Quote:Bombs Away: Trump Has the I.Q. of an Inbred Tanning Bed, Says a Liberated Gary Cohn
The former White House adviser was “astounded” by the depths of the president’s stupidity, according to Bob Woodward’s new book.
by Bess Levin
September 10, 2018 6:37 pm
In his 58 years on earth, Gary Cohn has likely run into an idiot here or there. Whether it was a classmate in his Ohio hometown, a wise guy on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange, or a Goldman Sachs employee with whom he would cross paths again later in life, it’s unlikely Cohn would have been able to fully inoculate himself from people of lesser intelligence, or to refrain from letting them know exactly what he thought of their s--t for brains.
But apparently, whatever run-ins with not-so-bright individuals he had suffered prior to November 2016, they were nothing compared to the stone-cold, mind-blowing, we’ve-never-seen-an-I.Q.-in-the-single-digits-before levels of stupidity he experienced upon accepting a job with the Trump administration.
According to an excerpt from Bob Woodward‘s Fear, the book out tomorrow that the president has called a “joke,” a “scam,” and a “con on the public“ written by a “Dem operative,” the Goldman Sachs president turned National Economic Council director came away from his very first meeting with Donald Trump “astounded” by just how dumb the guy was.
During a chat about various economic issues, Cohn told Trump that the Federal Reserve would likely increase rates during his first term in office, to which President Buy High, Sell Low reportedly responded, “We should just go borrow a lot of money, hold it, and then sell it to make money.”
This suggestion, and “lack of basic understanding” about how federal debt works apparently sent chills up the spine of Cohn, who explained that borrowing more money would in fact increase the deficit and add to the debt, something that would, in theory, be counterproductive for a delusional president who had pledged to completely eliminate the federal debt. But President “I’m, like, really smart” wasn’t finished:
The president-elect offered a solution.
“Just run the presses—print money,” Trump said, according to Woodward.
Cohn suggested that would be detrimental to the fiscal and economic health of the U.S., since printing vast amounts of money is thought to lead to inflation. . . . Cohn also pointed to the federal debt ceiling, a statutory limit to the amount of debt the federal government can have outstanding. Even approaching the debt ceiling can be harmful to the stock market and U.S. economic growth.
But according to Woodward, Cohn’s message did not seem to connect.
“It was clear that Trump did not understand the way the U.S. government debt cycle balance sheet worked,” Woodward wrote.
Of course, that the 45th president of the United States is an idiot is not exactly a new revelation. (Cohn has not publicly commented on any of Woodward’s reporting.) His first secretary of state characterized him as a “moron.” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, according to Woodward, told close associates that the president “had the understanding of ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ”
Scott Pruitt essentially called him an imbecile “when it comes to things like the Constitution and rule of law.” Former White House deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh reportedly said working with him was “like trying to figure out what a child wants,” which feels like an insult to children. And of course, someone “purporting to represent the views” of Cohn sent an e-mail in April 2017 describing the president as “an idiot surrounded by clowns.”
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