Washington Post link
Excerpt:
President Trump on Tuesday said he is opposed to current and former White House aides providing testimony to congressional panels in the wake of the special counsel report, intensifying a power struggle between his administration and House Democrats.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Trump said that complying with congressional requests was unnecessary after the White House cooperated with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference and the president’s own conduct in office.
“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments came as the White House made it clear that it plans to broadly defy requests for information from Capitol Hill, moving the two branches of government closer to a constitutional collision.
Will the wall Trump wants to hide behind be made of stone?
I think it will prove to look like this.
Meanwhile, any mentally healthy president would be anxious, if not terrified, over the possibility of impeachment and revelations about his outright criminality finally sinking in with 20 or more Republicans in the Senate and among all but his brainwashed supporters, he seems to be in denial. Put another way:
Wednesday, Apr 24, 2019 · 2:02:33 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
Trump wants/needs to own the news cycle, and is showing signs of desperation (50 tweets in 24 hours on the 23rd) — but as impeachment or quasi-impeachment hearings move forward even Fox News will be covering news that is damning to him. Not only will his criminal behavior be laid out for all to see, but he will be shown to be a weak leader whose subordinates ignored and defied him and that will bother him more than almost anything.
Look for him to spend more time attending rallies which will barely get covered in the media. He will spend more time at his golf resorts consorting with the likes of Rush Limbaugh. That lapdogs like Kushner (“it was just a couple of Facebook ads” and “Kushner's chilling preview of Trump 2020: Investigations "way more harmful" than Russia”
), Guiliani, and Sanders become objects of ridicule won’t help either. As his support erodes among Republicans and previous loyalists like Verret (story below) turn against him and get major publicity he'll be under more stress. Meanwhile Bill Weld, who called Trump a malignant narcissist and megalomaniac on Lawrence O’Donnell last night, will get more air time. Kasich may also decide to run against him.
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If anything Trump will be more distracted as he is under attack on more fronts. Trump’s brittle primative psychological defensives (personified by Alfred E. Neuman) will be in danger of cracking.
Therapists will be alert for sign of psychological and cognitive decompensation and I look for more of our spokespersons like John Gartner and Bandy Lee to be interviewed on TV.
George Conway will be tweeting "I told you so."
Trump will make more unintended errors like his Sri Lanka tweet which stayed online for 20 minutes until some staffer noticed it. Such behaviours will make it appear he is in in a state of at the least distraction and at worst pre-dementia.
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No matter what his psychiatric diagnosis is, Trump has psychological defense mechanisms. Everybody does. His are readily observable, and they tend to be primative or immature ones. His defense of denial borders on the psychotic. See the variants of defense mechanisms here. Note how few of the mature ones Trump uses.
As Trump decompensates he will lash out at immigrants and his chosen enemies. The country and world will be a dangerous place until he is no longer president.