Fire and Fury in the Whitehouse

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 kevin stephens 05 Jan 2018
Has anybody read it yet or started to read it? I'm tempted to hit the button on Kindle download
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 aln 06 Jan 2018
In reply to kevin stephens:

Good reviews online so far.
 DerwentDiluted 06 Jan 2018
In reply to kevin stephens:

I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel,

Liar and Jury.
In reply to kevin stephens:

My wife bought it on Kindle. Figured it was best to get in before his lawyers got an injunction. The UK courts are terrible for trying to block people reading entertaining stories about famous people just because they aren't true.
Removed User 06 Jan 2018
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

The digested digested read, from what I gleaned on R4 today, is that to everyone's surprise DT is in fact a monstrous and not very nice or bright child. What other blindingly obvious revelations might follow I can hardly imagine.
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Removed User 06 Jan 2018
In reply to kevin stephens:

While I'm enjoying this Presidential clusterphuq immensely there is no way I would buy this book until I can pick up a second hand copy in a charity shop. A turd like Steve Bannon will not earn one penny from me.

Great news though that Bannon confirms dealings between Trump's team and the Russians. Unlike the the Clinton email scandal that never was, this one seems likely to damage Trump beyond repair and it is immensely satisfying to see the knife wielded by one of Trump's own henchmen. It's rather like a fight breaking out between criminals over the spoils of the big heist they've just pulled off.
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In reply to Removed User:

The royalties go to the author Michael Wolff, a former guardian journalist, not Steve Bannon
 Luke90 06 Jan 2018
In reply to kevin stephens:

I'm not really interested in reading any more of it than the edited highlights that have already been widely reported. I'm still tempted to buy it just to contribute to boosting the sales figures to a value that will make Trump so apoplectic with rage that he might finally have a long-overdue heart attack.
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In reply to Removed User:

> While I'm enjoying this Presidential clusterphuq immensely there is no way I would buy this book until I can pick up a second hand copy in a charity shop. A turd like Steve Bannon will not earn one penny from me.

eh? Bannon did not write the book - he was one of many interviewees - the only people earning from the book wil be the author, Wolff, and the publisher.
 Jim Hamilton 06 Jan 2018
In reply to kevin stephens:

Wolff on R4 this - his spiky response when questioned on Blair's flat denial didn't sound that convincing to me. I imagine the book contains a lot of half truths.
 Dave Garnett 06 Jan 2018
In reply to Jim Hamilton:

> Wolff on R4 this - his spiky response when questioned on Blair's flat denial didn't sound that convincing to me. I imagine the book contains a lot of half truths.

Yes I suspect he's stretched the truth in a few places but it's pretty hilarious to have Trump complaining about what a terrible fibber Bannon is, when his whole campaign was based on the same crock of shit.
 TobyA 06 Jan 2018
In reply to kevin stephens:

There is a long article which is an extract from the book on New York Magazine http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-bo... I read it all a few nights ago when I really needed to get some sleep so its pretty captivating. It does seem that Wolff must be taking some artistic license turning his recanporting into such gripping narrative - how could he really know that Rupert Murdoch sighed when he saw Trump was calling him even if he had been told that the conversation had taken place?

But, like a car crash, I can't look away from this presidency.
Removed User 06 Jan 2018
In reply to thebigfriendlymoose:

Fair enough.

However I'd be very wary of believing much that's in the book without independent verification. On a couple of occasions Wolff has been accused of making stuff up, Bannon on does it all the time and I suspect much of the rest is an agglomeration of office gossip.

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In reply to Removed UserStuart en Écosse:

Got about 100 pages into it now. It's surprisingly well written and actually quite fair to Trump. The thesis so far is that Trump and his team did not expect or even intend to win. They thought they would lose but not by much, then they would blame crooked Hillary and the Republican establishment, become stars of the right wing media in the US and build careers on it.
 Jon Stewart 06 Jan 2018
In reply to Removed User:

> However I'd be very wary of believing much that's in the book without independent verification. On a couple of occasions Wolff has been accused of making stuff up, Bannon on does it all the time and I suspect much of the rest is an agglomeration of office gossip.

Do you think that the thrust what wolff is saying is credible? That all of trump's senior team believe he is unfit to govern?
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 pneame 06 Jan 2018
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

So it really was exactly like this -
youtube.com/watch?v=8qIQbydyHwc&
 Dave Garnett 06 Jan 2018
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> Do you think that the thrust what wolff is saying is credible? That all of trump's senior team believe he is unfit to govern?

Nah, how could anyone doubt a man whose response to the suggestion that he behaves like a petulant child is to tweet that he's a 'very stable genius'?
 Yanis Nayu 06 Jan 2018
In reply to Jim Hamilton:

One of the things I read about it, is that Trump has surrounded himself with people like him i.e. liars, so a lot of the content can’t be trusted.

The main thrust of it though we can see with our own eyes, and Bannon turning on him is very pleasant to see.
Removed User 06 Jan 2018
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> Do you think that the thrust what wolff is saying is credible? That all of trump's senior team believe he is unfit to govern?

Well, it's certainly believable but I don't know if it's true or not. I don't really care that much anyway what his minions think as I don't believe it'll make any difference as to whether he stays in office or not. Of course the book is damaging to both Trump and Breitbart which I see as a good thing and therefore the more publicity it gets the better as far as I'm concerned.

I am though, very interested in what Robert Mueller thinks and am looking forward to learn of his findings in the enquiry into Russian interference in the US Election. His report will definitely be worth reading!

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/367581-robert-mueller-may-have-a-dee...
 Bob Hughes 06 Jan 2018
In reply to kevin stephens:

I’m about a fifth of the way through. It’s very readable and, while you get the feeling Wolff May have taken some license in reconstructing specific conversations, the book as a whole rings true. All of the pushback has focused on specific events, not the overall thrust of the book, which is that everyone around trump thinks he is unfit to be president. At one point the author defends Kellyanne Conway - she had meant to say “alternative information” when she said “alternative facts”. Still not true but less surreally so.

From reading the first part of the book, it feels like there is no time much of substance which isn’t already in the guardian extract, still less so the ny magazine article Toby links to. However, if you just love political gossip it’s well worth the read.

In terms of the impact on Trump, I think it won’t have much. We already know most of what is in the book and he has already shown that he is impervious to bad publicity. If anything it just keeps the Trump brand top of mind which will be great for his hotel franchise.
 alx 06 Jan 2018
In reply to kevin stephens:

I’m going to give the paperback copy a miss and wait for the pop-up book version
 Bob Hughes 06 Jan 2018
In reply to alx:

> I’m going to give the paperback copy a miss and wait for the pop-up book version

Voila !

https://twitter.com/IamHappyToast/status/949655837483655168?ref_src=twcamp%...
 Graham T 06 Jan 2018
In reply to Bob Hughes:

That is fantastic
In reply to kevin stephens:
Surprised you haven’t been sent it on WhatsApp yet? I was sent a copy unsolicited on Saturday from a mate. I suspect it’s gone viral on social media now someone has copied it in a 1.8mb file
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> Nah, how could anyone doubt a man whose response to the suggestion that he behaves like a petulant child is to tweet that he's a 'very stable genius'?

There's a brilliant line in the book where it describes Trump as 'post-literate' i.e. TV only.
 Dave Garnett 08 Jan 2018
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

I'm off to San Diego in the morning. I might be tempted to pick up a copy as a souvenir.
 yorkshireman 08 Jan 2018
In reply to kevin stephens:

I downloaded it on Friday and am halfway through it. I figured it would have a very short half-life and so felt like reading the full thing straight away. 13€ for 5-6 hours entertainment is pretty good value IMHO.

I actually think its not that well written. There's some sloppy lines and it feels rushed in places, and maybe examples of where journalistic notes were never fully turned into book prose but nonetheless its an easy read and very entertaining.

It doesn't tell you much more than we all suspected, and the best bits have all been produced in the Guardian as extracts but as a recap of the disaster of the last 12 months (lots of things crop up that I'd forgotten about, which in any other administration would still be front of mind for their sheer scandal/ineptitude). I have no doubt that many parts will turn out to be untrue because of the nature of the sources (second-hand recounts of conversations from anonymous sources) but going on the nature of the book, I fail to see how this could be told any other way. What we read is certainly very consistent with what we've seen ourselves via tweets, speeches and other sources.

Aside from anything else its great to see the statesmanlike and measured response from POTUS to this.
Removed User 08 Jan 2018
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> Nah, how could anyone doubt a man whose response to the suggestion that he behaves like a petulant child is to tweet that he's a 'very stable genius'?

'Stable Genius' is that someone who is an expert in shifting horseshit?
In reply to kevin stephens:

I'm not denying it's entertainment value or maybe even insight, but I can't help but feel that it's significance is being over hyped somewhat; many people who dislike Trump will place weight in what it says and may even read it, whereas those who support him probably won't read it and will dismiss most of it as false or exaggerated.
I saw a piece on BBC news on the release day where they were at a book shop, talking to people queuing up to buy it and I couldn't help but think that they were just there to buy a product that would help them confirm what they already think about Trump, so what will they actually learn from it?
Still, everyone loves a juicy celeb gossip story, and this is as high-up as they come!

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