A narcissist and a ‘d***’: Trump ambassador summarises former president in new book

The hotelier and Republican campaign donor turned US ambassador whose testimony figured prominently in the first impeachment inquiry into former president Donald Trump reportedly described the now-former president using a vulgar term in a new memoir.

According to The Guardian, former US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland uses his new book, The Envoy: Mastering the Art of Diplomacy with Trump and the World, to defend his decision to assist Mr Trump’s effort to blackmail Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing sham investigations into Joe Biden and his son in exchange for the release of millions of dollars in military assistance.

He freely admitted to the extortion and assisting with it during his testimony in 2019, telling the House Intelligence Committee: “Was there a quid pro quo? The answer is yes”.

He also told committee members that he “followed the president’s orders” by working with Mr Trump’s then-personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, to push Mr Zelensky to make the deal.

Just under three years later, Mr Sondland excuses his conduct by writing that “quid pro quos happen all the time” and uses as supporting evidence an academic study showing that married men “have more sex” when they “pitch in and clean the bathroom”.

But he also describes Mr Trump in harsh terms, writing that the ex-president’s “inability to clearly explain things” is a result of his being a narcissist. He also recalls telling Mr Trump in 2016 that the then-candidate had been “kind of a d*** to [him]” at their first meeting.