Trump hits out at ‘bad book’

EXCERPT: HE WANTED SYRIAN PRESIDENT ASSASSINATED

Quotes are madeup frauds, a con to the public, says US president.

US President Donald Trump wanted to have Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assassinated last year but his defence secretary ignored the request, according to a new book that depicts top Trump aides sometimes disregarding presidential orders to limit what they saw as damaging and dangerous behaviour.

Excerpts from the book, Fear: Trump in the White House, written by famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward, were published by the Washington Post on Tuesday. The book, which is scheduled for release on September 11, is the latest to detail tensions within the White House under Trump’s 20-month-old presidency.

“It’s just another bad book,” Trump told the Daily Caller.

The Republican president said in a Twitter post that quotes in the book attributed to Defence Secretary James Mattis, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and others “were made-up frauds, a con on the public”.

The book portrays Trump as prone to profane outbursts and impulsive decision-making, painting a picture of chaos that Woodward says amounts to an “administrative coup d’etat” and a “nervous breakdown” of the executive branch.

According to the book, Trump told Mattis he wanted to have Assad assassinated after the Syrian president launched a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017.

Israel’s intelligence minister said yesterday he had no knowledge of close ally Trump ever ordering the killing of Al-Assad. “I do not know of any such instruction,” Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz told Tel Aviv radio station 103 FM.

“Of course his [Assad’s] actions are terrible actions and something that we abhor and condemn,” Katz said. – Reuters