Fire and Fury (upcoming Trump book) - intend to read it?

[Dinsdale]

There has been some discussion of this upcoming book, to be available 1/9.

Any of you intend on reading it? Why or why not.

I doubt I will. Not sure if I find the excerpt more amusing or horrifying - but it basically reinforces my impression to date, so I don’t need to read an entire book on it.

Feel free to discuss here after it comes out and/or after you’ve read it. Not sure there are any real “spoilers.” And mods, please act as you see fit if the discussion is more appropriate elsewhere.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

So I asked myself, Could Anything In It Surprise Me?

And I concluded, Well, Not Really, No.

So I’m minus enthusiasm.

[Crotalus]

Trump’s lawyer has sent cease and desist letters to the author and the publisher.

[Dewey_Finn]

No, I won’t read it, any more than I’ve read any of the other big books on politics or current affairs (like Hillary Clinton’s recent book). The reason? Any really interesting, new or juicy bit will be reported widely, so I’ll get the gist without having to read the book or spend the money on it.

[Jophiel]

I’ll probably read it. I’m interested in politics, it seems (from the excerpts) like pretty easy reading and it makes someone I don’t like look bad. All adding up to good couch & bedtime reading. Plus, Trump is going apeshit enough about it to suspect there’s more than a grain of truth to this.

[Chefguy]

I exhausted all my outrage in 2017.

[Shoeless]

@Crotalus

Trump’s lawyer has sent cease and desist letters to the author and the publisher.

Yeah, good luck with that Donnie.

I’m pretty much in the “nothing would surprise me, so why bother reading it” camp. I’m sure I’ll hear enough about it on the news in the coming weeks.

[MoonMoon]

@Jophiel

I’ll probably read it. I’m interested in politics, it seems (from the excerpts) like pretty easy reading and it makes someone I don’t like look bad. All adding up to good couch & bedtime reading. Plus, Trump is going apeshit enough about it to suspect there’s more than a grain of truth to this.

Oh, there’s more than a grain, apparently. There are tapes.

I won’t be reading it, because I don’t have the stomach for much Trump, and, like someone else said, the highlights will be widely discussed, so I’ll get the gist.

[Crotalus]

@MoonMoon

Oh, there’s more than a grain, apparently. There are tapes.

I enjoyed this part from your link

@Axios

Some reporters and officials are calling the book sloppy, and challenging specific passages.

How could Wolff possibly know for sure what Steve Bannon and the late Roger Ailes said at a private dinner? It turns out Wolff hosted the dinner for six at his Manhattan townhouse.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

So, Trump is suing the publisher to try to get it suppressed. This is almost certainly not going to work, but it is going to keep the book on the front pages of most major news sources for the next several days.

I have a feeling the Streisand effect is about to get renamed the Trump effect :).

[DigitalC]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

So, Trump is suing the publisher to try to get it suppressed. This is almost certainly not going to work, but it is going to keep the book on the front pages of most major news sources for the next several days.

I have a feeling the Streisand effect is about to get renamed the Trump effect :).

Yeah, I imagine Trump was told over and over that this would not work and he had them do it anyways.

[Sunny_Daze]

Isn’t this an old pattern for him? He doesn’t like something and he sues or badgers until it goes away?

[BobLibDem]

I’m a tightwad, I’ll wait for the paperback. But I’d buy the hardcover in a heartbeat if I got to read the juicy bits to Donald himself.

[Crotalus]

@BobLibDem

I’m a tightwad, I’ll wait for the paperback. But I’d buy the hardcover in a heartbeat if I got to read the juicy bits to Donald himself.

Somebody’s going to have to read it to him, why not you?

[HMS_Irruncible]

My understanding is that this book contains only unsubstantiated gossip. I loathe Trump, but I’m not interested in hearing somebody tell me what I want to hear just to make themselves a buck. If I wanted that, I’d watch Fox News.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@HMS_Irruncible

My understanding is that this book contains only unsubstantiated gossip. I loathe Trump, but I’m not interested in hearing somebody tell me what I want to hear just to make themselves a buck. If I wanted that, I’d watch Fox News.

Look above: the author has tapes to back up claims. It may be that the tapes are of gossipers, but if key players in the White House are themselves gossipers, that’s newsworthy itself.

[GreenWyvern]

A great article by Michael Wolff in the Hollywood Reporter about his book:

“You Can’t Make This S— Up”: My Year Inside Trump’s Insane White House

The men and women of the West Wing, for all that the media was ridiculing them, actually felt they had a responsibility to the country. “Trump,” said one senior Republican, “turned selfish careerists into patriots.” Their job was to maintain the pretense of relative sanity, even as each individually came to the conclusion that, in generous terms, it was insane to think you could run a White House without experience, organizational structure or a real purpose.
…
Everybody in the West Wing tried, with some panic, to explain him, and, sheepishly, their own reason for being here. He’s intuitive, he gets it, he has a mind-meld with his base. But there was palpable relief, of an Emperor’s New Clothes sort, when longtime Trump staffer Sam Nunberg — fired by Trump during the campaign but credited with knowing him better than anyone else — came back into the fold and said, widely, “He’s just a fucking fool.”
…
“You can’t make this shit up,” Sean Spicer, soon to be portrayed as the most hapless man in America, muttered to himself after his tortured press briefing on the first day of the new administration, when he was called to justify the president’s inaugural crowd numbers — and soon enough, he adopted this as a personal mantra. … Kellyanne Conway, who would put a finger-gun to her head in private about Trump’s public comments, continued to mount an implacable defense on cable television, until she was pulled off the air by others in the White House who, however much the president enjoyed her, found her militancy idiotic.
…
One of these frequent callers was Rupert Murdoch, who before the election had only ever expressed contempt for Trump. Now Murdoch constantly sought him out, but to his own colleagues, friends and family, continued to derisively ridicule Trump: “What a fucking moron,” said Murdoch after one call.
…
There was, after the abrupt Scaramucci meltdown, hardly any effort inside the West Wing to disguise the sense of ludicrousness and anger felt by every member of the senior staff toward Trump’s family and Trump himself. It became almost a kind of competition to demystify Trump. For Rex Tillerson, he was a moron. For Gary Cohn, he was dumb as shit. For H.R. McMaster, he was a hopeless idiot. For Steve Bannon, he had lost his mind.

He also appears to be going downhill mentally:

Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes he’d repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories — now it was within 10 minutes. Indeed, many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions — he just couldn’t stop saying something.

…

My indelible impression of talking to them [Trump’s staff] and observing them through much of the first year of his presidency, is that they all — 100 percent — came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job.

At Mar-a-Lago, just before the new year, a heavily made-up Trump** failed to recognize a succession of old friends.**

[Icarus]

@MoonMoon

I won’t be reading it, because I don’t have the stomach for much Trump, and, like someone else said, the highlights will be widely discussed, so I’ll get the gist.

The less time and space that Trump occupies in my brain, the better.

[Dung_Beetle]

I don’t plan to read it, but I have to say these articles are really putting a smile on my face.

[Algher]

Won’t buy it, but will happily read every single decent excerpt that is published.