When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the President Trump's aides and family "should stage an intervention for the good of the country" and suggested he wasn't in control of the White House on Thursday, she was deliberately trying to provoke an angry reaction from the president, people close to Pelosi tell The New York Times and The Washington Post. And provoke she did.
On Thursday afternoon, Trump lashed out at Pelosi, insisted he had been calm and angry when he walked out of a Wednesday meeting after three minutes, declared himself an "extremely stable genius," and had five aides — one of whom hadn't been in the room — attest that he had been "calm" during his brief time in the meeting.
Having aides describe him as calm during a press conference about a farm aid package is "vintage Trump," Asawin Suebsaeng and Sam Stein write at The Daily Beast: "The policy push of the day overwhelmed by internal insecurities and grievances with press coverage bursting into public view. And it underscored the degree to which his warfare with Nancy Pelosi has gone from political to psychological." If Pelosi was looking for a soft spot, they add, she struck gold:
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
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.
Few recurring characterizations bother President Trump more than the (largely accurate) narrative that he has a hair-trigger temper behind the scenes, and that he can easily and frequently be sent into vulgar, sometimes volcanic hissy fits when he doesn't get his way.In the middle of last year, Trump once sat in the White House and angrily listed various words in headlines and cable-news chyrons he'd seen recently that described his mood — "fuming," "raged," "furious," and so forth — decrying them as inaccurate reporting, according to a source who was present for this. The president sounded increasingly irate as he rattled off headline after headline, the source said, noting the irony. [The Daily Beast]
Point, Pelosi.
-
AI workslop is muddying the American workplaceThe explainer Using AI may create more work for others
-
Japan poised to get first woman prime ministerSpeed Read The ruling Liberal Democratic Party elected former Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi
-
The 5 best mob movies of all timeThe Week Recommends If you don’t like a good gangster flick, just fuhgeddaboudit
-
Judge bars Trump’s National Guard moves in OregonSpeed Read In an emergency hearing, a federal judge blocked President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops into Portland
-
Museum head ousted after Trump sword gift denialSpeed Read Todd Arrington, who led the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, denied the Trump administration a sword from the collection as a gift for King Charles
-
Trump declares ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartelsspeed read This provides a legal justification for recent lethal military strikes on three alleged drug trafficking boats
-
Supreme Court rules for Fed’s Cook in Trump feudSpeed Read Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in her role following Trump’s attempts to oust her
-
Judge rules Trump illegally targeted Gaza protestersSpeed Read The Trump administration’s push to arrest and deport international students for supporting Palestine is deemed illegal
-
Trump: US cities should be military ‘training grounds’Speed Read In a hastily assembled summit, Trump said he wants the military to fight the ‘enemy within’ the US
-
US government shuts down amid health care standoffSpeed Read Democrats said they won’t vote for a deal that doesn’t renew Affordable Care Act health care subsidies
-
YouTube to pay Trump $22M over Jan. 6 expulsionSpeed Read The president accused the company of censorship following the suspension of accounts post-Capitol riot
