By Hal Brown, MSW, My blog with stories that piqued my interest
“White House turmoil as Trump aides Mnuchin and Navarro get in ‘knockdown, drag-out’ yelling match” from RawStory summarizes this report in The Washington Post.
I found it of minor interest that The Washington Post article was filed under “Technology” which reminded me of when The Huffington Post (as it used to be called) published stories about Trump under “Entertainment” in July of 2015.
What really struck me about this story was two things as indicated in my title. One is that the White House is in such disarray that two top advisors feel for whatever reasons so emotionally overwrought that they can’t engage in a civil discussion about a matter which, while important, isn’t exactly about whether or not to drop an atom bomb on Hiroshima. They feel comfortable getting in what was called a knockdown drag-out yelling match in front of the president.
That they would actually do this in the presence of the president instead of in private says a great deal about the atmosphere Trump promotes. He has created a psychological sick building. More about this later.
Here’s an excerpt from The Washington Post article which describes the argument. The rest of the article is focused on the TikTok deal and would in part justify it being in the Technology section.
In front of Trump, trade adviser Peter Navarro and other aides late last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin began arguing that the Chinese-owned video-sharing service TikTok should be sold to a U.S. company. Mnuchin had talked several times to Microsoft’s senior leaders and was confident that he had rallied support within the administration for a sale to the tech giant on national security grounds.
Navarro pushed back, demanding an outright ban of TikTok, while accusing Mnuchin of being soft on China, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions freely. The treasury secretary appeared taken aback, they said.
The ensuing argument — which was described by one of the people as a “knockdown, drag-out” brawl — was preceded by months of backroom dealings among investors, lobbyists and executives. Many of these stakeholders long understood the critical nature of establishing close connections with key figures in the Trump administration.
But over the past few weeks, they also were reminded of the unpredictable and precarious nature of business dealings under a Trump-led government — and how the winner of a heated debate in front of the president could help decide the fate of a multibillion-dollar deal that may reshape the technology business landscape for years to come.
Here we have an example of how this part of the definition of malignant narcissism plays out around Trump:
….the malignant narcissist “undermines families and organizations in which they are involved, and dehumanizes the people with whom they associate.” Wikipedia
This is the source for this part of the Wikipedia definition is for those who want a more technical explanation. If you can’t read it below here’s the ink.
Excerpt:
From the article:
“This possibility motivates me to speculate whether conditions such as “sick building syndrome” … may in part be the result of a contaminated psychological atmosphere.
The other part of this story that struck me is that it leaked. Somebody decided that the public ought to know how dysfunctional Trump had made the White House. They exposed themselves to being part of what has to be a busy and paranoid crew of “witch hunters” that Trump has tasked with rooting out and destroying the lives and ruin the careers of anybody who revealed the pathology of his back ward inner sanctum of the White House to the media.
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