MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Yes, it’s as bad as you thought it was. Maybe worse. That’s the unmistakable message about President Donald Trump and his administration from the early pieces of Bob Woodward’s chronicle — titled ‘Fear: Trump in the White House’ — of the first year of the billionaire businessman’s presidency. The image Woodward casts of Trump is of a petulant child, deeply insecure about, well, everything. His staffers — from Defense Secretary James Mattis to chief of staff John Kelly and on down — spend most of their time a) keeping Trump in the dark for, in their estimation, the good of the country and b) running him down in meetings he isn’t in. Trump seems, by turns, annoyed by being left out of the loop and indifferent to it. And most importantly, the President seems entirely unaware of how incredibly out of his depth he actually is. Woodward’s book, which comes in at just under 500 pages, is due out next Tuesday [9-11-18]. But even in these passages, virtually every suspicion (of those paying attention) about the problems with Trump and the utter dysfunction of his White House is confirmed.”
–Chris Cillizza, “Bob Woodward’s peek behind the Trump curtain is 100% as terrifying as we feared,” CNN politics, CNN.com, September 4, 2018 8:46 am