Michael Wolff's re: Fire and Fury

The author of an explosive new book about Donald Trump’s first year in office said he stands by his reporting and the president’s threat of legal action is only boosting his sales.

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“I will quote Steve Bannon,” Wolff said. “‘He’s lost it.’”

Discussing the book on NBC’s Today show on Friday, [Wolff said] “Not only is he helping me sell books, but he’s helping me prove the point of the book.

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Wolff, a media critic and columnist, responded [to Trump's tweet that he didn't authorize access]: “What was I doing there if he didn’t want me to be there? I absolutely spoke to the president. Whether he realised it was an interview or not, I don’t know, but it certainly was not off the record.”

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The author spent about three hours with Trump during the election campaign and in the White House.

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“I spoke to people who spoke to the president on a daily, sometime minute-by-minute basis. In a sense there was one question on my mind when I began this book: what is it like to work with Donald Trump, how can you work with Donald Trump, and how do you feel having worked with Donald Trump?”

Asked how he gained such extraordinary access, Wolff said: “I certainly said whatever was necessary to get the story.”

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Wolff said like any journalist he has recordings and notes and is “in every way comfortable” with everything he reported.

“My credibility is being questioned by a man who has less credibility than perhaps anyone who has ever walked on earth at this point,” he said.

Asked if he stands by his work, Wolff replied: “Absolutely everything in the book.”

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Wolff suggested that even the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and daughter, Ivanka Trump, have lost faith.

“Certainly Jared and Ivanka, in their current situation, which is a deep legal quagmire, are putting everything on the president,” he said. “‘Not us, it’s him.’”

Wolff added: “I will tell you the one description that everyone gave, everyone has in common. They all say, ‘He is like a child,’ and what they mean by that is he has a need for immediate gratification. It’s all about him. He just has to be satisfied in the moment.

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"Let’s remember, this man does not read, does not listen, so he’s like a pinball just shooting off the sides.”

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Chris Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax Media, told CNN: “He is not psychologically unfit, he has not lost it… I saw the president every other day over a 10-day period during the holiday. I conversed with him during this time. I saw him interact with people. He was remembering things, he was on point, he was following up on discussions.”

  Guardian

He interacted with people. He remembered things. He was on point. He followed up on discussions. Reads like a psychiatric checklist. Something you'd be watching for. And why would that be?

Ruddy recalled that he took Michael Schmidt, a New York Times journalist, to interview the president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida over Christmas.

“I don’t believe Michael walked out and said, ‘This man is crazy, this man is unfit’.

But everybody who read that interview said it. And if Schmidt didn't say it, he had to have been thinking it.