Crazytown

By accident or design, the bombshell op-ed from a high-level source within the Trump Administration that was published yesterday came at the same time details were leaking about Bob Woodward's explosive new insider book reporting on the Trump White House that goes on sale next week. Woodward, of course, is one half of the famous "Woodward and Bernstein" team from the Watergate era.

The New York Times published a great piece on Woodward's new deeply sourced tell-all (link here) with what they see as the most important takeaways. Some of them are:

• The Russia investigation is a constant source of anxiety for Donald Trump and his lawyers.

• Trump’s advisers are repeatedly stunned by the President’s lack of interest in and knowledge of major issues.

• John Kelly, the chief of staff, quickly soured on Trump.

None of these are really a surprise, but that the same time all reveal what a walking disaster the Trump administration continues to be. It's not getting better and almost certainly getting worse, given all the moderating personnel who have left senior West Wing positions.

Similarly, Vox produced an article of its own (link here) with juicy bits from the book. Some of these include:

• One month after Trump became president, he asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford for plans for a preemptive strike on North Korea.

• After a chemical attack in April 2017 was tied to the Syrian regime and President Bashar al-Assad, Trump told Defense Secretary James Mattis that he wanted Assad assassinated, saying, "Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in."

• Mattis is described as telling associates that Trump acted like, and had the understanding of, "a fifth- or sixth-grader."

Not surprisingly, Trump and his flacks are claiming on camera that everything in the book is "made up" and "fabricated." The only problem with that -- Woodward has hundreds of hours of recordings he made with White House staff who told him the many stories about life inside the Trump White House.