Donald Trump Continues To Unravel, Barking At Surrogates And Calling His Staff Stupid

DONALD TRUMP: I’ve always won and I’m going to continue to win. And that’s the way it is.

The warning signs of an acute mental breakdown are becoming ever more apparent as Donald Trump slips into the abyss of his own hatred and narcissism. In a conference call today with his key campaign surrogates, Trump unloaded both barrels in a fit over how they are covering for his racist attacks on a U.S. District Court judge.

Donald Trump

The Honorable Gonzalo Curiel is presiding over the case wherein Trump University has been charged with fraud. But Trump has been baselessly accusing him of being unfair due to his Hispanic heritage. Never mind that Trump has not provided a single example of an unfair ruling, or that Trump has not made any motions to have the judge removed from the case, he is doubling and tripling down on his public slander of the jurist who is prohibited by judicial ethics from responding.

And now Trump’s rapidly declining mental state is on full display. As reported by Bloomberg News, today’s conference call clearly showed the strain the affair is having on Trump. He was barking at his own supporters and complaining about their insufficient efforts to back up his blatant bigotry. At one point former Arizona governor Jan Brewer spoke up to advise Trump that an email from his campaign had asked the surrogates to stop talking about the case. Enraged, Trump bellowed “Take that order and throw it the hell out.” He demanded to know who sent the email, and upon learning the name he continued repudiating the email and the sender, who he said he didn’t know. Then he asked…

“Are there any other stupid letters that were sent to you folks? That’s one of the reasons I want to have this call, because you guys are getting sometimes stupid information from people that aren’t so smart.”

Note that the stupid people to whom he is referring are his own staff. The email was copied to the highest levels of Trump’s campaign including his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and his press secretary Hope Hicks. So he can’t argue that this was all done under the radar by a junior staffer. Nor can he issue blanket insults about the intelligence of his employees and continue to claim that he hires the best people. What does this say about his potential cabinet appointments or Supreme Court nominations?

Trump went on to urge his surrogates to more aggressively defend him and aim their attacks directly at the media. He said that “The people asking the questions — those are the racists. I would go at ’em.” He failed to explain how reporters asking about his trumped up charges against an American-born judge of Mexican descent were themselves racist. He appeared to be concerned only with making sure that his surrogates obediently join him in maligning the judge’s credibility and impugning the reputation of the media.

And that’s what makes this all the more unhinged. The Trump University case has nothing to with the presidential campaign. It doesn’t touch on any political policy or legislative agenda. It is purely a personal matter for Donald Trump. It is, therefore, wholly inappropriate for him to recruit his campaign surrogates to run interference on a civil lawsuit that only affects him personally. Particularly when he is asking them to do his dirty work in a self-serving smear campaign. And if they agree to do it they are willfully abandoning any pretense of integrity or ethics. But then again, they’ve already done that by endorsing him for president.

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This latest psychological meltdown illustrates just how dangerous a Trump presidency would be. He is incapable of managing his own narcissistic compulsions. He is an unstable character with no concept of the boundaries between his personal obsessions and the public welfare. He has no respect for his own supporters or staff. And his ability to elevate this comparatively minor civil suit to take priority over every other consideration on his path to the presidency is a frightening indicator of a deranged mindset that has no place in the White House.