Poor Trumpanzee. Everyone knows what an incompetent imbecile he is-- and Republicans in high positions increasingly are forced to bite their tongues to pretend otherwise. Some just can't do it any longer. Yesterday, BuzzFeed's Joseph Bernstein reported that last July National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster just couldn't take it any longer and let Oracle CEO Safra Catz know what he thinks of the orange pile of amorphous dung he works for. Five second-hand witnesses are all saying the same thing, namely that McMaster told Catz Trump is an "idiot" and a "dope" with the intelligence of a "kindergartner." There are people who don't already know that. Maybe back in July there were.
A sixth source who was not familiar with the details of the dinner told BuzzFeed News that McMaster had made similarly derogatory comments about Trump’s intelligence to him in private, including that the president lacked the necessary brainpower to understand the matters before the National Security Council... [T]hree of the sources said that McMaster disparaged multiple members of the administration to Catz, including Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. Of Kushner, one source told BuzzFeed News, McMaster said he had no business being in the White House and should not be involved in national security issues... Catz was so alarmed by the tenor of McMaster’s comments about President Trump and Israel that she confided her concerns to several administration officials, as well as Adelson.
Reaction to Trump is far worse in Congress where, according to multiple sources, "most" Capitol Hill Republicans "hate him enough to wish he would drop dead." One top Senate staffer told me today that Senate Republicans generally think Trump "is destroying the party and maybe the country." In one of his deranged, Adderall-fueled Twitter rants over the weekend, Trump lashed out, foolishly, at Jeff Flake:When I read it to him, a Republican congressman wouldn't believe me and said he would call me back. After he read it himself, he said he would give me an official version and an off-the-record version of his reaction. Then he changed his mind and just gave me the off-the-record version, saying he didn't want a "bunch of Trump ghouls" coming to his office in the district and bothering his staffers. "Who writes something like this? Not even a 14 year old like that cocksucker Moore molested. This sounds like someone in the 3rd grade. Or someone mentally impaired. I think he has early stage Alzheimer's. I hope it kills him fast so we don't get dragged though years of excruciating loss of cognition in public... I voted for Hillary, first time in my life I voted for a Democrat... if you ever connect me to that I'll deny it. I didn't like her either but she's a fully-functioning adult. He's not."Jeff Flake was more circumspect. As Roll Call pointed out Monday morning, "Losing Flake would put the bill in serious jeopardy of failing, robbing Trump of a year-end legislative victory."
Flake was caught on an open microphone Saturday saying if Republicans "become the party of Roy Moore and Donald Trump, we are toast."The tweet raised eyebrows in Washington, with congressional observers and reporters firing off their own tweets noting Flake had not previously announced how he intends to vote on a tax overhaul bill that cleared the Finance Committee late Thursday evening.Several White House officials had not responded to an inquiry seeking more information about Trump’s prediction, including the basis of his prediction. Several hours after the president’s 6:22 p.m. post, a Flake aide disputed Trump’s prediction.“Sen. Flake is still reviewing the tax reform bill on its merits. How he votes on it will have nothing to do with the President,” the aide said.But the president’s tweet introduces another new dramatic twist in his and Senate GOP leaders’ efforts to score their first shared legislative victory since Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20.That’s because Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., already has signaled his opposition unless changes are made to benefit small businesses. If both Flake and Johnson oppose the measure, it would leave no margin for further defections for GOP leaders and the White House. And several other Republicans have expressed skepticism over the measure, including about its projected impact on the federal deficit.
If Flake and Johnson are serious about not voting for the bill, there are several other Republicans, including McCain, Bob Corker, Ben Sasse, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Oklahoma conservative James Lankford, who, for one reason or another, could provide that 3rd vote to kill Trump's little victory. Collins, for example, who was on CNN's State of the Union Sunday, told Jake Tapper that she's a NO vote unless changes are made to the bill. She's unhappy about how the bill dumps the individual mandate for healthcare, and she opposes the elimination of the federal deduction for state and local taxes and she opposes the steep drop in the corporate tax rate.
