“The dilemma — which [Trump] does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” the author wrote.
The essay has driven Trump into a rage. He called the writer “gutless” and demanded they be turned over “at once” to the government.
Beschloss said the essay was so extraordinary, its only precedent was the defiance of Nixon aides, who feared that the embattled, paranoid president would employ the military to protect his position.
At the time, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger advised the military to disregard presidential orders that he did not explicitly approve, Beschloss said.
“Henry Kissinger, the secretary of State, was privately saying Al Haig, the White House chief of staff, was keeping the country together, and he, Kissinger, was keeping the world together,” Beschloss said. “But that’s not at this level.”
Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers,” a history of White House chiefs of staff, called the essay “pretty extraordinary.”
“I can’t think of anything like this, and the only thing that would be even remotely comparable it seems to me would be during the darkest days of the Nixon administration,” Whipple said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”
Whipple said that in the final days of the Nixon presidency, aides were driven to prevent him from acting on his worst impulses. Nixon, at that point, “was walking the West Wing corridors and talking to the oil portraits, and obviously a desperate man,” Whipple said.
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