Opinion | The Dangers of Donald Trump, From Those Who Know Him

“He will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interest. There’s no question about it.”

“He was extremely vulnerable to manipulation. And that became a problem for him as a president. And what I mean by that is, he had a very fragile ego, and he was very susceptible to flattery, as well as taking massive offense, as we all saw, to any kind of criticism.”

“It was clear that he was getting input from people who were calling him up, I don’t know who, people he knew from business, saying, ‘Hey, I heard about this drug, isn’t it great?’ or, ‘Boy, this convalescent plasma is really phenomenal.’”

“This is beyond wrong and illegal. It’s un-American. The president undermined American democracy baselessly for months. As a result, he’s culpable for this siege, and an utter disgrace.”

“It’s Fauci’s fault. It’s China’s fault. It’s Obama’s fault. It’s always someone else, somewhere else. He doesn’t want to hear the bad news. He doesn’t take responsibility for the bad news and wants to gloss over it and change the subject.”

“When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name. Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation. He doesn’t seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans.”

“Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the K.K.K. I believe this administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups and do everything we can to heal the deep divisions that exist in our communities.”

“It was about public service rising above self. The president had lost sight of that. It was also unclear to me if the president was actually in the mental place to continue to serve as the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world. His behavior had grown increasingly erratic and unnerving.”

“The F.B.I. has always been the nemesis of criminals. Today, the F.B.I. is under attack by the president of the United States. The president assails the F.B.I. because he resents or fears the bureau’s independence, its fairness, its professionalism, its competence and, above all, its values.”

“A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law.”

“You hang around Donald Trump long enough, you learn a couple of things. One of them is: Sometimes it’s just better to steer clear of him.”

“And yes, I do regard him as a threat to democracy, democracy as we know it, our institutions, our political culture, all those things that make America great and have defined us as, you know, the oldest democracy on this planet.”

“Trump’s temperament wasn’t rational, but neither was it unfamiliar to me. His outbursts shed light on how his volcanic temper and egotism had lit the match that set his followers’ torches ablaze.”

“To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”

“He hadn’t lifted a finger for countless loyal aides before me, and I’m sure he wouldn’t for countless loyal aides to come. It was well known that in Trump world, loyalty was mostly a one-way street.”

“ Yes, I am supporting Donald Trump, but I’m doing so despite the fact that I think he’s a terrible human being.”

“Trump’s public cheerleading for hydroxychloroquine blurred important distinctions in some cases and caused direct harm in others. An Arizona man, having heard the president’s message on television, took a product that contained a form of hydroxychloroquine and died.”

“The president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.”

“This is a deadly pandemic. This is a deadly virus. The messaging that President Trump gave to America and the world when he left the hospital about there is no need to be afraid of this virus is probably the most reckless and deadly piece of information I have ever heard.”

“Putin, a ruthless former K.G.B. operator, played to Trump’s ego and insecurities with flattery.”

“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. … The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth.”

“The revolving door of leaders in the top national security jobs was not helpful. … We were always working with new colleagues. The turnover suggested instability and disorganization to our adversaries as well as our friends.”

“In no arena of American affairs has the Trump aberration been more destructive than in national security. His short attention span (except on matters of personal advantage) renders coherent foreign policy almost unattainable.”

“Ultimately asking the vice president to sort of put aside the Constitution is a huge violation of your most important oath to the American people, to protect and defend the Constitution.”

“I think that he constantly feels under attack, and he feels the need to justify his position, either on an issue or position or how he came to achieve something. He has built up a DNA of defensiveness.

”

“You are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people — and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people.

”

“I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”

“There were multiple occasions where, in my view, the actions the president wanted to take were not consistent with our national security objectives. … His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited.”

“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”

“Trump doesn’t give a shit. He’s not looking to nurture. He’s not looking to mentor guys. … Do you think Trump wants a guy to win after him?”

“I have a real fucking problem. … I don’t want to speak out of school, but he’s saying some crazy shit.”

“The plain truth is that most of the Trump family dismisses and cuts people from their lives on a whim. They demand total loyalty, but they are loyal to no one. I don’t blame them, to be honest.”

“I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.”

“I’m not sure I can sum up his early days in a single slogan, but I think I can do it in two: ‘I wanna do what I wanna do’ and also ‘That’s not fair.’”

“Trump does not have the temperament to deal with the sensitivities and diplomacy required on the world stage with volatile regimes in Iran, North Korea and the threat of ISIS.”

“He pushed me up against the wall, and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again … and I had to physically say: ‘What are you doing? Stop it.’”

“It had finally sunk in that the person I thought I’d known so well for so long was actually a racist.”

“Donald has, in some sense, always been institutionalized, shielded from his limitations or his need to succeed on his own in the world. Honest work was never demanded of him, and no matter how badly he failed, he was rewarded in ways that are almost unfathomable.”

“By carefully misleading viewers about Trump — his wealth, his stature, his character and his intent — the competition reality show set about an American fraud that would balloon beyond its creators’ wildest imaginations.”

“It is this combination — the hint of menace beneath the surface added to what appears to be an unpolished immediacy — that millions of listeners take as evidence of Trump’s authenticity and spontaneity.”

“Our job was to make him look legitimate, to make him look like there was something behind it, even though we pretty much all knew that there wasn’t — but that was our job.”

“If you disagreed with Donald, he put you out of his inner circle. He didn’t invite in differing perspectives. He invited affirming perspectives — yes-men, yes-women, ‘Yes, Donald.’”

“In our nation’s 246-year-history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power, after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big.”

“This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth, and in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.”

“He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.”

“There is nothing ‘conservative’ about Donald Trump. Conservatives believe in the Constitution, not a ‘man’s’ ego.”

“The cheapest S.O.B. I’ve ever met in my life. … What Donald Trump is good at is spending other people’s money.”

“These guys have all convinced themselves that to be successful and keep their jobs, they need to stand by Trump. … But Trump won’t stand with them as soon as he doesn’t need them. He’s not loyal. They’re very loyal to Trump, but the second he thinks it’s to his advantage to throw someone under the bus, he’ll be happy to do it.”

“I do believe that we must be aware of the dire consequences of selfishness and cynicism. President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election. And of a fair election. He sought a coup by misleading people with lies.”

“I’ve seen with my own eyes how Trump’s thirst for power, revenge and retribution is his real motivation, and that’s why I cannot stand by while he tries to destroy our country.”

“Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as telling it like it is when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified. And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy.”

“The healing of the Republican Party cannot begin with Trump as president (and that’s aside from the untold damage that potentially awaits our country).”

“Trump incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bullshit he’d been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November. He claimed voter fraud without any evidence, and repeated those claims, taking advantage of the trust placed in him by his supporters and ultimately betraying that trust.”

“He is a con artist. … He runs on this idea he is fighting for the little guy, but he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy — his entire career.”

“I saw Trump’s reckless entreaties as a weakening of our shared American values — even more so, a coarsening of our shared American values.”

“I think he’s toxic for the Republican Party and for the country.”

“We are conservatives, we are traditionalists, we are people that hold those things up, even though every institution needs oversight and can be improved. We believe that these institutions have helped make America great. Not him. He’s willing to significantly undermine them if it benefits him politically.”

“The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

“Many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors. … That’s different from what we saw. This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.”

“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”

“Building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security. ”

“I can’t think of a single demand that Donald Trump makes on himself — not decency, not truth, not character, not integrity, not consistency.”

“We cannot, we must not become so inured to Trump’s madness that we normalize what he’s done. He tried to violently overthrow our government.”

“He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

“I know I should be surprised when I hear incendiary words like this from him, but I’m not. At so many times during these last several weeks, when the country needed compassion and leadership the most, it simply was nowhere to be found. Instead, we got bitterness, combativeness and self-interest.”

“Here’s what I know: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He’s playing the members of the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat.”

“And Mr. Trump, ever the narcissist, will spend the entire campaign whining about his legal troubles and bilking his supporters of their retirement savings to pay for his lawyers.”

“Character is too important to me. And it’s a job that requires the kind of character that he just doesn’t have.”

“He tried to overturn a fair and free election. He incited a mob to attack the Capitol. He built a wall of lies to incite his followers to try to disrupt the actions of Congress. If that is not a threat to American democracy, I don’t know what is.”

“The entire foreign policy is based on a single unstable individual’s reaction to perceptions of slights or flattery. If someone says something nice about him, they are our friend; if they say something unkind, if they don’t kiss the ring, they are our enemy.”

“The former president sought to overturn an American election which he had lost fair and square. For four years, these claims by the former president and his Republican allies have corroded and corrupted American democracy and American elections. Vast, vast numbers of Americans, into the millions, today no longer believe in the elections in the United States of America.”

“Trump deserved to lose my endorsement. Matter of fact, I’ve never endorsed him. But he proved he was not worthy of the endorsement, of me, of the ministry and, by extension, the broader body. …This is smoke and mirrors. This is not leadership our country needs.”

“I wanted to give the man a lot of latitude because I know he taps into some anger that even I share with the Republican Party, and a lot of us here do. But if our standard-bearer has to resort to that, we need a new standard-bearer.”

“I finally stepped outside the MAGA echo chamber. I stopped listening to what Trump said and looked around with my own eyes, and I realized he had been lying about pretty much everything. Lying is Trump’s toxic superpower.”

“Trump is what he is, a floundering, inarticulate jumble of gnawing insecurities and not at all compensating vanities, which is pathetic.”

“The G.O.P. base is clearly disgusted and looking for new leadership. Enter Donald Trump, not just with policy prescriptions that challenge the cynical G.O.P. leadership but with an attitude of disdain for that leadership — precisely in line with the sentiment of the base. Many conservatives are relishing this, but ah, the rub. Trump might be the greatest charlatan of them all.”

“Putin killed all the values which are — which we defend today. … That’s why I can’t understand how Donald Trump can be on the side of Putin. So for me, it’s something unbelievable.”

“Far from making remarks of any persuasive power that can be viewed to be helpful to defusing tension, he made unprecedented rude nonsense one has never heard from any of his predecessors. A frightened dog barks louder.”

“If all people are only against each other, then there cannot be a good future, and that is why the former president certainly stands for a great division in the country.”

“It wasn’t easy the first time, and if there is a second time, it won’t be easy, either. … There are clearly issues where I do not agree at all with Mr. Trump.”

“A basic rule of democracy is: After elections, there are winners and losers. … I deeply regret that President Trump has not conceded defeat since November and again refused to do so yesterday. Doubts about the outcome of the election have been stoked and that set the atmosphere which made the events of the night possible.”

“If we are to draw lessons from history, meaning the way he ran the first four years of his mandate, it’s clearly a threat.”

“For a man who has risen to the highest office on the planet, President Trump radiates insecurity.”