‘Modi’s Eyes Bulged Out in Surprise’ at Trump’s China Border Gaffe
The new book, ‘A Very Stable Genius,’ portrays Trump as uninformed, erratic and as verbally and emotionally abusive.
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“It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.”
This is what US President Donald Trump told Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during one of their meetings, according to an anecdote from a new book by The Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D Leonning.
After Trump bungled his India-China geography in a meeting with Modi and dismissed the threat China poses to India, the authors mention that “Modi’s eyes bulged out in surprise,” according to the Post.
After his faux pas, the authors write that “Modi’s expression gradually shifted, from shock and concern to resignation.”
According to the book, Trump’s aide concluded that Modi probably “left that meeting and said, ‘This is not a serious man. I cannot count on this man as a partner.’ ”
‘The Uninformed, Abusive President’
The book attempts to throw light on the “uninformed Trump,” who struggles to grasp even the fundamental history surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbour.
According to the report, ’A Very Stable Genius,’ as explained in the prologue by the authors, “is intended to reveal Trump at his most unvarnished and expose how decision-making in his administration has been driven by one man’s self-centered and unthinking logic — but a logic nonetheless.”
The authors are two longtime Post reporters, who were part of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning team, for its reporting on Trump and Russia.
It recounts an exchange between Trump and Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as his communications director for 11 days. “Are you an act?” Scaramuccia asks Trump, to which Trump replies “I’m a total act and I don’t understand why people don’t get it.”
Trump’s incompetency is revealed in the book when it recounts him struggling to read the Constitution aloud as part of an HBO documentary that features judges and lawmakers. “It’s like a foreign language,” Trump gripes, blaming others for his mistakes.
The book also reveals that Trump was “verbally and emotionally abusive” toward the then Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen over the immigration policy.
“He made fun of her stature and believed that at about five feet four inches she was not physically intimidating. ‘She’s so short,’ Trump would tell others about Nielsen,” according to the book.
(With inputs from The Washington Post.)
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