I read as much of Michael Wolff’s ‘Fire and Fury’ as my stomach lining could stand, and then I watched Donald Trump’s last rally of the 2016 presidential election. Groucho Marx’s old line came to mind — “Who are you going to believe; me, or your own eyes?”
He spoke in Michigan, a swing state where Hillary Clinton didn’t bother to campaign, and he hammered on the issues that decided the vote: more jobs, no Obamacare, Washington corruption. Trump was focused, confident, and ruthless. “Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to seek the office of the Presidency of the United States… We are finally going to close the history books on the Clintons, and their lies, schemes and corruption… My contract with the American voter begins with a plan to end government corruption and to take our country back from the special interests… We’re going to win today and we’re going to Washington D.C. to drain the swamp.” The crowd of 18,000 chanted “Drain the swamp!” back at him.
That’s the man who neither expected nor wanted to win, according to Wolff. There stood Donald Trump on the day before the election, declaring that he would win, in the middle of the state whose votes would make him win, talking about the issues on which he would win. More pertinent than what it is, goes the adage about Southern cooking, is what it was, and the caveat applies to Wolff’s ‘Fire and Fury.’
How much of Wolff’s supposed insider account of the Trump campaign and White House is true, how much invented, and how much cribbed from other reports — some real and some invented — will keep the pundits busy for weeks. What it was from inception was an attempt to show that Donald Trump couldn’t win the 2016 election – and that, if he did, it could only have been the result of an awful accident.
The dead possum in Wolff’s farrago is his unsupported claim that Trump had no intention of winning the election, did not expect to win the election, and was shocked to find out that he had won the election. In fact, I called the election for Trump on September 11, 2016, after Hillary Clinton offered her now-infamous crack about the “deplorables” supporting her opponent. A political upheaval was in progress like nothing I had seen in my lifetime, propelled by economic stagnation, popular revulsion at political correctness, and a deep sense of wounded dignity at the arrogance of the political elite.
Wolff has not a single on-the-record statement to support his story’s central premise, merely unattributed fluff such as the following:
Shortly after eight o’clock that evening, when the unexpected trend —Trump might actually win — seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he called him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania, to whom Donald Trump had made his solemn guarantee [that he would lose], was in tears — and not of joy. There was, in the space of little more than an hour, in Steve Bannon’s not unamused observation, a befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a quite horrified Trump. But still to come was the final transformation: suddenly, Donald Trump became a man who believed that he deserved to be and was wholly capable of being the president of the United States.
[…]
The candidate and his top lieutenants believed they could get all the benefits of almost becoming president without having to change their behavior or their fundamental worldview one whit: we don’t have to be anything but who and what we are, because of course we won’t win.
[…]
The Trump campaign had, perhaps less than inadvertently, replicated the scheme from Mel Brooks’s The Producers. In that classic, Brooks’s larcenous and dopey heroes, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, set out to sell more than 100 percent of the ownership stakes in the Broadway show they are producing. Since they will be found out only if the show is a hit, everything about the show is premised on its being a flop. Accordingly, they create a show so outlandish that it actually succeeds, thus dooming our heroes.
The relevant film reference is not to The Producers, though, but to Trading Places, in which the suddenly-bankrupt Duke Brothers shout, “Get those brokers back in here! Turn those machines back on!” Wolff wants to re-trade the 2016 election – if he can’t pretend it didn’t happen, at least he can pretend that it shouldn’t have happened.
Wolff’s credibility is also stretched by his treatment of Trump’s attitude towards the US intelligence community. He dismisses the antipathy between president and spy agencies as paranoia: “Deep state,” the left- and right-wing notion of an intelligence-network permanent- government conspiracy, part of the Breitbart lexicon, became the Trump team term of art: he’s poked the deep state bear.
Names were put to this: John Brennan, the CIA director; James Clapper, the director of national intelligence; Susan Rice, the outgoing National Security Advisor; and Ben Rhodes, Rice’s deputy and an Obama favorite. Movie scenarios were painted: a cabal of intelligence community myrmidons, privy to all sorts of damning evidence of Trump’s recklessness and dubious dealings, would, with a strategic schedule of wounding, embarrassing, and distracting leaks, make it impossible for the Trump White House to govern.
By contrast, Trump’s campaign spokesman on foreign policy and (briefly) his National Security Adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, had damned the Central Intelligence Agency uphill and down for its incompetence in the Middle East, blaming it for the rise of ISIS among other things. As head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012, Flynn released a now-celebrated report warning that US intelligence de facto supported forces that wanted to establish a new caliphate, the future ISIS. All of this was exhaustively discussed in foreign-policy specialist journals, as I reported here. Not only does Wolff fail to add anything to our knowledge of Trump’s wrangle with the intelligence community, but he suppresses the relevant facts already in the public record.
Wolff claims that Trump is stupid and that everyone around him thinks he is stupid, but there is little in ‘Fire and Fury’ that has not already been well-rehearsed in the media with regard to the fact that the president did not know enough, did not know what he didn’t know, did not particularly care, and was confident – if not serene – in his unquestioned certitudes. There has been a fair amount of back-of-the classroom giggling about who called Trump what. For Steve Mnuchin and Reince Priebus, he was an “idiot.” For Gary Cohn, he was “dumb as shit.” For H. R. McMaster he was a “dope.” The list went on. It’s all been said and denied, and said and denied again.
Finally, there is the matter of Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign director and until August his chief White House strategist. Wolff quotes Bannon as saying that Donald Trump, Jr. was engaged in conduct that appeared “treasonous” by meeting with Russians who claimed to have derogatory material about Hillary Clinton. President Trump responded that Bannon after losing his job had “lost his mind.” After several days of silence, Bannon has apologized, claiming that he was talking about Trump’s former chairman, Paul Manafort, who was fired after his dodgy connections to Ukrainian political figures came to light.
Evidently, Bannon did indeed talk to Wolff, and Wolff quoted him at length and to a great extent accurately — perhaps twisting his words to target Donald Trump, Jr. The whole business is painful for the public, and for me personally, because I consider Steve Bannon a friend.
The man whom Michael Wolff portrays as a cheeseburger-gobbling, skirt-grabbing, television-addicted, ignorant and nearly illiterate clown has just pulled off one of the most successful first years of any US president
One detail suggests that Wolff had far less access to Bannon than he claims. He writes: “Within the first week [of the Administration], Bannon seemed to have put away the camaraderie of Trump Tower —including a willingness to talk at length at any hour — and become far more remote, if not unreachable.”
Bannon may have been unreachable to Wolff, but not to a broad circle of advisers whom he found helpful. I advised Steve Bannon informally until his August departure and found him not only accessible but preternaturally quick to respond to emails and text messages. He was interested in studies I had published in the Journal of American Affairs on American productivity and on how to compete with Asian subsidies for capital-intensive industries. The substance of what I discussed with him can be found in the linked articles. If Bannon was a “plotter,” as Wolff claims, I wasn’t read into any of his plots.
Steve Bannon is an exceptionally bright thinker with an unusual capacity to master complex material quickly, and is also in some ways a visionary, especially when it comes to media. It’s possible that Trump wouldn’t have won the election without his masterful use of social media. I don’t share all of Steve’s views, but made a point of praising his realistic assessment of America’s military options on the Korean peninsula. Despite last week’s dust-up, I expect to hear great things from him in the future.
But no-one in a presidential administration is indispensable, except the president. With Steve Bannon or without him, Donald Trump enacted a major tax reform and elaborated a new national security policy which I praised as tough but measured and well-crafted. Dr. Norman A. Bailey, my mentor during Ronald Reagan’s first administration, gave it high marks in an Asia Times analysis. The man whom Michael Wolff portrays as a cheeseburger-gobbling, skirt-grabbing, television-addicted, ignorant and nearly illiterate clown has just pulled off one of the most successful first years of any US president. Who are you going to believe: Michael Wolff, or your own eyes?
What successful 1st year? Only to the imagination of the non-college white, I
supposed.
Surely you meant to say "I suppose" instead of "I supposed." Of course I am supposing that you are a college white, who supposes that he is more literate than non-college whites. But I always supposed that when one says one once supposed p that one no longer supposes it. Otherwise why the past tense? Suppose I said I supposed you were a pompous ass. This statement say nothing about what I suppose you are now. Perhaps you are still a pompous ass. But on the other hand, suppose you aren’t. I suppose we can always hope, can’t we?
Goldman you better hide your goodies…daddy Session is coming after your types…next…he don’t like you.
Who was the incompetent idiot that let Wolff into the playpen? Who was the imbecile who hired the brat that blew up a bag of dung in the kitchen?
Obama?
Wow, that’s some world-class bootlicking, Mister Goldman. I’m sure you’ll be able to find steady employ, as long as there are bullying, narcissistic autocrats around.
My own eyes show me Michael Wolff is correct. If Obama tried to pull any of the things Trump is trying to pull – putting his daughter and son-in-law in cabinet, an order of magnitude more golfing, two guilty pleas – the GOP would have been arms long ago.
As for the economy, you can thank Obama who largely orchestrated the economic comeback as he inherited a US economy that was reeling from the financial crisis. This is even more plain as we look at what states have generated the largest GDP gains – hint – they’re Blue.
I only read Spangler the Zionist Mossad agent titles now as this guys is totally lost in space and propagandaist for Israeli Regime. I modified his title and this is what it should have been:
"Who are you going to believe, Spengler/Goldman or your own eyes?"
"Hatchet job should be seen for what it was from its inception: an attempt to show Iran in bad light and that, if he did, it could only have been due to some awful accident"
"I read as much of Spengler/Goldmans B.S. as my stomach lining could stand,…."
Please save your precious time and don’t read any more of his garbage after that line.
Oh, a superior person. Beyond the rules of logic or English.
Let’s take the votr away from them, shall we? ^___^
For those who believe or don’t believe something just because it is written by Groucho or Karl – Marx -, here some food for thought, written the old school way. And like in the old school, believing is not necessary as there is not just a single truth; but analyzing and weighing, yes.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article199174.html
Lee Harris Good point Lee.
I believe this:
https://vladtepesblog.com/…/Camtasia-2ScreenSnapz001.jpg
Actions speak far louder than words.
http://www.atimes.com/trumps-national-security-strategy-marks-return-realism/#comments
I suspect that Wolff had much less access to the playpen than he claims.
Shame on you. My recommendations are on public record and have been long before Trump emerged as a presidential contender. To the extent that I praise Trump’s policies (e.g., the tax cut and the National Security Strategy, or the recognition of Jerusalem) it is because they coincide with my on-the-record views. I have not been afraid to criticize Trump and his advisers when I disagree with them. See for example http://www.atimes.com/article/us-dollar-navarro-navarro-land/. That is why I linked to my articles in Journal of American Affairs. My views may be right or wrong, but I stand by them. And I wrote months before election day that Trump not only wanted to win, but would win — and I linked to that article. My record is public and transparent. How dare you accuse me of bootlicking?
JFK made his brother Attorney General. I don’t hear complaints about that. Obama made his surrogate mother, Valerie Jarrett, White House counsellor.
You can’t please everyone!
David Goldman Ah the whataboutism – I was waiting for it.
Let me know when the White House counselor goes to the middle-east and is sent to sit at the same table as Merkel.
Comparing RFK to "Javanka" as Mr. Bannon states it is laughable. For one, RFK actually had tons of experience in government outside of his brother.
1) Whoever crafted the title of this piece ought to review Copernicus. 2) if WYSIWYG is indeed the standard of analysis, Goldman’s policy fetish (re: tax plan, North Korea) has blinded him from a year of very public administration chaos, obvious and unprecedented communications/messaging discord, poorly acting/speaking admin and cabinet officials, thousands of bizarre and ranting tweets, interminable job shakeups etc, all of which would seem to CORROBORATE wolff’s basic portrait.
Lee Harris This is your dotardt writing. Those ‘ncew’ supposed to have defeated Hilary. 70% of a poll I read that university students in USA did not know where Pyongyang is. Should I suppose you know.
Don`y get your shorts in a knot, they are his views. Over the years he has been very up front about what he thinks and believes. Personally I do not agree with him most of the time but just as I treasure the right to express my own controversial views from time to time, he has the right to express his.
No US President after Eisenhower made America Great, squandering the goodwill built up in the first half century. Them all wasted America in wars of gore and glory, signifying nothing.
In 1950s there were two Communist powers – BIG USSR and little prc. Khrushchev, dizzy with Sputnik beep banged his shoe at the UN bragging to bury capitalism 6 feet under.
Mao the Wise told his people to concentrate on building their country, ignore America the "paper tiger".
And that was well before the Viet-Nam rout, 9/11, fake WMD, Iraq quagmire, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, AF-Pak debacle, rise of BRICS, Arab spring, Jihad challenge, irrelevance of EU and Israel, loss of Iran and Pakistan as assets and allies, financial meltdown, debt, depression, despair, choice of liar Clinton vs bigot Trump hell bent on replacing baseball with pussy-grabbing as national sport.
50 years later while USSR is a has-been, China is a world power, and the Paper Tiger is wet and limping. Far away from gold-backed $ of yesteryear, a laughing stock of the entire globe.
Trump finally proved Mao right. He is not the cause, but the symptom, the child who blurts that Emperor has no clothes. He is here to destroy the fake America so that something better can be built in its place.
Past Presidents from JFK onwards were fakes, showing a Hollywood America. Trump is real America – uneducated, unskilled, unfit for the emerging world order of Globalization and Free Trade via BRI/OBOR. Trump Nation is on the rise.
I don`t like Trump. But is it all that you have stated or is it the US Media magnifying every small misstep, every tweet and creating disaster where there was none. I am 77 years old and every President that I have ever seen makes missteps many times in their first year. However Trump unlike his predecessors has been demonized from before day one. Every thing from his hair, his diet, , his speech patterns, his preference for peace over war his family whatever. Every wart, big and small was brought out and examined and re-examined. Just take a look back at the New York Times and Washington Post during 2016 and look at how Trump was portrayed as compared to Saint Hillary. if all it had taken was one sided propaganda blitz to elect the President , Hillary would have won hands down. in the end Trump is no better than Clinton would have been but he certainly is no worse.
Thomas Daniel Kuhn no doubt the learning curve is especially steep for a non-politician with effectively nil knowledge of constitutional government. Yes, the establishment media has worked doubletime to reveal if not discredit him. But his entire political approach has been a delicious hanging curve for critics. He may be a Trojan horse containing some fair ideas, but he’s a Trojan Horse in a China shop nonetheless. Politics is at least partly a formal problem since influence is the key to power. When you are formally a seeming klutz in delivery, veracity and (in)consistency of messaging, you undermine your ability to play the power game because you lack the veneer of credibility. The best politicians understand style. Trump is anti-style. If the GOP loses the Congress in the mid terms Trump is effectively neutered, and you can probably chalk up the loss to his brash nuttiness.
David Goldman Well apparently Bannon, Trump’s former Oval Office Chief Strategist and a former assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, chatted with him. Where’s there’s smoke there’s fire, Wolff just fanned some flames.
Anthony Martin chatted and interviewed are two different animals.
Damon A. Carroll lotsa the guys in politics have huge experience and we are in debt and in wars aplenty. I don’t personally prefer Trump but the points he ran on were attractive, less war and more focus on the American worker. I’m not going to debate you on any other issues, that’s all I’m interested in. Yet it looks like he is going to lose big in congress, so he and the current congress better pass as many things as they can till then cuz this is only going to get uglier.
I’m far away from being Turmp’s fan, but that book is third grade hatchet job and tabloid trash. What is shockingly absurd is that such product of shoddy "journalism" can be taken seriously as trigger for serious (political) debate and even cries for invoking 25th amandman. Incredible…
Fernando Martinez English as 2nd or 3rd language! I still remember my tutor pronunced Name as Nam. And, I have been "Naming" for decades.
Most Europeans can speak more than 3 languages. I suppose you speak fluent Spanish? If not, better hurry to build the wall
If you don’t know ‘dotard’, I suppose you belong to the ‘non-college educated’ deplorable.
Lee Harris Pardon my English. Please demonstrate your U of Emory’s prestige by posting comment in Chinese. Even dotard’s grand daughter can sing a couple of songs. Don’t tell me you are too old to learn any new trick. Spanish is hot! Study shows that by 2050, spanish speaking population is the majority!
I suppose claiming to be a U of E associate you are not ready for the future.Should I suppose otherwise?
David Goldman I read many of your articles and quoted your comments in other articles.
If whatever passed in USA new laws, why it is not a trillion dollar SURPLUS plan. The world is stupid!
Dollar donw 9% & gold up.
Fernando Martinez Not to a gossipy-style writer, besides the buck stops at Trump’s desk and Bannon used the word ‘treasonous’ (which he hasn’t denied, only qualified); don’t you think that his lack of interest after the meeting makes him somewhat complicit (in not acting in a official capacity to check his concerns out) after the fact. How is Trump ‘promoting’ the security of the people of the US if he and his stafff act incompetently, etc. Don’t need to cite Wolff on that.
The greatest factor in Trump’s win was Hillary Clinton.
I’m not American, and I don’t like Trump, but I would have voted for him in preference to Clinton. Actually I would have voted for Jill Stein, not because I think she is great, just as a protest vote.
Fernando Martinez on war/foreign policy he’s mistepped on Iran and Syria, and committed a clear error re: jerusalem, he’s pledged nearly a half billion in arms to Saudi Arabia (the real leading state sponsor of terrorism, not iran), passed a trillion dollar defense budget in the face of deficits and poor infrastructure in the states etc etc. Not good.
N. KOREA is just the bonus question on a test he’said failing.
As for the American worker, until wages increase and workers are expected to shoulder less tax burden relative to Corp cronies…all labor progress is ephemeral.
There is no doubt President Trump has failed to deliver on many of his campaign promises, especially when it comes to foreign policy. President Trump has had an uphill struggle from day one as President. The “Shadow State” NSA, FBI, and the CIA could not stand President Trump and they worked vigorously to get rid of him. The Republicans had it ALL, the Congress, the Senate, the Supreme court, and the President. Republicans could make HUGE improvements, no more gridlock and bickering. Then the Republican messed it all up with infighting and backstabbing’s of President Trump and his policies.
President Trump made a U-turn and increased the resources used in foreign wars and regime changes. This secured Trump support from the powerful lobbies of the military complex, and Israel. Trump biggest weakness is that he can not shut his mouth. The handling of the Korea crisis, Iran crisis, support of the Yemen war, Moving of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, is all bad judgements. Cutting aid to Palestine is not good for the peace process and cutting aid to Pakistan might destroy the supply lines to the endless US war in Afghanistan.
US Economy is thriving due to growth funded by increased borrowing. The US makes a fortune on weapons sale thanks to the many, heavily buttered up, ambulating scarecrows and DANGERS.
Despite all these failures President Trump is a better President than the soon to be indicted Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Clinton Foundation is one BIG scam, that is being unraveled as we speak, so is the ISI/Mossad spy-ring in Congress and political corruption in CIA, FBI, and NSA.
Mr. Kim (The Rocket Man) might be dangerous, but Hillary Clinton (The Racket woman) is devastating for the US democracy and make a mockery out of politics and the corrupted justice system. She and her culprits think they are above the law and too big to prosecute. The slander in Michael Wolff book is probably mostly true. Buttered up slander is great for selling books. I only wish President Trump spent more time in bed, gobbling cheese burgers and looking at Fox & friends on TV.
@ Thomas Daniel Kuhn, I disagree with your opinion, whether its ISIS, Al Qeda, Zionist regime or Hitler, if their aim is elimination of race of people, lies and defamation, they should not have the right to speak their opinion and should be shut out!!…This guy is nothig but a Zionist troll.