Case closed: Trump must go
The White House is in total meltdown. Top White House staffers admit that the president’s unfit to run the country. The country is in danger. One way or the other, Donald Trump must go. That’s the alarming message heard this week from three independent sources. First source: Bob Woodward’s new book, “Fear.” Employing the same exhaustive mining of sources he’s used in 17 previous political-insider books, 12 of which topped the best-seller list, Woodward examines the workings of the Trump administration. He finds a White House in total disarray, a disillusioned senior staff, and a clueless president who would inflict even more damage if top aides did not secretly block him.
Among Woodward’s more stunning revelations: Former economic adviser Gary Cohn and White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter stole documents from Trump’s desk to prevent him from signing them; Trump ordered Defense Secretary James Mattis to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; Chief of Staff John Kelly called Trump “an idiot” who had “gone off the rails;” and Trump called Attorney General Jeff Sessions “mentally retarded” and “a dumb Southerner.”
Trump insists the book is fiction. Yet it exactly mirrors the description of the Trump White House portrayed earlier in Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” and Omarosa Manigault’s “Unhinged.”
Second source: An explosive anonymous op-ed published in The New York Times by someone the Times identifies only as “a senior official in the Trump administration,” but who self-identifies as a member of the internal White House “resistance.” Written by a member of Trump’s inner circle, this account of the Trump White House is even more chilling.
Again, it starts with a man with no understanding of public policy and no core beliefs. “The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” reads the op-ed. “Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.” The result is chaos. “Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in halfbaked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.”
And the author agrees with Woodward: The country is spared from even more damage only by “unsung heroes” inside the White House who go to “great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing,” where possible, and “are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”
How bad is it? So bad, writes the mystery source, that staffers and Cabinet members have seriously considered triggering the 25th Amendment to oust the president and save the republic.
Third source: Me! And my new book, the perfect companion to Woodward’s book. Title: “Trump Must Go: The Top 100 Reasons to Dump Trump (and One to Keep Him).” See my website, billpressshow.com, to order your copy.
In asserting that Trump must go, my inspiration is the Declaration of Independence, which affirms that governments derive their powers only “from the consent of the governed,” and that whenever we are confronted by a tyrannical government, “it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”
But the first step, wrote Jefferson, is to “let facts be submitted to a candid world.” Which is the purpose of my book: to lay forth 100 reasons — both Trump’s disturbing personal traits (racist, sexist, sexual predator) and his disastrous public policies (environment, immigration, health care) — for getting this clown out of the White House.
How we free ourselves of Trump remains to be seen. But, one way or the other, the process of removal, by forces outside and inside the White House must begin.