Fire and Fury

Michael Wolff

Average Rating 6/10 (1 Review)

With extraordinary access to the Trump White House, Michael Wolff tells the inside story of the most controversial presidency of our time.

The first nine months of Donald Trump's term were stormy, outrageous - and absolutely mesmerising. Now, thanks to his deep access to the West Wing, bestselling author Michael Wolff tells the riveting story of how Trump launched a tenure as volatile and fiery as the man himself.

In this explosive book, Wolff provides a wealth of new details about the chaos in the Oval Office. Among the revelations:

- What President Trump's staff really thinks of him
- What inspired Trump to claim he was wire-tapped by President Obama
- Why FBI director James Comey was really fired
- Why chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner couldn't be in the same room
- Who is really directing the Trump administration's strategy in the wake of Bannon's firing
- What the secret to communicating with Trump is
- What the Trump administration has in common with the movie The Producers

Never before has a presidency so divided the American people. Brilliantly reported and astoundingly fresh, Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury shows us how and why Donald Trump has become the king of discord and disunion.

'Michael Wolff has written a book to shake America to its foundations.'

'Devastating expose of the Trump White House... it brings it all together in one riveting narrative, with the truth coming directly sourced from the president's own mortified advisers. The emperor's clothes were falling down but now they have vanished.'

Review by Ben Macnair (280218) Rating (6/10)

Review by Ben Macnair
Book Source: Not Known
Rating 6/10
We all knew what to expect from this book, the story of how a man, completely unfit for the office, unprepared for the role, and temperamentally unsuited to it became the American President.

Donald Trump saw running for President as a way of promoting his own brand, of becoming more than a slightly faded reality television star, a dinosaur close to extinction. What he, and his party of advisors didn’t expect was that he would be the President. His team were loyal to the Trump brand, and obviously included three of his children, Donald Jnr, Eric, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, as well as a few trusted aides, such as Steve Bannon, or the number of ill-fated press secretaries, who changed as more as the always contradictory Trump changed his mind, but none of them were prepared for politics, or had the patience to see it through to the end.

Trump is a president for the age though. His tweets, his junk-food diet, his toxic masculinity all play into a world-view that is more about publicity than it is about workable policy. Trump was a business man, with deep-pockets, very thin skin, and out-dated views of the world. He was used to getting his own way, never hearing no for an answer, so when the media started writing less than flattering information about him, it became Fake News. When someone made a point he disagreed with, he simply raised his own voice, like a petulant child.

What is obvious in this book is the level of toxicity within the Trump white-house. The high turn-over of staff, and how more thought seemingly goes into making Trump happy moment to moment than it does into having a long term plan for American prosperity, growth and development.

If this was a work of fiction, there would be complaints about the lack of believable, likable characters, but this is real life, in one of the most important offices in the world. The book was well researched and written by Michael Wolff, who had clear, unfettered access to many of Trump’s closest allies, but none of whom were that close or loyal to the President.

Although, surprisingly this book was close to never being published, it is but the tip of the ice-berg in what will doubtless be published and become public knowledge in one of the most controversial Presidency of all time.
Ben Macnair (28th February 2018)