It’ll probably be the biggest-selling book of the year.
A tell-all book painting a pretty chaotic picture of life behind the scenes in the Trump administration went on sale four days ahead of schedule on Friday despite attempts to prevent its publication.
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, written by journalist Michael Wolff, was due to be released on Tuesday, 9 January, but due to “unprecedented demand” caused by the publication of extracts from the book in The Guardian and New York Magazine amongst other outlets, led to its early release on Friday morning.
Here we go. You can buy it (and read it) tomorrow. Thank you, Mr. President.
— Michael Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC) January 4, 2018
The book’s publishers, Henry Holt and Company, revealed that they had received a cease and desist letter from an attorney for President Trump, but decided to proceed with the publication of what they described as “an extraordinary contribution to our (United States’) national discourse”.
In the book, Wolff paints a fairly unflattering picture of life behind the scenes at the White House.
Amongst some of the claims that have surfaced in the extracts so far – including in this quite astonishing extract in New York Magazine – are that Trump didn’t even want to win the election in the first place, that Trump’s daughter Ivanka has eyes on the presidency in future and that Trump likes to be in bed by 6.30pm watching three television screens, two of which he ordered to be installed in addition to one that was already there.
Wolff claims to have had regular access to the White House while preparing for the book and claims to have conducted over 200 interviews with people inside and close to the Trump regime.
A White House spokesperson has dismissed the claims made in the book as “disgraceful and laughable” while, in typical Trump fashion, the president himself took to Twitter to say that it was “full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist” and that he never granted Wolff access to the White House.
‘Sloppy Steve’, as you may figure in the tweet below, is a reference to Steve Bannon, against whom Trump launched an attack earlier this week when quotes from Bannon in Wolff’s book became public.
I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist. Look at this guy’s past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018
At the time of writing, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House is available only to pre-order on Amazon UK for its original release date on 9 January.
