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"Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump Whitehouse" - Book Review

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

By Michael Wolff

 

When the publication of "Fire and Fury" was announced, it was an instant bestseller. Despite cease and desist orders, Henry Holt & Co., defied the threat and moved up the publication date to January 5th instead of waiting to publish on the originally planned January 9th date. A record 1.7 million copies have been sold.

Why is this book so controversial? Michael Wolff spent countless hours interviewing Trump campaign and transition staff. In fact, Wolff was allowed access to the West Wing of the White House, as a “fly on the wall” observer.

Evidently no one paid much attention to him.

This book chronicles the disenchantment of Trump’s staff during his first months of office and the disenchantment that is currently reinforced by the 35% turnover rate that continues to plague the West Wing. (Source: MSNBC)

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The initial title for the book was “The Great Transition: The First 100 Days of the Trump Administration.”  However, Wolff changed the title to “Fire & Fury” after hearing Trump use these words when discussing North Korea.

The most surprising part of this book was uncovering the fact that Trump and his staff did NOT expect to win the presidential election – not Trump, his staff, nor his wife, Melania.

After reading other book reviews for Fire and Fury, I found these excerpts:

·      Michael D’Antonio writes in a CNN article that he attested  Wolff’s overall portrait of Trump – short attention span, issues of misogyny and white supremacist attitudes are credible. Several staffers described Wolff’s depictions of his staff and the people who surround him as “tabloidy prose,” but they concluded this book was essential reading.

·      PBS News Hour columnist David Brooks states that the “general picture confirms what we already knew…there is a general sense that the president is unfit... They (his staff/others) do treat him like a child.”

·      In The Guardian, Matthew d’Ancona commented that just letting Wolff into the White House showed the Trump Administration’s incompetence. He also described Wolff as a “brilliant journalist” who “nailed it.”

·      In a Wall Street Journal article, Barton Swain saw the book as unverifiable gossip, and its only reason to be noteworthy is the reaction to the book, rather than the book itself.

·      Aaron Blake writes in The Washington Post, “Wolff seems to have arrived at a stunning amount of incredible conclusions that hundreds of dogged reporters from major newspapers haven’t.”

So, form your own opinion. Pick up this book and add it to your reading list. It will definitely give you an insight into Trump’s West Wing. The book will leave you wanting a sequel telling you what is happening now!

Robert Donati