Trumpâs staff reportedly believed him to be semi-literate
Pitching policy ideas to Trump was âdeeply complicated,â Wolff writes in his book, citing the belief among some close to the president that he âwas no more than semi-literate.â
Trump âdidnât readâ or âdidnât really even skim,â Wolff writes, creating issues when aides attempted to pitch policy to him.
Former Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh reportedly said working with Trump in those instances was âlike trying to figure out what a child wants.â
Trump said on the campaign trail he hadnât read biographies of previous presidents, saying âIâm always busy doing a lot.â
Trump told The Washington Post in July 2016 that he doesnât read much, but instead comes to the right decisions âwith very little knowledge other than the knowledge I had.â
More recently, a White House official spokesman told CNN he couldnât say whether Trump had read all of a 55-page national security document.
Steve Harvey: According to historians & sociologists, what is one of the most common methods that an authoritarian does to keep damaging personal information from being released?
I think we have to recognize a continuum of literacy. I bet there are probably examples where Trump clearly demonstrated an ability to read. Like there was a time when he was practicing a speech in a car and some reporter got him on camera.
But different people need to expend different amounts of effort to read. They may be able to comprehend what they are reading to different degrees.
I think when someone is as clearly disordered/disregulated as Trump, you have to think that at any given moment they may be unable to do anything if they find it boring or upsetting. So maybe he just doesnât like to read and is virtually incapable of doing things he doesnât like to do, even if there is a reward for doing so or itâs important to him to achieve some outcome.
I remember reading that they put his name in his briefing notes as often as possible. I donât think heâs illiterate. If you give him something to read and say the countryâs welfare depends on him knowing it, he wonât read it. If you give him something to read, put him in front of a camera, and say, âPeople have been saying you are illiterate, weâre going to make a video of you reading this complex document to show them how smart you are!â I bet heâd be able to read just fine (though possibly without absorbing the content at all).
I think the correct term is functional illiterate.
I suspect that most of the people who supported him in his day to day running of his businesses failed to get security clearance and we know Trump is too arrogant to push on it.
Wright wrote Spycatcher in Tasmania, after his retirement from MI5. He first attempted publication in 1985. The British government immediately acted to ban Spycatcher in the UK. Since the ruling was obtained in an English court, however, the book continued to be available legally in Scotland, as well as other jurisdictions.
Now imagine what that would have been like if social media existed 30 years ago.
There was more: Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes heâd repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories â now it was within 10 minutes. Indeed, many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions â he just couldnât stop saying something.
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As telling, with his daughter and son-in-law sidelined by their legal problems, Hope Hicks, Trumpâs 29-year-old personal aide and confidant, became, practically speaking, his most powerful White House advisor. (With Melania a nonpresence, the staff referred to Ivanka as the âreal wifeâ and Hicks as the âreal daughter.â) Hicksâ primary function was to tend to the Trump ego, to reassure him, to protect him, to buffer him, to soothe him. It was Hicks who, attentive to his lapses and repetitions, urged him to forgo an interview that was set to open the 60 Minutes fall season. Instead, the interview went to Fox Newsâ Sean Hannity who, White House insiders happily explained, was willing to supply the questions beforehand. Indeed, the plan was to have all interviewers going forward provide the questions.
Soooo⌠in reality, does this mean that Hicks is our first millennial president in a sense?
And yes. I realize the irony of the situation about someone from my generationâs main job being soothing the snowflake-in-chief
Such a long listâŚ
