When a journalist-author who has had a troubled past with facts turns the spotlight on a subject whose fealty to facts is nothing much to write home about, the result is, truth be told, a good story — Michael Wolff’s account of U.S. President Donald Trump and his White House is indeed that.
Mr. Wolff sought and got a “fly-on-the-wall” status in the White House in the early days of the presidency, “encouraged” by the President himself. He had styled himself as a supporter of Mr. Trump against the media onslaught that he faced and the President thought he would be an ally. Mr. Wolff had apparently promised presidential aides a book on the “great transition” that Mr. Trump was bringing about, and the inexperienced bunch of newly ordained White House staff swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker. They bared their hearts and fangs — pointed against rivals under the same roof, and Mr. Wolff wove it all into a readable book.
It tells us about tactics of Mr. Trump’s sexual pursuits, portrays the marriage of the first couple as one of convenience, claims Ivanka Trump has nothing but disdain for step-mother and First Lady Melania Trump, and a lot many such bits. The author’s proven access to actors in the Trumpian world is what adds an aura of authenticity to the account. Some events and conversations narrated in it have been corroborated; some claims contradict recorded facts, and some are exaggerations out of line with commonsensical reading of public events. A major claim that the book makes, that Mr. Trump was fighting the election not to win but only to enhance his brand equity, is incredulous. In the last week of the campaign in November 2016, Mr. Trump fought ferociously, campaigning even the day before polling. The more commentators wrote him off, the more he fought.
ADVERTISEMENT
The author’s narrative style, while being assertive on the one hand, leaves a lot of ambiguity, perhaps deliberately. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell snubbed the President’s request for a lunch-meeting citing a barber’s appointment, the book tells us. “What a f..ing idiot,” Rupert Murdoch said after getting off a call with Mr. Trump, we are told. A Steve Bannon scheme to send National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster as commander in Afghanistan had nearly succeeded, apparently. All this may well be true. It could also be wrong.
In another time, about another president and perhaps by another author, such an account would have been a simmering scandal.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House ; Michael Wolff, Hachette India, ₹699.