Yes, they all know he's an ignoramus
by digby
In the past year, we have had many of the same conversations with the same sources Wolff used. We won't betray them, or put on the record what was off. But, we can say that the following lines from the book ring unambiguously true:
How Trump processes (and resists) information:
"It was during Trump's early intelligence briefings … that alarm signals first went off among his new campaign staff: he seemed to lack the ability to take in third-party information."
"Or maybe he lacked the interest; whichever, he seemed almost phobic about having formal demands on his attention."
"Trump didn't read. He didn't really even skim. ... [H]e could read headlines and articles about himself, or at least headlines on articles about himself, and the gossip squibs on the New York Post's Page Six."
"Some ... concluded that he didn't read because he just didn't have to, and that in fact this was one of his key attributes as a populist. He was postliterate — total television."
"[H]e trusted his own expertise — no matter how paltry or irrelevant — more than anyone else's. What's more, he had an extremely short attention span, even when he thought you were worthy of attention."
Instinct over expertise:
"The organization ... needed a set of internal rationalizations that would allow it to trust a man who, while he knew little, was entirely confident of his own gut instincts and reflexive opinions, however frequently they might change."
"Here was a key Trump White House rationale: expertise, that liberal virtue, was overrated."
Ill-preparedness:
"[T]he president's views of foreign policy and the world at large were among [his White House's] most random, uninformed, and seemingly capricious aspects. His advisers didn't know whether he was an isolationist or a militarist, or whether he could distinguish between the two."
"He was enamored with generals and determined that people with military command experience take the lead in foreign policy, but he hated to be told what to do."
"In the Trump White House, policy making ... flowed up. It was a process of suggesting, in throw-it-against-the-wall style, what the president might want, and hoping he might then think that he had thought of this himself."
Low regard by key aides:
"He spoke obliviously and happily, believing himself to be a perfect pitch raconteur and public performer, while everyone with him held their breath.
"If a wackadoo moment occurred on the occasions … when his remarks careened in no clear direction, his staff had to go into intense method-acting response. It took absolute discipline not to acknowledge what everyone could see."
"At points on the day's spectrum of adverse political developments, he could have moments of, almost everyone would admit, irrationality. When that happened, he was alone in his anger and not approachable by anyone."
"His senior staff largely dealt with these dark hours by agreeing with him, no matter what he said."
I don’t have to be told – you know, I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing and the same words every single day for the next eight years."Nobody knows more about trade than me"
I was a good student. I understand things. I comprehend very well, better than I think almost anybody."There's nobody bigger or better at the military than I am"
Trust me, I’m like a smart person"There is nobody who understands the horror of nuclear more than me."
I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things ... My primary consultant is myself, and I have, you know, I have a good instinct for this stuff.It's all in the genes:
My uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true!You can read the whole comment in this tweet:
This is a sentence spoken by Trump, not a piece of modernist stream-of-consciousness pastiche. pic.twitter.com/vfhdKzg9Uy— Stig Abell (@StigAbell) August 9, 2016
My campaign and win was most like Andrew Jackson, with his campaign. And I said, when was Andrew Jackson? It was 1828. That's a long time ago. That's Andrew Jackson ...
I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to he Civil War, he said "There's no reason for this." People don't realize you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?
TRUMP: We are living in a time that's as evil as any time that there has ever been. You know, when I was a young man, I studied Medieval times. That's what they did, they chopped off heads. That's what we have ...
STEPHANOPOULOS: So we're going to chop off heads?
TRUMP: We're going to do things beyond waterboarding perhaps, if that happens to come.Of course he got that wrong too, insistingthat nobody had "chopped off heads" since those medieval times, apparently unaware of the beheading spree of the French revolution.