In 2018, Michael Wolff released the book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. In January of that year, he appeared on The View, at which point Meghan McCain ripped him like a bad loan application:
“ You know, Michael, your credibility is being questioned. Trump said the book is full of lies… … The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, New York Times’ John Martin, David Brooks, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, [former British Prime Minister] Tony Blair, Tom Barrack, Kate Walsh, Anna Wintour, all denying quotes.”
She was — as she often is — on fire (here, here, and here):
“‘Washington Post reporter Mark Berman was in the Four Seasons at the same time as Ivanka Trump;’ you admitted to mixing up Mark with Mike Berman. ‘Trump needed the Constitution explained to him;’ his advisors say [Sam] Nunberg has fabricated stories in the past. This goes on and on. The age of the White House communications director. There are a lot of factual errors in here. So [what] I want to know from you is, what do you say to people?”
Meghan’s grilling wasn’t an atypical response to Michael’s book.
So as you’d expect, his new publication sidesteps any questionable accuracy.
Just joshin’ — Siege: Trump Under Fire is a huge anti-fact mess.
Playas gotta play!
But it’s cool — when pressed about Siege’s errors on Yahoo News podcast Skullduggery, Michael just offered this:
“Even if I was wrong, I’m not going to admit it to you.”
Nice.
Here are a few of the book’s gaffes:
- He claims former Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand was nominated by Obama. She was actually nominated by Trump.
- He claims to have copies of a March 2018 draft by Mueller’s office indicting Trump on three counts of obstruction of justice. The office of Robert Mueller says no such document exists.
- He claims the indictments were based on testimony by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Yet, the investigation’s final report mentions nothing about events surrounding the official’s testimony.
- He claims Michael Cohen was “handcuffed for hours in his kitchen on the day the FBI searched his home and office. This seems unlikely, given thatCohen was never arrested or charged with a crime.
- He claims Trump counsel pick Don McGahn had never been employed “anywhere in government.” In reality, he was chair and vice chair of the Federal Election Commission over a 5-year period.
- He describes the FEC as “not a part of the government.” Wrong.
One more:
- He claims President Clinton “could hardly stomach his Attorney General Janet Reno, having to weather the blow back from her decisions regarding Ruby Ridge.” When the terrible siege took place, in fact, William Barr was attorney general.
The podcast host put it to him:
“You get all these things wrong and then you ask us to trust you.”
This was Michael’s retort:
“No, you get these things wrong. This critique is bullsh**!”
And an explanation:
“The object of this book, as with the last book — and I remember I went through the same thing with the last book…is about trying to re-create life in Trump world. It’s trying to give readers a sense of what this experience is, of what goes on here — of the tenure, of the language, of the emotional life of Trump world.”
Michael bottomlined it, and I gotta say — this sounds like bad advice:
“You just have to trust me.”
-ALEX
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