White House staffers accelerate plans to bail after Trump's Helsinki debacle: 'People are just depressed'

Morale inside the West Wing is extremely low following President Trump's press conference with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, with many staffers wanting to quit but fearing they'll face backlash if they do, Politico reports.

“People are just depressed,” said a Politico source named as a Republican close to the White House. “Nobody wants to take on the public heat of resigning right now, but there are a bunch of people who were thinking maybe they’d leave after the midterms who are very seriously starting to consider accelerating their timetable.”

Many of these staffers had hoped to leave after the midterm elections in November but are now wondering if they can escape sooner, the report said.

The issue is that these staffers now feel that Trump failed morally in Helsinki, just as he did in Charlottesville.

“Moral leadership is critically important for the president,” presidential historian Allan Lichtman told Politico. “It sets the tone not only for the nation but for the entire world because the president is the leader of the free world.”

Some say that people of conscience inside the White House should stay.

“Please don’t resign,” wrote think tank executive Kori Schake. “We should not want the moral satisfaction and practical devastation of clearing out people of conscience and allow the president to replace them with more malleable or compromised people.”