Especially relative to the fevered pace of sales during the holiday season. But thanks to Michael Wolff, the last few weeks have seemed, well, like a second christmas for many booksellers. Given the surge in demand for michaels book, fire and fury, one frequent question ive been asked is whether there is any precedent for this sort of frenzy. Of course, weve had bestsellers before and seen people standing in long lines for them, and normally, were able to anticipate, at least roughly, how many books to order, but the velocity and volume of requests for fire and fury seemed to take everyone by surprise. Our events team did have the foresight weeks ago, before the books release, to schedule michael for an author talk, but it was at our new, smaller store at the wharf [ laughter ] which could have accommodated only about a fourth of the crowd here this evening. So, lets all give a giant round of applause to the terrific staff here at sixth i who [ applause ] they made this spacious venue available and enabled many more people to attend. And while were at it, lets also clap for henry holt company, a part of mcmillan, which faced with a legal threat not to publish, instead rushed out distribution of the book. [ cheers and applause ] because of all the attention that michael and his book has received, im going to assume everyone here already knows whats in fire and fury. While theres been controversy about the accuracy of some parts and whether they should be taken literally, a number of journalists who have covered this white house have said much in the book rings true and can be taken seriously, as further evidence calling into question Donald Trumps fitness to be president. Michael himself has a long track record in journalism, dating back to the mid1970s when he worked as a New York Times copy boy. Hes been a columnist for new york magazine, vanity fair, the Hollywood Reporter and other publications. Hes won several magazine awards and written six previous books. His edgy reporting and writing style has made him no stranger to controversy. As one the New York Times profile of him put it, hes picked up as many foes as fans during his years as a slashing columnist. We certainly appreciate him taking time to appear here this evening. In conversation with jonathan capehart, whos been a member of the Washington PostEditorial Board for a decade and is a pulitzer prizewinning writer. Jonathan also hosts the podcast cape up and contributes to msnbc. Ive watched jonathan moderate before, and he comes very prepared, so we should be in for a great discussion. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Michael Wolff and jonathan capehart. [ applause ] sir. Look what youve done. [ laughter ] this is are you this is really terrific. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. This is great. Okay, before i get to how i wanted to start this, i was curious, and i mentioned this to michael. This is washington, d. C. , a book event for a book that has set this town on fire. And i was curious, i was wondering, hmm, whos here . Were in, at least in terms of party registration, a democratic city, but in terms of power, the house, the senate and the white house are republican controlled. So, michael said, well, id be curious to find out, too. So, i dont know if anybody how Many Democrats are here . [ cheers and applause ] okay. How many republicans are here . [ applause ] oh, come on. Okay, fine. Let me put it this way, how many people involved in the political process are here . [ applause ] whoa. Okay, all right. A lot of shy people. Okay. So, michael, on saturday night live last week, in their cold open [ laughter ] the cold open was a sendup of morning joe and fred armisen played you, and the willie geist character asks this now, michael, there have been several errors pointed out in this book already. Do you take responsibility for those . Michael wolff look, you read it, right . Everyone says, yeah. Michael wolff says, and you liked it . [ laughter ] you had fun . Everyone says, yeah. Then Michael Wolff says, well, whats the problem . You got the gist, so shut up you know, even the stuff thats not true, its true. Whats your reaction to that portrayal, michael . [ laughter ] so now i have to deconstruct saturday night live. [ laughter ] thats the world were in now, michael. Its all true. It is literally all true. This book is donald trump in full. There isnt you know, i think theres been you know, i have the problem with the berman brothers, mark berman and somebody else berman who i seem to have transposed. You know, and to this i entirely cop to. My fault. But about donald trump, this book is as true as it gets. This is the man and i think its one of the reasons that this book has this remarkable thing has happened to this book, that we all thought, and even i thought this writing this, i thought, we know donald trump. Weve captured this. And it turns out, i think, that we hadnt, that the story of donald trump, this kind of emotional void, we had been sort of circling around looking into but not really being able to grasp what this thing is. And i think thats the accomplishment of this book. Now, during an interview on msnbc with katie tur, i believe she asked you, because a lot of people were saying, well, if youve got tapes, recordings of these interviews, you should release them. With her, i believe that was on a monday or a tuesday, you said no. When i interviewed you on msnbc a couple days later, you sort of backtracked and said, you know, im kind of thinking about it, but i dont know. So, now that we are a week out, a week later, where is your head in terms of the question of i mean, ive been doing this for a rather long time, and i have always had you know, i work like everybody else works. Sometimes you have tapes, sometimes you have notes, sometimes you run to the bathroom to scribble what someone has just told you. And i have never in my career been asked for tapes before. So i thought, well, thats not what we do. And what i do is not make tapes. What i do is write sentences. But maybe im wrong. Maybe in a multimedia world, this is what has to happen. And when people have asked for this, ive thought, oh, my god, now ive got get a sound engineer, now ive got to get, what, how do you do this . But maybe. Maybe. Maybe. It becomes somewhat complicated because there are a lot of i have a lot of people on tape who i have sworn on my life that i would not reveal. I mean, you go through this process in which you make a series of deals, and sometimes the deals are i will talk to you, but if someone asks me if i have talked to you, i will deny it, and you have to promise me that you will not contradict that, and thats the deal you make. So, i guess i cant i mean, unless im completely immoral, which i seem to be often accused of being. At least im not that immoral. And, but on the other hand, i got steve bannon on tape, and the bannon tapes are i mean, if you havent read the book, the bannon pieces are like, wow. All right, so, i want to get i mean, he opens his mouth and its a kind of poetry. [ laughter ] a poetry of a sort. Of a well, all poetry is of a sort. Right. This is i mean, you cannot stop listening to it. You think, he keeps going, and usually he does. He does i want to ask you this question to get into your sources and how you got them. Early in the book, you talk about this dinner party that is thrown. Roger ailes is there. Everyones waiting for steve bannon to show up. Hes hours late. But when he gets there, he is just going on and on and on and on and on. In the book, it is not clear who is throwing the dinner party, but we now know that the dinner party was thrown by you. [ laughter ] now, and i bring that up for a specific reason which ill get to later. But on the view, you were asked by Meghan Mccain whether the dinner was off the record. And you initially said, yes, the dinner was off the record, which you could hear the gasp in the audience of people who knew what that meant, and she asks, so then how is this offtherecord dinner in the book . Explain why. Well, let me explain a couple things why it isnt identified. In writing this book, i mean, i had to make that i made a very precise decision that there would be no i in the book. There was no i because i didnt want this book to be about my impressions of donald trump. I wanted it to be the impressions of the people around him. I really and nobody believes this, but i went into this project without a preconception, without an assumption about whether donald trump would be successful or would be a failure. I thought, i dont know. And i wanted to find out what donald trump is, who he is through the people who worked with him on a daily and often minutebyminute basis, so i eliminated myself from the book. So, anyway, this dinner did occur at my house. It came about because i have had a relationship with roger ailes for a long time, for almost 20 years. And roger, a man who i would not say i agreed with on probably any point on the continuum of opinions, has nevertheless been a good friend, a good source, an incredibly funny person to spend time with and someone through whom you really get a glimpse, you really get to know something about how power has worked over th this, practically speaking, a generation. So, i have known roger. When he was thrown out of fox, i was perhaps among the few people who kept speaking to him. And he was moving to palm beach in january. He was going on january 4th. I said come for dinner on the night before, roger and his wife. On the spur of the moment, i think probably that day, i shot steve bannon a note. I said, roger is coming for dinner. Hes moving to theyre moving to palm beach the next day, do you want to come . And i dont know what i expected out of that, but when i went when he responded that he would like to come, and then i had to go to my wife and say, guess whos coming to dinner. [ laughter ] but it was actually kind of a splendid evening, and it was completely off the record. Then roger died, and i thought, what does that mean in this thing . And i decided that, that it probably i decided i could use it. And i spoke to rogers wife, and it was kind of like, yeah, why . So, the confidentiality died with him. Yes. I mean, that was the decision that i made. Right or wrong, that was the decision i made. Then shortly after that actually, i got this wrong, because first it was steve bannon who said after roger had died, he said youre going to use that, arent you . He said, thats history. And i said, oh, okay, could and he said, yeah, use it and then i spoke to rogers wife. So thats how it got on the record. Okay. And so, that is one of the scenesetting moments. And so, now we understand how it is that you were able to get waved in to the white house to basically become a potted plant in the west wing lobby. So, most of your meetings at the white house were with steve bannon, or at least you were scheduled to meet with steve bannon, and then what would happen . No, i was scheduled to meet with i mean, although i have had a lot of meetings with steve, and steve was one of the pillars of this spoke, but i basically met with everybody, and everybody was under the impression that they were supposed to meet with me. Where do they get this impression from . Did that impression come from the president . Or did it, because you were talking to steve bannon, they figured, well, we should probably talk to him, too . Well, it came from i mean, i was introduced around by various people, by hope hicks, who was the, you know, i mean, the president s kind of personal pr person, you know, kellyanne conway, sean spicer. I mean, this was not a it was not a mystery here. Now, i think on one level, nobody quite knew how this came about, and everybody looked a little puzzled by things, but it was there was no friction here. There was no friction. No friction. Nobody was saying, what are you doing here . Everybody was saying, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they would see you sitting in the west wing lobby and, like, who are you waiting to see . And you would say bannon and they would chuckle and say, well, thats not going happen or that be for a while, why dont you come back and talk to me . I became a familiar presence around the white house. And i think also very much a nonthreatening presence. I mean, i was not i mean, you know, the press corps was over there, not far away, but i was always careful not to come in as a member of the press and not to act like a member. You know, the press is a sort of, you know, they want something. I didnt want anything. I literally was just i didnt even have okay, wait. Oh, come on, michael. I didnt want anything. Im just sitting in the west wing lobby hoping to talk to all these folks. This is totally true. Come on, man really . I just wanted someone to talk to me. I was like [ laughter ] and this is actually an important thing, because you go in there. It used so, it would be in, youd get i dont know, a 10 00 appointment, youd go in, and then you would sit there and you would sit there sometimes for hours, and sometimes, hours and hours. And it was kind of humiliating, actually. And you had the feeling that people took, you know, regarded me as kind of a pitiable creature, you know . Im not im not important enough for anyone to keep their appointment with me. Everybody else is there and theyre having appointments and their people come out, and im still just waiting there, and the hours are passing. And i did feel humiliated. I was really but then it became this kind of thing that people it began to work. People would stop and they would try to take care of me and say like youre one of the neediest cases. Come on yeah, come back, talk to me. And the other thing, and this is an important thing, i basically didnt ask questions. So, all reporters, what do we do . We ask questions, ask questions. I dont ask questions. I go in and i sit there and people just start to talk. Okay. So, one of the reasons why, perhaps, people start to talk, from what youre saying, and the key in that is what you said in terms of the initial part of of your answer where you said, you mentioned hope hicks, who is the president s personal pr person. Now, when you read fire and fury, you find out that everybody in this book has his or her own pr person. Jared and ivanka have their own pr person. Bannon ends up building his own pr team. Is one of the reasons why and the president i mean, its extraordinary, the president , who has a press secretary and a whole Communications Shop. A Communications Shop of 40 people, but hes conducting his own freelance operation. [ laughter ] so, maybe one of the reasons why people took pity on you as you sat there, as you say, humiliated in the west wing lobby, they knew you were talking to bannon. Is it that they realized, oh, my god, hes talking to bannon, i need to talk to him to find out what bannon has said so i can counter act that . I think that happened a little later on when they realized that bannon was kind of monopolizing me. In the beginning, it was, everybody was talking and confused about why they were talking, but they were talking. It had come on high from nobody nobody actually knew from where it came, it seemed, but there was a general feeling that you were supposed to talk to me, i think. Were people unburdening themselves . Yes. Did you feel like a therapist . Well, eventually, you did. And thats the i mean, what i saw i mean, this book is really about, if theres a plot line, the transformation that took place is people in the beginning who were, you know, donald trump, ra, ra, and you know, you got the donald trump line. And then that began to degrade, you know. They began to give you the trump line, but while they were giving it to you, they would go. And theyre going, ah. [ laughter ] and it became very clear that they wanted someone else to know that while they had to give this line, they didnt believe it. And then after moving even further on, then it fell apart entirely, and then they would tell you, this is, you know, this is really a mess here. And so, i mean, i think that happened. But then the other thing happened was the bannon thing, that steve was talking to me, so then other people had to talk to me to counter what steve was saying. And also, because nobody in the white house you know, there were these camps in the white house, and these camps didnt speak to each other. So therefore, i became, you had to in one respect, you had these camps saw an advantage in speaking to me because then they can ask me what the other people were saying, so i became a kind of messenger. This is totally high school. And that was a welcome to washington. [ laughter ] i didnt mean to interrupt. No, thats, thats oh that was it . Okay, so you there are many instances in the book where the president picks up the phone and calls around to his new york buddies or just people and just vents for a very long time, and at the end of one chapter, one section, you read all the things the president said and then at the end you said the call lasted 26 minutes. How many people does the president call like that back in new york . You know, there are probably eight people in new york he calls on a steady basis, and there may be more. Those are sort of the ones you know about. The people i know about. And you know, i think he has, you know, he has a i mean, thats his Kitchen Cabinet of basically billionaires or a few people, media people who he knows. And the interesting thing is that he calls them and then they call each other, and then whoever and then they call their friends and so on and so on . And then this all leaks out. And so, the president , you know, throws a fit about the leaks, but of course, in many instances, they come directly from him. So, if you are at the event i did with dan rather back in november you know i like to write in my books and take notes, so if you have your book with you, please turn to page 92. And there it says, on february 6th, trump made one of his seething, selfpitying and unsolicited phone calls without presumption of confidentiality to a passing new york media acquaintance. The call had no discernible point other than to express his bent out of shape feelings about the relentless contempt of the media and the disloyalty of his staff. So, of course, i immediately thought, are you the passing new york media acquaintance, michael . And i believe, as i told you in the green room, i was not going to tell you that. [ laughter ] i had to ask. I had to ask. But you know what, then that question, my reading that paragraph and that question gets to something that i wonder if people, particularly here in washington, fully appreciate, and that is the fact that you are a fixture in new york media, you are a fixture in new york society writ large, that the world that the president and ivanka trump and Jared Kushner, the world that they live in and socialize in is the same world that you are in. Because of that that sounds terrible. Well, no, i dont mean it