9/11/2018

DONALD JR/MEDIA/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Trump, a commander in chief with a well-known bunker mentality, has long doubted the ability of his aides to protect him from outside attacks. But his anxiety about whom he can trust has only increased in the days since anonymous administration members — a number of them in Bob Woodward’s book ‘Fear,’ and one in an opinion piece published in The New York Times — laid out in stark detail concerns about his volatile personality and doubts about his ability to lead. This is all according to one of the few people who still has the president’s confidence: a family member…But public denials — however nonspecific — from aides that they were the ones speaking out against him seem to have momentarily buoyed the president. As Hurricane Florence headed toward the East Coast on Tuesday, Mr. Trump praised the statements given by two former aides that offered objections to the way Mr. Woodward characterized life in the White House — but not outright denials that they had spoken to him. In a briefing held in the Oval Office about the storm, Mr. Trump sat in front of weather charts and lauded the statements by Rob Porter, the former White House staff secretary, and Gary D. Cohn, the president’s former top economic adviser, both of whom are featured prominently in the book.”

Katie Roger, “Donald Trump Jr. Complains His Father Is Served by Few He Can Trust,” The New York Times online, September 11, 2018