October 17th 2019

By Kerry Eleveld

Daily Kos

Even by Donald Trump's standards, Wednesday was an epically bad day for him.

Early on, Trump dissed U.S. Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS as "no angels," a move that so pained Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, he was forced to actually offer a rebuttal. “I want to express my gratitude to the Kurds,” McConnell said several hours later, calling the partnership a "terrific alliance."

Then the House voted on a resolution condemning Trump's troop withdrawal from Syria that passed 354-60 with overwhelming bipartisan support, including 129 Republicans. That really pushed Trump over the edge. In an apparent effort to prove Trump hadn't greenlit Turkey's precipitous advance into Syria, the White House released a letter Trump sent to Turkish President Recep Erdoğan on Oct. 9 that was so unbelievably embarrassing, news outlets felt moved to confirm its authenticity with the White House.

Trump, however, thought the letter was so masterful that he handed out copies of it to lawmakers in a bipartisan meeting at the White House, during which he reportedly berated Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a "third-grade politician" after she brought up the bipartisan vote on Syria. Pelosi left the meeting along with her Democratic counterparts, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. "What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown," Pelosi told reporters. Hoyer added: "I have served with six presidents. I have been in many, many, many meetings like this. Never have I seen a president treat so disrespectful a coequal branch of government."

As the Democratic triumvirate left, Trump lashed out, saying, "Goodbye, we'll see you at the polls." Clearly, none of his aides have briefed him on the polls. Anyway, convinced of his dominance, Trump tweeted out a picture of Pelosi facing him down that, frankly, made Trump look absolutely pathetic. Check out all the people on Trump's side grimacing with their heads down while Pelosi takes command of the room with full backing of her Democratic colleagues in the tweet below.

The fullness of Trump's deteriorating mental state led Kellyanne Conway spouse George to tweet out, "Are we ready yet to have a full national conversation about the diseased mental state of the president of the United States?"

One person who was ready to broach that topic was former FBI assistant director of counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi.  "He is spiraling down into a dangerous, dangerous posture," Figliuzzi told MSNBC, adding that Trump is acting "almost in total isolation."

"He is in a corner all by himself and if you're a foreign leader trying to assess him, you actually don't know where this is going except that he is incredibly vulnerable," Figliuzzi concluded. 

Essentially, any foreign leader could call up Trump right now, just like Erdoğan did, and bend him to their will because he's just that fragile. If Trump didn't pose a clear and present danger to this country before, he sure does now, and that danger increases with every passing minute that he continues to occupy the Oval Office.

Posted with permission