Michael Wolff, the author of Fire & Fury, a controversial new book purporting an insider’s view of the Trump Administration, has spent the start of 2018 making rounds through the mainstream media circuit promoting what the White House has referred to as ‘complete fantasy.’ Despite initial enthusiasm for and promotion of the book from left-leaning news outlets, Fire & Fury’s reception has quickly soured as many of Wolff’s most dramatic claims have been called into question. As the claims made in Fire & Fury are more closely examined, and Wolff continues to saturate television news segments, even New York Times writer Maggie Haberman, hardly a Trump supporting conservative, has called Wolff out for publishing a version of events she describes as ‘factually wrong,’ and various members of the media familiar with Wolff have described him as a yellow journalist willing to say anything, truthful or not, to publish a story.
Although Wolff has repeatedly claimed he was given unprecedented access to the Trump White House (although he never interviewed a single member of President Trump’s Cabinet), going as far as to tell NBC News that his ‘window into Donald Trump is pretty significant,’ he’s offered virtually no evidence to support his claims, and appears to expect the American people to take him at his word as he goes to great extents to paint a picture of an administration in disarray. Wolff describes shrewd comments by White House staff and the President’s top advisors, including former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who in the wake of the book’s publication, stepped down from his position at Breitbart, and National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster, who Wolff says routinely refers to the President as a ‘dope.’
Wolff also claims that through his supposed access to the administration, he was able to zero in on White House concerns of the FBI’s Russia probe, stating that White House officials believe President Trump is ‘sunk’ if and when the Mueller team begins looking into his finances. In his book, Wolff also throws a bone to the Democrat’s plot to remove President Trump from office via perversions of the 25th Amendment, as he claims even those closest to the President question his fitness for office. Again, offering zero evidence to back up his claims, Wolff insists ‘25th Amendment’ has become an adjective used throughout the West Wing to describe various actions of President Trump.
In response to Wolff’s assertions of high-level White House access, President Trump took to Twitter to clear the air, insisting; ‘I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book.’ And also stated Fire & Fury is ‘full of lies, misrepresentations, and sources that don’t exist.’ Many figures close to the President echoed his responses to Wolff, including former Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski, who in addition to denying ever speaking to Wolff, called him a ‘total liar,’ and described Fire & Fury as a ‘complete fabrication.’
Steadfast denial from the White House and the President’s inner circle, as well as heavy criticism from his peers, have proven problematic for Wolff’s credibility, and when pressed to release recordings of interviews cited in his book, he has repeatedly refused. Although nothing in Fire & Fury can be completely verified (Wolff admits this on page 10 of the book’s prologue), Michael Wolff appears to have finally discovered the secret behind President Trump’s signature hairstyle, something no man has been able to do before. According to Wolff, First Daughter Ivanka Trump informed him that the President’s hair is held in place by a stiffening hairspray. If readers can take nothing else from the pages of Fire & Fury, they can rest peacefully knowing the secrets behind the most famous hairdo in the world.
