend any time with
Donald Trump are uncomfortable by what they witness."
"He
stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble
synthesizing information, not occasionally but with regularity," the
official warns.
Often, they say, "the president also can't remember what he's said or been told."
"Americans
are used to him denying words that have come out of his mouth," the
senior official writes. "Sometimes this is to avoid responsibility."
However, they say it often "appears Trump genuinely doesn't remember important facts."
One
clear example of that, the official recalls, is when the president
claimed he was not sure if he had "ever even heard of a Category 5"
hurricane, despite having been briefed on at least four other Category
5 hurricanes during his time in office.
"Was he forgetting these
briefings?" the author questions. "Or more problematic, was he not
paying attention at all? These are events that affect millions of
Americans, yet they don't seem to stick in his brain."
The
official writes that while Trump has often claimed to be highly
intelligent, they say they have "seen the president fall flat on his
face when trying to speak intelligently" on a number of topics on which
he claims to be an expert.
"You can see why behind closed doors
his own top officials deride him as an 'idiot' and a 'moron' with the
understanding of a 'fifth or sixth grader,'" the unnamed senior
official says.
In addition to questioning Trump's ability to
recall basic terms that he has said or heard, the anonymous author also
accuses the president of an "astounding" level of "intellectual
laziness."
Asserting that Trump barely reads and has required
that briefings be shorter and include fewer words and more pictures,
the senior official says they are "bewildered how anyone could have run
a private company on the empty mental tank President Trump relies upon
every day to run the government."
"On television, a
CEO-turned-showman can sit around a desk and bark orders at
subordinates and then go to commercial," they write. "In real life, a
successful CEO has to absorb a lot of information, about the economic
climate, about his or her competitors, about product and consumer
trends."
"How can you manage a sprawling organization if you won't read anything?" the author questions. "Not very well, it turns out.
While
the anonymous official says some Trump defenders might be tempted to
write their warnings off "as the musings of Never-Trumpers," they say,
"that is not the case."
Anyone who has spent time with Trump and
"would claim otherwise" of their account, the official says, is "lying
to themselves or to the country."
President Donald Trump meets with members of
the airline industry at the White House February 9, 2017
in Washington, D.C. The president struggles to remember
what he's been told or has said, the anonymous senior
Trump official behind a new book out has said.Win McNamee at Getty Images 
