PRESIDENT Trump has dismissed allegations he is mentally unfit to be president by unleashing a bizarre tirade that he is a "very stable genius".
The US president hit back after an explosive account of life at the White House claimed he never intended to enter the Oval Office and his staff believed he was not fit to hold high office.
The publication of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff has already provoked a very public rift with his former strategist, Steve Bannon, who was one of the main sources of the book.
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In a television interview last week Wolff said "100 per cent of the people" around Trump questioned his fitness for office.
His book claimed Trump failed to recognise close friends and was prone to repeating comments.
Wolff said White House employees described the president as childlike because "he has the need for immediate gratification. It's all about him... This man does not read, does not listen. He's like a pinball just shooting off the sides".
In his latest online onslaught yesterday Trump accused his critics of trying to make an issue of his mental stability and intelligence.
"Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence," he wrote on the social media platform.
"Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames.
“I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!"
On Wolff, he said: “Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!”
As the book shot to the top of the online bestseller lists in the US, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders continued to dismiss the claims of a dysfunctional presidency which have gripped the American public.
Speaking on US television on Friday, she said that Wolff had never interviewed Trump despite having "repeatedly begged to see the president", describing him as "a guy who made up a lot of stories to try and sell books".
Wolff however insisted that he "absolutely" spoke to the president, adding whether he "realised it was an interview or not, I don't know, but it was certainly not off the record".
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is alleged to have called Trump a moron last year – told CNN: "I have no reason to question his mental fitness."
He said Trump was "not typical of presidents of the past". Adding: "I think that's well recognised. That's also, though, why the American people chose him," he said.