Allies rush to defend Trump against book’s claims on fitness
WASHINGTON: Trump administration officials and allies are rallying to the president’ s defence, trying to contain the fallout from an explosive new book that questions Trump’s fitness for office.
Chief policy adviser Stephen Miller, in a combative appearance Sunday on CNN, described the book as “nothing but a pile of trash through and through.”
CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Trump was “completely fit” to lead the country. “These are from people who just have not accepted the fact that President Trump is the United States president and I’m sorry for them in that ,” Pompeo, who gives Trump his regular intelligence briefings, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Nikki Haley, the US ambassa- dor to the United Nations, said she visits the White House once a week, and “no one questions the stability of the president.”
“I’m always amazed at the lengths people will go to, to lie for money and for power. This is like taking it to a whole new low.”
Michael Wolf f’ s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House portrays the president as a leader who doesn’t understand the weight of his office and whose competence is questioned by aides. That picture, said Miller, “is so contrary to reality, to the experience of those who work with him.”
Miller also criticised Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who is quoted by Wolff.
Ban no n’ s description of a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York between Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer as “treasonous” infuriated Trump.
Trying to heal the damage and make am ends, Ban non released a statement Sunday praising Trump Jr. as “both a patriot and a good man” and insisting his description was aimed at former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, not Trump’s son.