- President Donald Trump’s carefree and unsuspecting approach to phone calls with world leaders tended to get ugly if the recipient was a woman, according to a new CNN report.
- Trump was “almost sadistic” when he spoke to leaders such as former UK Prime Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling them “stupid” and “dumb”, according to Carl Bernstein, a former reporter of Watergate fame for the The Washington Post that reported The CNN Story.
- A source called Trump’s calls with May “humiliating and intimidating,” while Merkel reportedly took Trump’s antics “like water on a duck’s back.”
- “He was upset about something with Theresa May, then he got nasty to her on the phone call,” a source told CNN. “It is the same interaction in all environments, coronavirus or Brexit, without applying any filter.”
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President Donald Trump was kind to male world leaders on phone calls, but became “almost sadistic” when speaking to women in the same positions, according to a new report by Carl Bernstein for CNN.
Bernstein, who rose to fame in The Washington Post during the Watergate scandal, quoted the White House and intelligence community sources familiar with highly classified calls.
The “most vicious Trump attacks,” sources said, were directed at female heads of state, “he wrote.
Bernstein described the president’s general conduct in these calls as a “danger to the national security of the United States” due to how unprepared Trump was.
“The calls caused former top Trump officials, including national security advisers HR McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well As intelligence officials, they concluded that the president was often “delusional,” as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders, “Bernstein wrote.
He added: “More than a dozen officials listened to the President’s phone calls in real time or were provided with detailed summaries and printed texts of the calls shortly after their completion, CNN sources said. The sources were interviewed by CNN repeatedly during a four-month period that runs through June. “
Trump was belligerent with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former UK Prime Minister Theresa May, according to the report.
“Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are incredible: he called her ‘stupid’ and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians,” a source told Bernstein. “It is the hardest [in the phone calls] with those whom he considers weak and weaker with whom he should be tough. “
Merkel took Trump’s vitriol “like water from a duck’s back,” Bernstein said, citing a source, and simply responded “with factual recitations.”
May, on the other hand, was surprised by Trump’s conduct, according to the report.
The then Prime Minister would be “nervous and nervous” when Trump attacked her, according to a source Bernstein cited.
“It clearly intimidated her and she intended to,” a person familiar with the calls told CNN.
The behavior spread to in-person interactions as well, a German official told CNN.
When Merkel visited the White House in 2018, Trump “displayed” very questionable behavior “that” was quite aggressive … [T]The chancellor remained calm, and that is what she does over the phone, “the official said, according to the report.
