White House aides are worried about Trump’s mental health this week as he spends the week at Mar-a-Lago with time for Twitter and too much television.
Trump is spending this week at his Mar-a-Lago Resort in Palm Beach, Florida; he welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday.
Vanity Fair reported that Trump’s advisers are worried about his mental health, fearing that “five days in Florida will give the president too much television time, alone with his thoughts and his Twitter.”
According to Vanity Fair, the administration hopes that the trip will serve as a respite from Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation as well as controversy surrounding his private attorney Michael Cohen.
Privately, however, White House advisers are worried that five days in Florida will give Trump too much time to brood over Mueller, Russia, and the swirl of scandals now involving Cohen. “Someone should say a prayer for Sarah [Huckabee Sanders], Mercy [Schlapp], and Raj [Shah] because rest assured, Mar-a-Lago is the last place they want the president spending his time this week,” one person close to the White House told Politico. “They have a lot of clean-up duty ahead of them.”
Continuing, Vanity Fair reported on “the litany of scandals surrounding Trump.
After a weekend spent seething over “slippery” James Comey’s publicity tour for his new book, the president got more bad news on Monday, when a federal judge said she is considering appointing a neutral third party to evaluate whether documents seized by the F.B.I. from Cohen’s office, apartment, and hotel room are considered privileged communications—potentially exposing the president’s conversations with his lawyer to the Mueller investigation. “The guys that know Trump best are the most worried. People are very, very worried. Because it’s Michael f–king Cohen. Who knows what he’s done?” a former Trump campaign official told Axios’s Mike Allen.
According to Politico, “there were all manners of triggers that could set the president off.”
Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen again appeared in court under the cloud of a federal criminal investigation. Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump’s friend and frequent confidant, was named as one of Cohen’s clients during the court proceedings. Reporters from The Washington Post and The New York Times, which Trump has regularly lambasted on Twitter, won Pulitzer prizes for their coverage of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. And Trump had to walk back a pledge by his ambassador to the United Nations to impose new sanctions on Moscow.
Even before he departed for Mar-a-Lago on Monday, Trump was fuming over former FBI Director James Comey’s new book and the ongoing criminal investigation into Cohen. Five days at Mar-a-Lago, where he often spends even more time watching cable news and talking to friends, could send his frustrations to new heights.
If Trumps’ behavior on Tuesday is any indication, those concerns are more than justified – and in all likelihood things are going to get a lot crazier before the week is out.
On Tuesday, Liberals Unite counted a total of 29 posts by Trump on his Twitter account to include more than a dozen retweets including several from the official White House Twitter account and couple from daughter, Ivanka.
While it is unknown whether this was a record for Trump, he has averaged 10 tweets per day this year, according to data compiled by Twitter Counter. By our count, he posted 14 new tweets [11 tweets plus an additional 3 new tweets that appeared as retweets.]
His tweets covered a range of topics from fired FBI Director James Comey, to taxes, to his ongoing spat with California Gov. Jerry Brown over the deployment of National Guard troops at the U.S./Mexico border [Gov. Brown himself has debunked Trump’s accusations as have spokespersons for the California National Guard].
In one bizarre post, he tweeted: “Pastor Andrew Brunson, a fine gentleman and Christian leader in the United States, is on trial and being persecuted in Turkey for no reason. They call him a Spy, but I am more a Spy than he is. Hopefully he will be allowed to come home to his beautiful family where he belongs!” Certainly an odd tweet considering the ever-expanding scope of Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between Trump and Russia.
The New York Times provided background on the tweet, reporting that:
Brunson, a 50-year-old evangelical pastor from North Carolina, faces up to 35 years in prison. Brunson denies any wrongdoing. The State Department has said Brunson’s case was being watched closely by “the entire U.S. government.”
Pastor Andrew Brunson, a fine gentleman and Christian leader in the United States, is on trial and being persecuted in Turkey for no reason. They call him a Spy, but I am more a Spy than he is. Hopefully he will be allowed to come home to his beautiful family where he belongs!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2018
He posted several tweets boasting about the recently passed GOP tax bill, calling it his “Tax Cut Bill.”
“Employment is up, Taxes are DOWN. Enjoy!” he tweeted in one post, later adding: “So many people are seeing the benefits of the Tax Cut Bill. Everyone is talking, really nice to see!”
So many people are seeing the benefits of the Tax Cut Bill. Everyone is talking, really nice to see!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2018
Those tweets prompted fact-checks by several media outlets, such as Market Watch, who reported that:
Trump’s rosy assessment of the law is contradicted, however, by the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey found that more people view the Republican tax overhaul as a bad idea than a good one…. It found that 27% of respondents thought the law was a good idea, while 36% thought it was a bad one.
Trump himself asked the IRS for an extension on his 2017 tax return, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, “as do many Americans with complex returns.”
Trump even had to post a tweet after the White House botched the date on an official statement regarding the death of former First Lady Barbara Bush.
As the New York Daily News reported:
The White House on Tuesday slapped the wrong date on a statement marking the death of former First Lady Barbara Bush, who championed literacy for low-income families.
An email the Office of the Press Secretary sent on behalf of President Trump paying tribute to Bush was dated April 17, 2017, rather than 2018 — the current year.
Trump then tweeted the statement, calling further attention to the error.
As a side note, Trump started the day Wednesday by posting a tweet defaming Stormy Daniels, which prompted a response by her attorney Michael Avenatti who taunted Trump.
In my experience, there is nothing better in litigation than having a completely unhinged, undisciplined opponent who is prone to shooting himself in the foot. Always leads to BIGLY problems…like new claims (i.e. defamation). LOL. #xmas #hanukkah #basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 18, 2018
“In my experience, there is nothing better in litigation than having a completely unhinged, undisciplined opponent who is prone to shooting himself in the foot. Always leads to BIGLY problems…like new claims (i.e. defamation)” he tweeted along with the hashtags #xmas and #hanukkah.
- Source Links – August 29, 2020
- About Pat Warde: Eulogy Tribute by Eleanor Hughes – April 1, 2019
- Editorial Note – January 15, 2019
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