The White House struggles to silence talk of Trump's mental fitness

By Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker January 8 at 7:09 PM

The White House is struggling to contain the national discussion about President Trump’s mental acuity and fitness for the job, which has overshadowed the administration’s agenda for the past week.

Trump publicly waded into the debate spawned by a new book, “Fire and Fury” — Michael Wolff’s inside account of the presidency — over the weekend by claiming on Twitter that he is “like, really smart” and “a very stable genius.” In doing so, the president underscored his administration’s response strategy — by being forceful and combative — while also undermining it by gleefully entering a debate his aides have tried to avoid.

Trump privately resents the now-regular chatter on cable television news shows about his mental health and views the issue as “an invented fact” and “a joke,” much like the Russia probe, according to one person who recently discussed it with him.

Doubts about Trump’s state of mind have been whispered about in Washington’s corridors of power since before he was elected and have occasionally broken into the open, such as when Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said last August that Trump lacked “the stability” and “some of the competence” to be successful as president.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-white-house-struggles-to-silence-talk-of-trumps-mental-fitness/2018/01/08/2a7d4092-f493-11e7-a9e3-ab18ce41436a_story.html