The president wanted to have Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assassinated last year but his defense secretary ignored the request, according to a new book.
WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) — President Donald Trump wanted to have Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assassinated last year but his defense secretary ignored the request, according to a new book that depicts top Trump aides sometimes disregarding presidential orders to limit what they saw as damaging and dangerous behavior.
Excerpts from the book, «Fear: Trump in the White House,» written by famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward, were published by the Washington Post on Tuesday. The book, which is scheduled for release on Sept. 11, is the latest to detail tensions within the White House under Trump’s 20-month-old presidency.
The book portrays Trump as prone to profane outbursts and impulsive decision-making, painting a picture of chaos that Woodward says amounts to an «administrative coup d’etat» and a «nervous breakdown» of the executive branch.
According to the book, Trump told Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that he wanted to have Assad assassinated after the Syrian president launched a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017.
Mattis told Trump he would «get right on it,» but instead developed a plan for a limited air strike that did not threaten Assad personally.
Mattis told associates after a separate incident that Trump acted like «a fifth- or sixth-grader,» according to the book.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the book is «nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the president look bad.»
The Pentagon declined to comment.
Woodward gained national fame for his reporting on the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, and has since written a series of books that provide behind-the-scenes glimpses of presidential administrations and other Washington institutions. For this book, Woodward spoke to top aides and other insiders with the understanding that he would not reveal how he got his information, the Post said.
Among his other revelations: Former top economic adviser Gary Cohn stole a letter off Trump’s desk that the president planned to sign that would withdraw the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea.
Cohn, who tried to rein in Trump’s protectionist impulses, also planned to remove a similar memo that would have withdrawn the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, Woodward wrote.
«I’ll just take the paper off his desk,» Cohn told another White House aide, according to the book.
The United States remains part of both trade agreements as it negotiates new terms.
Related: Claims made in journalist Bob Woodward’s book on Trump’s presidency
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Claims made in journalist Bob Woodward’s book on Trump’s presidency
Trump reportedly called Attorney General Jeff Sessions a ‘dumb Southerner,’ a ‘traitor’ and ‘mentally retarded,’ according to famed Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward’s book, ‘Fear: Trump in the White House».
(REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
According to the book, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has called President Trump an ‘idiot’ and ‘unhinged’. He also reportedly said ‘this is the worst job I’ve ever had’ and that ‘we’re in Crazytown’.
(OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP/Getty Images)
Trump wanted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after the April 2017 chemical war attack on civilians. According to Woodward he said, ‘let’s f—ing kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the f—ing lot of them’.
(SANA/Handout via REUTERS)
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reportedly told Trump they’d follow through on the plan against Assad and then told an aide, ‘we’re not going to do any of that’.
(Chris Kleponis/Pool via Bloomberg)
Trump’s former top economic adviser Gary Cohn allegedly ‘stole a letter off Trump’s desk’ to avoid a potentially disastrous decision on trade.
(REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
According to the book, Trump falsely claimed that the late Sen. John McCain used his father’s military rank to get early release from a prisoner-of-war camp in Vietnam.
(Photo by Stephane Cardinale — Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
According to the book, Trump told aides that condemning white supremacists and neo-Nazis was the ‘biggest f—-ing mistake’ he’s made following the Charlottesville rally.
(Photo by Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)
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Other aides insulted Trump behind his back. Chief of Staff John Kelly called Trump an «idiot,» and said, «We’re in Crazytown…. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.»
Trump treated top aides with scorn, the book says, telling Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that he was past his prime and calling Attorney General Jeff Sessions «mentally retarded.»
Kelly, in remarks released by the White House, said he never called the president an idiot and called the story «total BS.»
Trump has grown paranoid and anxious over an ongoing federal inquiry into whether his campaign colluded with Russia in Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, prompting aides to compare Trump to former President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, Woodward reported.
Trump’s former lawyer John Dowd conducted a mock interview with Trump to convince him that he would commit perjury if he agreed to talk to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Russia investigation, the book says.
