Donald Trump “Slurs and Gets Confused,” According to White House Official

In a new book from an anonymous senior White House official, Trump displays concerning behavior of a different sort than the kind he typically exhibits on TV. The Washington Post reports that the staff member, who is publishing a book later this month titled A Warning, writes that Trump “stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated and has trouble synthesizing information, not occasionally but with regularity,” and that he “deserves to be fired.” The author continues, “I am not qualified to diagnose the president’s mental acuity … All I can tell you is that normal people who spend any time with Donald Trump are [made] uncomfortable by what they witness.”

Trump’s persistent verbal harassment of women unsurprisingly goes on off mic, as well. “He comments about makeup, he makes jokes about weight,” the author writes. “He questions the toughness of women in and around his orbit. He uses words like ‘sweetie’ and ‘honey’ to address accomplished professionals.”

A Warning is an expansion to an opinion piece published in The New York Times last year, in which the author claimed to be “part of the resistance inside the Trump administration.” The author later admitted that the idea of a resistance was rather hopeless, stating, “Unelected bureaucrats and cabinet appointees were never going to steer Donald Trump the right direction in the long run, or refine his malignant management style. He is who he is.” As change couldn’t be made from within, the publication of A Warning takes the defiance out of the White House, much like the whistleblower report that finally launched impeachment proceedings last month.

On Monday, the Justice Department sent a letter to the book’s publisher, Hachette, as well as to the author’s literary agency suggesting confidentiality agreements may have been breached, and asked for information to reveal the author’s identity. Hachette responded by saying they wouldn’t reveal further information beyond calling the author a “current or former senior official.”

The author also writes that Trump’s antics leave those seeing them “stunned, amused and embarrassed all at the same time.” Those words seem to speak for all of us, even outside the White House.