Graydon Carter on the Rise and Fall of Donald Trump, Roy Cohn, and the President’s Brain airmail.news/issues/2019-9-…
“The president of the United States wasn’t crazy back when I first met him, in the early 80s. Craven, tacky, self-regarding—yes, he had all of those enduring attributes. But he wasn’t the mad, stumbling fellow you currently see before you.”
“Back then, if you overlooked the crassness and the pushy ambition, he even had a certain charm—and, believe it or not, a way with words. It was a hustler’s charm, to be sure, transactional, and keyed to a sale, a loan, a variance, a mention in a newspaper column, or a date.”
“Given the obvious decline in the president’s mental abilities—signaled by the ever shrinking arsenal of words at his disposal, his opinions, accusations, and actions—he could ask for leniency based on mental impairment. He’d have some justification in doing so.” ~Graydon Carter
