BFF-56,57 Troubled Trump attacks ex-aide who calls him not ‘fit’ for office

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Troubled Trump attacks ex-aide who calls him not ‘fit’ for office

WASHINGTON, June 18, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Donald Trump’s presidency was
in turmoil Thursday after top ex-aide John Bolton declared him unfit
for office, raising the stakes on a controversial re-election rally
meant to boost his flailing campaign — yet facing troubles of its
own.

Trump’s once supremely self-confident march toward a second term was
already in a hole due to criticism over his responses to the
coronavirus pandemic and nationwide anti-racism protests.

Now, the outsider president who had never even contested an election
before his shock win in 2016, faces a blistering insider attack from
his former national security aide.

“I don’t think he’s fit for office. I don’t think he has the
competence to carry out the job,” Bolton told ABC News to promote his
book, “The Room Where it Happened.”

The book — which the White House is trying desperately to get
stopped by court order — alleges that Trump asked Chinese President
Xi Jinping for re-election help, obstructed justice, and was no match
for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Putin thinks he can play him like a fiddle,” Bolton told ABC.

Trump lashed back at Bolton, calling him a “sick puppy” and
dismissing the book as “fiction.”

But for all the scandals and even impeachment that Trump has
previously weathered, the book inflicts a newly painful kind of wound.

He largely brushed off his responsibility for the rapid spread of
the coronavirus, which has killed more than 117,000 Americans and
forced a traumatic economic slowdown, calling it “the invisible enemy”
and blaming it on China.

And he branded the wave of street anger over police brutality a
left-wing phenomenon, rejecting polls that show a groundswell in those
believing that systemic racism is a problem.

Bolton, though, is different.

A lifelong Republican and foreign policy hawk, he is arguably well
to the right of Trump and therefore not vulnerable to Trump’s usual
attacks.

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– ‘Back on the road’? –

On Saturday, Trump will fly to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to hold his first
campaign rally since the coronavirus halted travel and big gatherings
in March.

With his TV show background and natural populist flair, Trump is far
happier in front of cheering crowds than in the formal settings of the
White House.

Trump is “very excited to get back on the road,” his advisor
Kellyanne Conway told reporters Wednesday.

So he’ll be hoping that the razzmatazz and the energy of the 20,000
strong crowd will jumpstart his re-election, which polls show him
currently losing heavily to Democrat Joe Biden. Even as Americans only
slowly ease out of lockdown, several other rallies are already being
planned.

But Trump’s also going to have to hope that he doesn’t go down in
history as the president who put political rallies ahead of people’s
lives.

Tulsa is seeing a local spike in coronavirus cases and the city’s
main newspaper, the state health chief and many others have warned
that the huge crowd in an enclosed space could become a viral
incubator.

A lawsuit filed in a Tulsa court to try and stop the rally called it
a virus “superspreader.”

The Trump campaign says it will take temperatures and distribute
masks. Tellingly, though, it is also requiring anyone attending to
sign a waiver, making them unable to hold the organizers responsible
for getting sick.

His Tulsa rally suffered a setback when it was scheduled originally
for this Friday, which is the June 19th or “Juneteenth” anniversary of
the end of slavery in the United States.

Amid soaring racial tensions and anger from civil rights groups at
his handling of the police violence protests, that struck the wrong
tone and Trump was forced to shift to Saturday.

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