Five Days Of Fury

In a story posted at 8.02 p.m. this evening and titled "Five days of fury: Inside Trump's Paris temper, election woes and staff upheaval," the Washington Post provides more context around Donald's no-show at the cemetery in France Saturday afternoon:

During his 43-hour stay in Paris, Trump brooded over the Florida recounts and sulked over key races being called for Democrats in the midterm elections that he had claimed as a ''big victory." He erupted at his staff over media coverage of his decision to skip a ceremony honoring the military sacrifice of World War I. 

... Trump was awake Saturday well before dawn, if he got much sleep at all, tweeting at 4:52 a.m. Paris time a two-part defense of [Acting Attorney General Matthew] Whitaker as "highly thought of"' and "outstanding." Later in the day, he scuttled plans to attend a ceremony honoring the military sacrifice of World War I at an American cemetery outside the French capital, citing bad weather.

Trump was told that morning by Deputy White House Chief of Staff Zachary D. Fuentes that the Secret Service had concerns abut flying Marine One through the rain and fog from Paris to the cemetery 50 miles away, and that a motorcade could be lengthy and snarl traffic in the area, according to one senior White House official.  

Trump chose not to make the trip, and [White House Chief of Staff John] Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, and Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attended in his stead. 

But Trump quickly grew infuriated by a torrent of tweets and media coverage suggesting that the president was afraid of the rain and did not respect veterans. 

... Trump told aides he thought he looked "terrible" and blamed his chief of staff's office, and Fuentes in particular, for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a public-relations nightmare. 

Trump was still litigating the episode on Tuesday, when he tweeted from the White House that he suggested driving to the cemetery and "Secret Service said No, too far from airport & big Paris shutdown." (Read more about the five days of fury here.) 

Click here to read my first post about this.