WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Saturday rejected an author’s accusations that he is mentally unfit for office and said his track record showed he is a “stable genius.”
Michael Wolff, who was granted unusually wide access to the White House during much of Trump’s first year, has said in promoting his book, “Fire and Fury — Inside the Trump White House,” that Trump is unfit for the presidency.
Trump, in a series of extraordinary morning posts on Twitter, said his Democratic critics and the US news media were bringing up the “old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence” since they have not been able to bring him down in other ways.
Reagan, a Republican who was the US president from 1981-1989, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994 and died in 2004.
“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,” said Trump, a former reality TV star.
“I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star ... to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius ... and a very stable genius at that!“
Trump, 71, issued the tweets from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, where he was meeting Republican congressional leaders and many Cabinet secretaries about their legislative agenda for the year.
The tweets were another sign of Trump’s frustration at what he views as unfair treatment by the news media of his presidency amid a federal investigation into whether he or his campaign aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign, in which he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Wolff’s book has proved to be another shock to the system for Trump and his top aides, coming just as he starts his second year in office.
Wolff told BBC Radio in an interview broadcast on Saturday that based on his interviews with the people around Trump that he believed the president was unfit for office.
He told NBC News on Friday that White House staff treated Trump like a child.
“The one description that everyone gave, everyone has in common — they all say he is like a child,” Wolff said. “And what they mean by that, 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.”
Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera told “Fox and Friends” on Saturday that he had spoken to Trump on Friday and that he was “very, very frustrated” that the issue of his mental fitness was getting traction.
Trump is to undergo the first physical examination of his presidency on Jan. 12. The exam was announced on Dec. 7 after questions arose about Trump’s health when he slurred part of a speech announcing that the United States recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
White House officials and Trump’s high-profile supporters have launched an effort to raise doubts about Wolff’s credibility. White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said earlier in the week that the book includes “mistake after mistake after mistake.”
Yet the sensational details in the new book and Trump’s continued defense of his mental health have wrenched attention away from policy and news of US financial markets hitting all-time highs, bringing even more scrutiny over whether the US leader is fit for office.
On Friday, Washington’s chief diplomat Rex Tillerson was obliged to defend Trump after being asked during an interview about claims that the president 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 told CNN he has had to learn how to relay information to a president with a very different decision-making style.
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 percent of the people around him” question Trump’s fitness for office, Wolff told 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.”
The book includes extensive quotes from Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, who accuses Trump’s eldest son Don Jr. of “treasonous” contacts with a Kremlin-connected lawyer, and saying the president’s daughter Ivanka, who imagines herself running for president one day, is “dumb as a brick.”
But it is Trump himself who is cast in the most unfavorable 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 shit.” And for National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, he was a “dope.”
The publication came as news 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.
"I'm a stable genius," claims Trump
"I'm a stable genius," claims Trump
Ukraine marks four years since Russian invasion
- Tuesday’s anniversary is expected to see the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, in Kyiv to mark the occasion
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine was on Tuesday marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, with a show of solidarity from its staunchest allies and no immediate end in sight to Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Tens of thousands of lives have been lost since the Kremlin ordered troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, confident of a quick victory but not expecting the fierce resistance that followed.
The worldwide fallout of the war has been immense, with many European countries increasing their own defense spending in anticipation of a possible confrontation of their own with Russia.
But diplomatic talks between the two sides, relaunched last year by the United States, have so far failed to halt the fighting, which has devastated Ukraine and left it facing the mammoth task — and bill — of reconstruction.
Tuesday’s anniversary is expected to see the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, in Kyiv to mark the occasion.
Both said they would take part in a “commemoration ceremony” and visit the site of a Ukrainian energy facility damaged by Russian strikes before attending a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
They are also due to take part in a videoconference meeting with Kyiv’s allies — the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” which includes Britain, France and Germany.
- Impasse -
Russia, which currently occupies nearly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, bombs civilian areas and infrastructure on a daily basis.
The Russian bombardment has sparked the worst energy crisis since the start of the invasion, during a bitter winter.
Kyiv’s Western allies have slapped heavy sanctions on Moscow, forcing it to redirect its key oil exports toward new markets, particularly in Asia.
Despite heavy losses, Russian troops have in recent months advanced slowly on the frontline, particularly in the eastern Donbas region, which has been the epicenter of the bloody fighting and which Moscow wants to annex.
US-brokered talks are ongoing, with Zelensky unwavering in his demands for security guarantees from Washington before any talk of “compromise,” including on territory, with Russia.
Russia, though, has rejected Ukrainian proposals for the deployment of European troops in Ukraine after any ceasefire deal.
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that he will pursue his objectives by force if diplomacy fails.
- Reconstruction -
The grinding four-year war has devastated Ukraine, which even before the fighting was one of the poorest countries in Europe.
According to a joint World Bank, European Union and United Nations report with Kyiv, published on Monday, the cost of post-war reconstruction is estimated at around $558 billion over the next decade.
Russia justified sending troops into Ukraine to prevent Ukraine’s ambition to join NATO, arguing that Kyiv’s membership of the transatlantic alliance would threaten its own security.
On Monday, during a medal ceremony to mark “Defenders of the Fatherland Day,” Putin insisted that his soldiers were defending Russia’s “borders” in Ukraine, to ensure “strategic parity” between powers and fight for the country’s “future.”
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, for its part considers the war to be a resurgence of Russian imperialism aimed at subjugating the Ukrainian people.
In an interview with the BBC broadcast on Sunday, Zelensky said he believed Putin had “already started” World War III.
“Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves,” he told the British public broadcaster.
