Donald Trump‘s chief of staff John Kelly has been forced to issue a humiliating statement claiming he absolutely did not not call the president an “idiot” after a bombshell new book claimed that he did exactly that. What’s more is that he issued the statement through Trump’s Twitter account.
Statement from White House Chief of Staff, General John Kelly: pic.twitter.com/LUN8cDr3N5
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2018
What has all this come from? Bob Woodward – who, incidentally, is one of the blokes who did much of the reporting on the Watergate scandal which brought down Richard Nixon – has a new book out which depicts the Trump administration as shambolic and chaotic. The book, named Fear, probably won’t tell you much you don’t intuitively know if you’re a Trump disliker, but it certainly paints quite a picture.
Excerpts are out in The Washington Post today, and one part, about Chief of Staff John Kelly, has been getting a lot of airplay:
White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly frequently lost his temper and told colleagues that he thought the president was “unhinged,” Woodward writes. In one small group meeting, Kelly said of Trump: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”
The piece goes on to allege that Kelly has “threatened to quit several times” over the president’s unpredictable behaviour.
Unlike other so-called ‘bombshell’ books about the Trump presidency, Woodward is about as credentialed a journalist as you can get, so it’s no surprise Trump and his team are vigorously protesting the contents of the book. Press secretary Sarah Sanders also put out a statement, decrying the book as the product of lies by disgruntled employees:
Statement from White House @PressSec, Sarah Sanders: pic.twitter.com/mE73HSi6Rl
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2018
At the end of the day, this probably isn’t going to have a material effect on the Trump presidency, but it’s yet another indication that behind the scenes it’s bedlam. But this classic tweet probably still holds:
https://twitter.com/BronzeHammer/status/782408312730095616
