Trump-Bannon book: Nine biggest claims made about White House in tell-all exposé
Book's details - many disputed by the President - left him 'furious' and 'disgusted', says White House press secretary
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A new book detailing the tumultuous inner workings of Donald Trump’s White House offers fascinating insights into his fledgling administration.
Journalist and author Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House contains lurid details about the first few months of the Trump presidency.
The claims, many of which are strongly disputed by the White House, left Mr Trump “furious” and “disgusted”, his press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
From the President’s eating habits to his daughter’s reported desire to run for office, here are some of the highlights.
Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have struck a deal for her to become US President, the book claims.
Mr Trump’s daughter and son-in-law discussed her ambitions to be America’s first female leader when they accepted jobs at the White House following the 2016 election, according to excerpts.
Mr Wolff writes that Ms Trump and her husband accepted posts as advisers in the West Wing “over the advice of almost everyone they knew” in the hope that his presidency “would catapult them into a heretofore unimagined big time”.
The infamous meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump’s eldest son and other senior members of his campaign team was “treasonous and unpatriotic”, ousted White House strategist Steve Bannon is reported to have said.
Mr Bannon is said to have claimed that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election was increasingly focused on possible money laundering.
“They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,” he added, according to details of the book seen by The Guardian.
Mr Trump hit back at the claims, saying Mr Bannon had “lost his mind” and “has nothing to do with me or my presidency”.
Mr Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, also threatened legal action against the former aide over “disparaging statements and in some cases outright defamatory statements”.
“He had a longtime fear of being poisoned, one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald’s — nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade,” writes Mr Wolff.
The author claims the President didn’t want White House staff touching anything in his room, “especially not his toothbrush”.
“He reprimanded the housekeeping staff for picking up his shirt from the floor,” an excerpt from the book continues, quoting Mr Trump as saying: “If my shirt is on the floor, it’s because I want it on the floor.”
Much has been made of the size of the crowd for Mr Trump’s inauguration, with the President’s former spokesman Sean Spicer famously having insisted that the President drew “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period”.
But Mr Wolff’s new book suggests there were other elements of the day that left Mr Trump unsettled.
The 20 January ceremony, attended by almost every living former US president, did not have enough A-list stars to please the new commander in chief, the book claims.
Mr Trump was also reportedly unsatisfied with his accommodation and argued repeatedly with his wife, Melania.
Trump and his aides didn’t believe he would win
Most polls in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election gave Hillary Clinton the edge. But Mr Wolff’s book claims the Trump team – including the President-to-be himself – were dubious he could win.
“Even though the numbers in a few key states had appeared to be changing to Trump’s advantage, neither [Kellyanne] Conway nor Trump himself nor his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — the effective head of the campaign — wavered in their certainty: Their unexpected adventure would soon be over,” Mr Wolff writes.
“Not only would Trump not be president, almost everyone in the campaign agreed, he should probably not be.”
Trump found the White House ‘scary’
The corridors of the White House, lined with paintings of past heads of state, must be an intimidating place for any new president – particularly one who had never held elected office.
And Mr Wolff’s account of the early days of the administration suggest Mr Trump found 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue “vexing and even a little scary”.
“He retreated to his own bedroom – the first time since the Kennedy White House that a presidential couple had maintained separate rooms,” claims Mr Wolff.
“In the first days, he ordered two television screens in addition to the one already there, and a lock on the door, precipitating a brief standoff with the Secret Service, who insisted they have access to the room.”
Mr Trump’s trademark feature is his orange-yellow hair. And, according to Mr Wolff, it was also a target of mockery for his daughter and top aide.
Ms Trump “treated her father with a degree of detachment, even irony, going so far as to make fun of his comb-over to others,” he writes.
The account suggests the President uses hair dye which darkens the longer it is left on. “Impatience resulted in Trump’s orange-blonde hair colour,” Mr Wolff claims.
Michael Flynn was aware Russia speech money would be bad
Michael Flynn was aware that accepting Russian money for a speech was “not...a good idea”, the book claims.
Mr Trump’s former National Security Adviser allegedly took $45,000 from Moscow and “had been told by friends that it had not been a good idea”.
“Well it would only be a problem if we won,’” he is quoted as telling them.
Tony Blair denies claims contained in the book that he warned Mr Trump‘s aides British spies may have had them under surveillance during the 2016 election.
The former Prime Minister’s team called the claim “a complete fabrication” after it was published in Mr Wolff’s tell-all book.
A report in The Times suggested Mr Blair passed on a “juicy rumour that the British had had the Trump campaign staff under surveillance, monitoring its telephone calls and other communications and possibly even Trump himself”.
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