Donald Trump Descending Into ‘Madness,’ ‘Raging,’ ‘Volatile’ Say Friends And Aides In Interviews With WaPo

Just three days after a previously suppressed Newsweek story revealed that Donald Trump’s medical records showed he took a drug for eight years known to cause “delusions, paranoia, and hyperactivity,” a new Washington Post report based on interviews with 22 Trump friends, aides, and allies paint a picture from inside the White House of an “increasingly isolated” Trump descending into what one friend called “pure madness.”

Another interviewee, Peter Wehner — who served in the George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush administrations as well as the Ronald Reagan administration — told the Post that Trump’s personality is “at its core is chaotic, volatile and transgressive,” creating a situation that is likely to “end poorly.”

The report also comes shortly after Trump announced that the United States would be imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, risking a costly trade war with dozens of U.S. trading partners including China, the European Union, and Australia — a decision Trump reportedly made without consulting Congress or his economic advisers, but simply because he was in a bad mood.

According to a report by NBC News, aides described Trump as coming “unglued” after damaging congressional testimony in the Russia scandal investigation by his longtime trusted confidant Hope Hicks. He then reportedly took the unilateral decision to impose the potentially disastrous tariffs out of anger in the spur of the moment.

On Saturday, Trump alarmed some members of the press corps when he made a “joke” about California Representative Maxine Waters, who has repeatedly called for Trump’s impeachment. Trump said that Waters needed an “IQ test,” a quip that was quickly condemned as “racist,” because the African-American Waters was the only one of the numerous Democrats insulted by Trump at Saturday’s Washington Gridiron Dinner whose intelligence was derided by Trump.

In another alarming statement, Trump made what was later described as a “joke,” in which he appeared to suggest making himself president for life, following the example of China’s leader Xi Jinping, after Xi took steps to consolidate his power in China and remain in office there indefinitely.

Read the entire Washington Post report on Trump’s “madness” by visiting this link.

“Trump’s friends are increasingly concerned about his well-being, worried that the president’s obsession with cable commentary and perceived slights is taking a toll on the 71-year-old,” the Post report stated.

“These are the darkest days in at least half a year, they say, and they worry just how much farther President Trump and his administration may plunge into unrest and malaise before they start to recover. As one official put it: ‘We haven’t bottomed out.'” Post reporters Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey wrote.

Trump has been “raging,” the Post reported, over a photograph that appeared in the media last Wednesday, showing Attorney General Jeff Sessions dining at a Washington D.C. restaurant with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who is third-in-command at the Justice Department.

Trump is reportedly furious at Sessions for the attorney general’s recusing himself from the Russia investigation, and as a result failing to “protect” him from the Russia probe which has been moving at an accelerated pace recently, possibly getting closer to the White House inner circle itself.

In his rage, Trump has exploded at Sessions verbally and often derides him as “Mr. Magoo,” a reference to the popular and comically bumbling cartoon character.

Trump took the photo as a deliberate signal of defiance and disloyalty by Sessions, the Post report said.

“I think the president is starting to wobble in his emotional stability and this is not going to end well,” a retired four-star U.S Army general, Barry McCaffrey, told the Post reporters. “Trump’s judgment is fundamentally flawed, and the more pressure put on him and the more isolated he becomes, I think, his ability to do harm is going to increase.”

McCaffrey is not the only former top official to worry publicly about Trump’s mental state. Former CIA Director John Brennan said in an interview Friday that he believes Trump is “unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical.”

Former Air Force doctor Steven Buser also expressed fear over Trump’s mental state and his access to America’s nuclear arsenal, at a panel discussion at The National Press Club last month.

“The great irony of the situation (is) that the entire military chain of command are all held to the highest degree of emotional and psychological stability except one man, the president of the United States, the very person who has his finger on a nuclear button,” Buser said.

The Newsweek story about Trump’s medical records, which was “killed” by the magazine during the 2016 presidential campaign but released last week by its author, journalist Kurt Eichenwald, reported that Trump was diagnosed with a “metabolic disorder” in 1982 and then spent at least eight years treating the condition with an amphetamine drug known as diethylpropion, which is designed for use only over a few weeks, and can cause a breakdown of mental faculties when used over lengthy periods of time.