There have been three to four books covering the end of Trump’s tenure that have come out in the last month. We have extensively covered excerpts from the most important book, by far, “I Alone Can Fix It,” by Philip Rucker and Carole Leonnig. First, the book digs deeper for quotes and information than the others. Additionally, Rucker and Leonnig are WaPo reporters, thus they have better sources and would never risk their careers by reporting anything without two independent sources.

Today, Eugene Robinson (A WaPo columnist) asked the two:

“There are words for people who speak the way Donald Trump spoke to you and words like demented and delusional. So in all the interviews you did with people who work for him, do they think he’s off his gourd or do they think this is all intentional, and what’s the mixture of those two things that the people who were closest to him perceive?”

Is he completely insane, or just a complete conniving asshole? The answer is, no one knows:

“Every time we sat down with them, we were stunned to learn that some of them still had not figured it out. They’re not sure whether he believes the lie, the one that he commits to so physically, the one he sounds like when he’s selling the snake oil that it’s a miracle cure. Some are still not sure whether he believes what he is saying.”

We aren’t sure if it even matters in Trump’s mind. We suspect that he can believe he’s telling a shade of the truth or a lie, and then it becomes the truth the more often he says it. That is our guess:

“I’ll tell you this, one of the most shocking sort of takeaways for both Phil and for me is how many ardent supporters, who looked like they were silently standing by his side, no objection, how panicked they were behind the scenes.

“Bill Barr, very unsettled and disturbed by the president’s insistence on siccing troops on Americans who had a right to protest. He was worried about another Waco because of what Trump was pushing.”

WOW

“We had Mark Esper, the Secretary of Defense, worried about providing real information to the president about the success of the early trials of the vaccine because he feared the president would start forcing Americans to be taking these vaccines before they were carefully vetted and went through the proper trials.”

WOW WOW: And the MAGAs would’ve lined up.

Mark Meadows and [Mike] Pompeo and Milley having last-minute discussions at the end of the Trump reign, conversations to check-in to make sure nothing went off the rails in those 14 harrowing days between January 6th and the inauguration. Basically inside there were a group of people fearing for themselves, fearing for the country.”

We knew, but it still leaves us breathless.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak