In response, he has proclaimed himself to be “ a very stable genius”, which only confirms the previous assessments. Rupert Murdoch thinks he is “a fucking idiot” and Rex Tillerson is alleged to have called him “a fucking moron”, the expletives in both cases registering exasperated disbelief at what Wolff describes as Trump’s rhymed combination of “stupidity and cupidity”. Trump’s aides treat him as “a recalcitrant two-year-old”: the septuagenarian toddler spits the dummy on a daily basis. Trump never wanted to be president, and, Wolff suggests, was as appalled as the rest of us when he won Or perhaps of terrifying tweets – Trump doesn’t and maybe can’t read, so he finds coherent speech problematic, and soon degenerates into doddery repetition or vile invective Twitter is his chosen mode of utterance because it matches the spasmodic urges by which he is impelled. An economic adviser in the White House regards him as “less a person than a collection of terrible traits”. The Fox ideologue Roger Ailes concluded that he lacked both principles and backbone. He begins by asserting Trump’s nihilism, even his nonentity. Wolff deplores Trump, explains the conditions that made him possible, and accuses us all of colluding in this madness. But beyond such acts of exposure, what makes the book significant is its sly, hilarious portrait of a hollow man, into the black hole of whose needy, greedy ego the whole world has virtually vanished. Wolff inevitably likens the Russian cover-up to the skulduggery of Watergate, and briefly updates us on Pissgate and Pussygate – respectively the spurious tale of the golden shower in Moscow, and Trump’s better-authenticated braggadocio about his success as a groper (although, evidently believing that executive privilege protects his mendacity, he now claims that it “ really wasn’t me” on that tape).įire and Fury also gives the lowdown on the lacquered trompe-l’oeil that is Trump’s hairdo, with those tinted tendrils combed over a cranium that is totally bald and resonantly empty. Yes, here we have Bannon’s claim that the Trump campaign may have had a “treasonous” meeting with Russian agents, plus the dire warning that Ivanka thinks her brand is potentially presidential. E veryone knew what was in this book before anyone had read it, and the scoops skimmed off in the pre-publication headlines are now old news.

Fire and fury michael wolff