Trump reportedly thinks condemning neo-Nazis after Charlottesville was his 'biggest f---ing mistake'

President Trump.
(Image credit: Brian Blanco/Getty Images)

Everyone in the Trump White House thinks everyone else is stupid — and that's putting it lightly.

President Trump, Chief of Staff John Kelly, and pretty much everyone else at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. slung insults and hatred on the daily, per anecdotes included in Bob Woodward's forthcoming book, Fear. The book, which was obtained by The Washington Post, also reveals that Trump called deriding white supremacists after the deadly Charlottesville protests in 2017 a "mistake."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Per Fear, Trump told aides that his light condemnation of neo-Nazis was the "biggest f---ing mistake I've made." Cohn reportedly tried to resign after Trump's "both sides" remark, but Trump convinced him to stay on, Woodward reveals. Kelly was apparently similarly disgusted with Trump's response and told Cohn he would've "shoved [a resignation letter] up [Trump's] ass six different times." Kelly has threatened to quit what he's called "the worst job I've ever had" several times, Woodward reports, and reportedly declared Trump an "idiot" in charge of a White House dubbed "Crazytown."

Other reporting in Fear quotes Trump calling Attorney General Jeff Sessions "mentally retarded," and says the president wanted to "f---ing kill" Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus reportedly summed up the whole White House as putting "a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls," so things naturally "start getting nasty and bloody."

Read more from Fear at The Washington Post. Kathryn Krawczyk

Update 3:33 p.m. ET: The White House offered a response to Woodward's reporting and also shared a statement from Kelly denying that he'd called Trump an "idiot." Read both below.

Explore More

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.