Trump is not a typical President of the past
In an extraordinary portion of a television interview on foreign policy challenges, Tillerson was asked about claims that Trump has a short attention span, regularly repeats himself and refuses to read briefing notes.
In an extraordinary portion of a television interview on foreign policy challenges, Tillerson was asked about claims that Trump has a short attention span, regularly repeats himself and refuses to read briefing notes.
“I’ve never questioned his mental fitness. I’ve
had no reason to question his mental fitness,” said Tillerson, whose
office was last year forced to deny reports that he had referred to
Trump as a “moron” after a national security meeting.
And, even in defending Trump, the former
ExxonMobil chief executive admitted he has had to learn how to relay
information to a president with a very different decision-making style.
“I have to learn how he takes information in,
processes it and makes decisions,” Tillerson told CNN. “I’m here to
serve his presidency. So I’ve had to spend a lot of time understanding
how to best communicate with him.”
But, whatever difficulties they may have had
communicating, Tillerson insisted the right decisions had been made and
that the United States was in a stronger place internationally thanks to
Trump’s policies.
“He is not a typical president of the past, I
think that’s well recognised – that’s also why the American people chose
him,” he said, insisting that he does not expect to be asked to resign
in the coming year.
Tillerson was forced to mount his defence as Washington devoured a new supposed tell-all – Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House – rushed into bookstores after the White House failed to suppress it.
The book quickly sold out in shops in the US
capital, with some people even lining up at midnight to get their hands
on it and others circulating pirated copies. Trump has decried the
instant bestseller as “phoney” and “full of lies”.
Journalist Wolff, no stranger to controversy,
quotes several key Trump aides expressing doubt about Trump’s ability to
lead the world’s largest economy and military hegemon.
“Let me put a marker in the sand here. One
hundred per cent of the people around him” question Trump’s fitness for
office, Wolff said in an interview with NBC’s Today show.
“They all say he is like a child. And what they mean by that is he has a need for immediate gratification. It’s all about him.
“This man does not read, does not listen. He’s like a pinball just shooting off the sides.”
The 71-year-old Republican president,
approaching the first anniversary of his inauguration, has responded to
the book with fury.
“I authorised Zero access to White House
(actually turned him down many times) for author of phoney book! I never
spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources
that don’t exist,” Trump tweeted on Thursday.
But Wolff countered: “I absolutely spoke to the
president. Whether he realised it was an interview or not. I don’t know,
but it certainly was not off the record.”
The book includes extensive quotes from Steve
Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, and its publication sparked a
very public break between the former allies.
Bannon is quoted accusing Trump’s eldest son Don
Jnr of “treasonous” contacts with a Kremlin-connected lawyer, and
saying the president’s daughter Ivanka, who imagines running for
president one day, is “dumb as a brick”. But it is Trump himself who is
cast in the most unfavourable light.
The book claims that for Treasury Secretary
Steve Mnuchin and former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the
president was an “idiot”. For chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, he was
“dumb as s***”. And for National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, he was a
“dope”.
They all say he is like a child. And what they mean by that is he has a need for immediate gratification
The book was published as it emerged that at
least a dozen members of the US Congress were briefed last month by a
Yale University professor of psychiatry on Trump’s mental health.
“Lawmakers were saying they have been very
concerned about this, the president’s dangerousness, the dangers that
his mental instability poses on the nation,” Bandy Lee, a doctor, told
CNN.
The White House issued a scorched-earth dismissal of Fire and Fury along with its author and his sources, with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders calling it “complete fantasy”.
First lady Melania Trump’s spokeswoman,
Stephanie Grisham, told CNN that it is “a work of fiction. It is a
long-form tabloid that peddles false statements and total fabrications.”
Behind the scenes, though, Trump has been
enraged by the betrayal by Bannon – a man who engineered the New York
real estate mogul’s link to the nationalist far right and helped create a
pro-Trump media ecosystem.
Sanders suggested that Bannon’s employer,
Breitbart News, should consider firing him. He wasn’t fired, but
Bannon’s main financial backer is formally cutting ties with him, The Washington Post reported.
Publication of explosive book on Donald Trump’s White House is brought forward, defying legal threats
Bannon, who left the White House in August, is
also quoted in the book as saying that the investigation by special
counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election –
and possible collusion by the Trump campaign – will focus on money
laundering.