Excuse me, I am a very stable genius, brags Trump
yes, says a confident Wolff after damning revelations in his book
washington — US President Donald Trump on Saturday praised himself as “a very stable genius”, following the release of a bombshell book that calls into doubt his mental health.
In a series of extraordinary earlymorning tweets, Trump said that “throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart”.
“I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius .... and a very stable genius at that!”
The White House has been pushing back forcefully against a new supposed tell-all book — Michael Wolff ’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House — which was rushed into stores on Friday after the Trump administration failed to suppress it.
The book quickly sold out in Washington and has been the talk of the town. Trump has decried the instant best-seller as “phony” and “full of lies” as the White House issued a scorched-earth dismissal of Fire and Fury along with its author and his sources.
Yet the sensational details in the new book and Trump’s continued defence of his mental health have wrenched attention away from policy and news of US financial markets hitting all-time highs, bringing even more scrutiny over whether the US leader is fit for office. —
The story that I have told seems to present this presidency in such a way that it says he can’t do his job.” Michael Wolff
The author of a book that is highly critical of Donald Trump’s first year as US president said his revelations were likely to bring an end to Trump’s time in the White House.
Michael Wolff told BBC radio that his conclusion in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House — that Trump is not fit to do the job — was becoming a widespread view.
“I think one of the interesting effects of the book so far is a very clear emperor-has-no-clothes effect,” Wolff said in an interview broadcast on Saturday.
“The story that I have told seems to present this presidency in such a way that it says he can’t do his job,” Wolff said.
“Suddenly everywhere people are going ‘oh my God, it’s true, he has no clothes’. That’s the background to the perception and the understanding that will finally end ... this presidency.”
The 71-year-old Republican president, approaching the first anniversary of his inauguration, has responded to the book with fury.
“I authorised Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist,” Trump tweeted on Thursday.
But Wolff countered: “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.”
The book includes extensive quotes from Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, and its publication sparked a very public break between the former allies.
Bannon is quoted accusing Trump’s eldest son Don Jr of “treasonous” contacts with a Kremlinconnected lawyer, and saying the president’s daughter Ivanka, who imagines running for president one day, is “dumb as a brick.” But it is Trump himself who is cast in the most unfavourable light.
Trump has dismissed the book as full of lies. It depicts a chaotic White House, a president who was ill-prepared to win the office in 2016, and Trump aides who scorned his abilities.
Donald Trump took to Twitter late on Friday to renew his attacks on Wolff, and on his former top aide Steve Bannon who was quoted in the book.
“Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book,” Trump said. “He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!”
Bannon, formerly Trump’s chief strategist, is chairman of the so-called alt-right Breitbart News website
In his interview with the BBC, Wolff was asked if he believed that Bannon felt Trump was unfit to serve as president and would try to bring him down. “Yes,” Wolff replied.
He also hit back at claims that the book was untruthful.
“This is what’s called reporting. This is how you do it.” he said. “You ask people, you get as close as you can to the event, you interview the people who were privy to the event, you interview other people who were privy to the event, you come to know the circumstance as well as anybody and then you report it.”—