Though Donald Trump has publicly mocked and derided the impeachment inquiry against him, even calling one top Democrat “sick” and “deranged,” the president allegedly displays a very different reaction behind closed doors. This is according to a report by a CNN White House correspondent who has authored a book about covering the administration.
In an appearance with anchor Wolf Blitzer seen in a video below on this page, CNN reporter Jim Acosta said Trump is “growing increasingly agitated and aggravated” over what appears to be the chance that he will become only the third United States president in the country’s history to be impeached.
“Privately, he’s stewing,” Acosta wrote on his Twitter account, referring to the president.
Additionally, the extensive coverage given to impeachment hearings on cable news networks “bugs” the president, Acosta told Blitzer.
The reporter added, however, that according to one White House advisor, Trump was not surprised by the impeachment inquiry, and has suspected that Democrats would impeach him ever since they regained control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 elections.
What has supposedly left the president “a little surprised” is that the expected impeachment came due to “the Ukraine thing,” the CNN reporter wrote on his Twitter feed, citing the unnamed advisor.
Trump is “irked by the fact he would be joining the list of unenvious presidents impeached,” Acosta also said.
Acosta is the author of the recent book, The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America .
The Acosta report is not the first to claim that the impeachment proceedings have left Trump in an aggravated mental state. On November 23, the president called in to the Fox News morning program Fox and Friends for a 53-minute rant. According to Yale University psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee, this revealed that he is experiencing “declining cognitive functions.”
In his appearance with Blitzer on Wednesday afternoon, Acosta also said that Trump is coping with the inquiry by keeping himself busy “in a social media bunker,” seemingly tweeting non-stop about the proceedings.
According to Acosta, the president posted approximately 70 tweets and retweets to his Twitter account in a 24-hour period from Tuesday to Wednesday. Most of those Twitter postings addressed the impeachment proceedings or related Trump preoccupations, including what he refers to as the “FAKE” and “CORRUPT” news media.
But even as Trump rails against the media, the editorial boards of several major newspapers have taken stands in favor of impeachment. The latest came on Wednesday when USA Today published an editorial, saying that his “egregious transgressions and stonewalling” have left House Democrats with “little choice but to press ahead” with the process.