MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Donald Trump and his aides unleashed on Wednesday [9-5-18] an increasingly aggressive pushback campaign against journalist Bob Woodward’s new book about the West Wing, calling the account ‘boring,’ ‘untrue’ and ‘a work of fiction.’ Trump also suggested that the release of passages from the book was timed to disrupt the confirmation hearing of his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Trump posited that ‘really, if you look at it, it was put out to interfere, in my opinion at this time, with the Kavanaugh hearings,’ adding that he didn’t think the effort was successful. It was the latest missive after Trump earlier in the day sent a series of tweets panning the book. Trump also tried to spin the portrait of him as an irrational leader with a short temper as a skewed interpretation of his presidency…The book’s snippets released by the Washington Post on Tuesday [9-4-18] include anecdotes of Trump’s top aides venting about their boss, describing the White House as ‘crazytown’ and describing the president at times as an ‘idiot’ and possessing the ‘understanding of a ‘fifth- or sixth-grader.’”
–Caitlin Oprysko, “Trump kicks Woodward counterattack into high gear,” Politico, September 5, 2018 3:06 pm