How To Be A Dickhead By Donald J. Trumpanzee

I still haven't bought a copy of Fear-- but I plan to... for a plane ride to Istanbul. Meanwhile I'm depending on Rachel Maddow and, yesterday on Greg Sargent in the Washington Post-- Another big Woodward reveal: Trump’s bottomless bad faith and nonstop lying. He reminds us that there's more to Woodwards book than just Señor Trumpanzee's "raging, volatile temperament, his erratic mind-changing, and his startling lack of knowledge or curiosity about complex domestic and global policy problems." And Sargent has noted that the portrait that emerges is of a man "who is mentally and intellectually unfit to serve as president."

But there's more: "Trump’s nonstop lying, his utter contempt for legal and governing process, and his bottomless bad faith in developing rationales for extremely consequential decisions. These sorts of traits-- unlike Trump’s temperament and incuriosity-- are not usually looked at as evidence of his unfitness for this office. But they should be." Yes, they should-- and I hope Ted Lieu, Pramila Jayapal, Jamie Raskin, Steve Cohen or Karen Bass decides to read Sargent's column into the record when the committee the five of them are on-- the House Judiciary Committee-- gets around to the investigation that comes before the actual impeachment.

CNBC at a look at the book from their unique perspective, starting with Señor T's blatant campaign lies about balancing the federal budget and lowering the national debt. Woodward pointed out that once he won, Trump's approach was dangerous and quickly slapped down by his chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn.

"Just run the presses-- print money," Trump said, according to Woodward, during a discussion on the national debt with Gary Cohn, former director of the White House National Economic Council.

...Cohn was "astounded at Trump's lack of basic understanding," Woodward writes.

...The president also floated an idea for making money from the recent rise in interest rates, according to Woodward.

"We should just go borrow a lot of money, hold it, and then sell it to make money," Trump reportedly said.

The president also made clear that he was not pleased by the Federal Reserve's current policy toward moving interest rates back to historical levels after suppressing them during the decade that followed the 2008 financial crisis. Cohn said he supported the Fed's move to raise rates.

Trump then told Cohn that he wouldn't pick him to be Fed chair, according to the book.

"That's fine," Cohn said, Woodward reports. "It's the worst job in America."

Meanwhile ABC News reported that Fuck Up, Jr. confirmed that Fuck Up, Sr. (yes, the illegitimate "president") doesn't trust most of his White House staffers any more. The dysfunctional White House took a fall from dysfunctional to non-functioning. Fuck-Up, Jr. told ABC News the number of people in the White House that his father can trust is smaller than he’d like. It's almost like the title of Woodward's book was forward-looking.

“I think there are people in there that he can trust, it's just-- it's a much smaller group than I would like it to be,” Trump Jr. said in an interview aired Tuesday on ABC’s Good Morning America.

“It would be easier to get things done if you’re able to fully trust everyone around you,” he said. “I think that’s a shame.”

Donald Trump Jr. said he believes the controversial New York Times op-ed penned by an anonymous senior administration official was written by a “low-level person,” and that the Justice Department should investigate the author.

“This is very low level person who will throw their name on an op-ed, and basically subvert the vote of the American people who elected my father to do this job,” Trump Jr. said, calling the editorial “pretty disgusting” and “sad.”

“Listen, I think you're subverting the will of the people. I mean, to try to control the presidency while not the president. You have millions and millions of Americans who voted for this,” he said when asked whether any laws were broken.

Why is this White House such a mess? I think Team Axios hot on it yesterday-- The Trump Rules of Life and Leadership. "Leadership books," they wrote, "are filled with calls for brutal candor, hiring people more talented than yourself, and collaboration as a force multiplier. But the "Trump lessons of leadership, like his approach to the presidency, are radically and ruthlessly different. Here are the Trump Rules, distilled from conversations we have had with countless people close to the president, some of whom have studied him for years" Here it is-- a 7-step guide to how to fail at life and be known as an absolute dickhead to everyone you come in contact with:

1- Your brand should piss someone off. The worst thing you can be is milquetoast, bland. He wants some people to have a viscerally negative response to him and what he’s doing, because he bets that’s going to harden support on the other side.
2- Crisis is a powerful weapon-- fire it indiscriminately. "Forget planning," a source said. "Wake up every morning, survey the battlefield, let your gut instinct lead you to a crisis to exploit, bet that no one else can thrive in the chaos the way you can. Ratchet up the pressure until everyone else's pipes burst."
3- You can create your own truth. Just keep repeating it.
4- Accuse the accuser. A source who's spent hundreds of hours working with Trump puts it this way: "He has a history of accusing people of whatever he’s being accused of. Collusion? Democrats colluded on the dossier! Blue wave? Red wave coming!"
5- Fear trumps friendship. Trump wants his inferiors to fear him and hold him in awe. He likes watching them duke it out in front of him.
6- Loyalty trumps talent. Case in point: Michael Cohen. No serious person would employ Michael Cohen as their personal attorney... a point Trump has belatedly acknowledged himself. But as Cohen used to say, he'd "take a bullet" for Donald Trump. Oops.
7- Never admit you are-- or did-- wrong.  Trump’s #MeToo advice, per Bob Woodward's Fear: "You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women. If you admit to anything and any culpability, then you’re dead."

Ever work for someone who lived life by following those rules? I did-- and, yes, it's as horrific as you might guess.