Fire And Fury

Fire And Fury is a first-person account of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, his unexpected victory, and subsequent first year in the White House as 45th president of the United States.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment: What if Donald Trump never wanted to become president? Think about it. He’s over 70, rich, famous, and well-connected. Would you want to go through the trouble? Plus, he was known for pulling all kinds of media stunts long before announcing his candidacy. What if the whole thing was set up to fail?

According to Wolff’s sources, that’s precisely the case. First, there’s Trump’s idea of his own TV channel and network, which he talked about a lot during the campaign. Second, all of his advisors, like Kellyanne Conway and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, were already planning their next career moves. Third, there’s the lack of preparation for regulatory scrutiny, like Trump’s many real estate holdings with sketchy financials.

Lastly, and maybe the most revealing, Melania, Trump’s wife complained a lot about the media attention. So much in fact, that when she found out her husband won, she cried. According to his own son, Trump himself “looked as if he had seen a ghost.” The only one who seemed to at least be somewhat prepared was Steve Bannon, who would become Trump’s chief strategist and, supposedly, the driving force of his administration.

Within seven months of Trump taking office, Bannon was fired. Thus, he ended up contributing even more derogatory, public statements about Trump and those surrounding him to Wolff’s book than the journalist had already recorded. Before that, however, Steve Bannon was largely considered the puppet master behind not just Trump’s successful campaign, but also many of the policies he established in his first year.

That’s because – and this would add even more validity to the president-by-accident thesis – none of Trump’s senior staff seemed to have any idea about how policy making works. They didn’t know how to prepare official documents, which presented an opportunity for Bannon to push his idea of creating “shock and awe.” He told someone to find out how an executive order works, which Trump only had to sign, and then ramped up on those.

This not just got Trump’s staff out of trouble, it also allowed Bannon to progress his conservative, right-wing, economic nationalist agenda. He originally wanted Trump to sign 200 executive orders in the first 100 days, mostly to cause an uproar. In the end, there were “only” 55 in 2017, but that’s still five per month!