An explosive new book about the first months of the Trump presidency reports of internecine fighting and chaos at the In the most important house in the US.
The first excerpts from the book ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House’, written by Michael Wolff published by the Guardian and then by New York magazine. Much of the excerpts concerns former chief strategist Steve Bannon’s efforts to influence Trump’s presidency.
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The book by Rupert Murdoch biographer will be published in full next Tuesday. According to a Washington Post report on Wednesday, Wolff claimed that his book is based on over 200 interviews and a year of in-depth, in-person research.
In the book Bannon was behind some of Trump’s most controversial moves, including Paris climate accords, the travel ban and moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Bannon also proposed ceding the West Bank to Jordan and giving control of the Gaza Strip to Egypt. A conversation between Bannon and Roger Ailes quotes: “Let Jordan take the West Bank, let Egypt take Gaza. Let them deal with it. Or sink trying. Netanyahu’s all-in. Sheldon is all-in. (Adelson is a casino billionaire and supporter of far-right Israel)
Among other things, after leaving the White House, according to Wolff: “Bannon was telling people something else: he, Steve Bannon, was going to run for president. The locution, ‘If I were president …’ was turning into, ‘When I am president …’
In addition, Bannon reportedly has courted top Republican donors, “doing his best, as he put it, to ‘kiss the ass and pay homage to all the gray-beards’”.
Michael Wolff writes that when asked by Roger Ailes, Fox News chief executive, what Trump had “gotten himself into with the Russians”, Bannon replied: “Mostly, he went to Russia and he thought he was going to meet Putin. But Putin couldn’t give a shit about him. So he’s kept trying.”
Once Bannon called White House adviser Ivanka “dumb as a brick.”
The book has led to a total falling-out between the president and Bannon. In a statement on Wednesday, Trump said: “When he was fired he not only lost his job, he lost his mind” and just wants to “burn it all down.”
The book portrays President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner as struggling to gain influence while fighting Steve Bannon along the way.
The book reveals that a group including Ivanka, Kushner and the economics adviser Gary Cohn call against a faction led former Trump campaign chair and White House strategist Steve Bannon.
Wolff quotes Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, as saying: “It is a war between the Jews and the non-Jews.”
According to the book, the president reportedly said Jared and Ivanka should never have come to Washington. The couple also was warned by friends not to take jobs in the White House but since they did Ivanka reportedly made a deal with husband about her ambition to become a president.
Michael Wolff writes.
“Balancing risk against reward, both Jared and Ivanka decided to accept roles in the West Wing over the advice of almost everyone they knew. It was a joint decision by the couple, and, in some sense, a joint job. Between themselves, the two had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she’d be the one to run for president. The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka Trump.”
More highlights:
When Ivanka describes her dad’s hair comb style she says:
“a contained island after scalp-reduction surgery surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center and then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray.”
Wolff says Trump called:
Bannon weak, disloyal, scruffy and short, Sean Spicer, press secretary stupid and Kushner a suck-up.
Michael Wolff claim:
On election night, when it became clear Trump may take the White House,“Melania was in tears – and not of joy.”
Wolff writes:
“The first time since the Kennedy White House that a presidential couple had maintained separate rooms.”
According to the Guardian Trump reportedly argued with the Secret Service over whether he could have a lock on his bedroom –– and told housekeeping he would strip his own bed and leave his shirts on the floor. Wolff also says the president, who is known to fear being poisoned, told no one to touch his toothbrush.
