Wednesday, December 11, 2024

New Trump Book Turns Washington Upside Down: Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” Hits Number 1 Days Before Publication

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Wednesday was a wild day for Donald Trump. While he was busy tweeting inanities to distract the media, a ticking bomb went off that changed everything.

Excerpts from Michael Wolff’s forthcoming book, “The Fire and The Fury,” exploded like landmines everywhere Trump wasn’t looking: The Guardian, New York Magazine, and so on. In a matter of an hour, everyone knew what was going on. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former right hand man and political philosopher, had done him in interviews with Wolff.

The worst of it: Bannon had created a tagline no one would forget. The Line had to do with Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russians. Bannon said that when Junior was finally interrogated, he’d crack like an egg. Specifically: “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”

Bannon also called the meetings “treasonous.” He told Wolff: “You realize where this is going. This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose (senior prosecutor Andrew) Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to f—ing Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.”

This sent the book to number 1 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and anywhere else books could be pre-ordered. When it’s released on January 9th, “The Fire the Fury” is going to send Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway into convulsions.

Plus, the Donald himself didn’t help matters as he disowned Bannon, claiming — as he’s done with Manafort, The Mooch, and Michael Flynn– that he never really knew him or worked with him– all lies,  as everyone, even the grandchildren know.

Trump tried to wiggle out of this mess with a statement that will haunt him:

Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.

Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base—he’s only in it for himself.

Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.

We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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