Tue, Feb 25, 2020

Trump Regularly 'Can't Remember What He's
Said or Been Told,' White House Insider Says


The original link to the article can be found here.

Originally reported By Chantal Da Silva
On 11/20/19 at 1:00 AM EST



President 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


Back to Political News Page 2



Back to Political News



Back to News