LOSER
Famed journalist Bob Woodward has
written a book about an undisciplined narcissist who also happens to be a
congenital liar; unfortunately he is the President of the United States. Much
of the juicy tidbits in Woodward’s book have already been widely disseminated
in the media so I won’t bore you by repeating them.
What comes across loud and clear is that
Trump hates trade. He even writes in a briefing packet “Trade is bad”. Like a stubborn 14 year old he is unyielding
in his beliefs about trade even the face of strong evidence placed before him
by his staff. As was widely noted Trump was ready to blow up the Korea –U.S.
trade agreement just when we were working hand in glove with South Korea on the
North Korea nuke problem. Woodward demonstrates how that jerk, Peter Navarro
with his mercantilist views, plays to Trump’s worst instincts and somehow has
easy access to the Oval Office.
Woodward was very successful in getting
leading administration figures to talk to him mostly on deep background, but
sometimes on the record. We can hear the voices of Steve Bannon, Gary Cohn,
Trump lawyer John Dowd, Lindsay Graham, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Rob Porter,
Reince Priebus, and Rex Tillerson. We continually see Priebus, Cohn, Porter and
McMaster valiantly trying save Trump from his worst instincts. Although they
had some successes, in the end they failed. It is a shame that Porter’s
domestic difficulties forced him out; he was a real check on Trump.
The book ends in March so there is no
discussion of the North Korea, G-7 and Putin summits. Hopefully Woodward will
soon give us some insights into those events. Further for those looking for
evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy, it is not here.
Let me close with what Steve Bannon said
with respect to the effects of #MeToo on the coming election.
“Trump
is the perfect foil. He’s the bad father, the terrible first husband, the
boyfriend that f*****d you over and wasted all those years and (you)
gave up
your youth for, and then dumped you. And the terrible boss that grabbed
you
by the p***y all the time and demeaned you.”
Woodward gives the reader a real flavor
of how the Trump White House works and he proves that Jeb Bush was dead right
when he said that Donald Trump would be the “chaos president.”
The full Amazon URL appears at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3T7G4N8GXMMXZ/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B075RV48W3
