‘Frustrated’ Trump going through manic mood swings as he watches impeachment hearings unfold: report

According to a report at Politico, Donald Trump is a man of many moods, veering wildly between calm and fury as the House conducts impeachment hearings that could hold the key to his future in office and beyond.

The report notes that on Wednesday, as Trump appointee E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland explicitly accused the president of engaging in a quid pro quo threat to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless the government helped him attack possible political rival Joe Biden, the president was particularly prickly.

“President Donald Trump has gone through a range of emotions since House Democrats started their public impeachment hearings last week about whether he threatened to withhold Ukrainian security aid unless the country opened politically advantageous investigations, according to more than half a dozen people who have spoken to Trump in the last several days,” the report states. “On Wednesday, Trump was frustrated, defiant and uncharacteristically terse.”

With the report noting Trump snapped, “I want nothing! I want nothing! I want no quid pro quo. This is the final word from the president of the United States. I want nothing,” and not taking questions on Wednesday, the pressure on the president is becoming increasingly evident.

“It was the latest in a series of ever-shifting Trump reactions — which can change by the hour — to the public portion of the impeachment inquiry,” Politico notes, adding that a White House insider attempted to explain the president’s mood.

“Sometimes he’s super calm and cheery and other times he’s pissed when he sees something,” the anonymous official remarked. “His reactions are human.”

The report goes on to state that the White House was preparing the president’s messaging prior to Sondland’s testimony, with an administration official admitting, “There’s been a lot of work to prepare for today and how to handle: from Hill coordination; to facts and questions; to rapid response and messaging; to what [Trump] should consider saying, and when.”

According to another White House official, Trump is “unsure” how the public is responding to the impeachment hearings which is contributing to his mood swings.

“I think he’s in a decent mood under the circumstances,” the source stated. “He’s frustrated and irritated but he’s not overly frustrated and irritated given the situation he’s in.”

“On the first day of public hearings last week, Trump was feeling more optimistic because he thought William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, was a weak opening witness, given that he had little firsthand knowledge of the situation, said two people with knowledge of the president’s thinking,” Politico reports. “But on Friday, the second day of hearings, he felt frustrated after multiple people inside and outside the White House told him he made a mistake by criticizing a Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, as she was testifying. Democrats immediately accused him of trying to intimidate a witness.”

“There are good days. There are bad days,” explained a Trump campaign official. “He fully expects that. He knows in a big rolling production like this there are going to be both.”

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