The Very Stable Genius's team building skills could use some burnishing

As I said in the post below, it's probably just as well that the VSG doesn't try to pull off some grand gesture like a speech to the nation to show leadership and foster a sense of hope and common humanity. His chops in that area are demonstrably wanting.

Take, for instance, his call with some governors this morning:

President Donald Trump on Monday derided many governors as “weak” and demanded tougher crackdowns on burning and stealing among some demonstrations in the aftermath of another night of violent protests in dozens of American cities.

Trump spoke to governors on a video teleconference that also included law enforcement and national security officials, telling the state leaders they “have to get much tougher.”

“Most of you are weak,” Trump said. “You have to arrest people.”

The days of protests were triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes. The demonstrations turned violent in several cities, with looting and mayhem, and fires ignited in historic park Lafayette Park across from the White House.

The president urged the governors to deploy the National Guard, which he credited for helping calm the situation Sunday night in Minneapolis. He demanded that similarly tough measures be taken in cities that also experienced a spasm of violence, including New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

“You’ve got to arrest people, you have to track people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll never see this stuff again,” said Trump. “We’re doing it in Washington, D.C. We’re going to do something that people haven’t seen before.” 

The president told the governors they were making themselves “look like fools” for not calling up more of the National Guard as a show for force on city streets.

Not exactly the way to cultivate unity of purpose.

It's reminiscent of the tone he assumed with the generals in 2017:

President Donald Trump blasted top military officials as “losers” and “a bunch of dopes and babies” for a lack of success in the recent wars during a tense meeting early in his presidency that set a negative tone for the relationship between the Pentagon and White House, according to a new book except released Friday.

The volume — “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America,” written by a pair of Washington Post reporters — chronicles the first three years of Trump presidency, offering interviews with insiders about high-level administration discussions the authors say have not been made public before.

That includes a meeting at the Pentagon in the summer of 2017, six months into Trump’s presidency, where key Pentagon leaders and other top administration officials (including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, all of whom have since stepped down from those posts) met with Trump to discuss U.S. alliances and military posture overseas. 

The essence of the meeting has been chronicled before. But sources interviewed for the book say the meeting quickly devolved into an angry rant by Trump, who accused top U.S. military officials of incompetence.

He called Afghanistan a “loser war” and told generals assembled there that “you don’t know how to win anymore.” He attacked the group for the costs of ongoing military operations overseas and said that the United States should have gotten payments in oil from allies it assisted in the Middle East. 

“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” the book quotes Trump as saying to the military officials. “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”

According to the authors, Tillerson defended the military leaders and told Trump his criticism was “totally wrong.” That added to a growing rift between the men, and Tillerson’s dismissal in March 2018.

A lot of bluster from a guy who goes to the basement bunker at the White House and has the outside lights turned off.