Donald Trump’s increasing outbursts and bizarre fixations are starting to worry top White House aides, a new report claims.
After Trump has spent much of the past week insisting that he was correct in a false claim that Hurricane Dorian may strike Alabama, top aides said they are worried about his mental state. A report from Business Insider noted that the behavior is worrying both current and former advisers, who took note of his volatile mood changes.
“No one knows what to expect from him anymore,” said one former White House official. “His mood changes from one minute to the next based on some headline or tweet, and the next thing you know his entire schedule gets tossed out the window because he’s losing his s**t.”
Trump’s nearly week-long insistence that Hurricane Dorian may have struck Alabama has current advisers particularly worried, the report noted. Trump has repeatedly tweeted about the false claim, insisting that it was correct and even holding a press conference with an outdated projection map where he reportedly drew in sharpie marker to make it look as if the storm would move through Alabama.
As the former adviser told Business Insider , the continued doubling down from Trump goes beyond what any of them have seen before.
“People are used to the president saying things that aren’t true, but this Alabama stuff is another story,” the source claimed. “This was the president sending out patently false information about a national-emergency situation as it was unfolding.”
Guy w/ our nuclear codes: “No one knows what to expect from him anymore. His mood changes from one minute to the next based on some headline or tweet, and the next thing you know his entire schedule gets tossed out the window because he’s losing his s—.” https://t.co/LBNnWxUumz
— Amy Siskind ???? (@Amy_Siskind) September 6, 2019
The Alabama scandal has Donald Trump taking criticism from unlikely places. Fox News, the right-leaning cable news network that regularly offers uncritical coverage of the president, has been taking aim at Trump over what many have called an obvious lie. Host Shepard Smith this week criticized Trump for refusing to let it go, accusing the president of putting out the “fake news” that he often rails against.
“Why would the president of the United States do this? He decries fake news that isn’t and disseminates fake news that is,” Smith said, via RealClear Politics .
Others have questioned Donald Trump’s mental stability, including former aides willing to speak out publicly. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has been raising questions about Trump’s mental state, and in an appearance on CNN this week, he said it appears Trump is “obviously in mental decline,” noting there is a “whole pattern of speech and deterioration of his syntax” that is troubling to him, via Good .
