Donald Trump’s remaining handlers spent Sunday trying to keep him from further self destructing
Donald Trump seemed to know this was going to be a tricky weekend for him when he decided not to head out for one of his usual golf resort vacations. Sure enough, his Friday night firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has evoked widespread backlash, even as Special Counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly delivered Trump a list of interview questions. That all prompted Trump to begin self destructing on Twitter in jarring fashion. Now Trump’s staff is frantically trying to keep him from further self destructing before the day is over.
Trump posted this bizarre missive on Twitter on Sunday morning, which was equal parts unhinged, false, and self incriminating: “Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos? Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!”
About an hour and a half after Trump’s Twitter explosion, the New York Times reported his handlers had “decided to whisk Trump to a golf course today.” (link) In other words, they were trying to get him out of the White House and distract him from his worsening scandals before he did even more damage to himself with additional tweets. This raises the question of who’s “handling” Trump at this point.
Donald Trump’s closest adviser Hope Hicks recently resigned. Numerous reports have Trump increasingly distant from his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. So many of his top White House advisers have resigned or been fired that it’s become difficult to keep track of them all, and most of them never were replaced. Trump’s handlers should have been trying to distract him long before his Twitter meltdown this morning. It’s also a reminder that Trump is increasingly not in control of himself as the pressure mounts.
