Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff: Exposé on the Trumpet Man
In brief: Since the publication of Michael Wolff’s fearless tell-all book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House about President Donald Trump’s first year in the White House, questions about Trump’s competence as the leader of the world’s most powerful country continues to stream in. Not only does the book reaffirm stories that the public has heard about in the news but also brings into light the major players behind Trump, notably Steve Bannon and Ivanka Trump. However, the book’s exposé comes as no surprise, rather maintains the prominent position that Trump is unfit for office.
One week into 2018 and the Trump administration once again managed to make the headlines of every major newspaper in the world. Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, a new tell-all exposé about the Trump administration, caused uproar in Washington even before its publication with Trump trying everything in his power to suppress its release. His efforts were, as usual, to no avail. The book sold out within minutes of hitting the shelves. There are so many explosive claims made by Wolff that it is hard to pinpoint the most controversial. However, the most worrisome part of this book is that the claims made about the Trump administration aren’t difficult to believe. If you didn’t already think there was a man-child sitting in the Oval Office, this book is likely to convince you.
In an excerpt published by the New York Magazine taken from Fire and Fury, Wolff explains how Trump’s carefully detailed plan did not anticipate the possibility of actually winning the election. His primary goal was to position the Trump brand and achieve world fame. Wolff assures that everyone close to Trump or involved in the campaign was certain he was not going to be elected. Allegedly, Trump believed in his campaign so little that he refused to invest his own money on it, with the exception of a 10 million dollar loan under the condition that the sum would be paid back to him. Once Donald Trump was elected, he began to believe that he deserved the position and was fully capable of being the president of the United States.
According to Wolff’s exposé, Trump’s aides, therefore those who are closest to him, believe he is semi-literate and does not read anything. They claim he gets all his news from the TV. This has led to serious questioning of Trump’s intellectual capabilities, which in turn has fueled President Trump’s “fake news” campaign. He has taken it upon himself the responsibility to prove his competence and has declared himself a genius on several occasions, especially through his personal social media accounts: “my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.” He further refuted Wolff’s claims by stating that he became president of the United States on his “first try,” which in his book makes him “not smart, but genius, and a very stable genius at that.”
Although Trump has been rather vocal about his discontent and disbelief about the book’s release, the supporting evidence provided in the exposé is quite compelling. Anecdotes such as Trump enjoying eating McDonalds to avoid being poisoned adds to the claims that Trump is being consumed by his paranoia and portrays an unstable president.
But Wolff’s exposé targets more than just the President himself. In Fire and Fury, Wolff also claims that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner struck up a deal that in the future, Ivanka would run for president. She was allegedly convinced that she would be the first woman president, not Hillary Clinton. He claims that Ivanka’s only value in the current administration is dealing with her father’s mood swings and tantrums.
The book is also very much centered on Steve Bannon and his previous role in the Trump administration. Wolff portrays Bannon’s role in the White House as the ultimate puppet master behind Trump. The fact that the author, who spent countless hours in the presence of Steve Bannon, is not able to give a decisive measurement of the latter’s power is frightening to say the least. Yet, it is clear that Steve Bannon, the owner of Breitbart News should never have been pulling the strings in the White House. Steve Bannon has already paid a high price for his interactions with Wolff. Not only was he rudely dismissed by Trump, but had to step down at Breitbart News.
However, there is still the question of how much of the book can be taken as fact. Many of the allegations concern Trump’s private life, far from the White House. Most of the allegations portray his personality as unfit for office but none that concern the actual policies that affect the entire country. Most of the alleged incidents have been in the news previously since Trump took office, however it would appear that the public have become desensitised towards them.
Yet Wolff’s novel rings true in accordance with the 1,950 false or misleading statements made by Trump up to now. Donald Trump has essentially spent his entire presidency misleading the public, lying about things that can be factually proven, and tweeting as if his tweets would form a manifesto for his presidency. The president has given the public no reason to believe anything he says, which makes it understandable that Michael Wolff is widely being given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to Fire and Fury. While President Trump can hardly be a source of authentic information, if the claims made in the book are true, it would mean a total breakdown of any credibility or stability within the White House.
What are the experts saying?
Dr. Brandy X. Lee, a Yale University psychiatry professor was summoned to Capitol Hill last month for a two-day brief on the president’s most recent behaviour. Doctor Lee classified Donald Trump’s behaviour as “dangerous” and assures that he is “going back to conspiracy theories, denying things he has admitted before (…) We feel that the rush of tweeting is an indication of his falling apart under stress. Trump is going to get worse and will become uncontainable with the pressures of the presidency.”
Furthermore, Ford Vox, a brain injury specialist, stated in an opinion article for Stat News that, “If I were to make a differential diagnosis based on what I have observed, it would include mild cognitive impairment, also known as mild neurocognitive disorder or predementia”. Although, it is entirely possible that this is an erroneous diagnosis, it further brings to light the steady increase of concern for the president’s mental health.
Recently, after the nuclear button fiasco, the New York Magazine claimed that over one hundred mental health specialists, including Dr. Lee, have signed their names to the following statement: “We believe that he is now further unraveling in ways that contribute to his belligerent nuclear threats … We urge that those around him, and our elected representatives in general, take urgent steps to restrain his behaviour and head off the potential nuclear catastrophe that endangers not only Korea and the United States but all of humankind.” This, alongside the controversy arising from the publication of Fire and Fury, have further debilitated the president’s image, and led to rushed, aggressive responses from Trump himself.
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