Trump has blamed his longtime personal lawyer and many others for the situation he finds himself in now, although he has not accepted any responsibility in public or in private, people familiar with his reaction to CNN said. Giuliani is yet to play a role in defending Trump’s impeachment, but has been left out of most conversations so far.
Another source of Trump’s ire is the minority leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, who further infuriated Trump on Wednesday, saying he is responsible for last week’s turmoil. The president had already been upset with McCarthy after the California Republican left the option of censoring Trump in a letter to colleagues earlier this week.
A White House adviser told CNN that “everyone is angry at everyone” inside the White House, with the president upset because he thinks people are not defending him enough.
“He is in self-pity mode,” said the source, with Trump complaining that he has been under siege for five years and sees this latest impeachment as a continuation of that.
But many people close to Trump see the current situation as different from his first impeachment, when he was accused of pressuring the Ukrainian government to dig up Biden’s dirt to try to influence the presidential election.
“His actions have led here, to no one else,” said the White House adviser, adding: “He has instigated a crowd to attack the Capitol building to prevent certification, he will not find many sympathetic Republicans.”
During the latest impeachment effort, Trump’s allies inside and outside the White House publicly defended him and sent out talking points throughout the impeachment process. No similar efforts have materialized this time, with the Republican House leadership deciding not to pressure their colleagues to stay on the line and instead to allow them to vote for their conscience. Ten Republicans voted with each Democrat to approve the single impeachment article.
With his favorite mode of communication – Twitter – no longer available to him after Trump was banned from the social network on Friday, another person close to the White House feared that Trump might attack further.
“He’s locked up in a residence, that’s never a good thing. He’s alone, not a lot of people to exchange ideas – whenever that happens, he follows his worst instincts,” said the person. “Now that Twitter is not available, God only knows what the medium will be.”