White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called it “nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the President look bad.”

White House chief of staff John Kelly also rejected Woodward’s reporting that he called Trump an “idiot,” even though multiple outlets have also reported that Kelly has privately disparaged the President. He just scurries around.” Priebus himself is quoted as saying that Trump officials are “natural predators” and elaborated, “When you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody.” The former chief of staff also fretted about Trump’s Twitter habits, often referring to the president’s quarters in the White House residence as “the devil’s workshop” and Sunday night as “the witching hour,” because that’s often when Trump posts his most explosive tweets. Chief of Staff John Kelly is quoted as having doubted Trump’s mental faculties, declaring during one meeting, “We’re in Crazytown.”

Trump’s former lawyer in the Russia probe, John Dowd, is also said to have doubted Trump’s ability to avoid perjuring himself should he be interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller. Their goal: to argue that Trump couldn’t possibly testify because he was incapable of telling the truth. It’s either that or an orange jump suit.”

What he couldn’t say to Trump, according to Woodward, was what Dowd believed to be true: “You’re a f—–g liar.”

Throughout the book, Woodward portrays the President as a man obsessed with his standing in the media and with his core supporters. We’re going to be much more measured.”

The president is also reportedly dead set on cutting national security costs and, during a January 2018 meeting, questioned why the U.S. has a military presence in the Korean Peninsula and a system to detect missiles from North Korea. Woodward writes that after the meeting, Mattis told associates that “the president acted like—and had the understanding of—‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ”

Reflecting on Trump’s behavior, Mattis commented to friends, “Secretaries of defense don’t always get to choose the president they work for.”

Woodward’s book opens with a scene in which Cohn discovers a letter on Trump’s desk that would have pulled the U.S. out of a major trade agreement with South Korea and possibly compromise a program designed to detect North Korean missiles. While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility.”

He continued: “In serving in this administration, the idea that I would show contempt for the elected Commander-in-Chief president Trump, or tolerate disrespect to the office of the President from within out Department of Defense, is a product of someone’s rich imagination.”

Former White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, meanwhile, is alleged to have stolen a letter from Trump’s desk that would have withdrawn the U.S. from a trade agreement with South Korea. Following statements of denial from Kelly, Mattis and others in the book, Trump suggested there was political motivation behind the timing of the book’s release. Woodward sought through multiple White House officials and others close to Trump to secure an interview with him, to no avail.
The new book of investigative journalist Bob Woodward, Fear, draws the ire of the White House.