TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Some of President Trump’s advisers and staff are afraid to leave him alone in meetings with foreign leaders for fear he might say something untoward, The New York Times reported on Tuesday [5-16-17].
The Times’ report comes as Trump’s administration grapples with its latest controversy, in which it emerged that Trump disclosed top-secret intelligence to Russian officials during a meeting in the Oval Office last week.
That intelligence, the Times reported on Tuesday, came from Israel, a key US ally. Israel is also a primary adversary of Iran, which is one of Russia’s closest allies. Trump’s dissemination of the intelligence to Russians, two Israeli officials told BuzzFeed News, was ‘our worst fears confirmed.’
The president’s tendency to speak off-the-cuff, as he did during his conversation with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, has prompted his national security adviser H.R. McMaster to ‘insert caveats or gentle corrections’ into conversations when he thinks the president is going off on a tangent or getting into diplomatic tangles.”
-Sonam Sheth, “Some Trump staffers are reportedly afraid to leave Trump alone in meetings with foreign leaders,” Business Insider, May 16, 2017