Day: 8/18/2020

Trump’s Ignorance of His Own Staff is Another Red Flag for Dementia

Posted by on August 18, 2020 at 2:19 pm. 3 Comments :

Perhaps the most ill-considered campaign tactic of 2020 is Donald Trump’s desperation-driven attacks on Joe Biden’s mental health. He seems to be oblivious to his own all too apparent cognitive decline. In fact, polls show that most Americans think it’s Trump who doesn’t have the mental soundness to serve. Plus, it’s an insult to every senior citizen voter in the country who sees clearly that Biden is fine and that Trump is lying.

Donald Trump

On Tuesday morning Trump released a new ad that purports to show how Biden has changed in the past four years (video below, if you have the stomach for it). But it’s a logical mess that compares Biden at the podium on the campaign trail in 2016 to deceitfully edited clips of Biden being more reserved in his home studio during the Trump Virus pandemic. No one would expect Biden to be articulating as expressively under those circumstances. But Trump’s ad gives the false and reprehensible implication that it’s the result of a psychological problem.

What’s more, Trump really doesn’t want to compare himself to Biden. That will certainly backfire on him. And further evidence of Trump’s mental infirmity can be seen in his amnesia-like ignorance of high level members of his own White House staff. This came to light for the umpteenth time Tuesday morning when Trump tweeted that…

For some reason Trump thinks that by denying that he knows Miles Taylor, it benefits him in some way. However, the opposite is true. If Trump doesn’t know a senior aide like the Chief of Staff at his Department of Homeland Security, how can he possibly pretend to be doing his job? This is a position that is critical to national security. Any president would have to have frequent dealings with the person in that role. Particularly when there is a domestic crisis in progress that has already taken the lives of more than 170,000 Americans.

Trump must be too busy golfing, tweeting, or watching Fox News to be bothered with interacting with the members of his staff who are responsible for keeping the nation secure. However, Trump isn’t too busy to pound out Twitter attacks on anyone who dares to criticize him. And that’s the offense that Taylor committed. He appeared in a video that outlines how Trump has failed the country in profound ways, saying that…

“What we saw was terrifying. We would go in to try to talk to him about pressing national security issues. Cyber attacks, terrorism threats. He wasn’t interested in those things. They weren’t priority. The President wanted to exploit Homeland Security for his own political purposes and to fuel his own agenda.”

That is indeed terrifying. But just as frightening is Trump’s inability to recall having ever met some of his most senior aides. Here’s a partial list of White House staffers who Trump denied knowing or knew only in passing:

  • Gordon Sondland, US Ambassador to the European Union: “I don’t know him very welI. I have not spoken to him much.”
  • Paul Manafort, campaign chairman: “I didn’t know Manafort well…” and that he “wasn’t with the campaign long.”
  • George Conway, Husband of Kellyanne Conway, White House Counselor: “I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!”
  • Anthony Scaramucci., White House Communications Director: A “highly unstable ‘nut job'” and that he “barely knew him.”
  • George Papadopoulos, campaign adviser: “I never even talked to the guy, I didn’t know who he was.”
  • Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, National Security Council aide: “Never heard of him.”
  • Matt Whitaker, Acting U.S. Attorney General: “I don’t know Matt Whitaker.”
  • Stormy Daniels, Adult film actress: “I had nothing to do with her.”
  • Bill Taylor, Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine: “…who I don’t know.”
  • Marie Yovanovitch, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine: “I really don’t know her.”
  • Rick Bright, Top federal scientist and director of BARDA: “I don’t know him. I never met him. I don’t want to meet him.”
  • Vladimir Putin, Trump’s boss: After bragging that “I got to know Putin very well,” Trump later claimed that “I never met Putin, I don’t know who Putin is.”

There is obviously something terribly wrong with Trump. These aren’t casual acquaintances. Many of them form the core of the country’s national security apparatus. And the country is significantly more at risk if Trump can’t even recall who they are. That sort of mental infirmity cannot be tolerated in a national leader. And hopefully, we won’t have to tolerate it for much longer.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

WARNING: Contains dishonest misrepresentations is reality. Viewer discretion is advised.