Beware the number of enemies you make, and pray to God they don’t have literary agents.
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That’s a lesson President Trump never learned. But he’ll be schooled anew in late July, the scheduled publication date for a book by his niece, Mary Trump. Spoiler alert: She’s not defending the honor of a misunderstood uncle. She’s reportedly plunging a dagger into him, though its lethalness is unclear. It’s not as if she had an Ivanka-grade seat to the circus of his life.
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John Bolton had an excellent, if briefly occupied, perch as the third of Trump’s four national security advisers so far. That’s surely why he makes the president so nervous. Trump and his flunkies are raging about and suing to delay distribution of Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened,” set for release early next week. (“He’s broken the law,” Trump fumed on Monday, referring to the administration’s claims that Bolton is trafficking in classified information. “I would think that he would have criminal problems.”) But Martha Raddatz of ABC News has done a long interview with Bolton to be aired on Sunday. One way or another, the truth will come out.
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Then again, the truth was never in. While most presidential administrations leak like kitchen faucets — or at worst, garden hoses — Trump’s leaks like Niagara Falls, as many unflattering books and much unsparing journalism have already shown. And while most presidential administrations have a few embittered exiles, Trump’s has a teeming diaspora of disgusted refugees, many of whom tattled as soon as they fled, either on the record or in whispers to reporters.
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But many others have yet to spill the beans, at least not every last lima, pinto and garbanzo, and I think we’re on the cusp of a bean buffet. As Trump grows even meaner and more erratic and as the election nears, the impulse to expose him will intensify. It could be what topples him.
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In addition to the books I mentioned and a rumored tell-all by the Trump fixer Michael Cohen, there’s the recent denunciation of the president in The Atlantic by Gen. James Mattis, his former defense secretary, who had previously taken such pride in holding his tongue.
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It was seconded — sort of — by Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, who clearly has more to say and may well say it between now and November. As I noted in a previous column, the two belong to an array of current and former military leaders who, in an extraordinary break with tradition, have taken public issue with a sitting president, venting their disapproval of Trump.
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But there’s no reason to believe that this revolt will be confined to men and women in uniform. Trump has incensed and alarmed officials and staffers in all kinds of institutions and all corners of the government. He has burned through personnel like a pyromaniac.
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And that’s just over the three and a half years of his presidency. His path to it is strewn with betrayed business associates, duped clients, ditched friends and estranged family members. Their reticence, to the extent that they practiced it, has always existed in proportion to his potency. The weaker he seems to become, the chattier they’re likely to be. Revenge is a dish best served on CNN.
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I’m wondering if there’s another Anthony Scaramucci out there, a post-Mooch snitch. I’m wondering about diplomats who might jettison their last scraps of discretion.
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I’m wondering what H.R. McMaster, Trump’s second national security adviser, has to say. I’m wondering what Rex Tillerson, his first secretary of state, hasn’t said yet. Neither strikes me as a figure so partisan that he feels compelled to prop up whoever happens to be leading the Republican Party, including a twisted tyrant like Trump. Neither has the Faustian stench of a Bill Barr, a Mike Pompeo, a Nikki Haley.
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But those are just the names we recognize, the associates who are on our radar. Trump’s niece wasn’t. At this point his detractors are so legion that there’s no way for him and his unscrupulous sentries to head all of them off at the pass. They’re like a zombie apocalypse, lurching straight for the White House.
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Yes, I know, Trump has survived the display of piles of his dirty laundry before, readily recasts unethical behavior as boldness and blithely dismisses horror over his antics as the last gasps of a faltering establishment. In the context of his brand, the title of Mary Trump’s book, “Too Much and Never Enough,” is less affront than affirmation. It sounds like a James Bond movie. (The subtitle, “How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” sounds more like a “Frankenstein” remake.)
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But there comes a tipping point when the people who saw you up close and cringe at the memory cannot be shrugged off. And for Uncle Donald, it may fast be arriving.
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