The following article by Xavier Marquez was posted on the Washington Post website January 10, 2018:
We’ve been learning lately that people close to President Trump flatter him publicly, while apparently bad-mouthing him behind his back.
The flattery can seem over the top. On CNN on Sunday, White House aide Stephen Miller called Trump a “political genius.” In a December Cabinet meeting, Vice President Pence praised Trump so effusively that it prompted widespread mockery and comparisons to authoritarian cults of personality. And those weren’t the first. In June, national observers were similarly startledafter members of the Cabinet took turns praising him in barely believable terms.
Meanwhile, private opinions seem quite different, according to many reports — most recently Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” — which suggest that many White House staff actually look down on Trump’s capacities. Continue reading “Why Trump administration officials try so hard to flatter him”