Book: Aides label Trump’s behavior ‘Defiance Disorder’

A new book from longtime Washington media reporter Howard Kurtz says that White House aides privately describe surprise actions by President Trump that catch his staff off-guard as “Defiance Disorder.”

The term refers to Trump’s habit of doing whatever his aids advise him not to do — forcing them to deal with the clean-up, according to excerpts of the Kurtz book reported by The Washington Post. 

As an example, the book highlights Trump’s decision to announce on Twitter that he was barring transgender people from serving in the military. When former chief of staff Reince Priebus heard the news, just as he was about to attend a meeting where four options on the decision were to be considered, he said, “Oh my God he just tweeted this,” according to the Kurtz book.

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Kurtz’s book, titled “Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press, And The War Over The Truth,” will be released on Jan. 29.

It comes on the heels of Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” which roiled Washington, D.C., with its own shocking details about the administration.

Another anecdote in Kurtz’s book that is a hallmark of Trump’s “Defiance Disorder” came when White House advisers were surprised by Trump’s tweet charging the Obama administration with wiretapping Trump Tower. 

“Priebus knew the staff would have to fall into line to prove the tweet correct, the opposite of the usual process of vetting proposed pronouncements,” Kurtz wrote in the book.

“Once the president had committed to 140 characters, he was not going to back off.”

Kurtz hosts Fox News’s “Media Buzz” and previously wrote for The Washington Post.