Guest . Sure. Everywhere i went this weekend people knew that i had Michael Wolff as a first guest on the show tonight. His book, of course, Fire And Fury disappearing from book stands bookstores, unprecedented sales and the word got out he would be here and i was on two flights, one on friday, one this morning, to, from, los wills people trying to grab the book out of hi hands. Really . Do not, do not get caught walking the streets carrying this book anywhere. People are just going to try to grab it. Im a subway reader. Dont, dont. I took the dust jacket off because i didnt want to be like right. You know . Muggings are real. That can happen. I didnt want to make it too juicy a target. It is right now the most valuable book in america so who knows what people might do to grab one. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, the Trump White House is reeling tonight from the
impact of something that has never caused a fullscale crisis in a white house still in its first year. A book. A book that portrays the president as someone incapable of reading a book. Incapable of reading anything of significance. The book represents the president as semiliteral, could not begin to come pretend the significance of a chemical weapons attack in syria and did not want to discuss it until he was shown large pictures of syrian children literally foaming at the mouth. The book has many new and important insights like that about how policy, important policy, is shaped in the Trump White House. But the news created by the book is not about dmoomestic policy how the most right wing president in history could sit in the white house and ask republicans and republican staff determined to repeal obamacare
and determined to then cut medicare, why they couldnt just expand medicare for everyone. Single payer. The single most liberal Health Care Proposal in American History. The idea supported by ted kennedy before he died and the idea supported by Bernie Sanders now. That would be the most shocking policy gem in any other book like this. About any other presidency. Including all of the books written like this written by bob woodward using that same inside the white house methodology and reporting. On foreign policy, The Book Reports that the president believed by making a quick trip to saudi arabia he could achieve, quote, and these are the president s words, the biggest breakthrough in israelpalestine negotiations ever. That alone is the single most delusional statement ever attributed to a president about the middle east peace process. Duties and responsibilities of the office . This is the first, the first book in the history of white house literature thats provoked that question and that is why its already the most sought after book in the history of white house literature. Its sold out. Its completely sold out in america. Sold out in bookstores and online. A million copies have been sold. Already. That is the highest selling possibly highest selling Nonfiction Book in American History and to judge by that response this then is the most important book in the history of white house literature. Thats what book buyers are in effect saying by the stampede to buy this book. Thats what voters are saying by their stampede to buy this book. No such book has ever had such an instantaneous pull on american readers and raised a more important question about the american presidency is the president a danger to
sensible governance and the country . Is the president that casually tweets threats of nuclear war a danger to the world . Joining us know, the author of Fire And Fury inside the Trump White House, Michael Wolff. Michael, thank you very much for being here. Its been a long day, a long weekend. Thank you, sir. A weekend unlike any in your life. You knew that this pressure was coming. You knew what you were writing. You knew how this white house operates and this president operates. You might not have specifically known a Cease And Desist letter of lawyers but the attacks that you have faced from the white house, from the trump machine, since this book came out, is that what you expected . No. I expected some response. Did i expect the president to basically drop everything . I had heard from a source who still speaks to me that he wanted my media schedule for today. Hes probably watched pent
the whole day just watching me on television. This is the man is an among things, the man is an obsessive. Thats how he responds to things. So, he responded to this. I mean, this is its literally crazy to write a Cease And Desist, a president has never done that. A prior restraint of a book to say the privacy is invaded, he is defamed. This has never happened before. Also, lets remember the effect is just to sell more books so he shoots himself in the foot in this instance as in many other instances. And then to go on days of tweeting and then obviously to culminate in this in going for the in front of the American People and saying im sane. Im actually a very stable guy. Very stable genius. A very stable genius. Im a genius and im stable. Nobody could have predicted this. Even of donald trump. One of the things he said since the book came out is he doesnt know you. How long have you known him . Since the 1990s. So i was at new York Magazine and he used to i was one of the people he used to call up to complain about what was said. Actually usually about what was what articles he was not in he wanted to be in. I used to see him on you know, cocktail parties. I have literally known i mean, were hardly friends but i have known him for a good long time. When i interviewed him in june 2016, just before the convention, it was like old homecoming week. Michael wolff, oh my god, i cannot believe welcomed you into his home in los angeles during the campaign. Sat there eating Vanilla Ice Cream with you . I actually it was sort of
set up and then i met him at the kimmel show. And went in and then he said to an aide, how long do we have . And they said, 45 minutes. I can see the look that came over his face. He said, you dont give Michael Wolff 45 minutes. And hen the said, why dont after the show come back to the house and well hang out. That was interesting because nobody knew he had a house in the middle of beverly hills. I learned it through your article. Amazing. Lets go to something that tony blair said because this goes to the Contesting Elements of the book and this is the most significant one ive seen. Some of the others are literally about how many Ls In Hillary and Hillary Rosen and learned through the correction of your book theres quun. I have known hillary for decades. I didnt know that. Tony blair in the book, this passage, page 157 in february
blair visited kushner in the white house on this trip the now freelance diplomat seeking to prove his usefulness to this new white house imparted a juicy nugget of information. There was, he suggested, the possibility that the british had had the Trump Campaign staff under the vur vail lance, monitoring the Telephone Calls and other communications and possibly even trump himself. Tony blair said about this, its a complete fabrication from beginning to end. I never had such a conversation in the white house, outside the white house, with Jared Kushner, with anyone else. What i know about this is that this was this was reported to me by by two different sources. And then i do know that shortly after this this conversation Jared Kushner and steve bannon jumped into a car, they went out to langley. Had a meeting with the director of the cia and the Deputy Director who reported that this
was a miscommunication. And then you fully recount that in the book. The followup. Out to the cia and the cia says, theres nothing there. Right. So so if youre in the position of the reporter you think, that sounds pretty much like something happened there. And im very careful and i dont know how tony blair reported this. I hear maybe a suggestion. Have you thought of et cetera, et cetera. But i would be overwhelmingly certain that something related to tony blairs suggestion that the brits might have wiretapped happened. By the way, were not able to get to the detail and refer to it. One of the reasons the book is fa fascinating and necessary reading is how does tony blair know Jared Kushner . Thats something to save for another time or buy the book. As a little i was when that happened, so much happened, im sit ogen the couch in the west wing and there is Jared Kushner and tony blair coming out. You see them snogt. Totally. I actually overheard, im overhearing the discussion of which i obviously immediately take a note on and talking about the difficulties of the middle east situation and jared says to tony blair, damn it, we can solve this problem. And thats in the lobby of the west wing . Yep. That is kind of like for people that dont know, a hotel lobby and people pass through and that kind of moment can occur. I remember working in the senate going up there for a tax meeting and the cia director over there in the next chair and you have these encounters that can only happen in that lobby. You go over there. You get the appointment. Say, they pass you in, you go there and then, of course, the appointment, you know, it drifts. Yes. It drifts. Wait. Sometimes. Wait and wait. For hours. You think, this is really annoying and how can they do this to me . Then you realize, you just see it all. Right. And the less organized the white house the more valuable it is to hang out in the lobby. I want do go to an important and possibly shakesperianstyle quote from steve bannon. He said, the daughter will take down the father. What did he mean . He meant in his as he puts it, every piece of advice they have given has been bad advice. Ivanka trump and her husband Jared Kushner. Yes. And in the end, he believed that they would protect themselves over the president. That the advice that they gave him was advice fundamentally to protect them that would
ultimately damage him, comey obviously, the prime example. Comey firing was their idea, rched by then . Certainly pushed, pushed by them. Opposed by steve bannon in this account . Steve bannon said, you know, i spent a lot of time. You come to actually live bannon. I dont know. Im not sure you pulled off that magic trick. The insights so anyway, so in this regard, he said, when donald trump is worked up, it means somebody has been working him up. Yeah. And you detail exactly how they work that and you you are expressing Jared Kushners concerns to be quite a range of concerns, everything from possible investigations of trump Family Business but also to kushner Family Business including his father Charlie Kushner whos already been convicted of federal crimes. And gone to jail. Gone to jail. Yeah. One of the issues here is, isCharlie Kushner, bannon obviously believes, is he imperilled . If he is imperilled who would Jared Kushner choose between . His father or fatherinlaw . The in the book steve bannon calls don junior freido. The weak son in the god father. We have seen steve bannon come out with a statement in which he says that his comments in the book, now famous comments about The Don Junior Meeting at trump tower in the campaign of russians treasonous, that was not aimed at don junior. He said that was aimed at Paul Manafort but acknowledge in that statement he does not dispute. He has an opportunity to, he does not dispute a single word in this book attributed to steve bannon. No. I think he tries to try angulate
the least the least revision he can and thats to say its about manafort. But trust me. It was about it was about don junior. It was about freido. It was about as he says don junior will be cracked like an egg on national television. And don juniors not the only one. He says that Donald Trumps longtime lawyer Michael Cohen to be cracked like an egg and has these complicated relationships. But a lot of the bannon stuff sounds people speculate about why would he say these things to you. Is he as uncontrollable conversationist, self control i mean, as donald trump . You know, its within of two things. Either either steve has the most remarkable big mouth in history or he has a strategy. And i tend to think that its a strategy. And i tend to think that his
strategy was roy moore would win. That would mean steve bannon would win. Donald trump would lose. That means steve bannon would hold the leverage. Going into 2018. And steve bannon in part using this book would break with donald trump. How much of your interviewing with steve bannon occurred after he was fired from the white house . Very little. So most of this is while hes in the white house and what we read is a Roller Coaster Road for bannon. Days he feels up and like hes the one in control of all the factions in the white house. Theres other days where he feels like this could be my last day. I dont know. Totally. How did that affect what you were getting out of him as a source . I mean, the guess of the reader sometimes is this must be a really bad day for bannon. He thinks he will be fired and telling Michael Wolff all the worst stuff. Absolutely. When he was riding high, it was those were the days that i would sit in the white house waiting for him and the whole
day would pass and then somebody come out and say we got to put it off until thursday. When he was in the nadire then hours and hours and hours of conversation. What is there to say about policy making in the Trump White House . I have tried to figure out at the end of the book, a way of describing it, and what and whatever way you would describe it, the president is kind of like the hub cap that gets put on the automobile at the end of the assembly line, the last component to policy. Just the person okay is needed at some point but never generating anything in the story. He wants to have, as little to do with this as possible. He wants someone else to do it. He wants Mitch Mcconnell to do it. Or he wanted steve bannon to do it. Or sometimes he wanted jared. Anyone else to do it but donald trump. And steve bannon was the one who came up with what he believed was the right defense for the white house as a Special Prosecutor started to surround the white house and that was to wall it off and create what he considered to be this wall, leave any comment about the investigation to the Trump Legal Team outside of the white house to the spokesperson for the Trump Legal Team outside of the white house. What went wrong with that strategy . Donald trump went wrong with that strategy. I mean, this was steve would go over this. Hes saying this was this was not only the perfect strategy, but the only strategy. That in order to survive this kind of investigation, which he would then point out the clintons endured and survived because they handled it that way. You had to be incredibly disciplined. And of course, his boss or client was is the most undisciplined man in certainly ever to occupy the presidency
and maybe me may the most undisciplined man in america. There were several days in the course of the last year when steve bannon firmly believed that he was winning in these faction fights in the white house and that ivanka trump and her husband would be back in manhattan by now. There were plenty of times when he thought that. Turns out hes the one thats out. We have to take a break here. Michael, well come back more if you can please stay. When will people be able to buy this . All i do is hear from the relatives all day. They cant get copies. Is it this week . Do you know when . Its yeah. Well see. Theyre rolling them out. All right. Thats and latter, more information about Robert Muellers russia investigation, the president of the United States is now the one of the next interview subjects robert
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