10 explosive revelations from new Trump book
Donald Trump was "befuddled" by his
election win, did not enjoy his inauguration and was scared of the White
House, according to a new book.
Journalist Michael Wolff's Fire
and Fury: Inside the Trump White House also purports to lift the lid on
Ivanka Trump's secret presidential ambitions.
The book details Mr Trump's regard for media titan Rupert Murdoch, though the admiration was apparently not mutual.
Michael Wolff's book was reportedly based on more than 200 interviews.
But White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the book was filled with "false and misleading accounts".
The
author says he was able to take up "something like a semi-permanent
seat on a couch in the West Wing" following the president's inauguration
for a close-up insight into the administration.
Here are 10 of the book's revelations, with commentary from the BBC's Anthony Zurcher.
1. Bannon thought Don Jr meeting 'treasonous'
According
to the book, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon thought a
meeting between Donald Trump Jr and a group of Russians was
"treasonous".
The Russians had offered Donald Trump Jr damaging information on Hillary Clinton at the June 2016 meeting.
Wolff writes that Bannon told him of the meeting:
"The
three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet
with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on
the 25th floor - with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers. Even if
you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***,
and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI
immediately."
Bannon reportedly said the Justice Department
investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow would
focus on money laundering, adding: "They're going to crack Don Junior
like an egg on national TV."
Anthony Zurcher: In
just a few sentences, Bannon manages to detonate a bomb under the White
House's efforts to downplay the significance of that fateful June
meeting in Trump Tower and their attempt to dismiss Robert Mueller's
inquiry as a partisan witchhunt. It's bad, Bannon is saying, and even
more unforgivably it was stupid. Taking aim at Mr Trump's own family in
the most personal terms makes it all the more biting.
2. Trump 'befuddled' by his victory
In an article for NYMag adapted from his book, Wolff describes the amazement - and dismay - in the Trump camp at his November 2016 election win.
"Shortly
after 8pm on Election Night, when the unexpected trend - Trump might
actually win - seemed confirmed, Don Jr told a friend that his father,
or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was
in tears - and not of joy. There was, in the space of little more than
an hour, in Steve Bannon's not unamused observation, a befuddled Trump
morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a horrified Trump. But
still to come was the final transformation: Suddenly, Donald Trump
became a man who believed that he deserved to be, and was wholly capable
of being, the president of the United States."
AZ: This
is decidedly different from what has been recited by the Trump circle
since election night. While campaign hands - at least the
less-than-dedicated ones - may have been positioning themselves for a
soft landing after a defeat, Mr Trump and his close allies believed in
their success. A "horrified Trump" was never part of the script.
3. Trump 'angry' at inauguration
Wolff writes:
"Trump
did not enjoy his own inauguration. He was angry that A-level stars had
snubbed the event, disgruntled with the accommodations at Blair House,
and visibly fighting with his wife, who seemed on the verge of tears.
Throughout the day, he wore what some around him had taken to calling
his golf face: angry and pissed off, shoulders hunched, arms swinging,
brow furled, lips pursed."
But the first lady's office rejected the claims.
Communications
director Stephanie Grisham said in a statement: "Mrs Trump supported
her husband's decision to run for President and in fact, encouraged him
to do so. She was confident he would win and was very happy when he
did."
AZ: These words tell the same story as the
viral video clip of a stone-faced Melania forcing a smile when the
president looks her way. It also explains why Mr Trump was so insistent
about the success of his inauguration and the size of his crowds. He
felt slighted and aggrieved and was acting accordingly.
4. Trump found White House 'scary'
Wolff writes:
"Trump,
in fact, found the White House to be vexing and even a little scary. He
retreated to his own bedroom - the first time since the Kennedy White
House that a presidential couple had maintained separate rooms. In the
first days, he ordered two television screens in addition to the one
already there, and a lock on the door, precipitating a brief standoff
with the Secret Service, who insisted they have access to the room."
AZ:
For much of his adult life, Mr Trump has lived according to his own
rules, as a real-estate tycoon whose wealth allowed his every whim or
idiosyncrasy to be accommodated. Adjusting to the White House - which
Bill Clinton once referred to as the "crown jewel of the federal
penitentiary system" and Harry Truman called "the great white jail" -
must have been quite a shock.
5. Ivanka hopes to be president
Mr
Trump's daughter and her husband Jared Kushner allegedly struck a deal
that she might run for president in future, according to Wolff:
"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. Bannon, who had coined the
term 'Jarvanka' that was now in ever greater use in the White House, was
horrified when the couple's deal was reported to him."
AZ:
The feud between Bannon and "Jarvanka" was no secret, and it certainly
wasn't surprising. In a way, the couple represented to Bannon everything
he's fighting against - East Coast elitism and entitlement. Yet, thanks
to familial ties, they had the president's ear and apparently harboured
dynastic hopes.
6. Ivanka mocks dad's 'comb-over'
The US first daughter poked fun at her father's alleged "scalp-reduction surgery", according to the book.
"She
treated her father with a degree of detachment, even irony, going so
far as to make fun of his comb-over to others. She often described the
mechanics behind it to friends: an absolutely clean pate - 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. The color, she would point out to comical effect, was from a
product called Just for Men - the longer it was left on, the darker it
got. Impatience resulted in Trump's orange-blond hair color."
AZ:
It wouldn't be particularly surprising if this is one of the anecdotes
that Mr Trump finds most irksome. The president is proud of his hair,
and once notably let late-night host Jimmy Fallon ruffle it to establish
its authenticity. On windy days, Mr Trump usually wears a hat - the
origin of the Make America Great Again ball cap - to ensure there are no
coiffing malfunctions. The hair is as much a part of the Trump brand as
big hotels and gold-plated escalators.
7. White House unsure of priorities
Katie
Walsh, the White House deputy chief of staff, asked Mr Kushner, the
president's senior adviser, what the administration wanted to achieve.
But according to the book, Mr Kushner did not have an answer.
"'Just
give me the three things the president wants to focus on,' she [Katie
Walsh] demanded. 'What are the three priorities of this White House?' It
was the most basic question imaginable - one that any qualified
presidential candidate would have answered long before he took up
residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Six weeks into Trump's
presidency, Kushner was wholly without an answer. 'Yes,' he said to
Walsh. 'We should probably have that conversation.'"
AZ:
It often takes a new administration a bit of time to find its footing.
In Mr Trump's case, the situation was particularly acute. Having
campaigned on some clear policy items - strengthened borders,
renegotiated trade deals, a sweeping tax cut and Obamacare repeal -
prioritising was clearly a challenge. Once in the White House, he
allowed Congress to kick off with healthcare reform, and the
difficulties achieving that goal haunted the Trump presidency for nearly
a year.
8. Trump's admiration for Murdoch
Wolff, who previously wrote a biography of Rupert Murdoch, describes Mr Trump's high regard for the News Corp media titan.
"Rupert
Murdoch, who had promised to pay a call on the president-elect, was
running late. When some of the guests made a move to leave, an
increasingly agitated Trump assured them that Rupert was on his way.
'He's one of the greats, the last of the greats,' Trump said. 'You have
to stay to see him.' Not grasping that he was now the most powerful man
in the world, Trump was still trying mightily to curry favor with a
media mogul who had long disdained him as a charlatan and fool."
AZ:
During the campaign, Mr Trump had at times feuded with Murdoch's Fox
News - fighting with presenter Megyn Kelly, boycotting the network and
skipping a Fox-broadcast primary debate. The president, however, is Fox
News' biggest fan - and the network has become his greatest advocate
since his inauguration.
9. Murdoch calls Trump 'idiot'
But
the admiration was not mutual, according to Wolff's account of a call
between Mr Murdoch and Mr Trump about the president's meeting with
Silicon Valley executives.
Mr Trump is said to have told Mr Murdoch:
"'These
guys really need my help. Obama was not very favorable to them, too
much regulation. This is really an opportunity for me to help them.'
'Donald,' said Murdoch, 'for eight years these guys had Obama in their
pocket. They practically ran the administration. They don't need your
help.'
'Take this H-1B visa issue. They really need these
H-1B visas.'Murdoch suggested that taking a liberal approach to H-1B
visas, which open America's doors to select immigrants, might be hard to
square with his promises to build a wall and close the borders. But
Trump seemed unconcerned, assuring Murdoch, 'We'll figure it out.' 'What
a f****** idiot,' said Murdoch, shrugging, as he got off the phone."
AZ:
There's sometimes been a disconnect between Mr Trump's anti-immigration
rhetoric and his action as a businessman, where his companies often
relied on immigrant labour. Perhaps the president-elect was reflecting
his business sensibilities. Or maybe, in this case, he was simply
echoing the opinion of the last group of people who had met with him - a
criticism that has been lobbed his way on more than one occasion.
10. Flynn knew Russia ties 'a problem'
Former
US National Security Adviser Mike Flynn knew that accepting money from
Moscow for a speech could come back to haunt him, according to the book.
Wolff
writes that before the election Mr Flynn "had been told by friends that
it had not been a good idea to take $45,000 from the Russians for a
speech. 'Well it would only be a problem if we won,' he assured them."
Mr Flynn has been indicted in the Justice Department special counsel's inquiry.
AZ:
Like Paul Manafort, Flynn was one of the members of the Trump
campaign's inner circle whose prior affairs were not ordered in a way
that would, shall we say, stand up to close legal scrutiny. If Mr Trump
had been defeated, that probably wouldn't have mattered. Like the
protaganists in the film The Producers, however, their success was their
undoing.
BBC
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