CIA Director Mike Pompeo on Sunday vehemently defended his boss, President Trump, against allegations made in the new tell-all book “Fire and Fury” about the president’s competency, saying the statements are “absurd, just pure fantasy.”
“I’m with him almost every day,” Pompeo told “Fox News Sunday.” “We talk about some of the most serious matters facing America and the rest of the world, complex issues. The president is engaged. He understands the complexity, asks really difficult questions from our team at CIA. I’ve watched him do that.”
Pompeo spoke two days after the official release of the book by author Michael Wolff that portrays the president as intellectually and emotionally incompetent to run the country.
Wolff says the book his based on hundreds of interviews, including ones with Trump family members, White House aides and at least “one recent talk with the president.”
“Statements likes the one Mr. Wolff made about how we all think about the president are just ridiculous and frankly beneath the conversation this morning,” Pompeo told show host Chris Wallace. “They are the conversation because you’re making them the conversation.”
On Trump’s comment Saturday that he’s “genius,” Pompeo said, “I’m not going to dignify that question with a response. President Trump is completely capable of leading us.”
Trump on Saturday at Camp David also called the book a “work of fiction” and said that Wolff’s purported White House interviews with him exist only in the author’s “imagination.”
“I went to the best colleges,” he continued. “I … was a great student, made billions of billions of dollars, was one of the top business people, went into television and for 10 years was a tremendous success as you’ve probably heard.
“Ran for president one time and won. And then I hear this guy who doesn’t know me at all, didn’t interview me for three hours, his imagination. …. I consider [the book] a work of fiction.”
Earlier in the day, Trump hit back at the suggestions and accusations about his intellect and emotional state by tweeting, “my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.”
“Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence…..” he wrote in one tweet.
Trump continued minutes later: “Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star…..”
Trump ended with: “….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!”
By Joseph Weber
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