Background Briefing: August 21, 2019
Is Trump Losing It? Is the President Crazy?
We begin with the question more and more people are asking, including those who have worked closely with Trump, and that is, is he losing it? Is the president crazy? Joining us is William Cohan, a former senior Wall Street investment banker and bestselling author who writes a bi-weekly column at The New York Times and is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair where he has an article “Oh My God, This Jackass”: The Mooch Explains Why He Thinks Trump is “Crazy”, “Narcissistic”, and a “Paper Tiger” Who Will Drop Out by March 2020”. We discuss the interview William Cohan did with the short-lived Director of Communications at the Trump White House, Anthony Scaramucci, and the “Committee to Dismantle Trump” PAC that ”The Mooch” is launching to find a Republican challenger to run against Trump in the presidential primary. While many people who have dealt with Trump over the years have found him to be a self-obsessed narcissist on the borderline of insanity, Scaramucci believes Trump’s mental faculties are declining as he becomes more petulant and impetuous. He also refers to “The Game of Thrones” in arguing that once Trump is primaried, Republicans will desert him “the minute the Night King is vaporized, all the zombies are gonna fall by the wayside”.
Trump Makes Abortions More Likely by Denying Women Contraception
Then with the Trump Administration stripping Title X funds from Planned Parenthood and Trump accusing Jewish Democrats of “disloyalty”, we speak with Amanda Marcotte, a feminist author who writes for Salon where she has two articles “Why Are Republicans taking away birth control? Because they don’t want women to have it” and “Trump’s anti-Semitic comments are the new normal: Threats and blackmail are all he has left”.
Trump Pouts at the “Nasty” Woman Who Turned Down His Offer to Buy Greenland
Then finally we discuss Trump’s cancellation of a state visit to Denmark because the man-child thinks the Danish Prime Minister was “nasty” in rejecting his offer to buy Greenland. An expert on European politics, R. Daniel Kelemen, the Jean Monet Chair and a professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, joins us to discuss the difficult task European allies have of wanting to deal with the United States but not the childish buffoon who pouts at the Danish PM’s spurning of his ridiculous offer to buy Greenland, “she’s not talking to me, she’s talking to the United States of America, they can’t say how absurd”.