[Trang Ánh Nam] New comment on President Donald Trump reacted to the stunning acc....

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'Axis of adults'

Bolton begins the memoir by dismissing "Washington's conventional wisdom on Trump's trajectory," saying it is largely "wrong" and "intellectually lazy" to conclude, as many have, that the president was held in check by an "axis of adults" during his first fifteen months in office.

That overall picture is "simplistic," Bolton writes. In fact, the "axis of adults in many respects caused enduring problems not because they successfully managed Trump ... but because they did precisely the opposite. They didn't do nearly enough to establish order, and what they did do was so transparently self-serving and so publicly dismissive of many of Trump's very clear goals (whether worthy or unworthy) that they fed Trump's already-suspicious mindset, making it harder for those who came later to have legitimate policy exchanges with the President."

Because his "axis of adults" performed so poorly, Trump "second-guessed people's motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government," Bolton says. The president began relying largely on "instinct" and "foreign relationships with other leaders," and as a result, "botched irretrievably" his transition and "opening year-plus" in office.

Bolton asserts that many key Trump advisers would tend toward describing life in the White House as philosopher Thomas Hobbes' described human existence: "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

"My goal was not to get a membership card, but to get a driver's license," Bolton writes. "That thinking was not common at the Trump White House. In early visits to the West Wing, the differences between this president and previous ones I had served were stunning. What happened on one day on a particular issue often had little resemblance to what happened the next day, or the day after. Few seemed to realize it, care about it, or have any interest in fixing it. And it wasn't going to get much better, which depressing but inescapable conclusion I reached only after I had joined the Administration."

Throughout the memoir, Bolton raises various concerns about the day-to-day operations at the White House. For example, Trump chaired "weekly meetings" that "more closely resembled college food fights than careful decision making," Bolton writes. "After these sessions, had I believed in yoga, I probably could have used some."

"Trump generally had only two intelligence briefings per week, and in most of those, he spoke at greater length than the briefers, often on matters completely unrelated to subjects at hand," Bolton adds.

And, the day then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resigned, Trump told Bolton in the Oval Office: "He's leaving ... I never really liked him."

Earlier this month, Mattis excoriated the president in a statement to The Atlantic published -- urging Americans to "reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution."

Trump issued his own blistering condemnation on Twitter hours later, pointing out that then-President Obama removed Mattis as head of U.S. Central Command in 2013.

"Probably the only thing Barack Obama and I have in common is that we both had the honor of firing Jim Mattis, the world's most overrated General," Trump wrote. "I asked for his letter of resignation, & felt great about it. His nickname was 'Chaos', which I didn't like, & changed it to 'Mad Dog.' His primary strength was not military, but rather personal public relations. I gave him a new life, things to do, and battles to win, but he seldom 'brought home the bacon'. I didn't like his 'leadership' style or much else about him, and many others agree. Glad he is gone!"

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Posted by Erin Burnett to Trang Ánh Nam at June 18, 2020 at 7:05 PM