Trump put on Hispanic accent to complain about ‘useless’ migrants crossing US border, book claims
Anonymous account describes president as volatile, incompetent and unfit to be commander-in-chief
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Donald Trump allegedly imitated a Hispanic accent while complaining about people crossing the US-Mexico border.
A new book, by an anonymous insider in the Trump administration, includes the anecdote as well as other racist and misogynist statements reportedly made by the president behind the scenes.
The 73-year-old was allegedly speaking in the Oval Office when he attempted the accent.
“We get these women coming in with like seven children,” he said, according to the forthcoming book, which is titled A Warning.
“They are saying, ‘Oh, please help! My husband left me!’ They are useless. They don’t do anything for our country. At least if they came in with a husband we could put him in the fields to pick corn or something.”
A Warning also describes the president as volatile, incompetent and unfit to be commander-in-chief.
The identity of the book’s author has been carefully protected by Hachette Book Group, the publisher.
Hachette has provided no details about the person’s identity, beyond describing them as a “current or former senior official” in the White House.
The book is written by the same person who wrote an anonymous New York Times opinion piece alleging that numerous people in the Trump administration were working against the president’s “misguided impulses”.
The author alleges that Mr Trump “stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated and has trouble synthesising information”.
In excerpts published in The Washington Post the writer claimed senior administration officials considered resigning as a group in 2018 in a “midnight self-massacre”.
The group of officials ultimately decided that resigning would do more harm than good.
Mr Trump’s administration has reacted with fury to news of the book, which will be published on 19 November.
“The coward who wrote this book didn’t put their name on it because it is nothing but lies,” said Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, on Thursday.
Earlier in the week the Justice Department sent a letter to the book’s publisher and the author’s literary agency, demanding to know if the work violated confidentiality agreements and asking for information which could help identify the writer.
According to the published extracts, the author has now changed their mind about the usefulness of internal resistance.
“Unelected bureaucrats and cabinet appointees were never going to steer Donald Trump the right direction in the long run, or refine his malignant management style,” the insider writes.
“He is who he is.”
Additional reporting by agencies
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