45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. Vol 3
Discussion
Re: corroboration I think Woolf has openly admitted that for some of the stuff he doesn’t have any proof, he is simply reporting what was said to him so he can’t say whether it’s definitely true or false. However For other stuff he has stated that several people said the same thing so he’s pretty sure those bits are fact.
Now, given how willing Trump is to resort to litigation, surely if the book contains significant untruths, he can sue for libel....? I won’t hold my breath.
The Gorilla Channel is comedy gold btw
Now, given how willing Trump is to resort to litigation, surely if the book contains significant untruths, he can sue for libel....? I won’t hold my breath.
The Gorilla Channel is comedy gold btw
jmorgan said:
Just looking at the stats for the mid terms, usually the incumbent party loses a few. 25 majority in the house? 2 majority in the Senate?
Going to be interesting.
Ooo, I love me some stats. Will it be a hullabalooza or a blow-out?Going to be interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_electi...
http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com
Book seems to have hit a spot.
Tweets on his smarts. His tweets on his smarts. Should that be smarties?
Top TV Star?
Book seems to have hit a spot.
Tweets on his smarts. His tweets on his smarts. Should that be smarties?
Top TV Star?
Halb said:
Ooo, I love me some stats. Will it be a hullabalooza or a blow-out?
The thing is most of the seats up for grabs are Dem and quite a few of those are marginal (previously Republican). So, in order to get control of the Senate, their going to have to KEEP all their marginals plus flip at least one GOP seat. It’s going to be an uphill task.Halb said:
jmorgan said:
Just looking at the stats for the mid terms, usually the incumbent party loses a few. 25 majority in the house? 2 majority in the Senate?
Going to be interesting.
Ooo, I love me some stats. Will it be a hullabalooza or a blow-out?Going to be interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_electi...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_midt...
Of course it ain’t over till the votes are all in and I never underestimate the voter. Never estimate I should say. X marks the spot can be very fickle.
It's a very entertaining read. Deliberately so. This is not a dour historical treatise intended to be a work of record. It is a reflection of what the human beings working in and outside the WH told Wolff about what it was like to work in the Trump administration.
The writing style is engaging, charming - so much so that when it becomes caustic (and it does, often) you laugh rather than wince.
There's a semi-disclaimer at the beginning: where he had competing accounts, if he couldn't resolve which was accurate he set them both out (this is usually a conflict between Bannon's story and the Jared/Ivanka story and lets the reader decide. Where he had enough other material to make a call between the two versions, he did so. I took the view that as he claims to have a few hundred hours of tapes, where he quotes someone, he has a tape to back the quote. Of course, the context or nuance of the quote may have been lost or misrepresented between utterance and writing, but not much the reader can do about. And there's a question over whether the quote came directly from the maker, or was relayed through an intermediary.
For the most part (I'd say 60% or slightly more), this book could have been sub-titled "What Steve Bannon thinks of his colleagues in the WH". There is certainly material that came from Jared, but it is less obvious. And there's material from plenty of other players both in the WH (Spicer, Priebus, Conway) and outside (Ailes, Murdoch).
It's odd because it's "new but not new". In many ways it confirms what had been common currency (at least outside the Breitbart/Trump/Trumpette world), but at the same time it provides colour and depth to what had been known. For example, I remember Trump trying to discredit the election result as fixed pre-election day, and announcing plans to set up Trump TV. Together the two were to delegitimise a Hillary win and them to snipe at her constantly. There's some colour about those plans and Trump's discussions with Roger Ailes (Fox News founder) to set up the new channel; Hannity was on board as well as some others. It could of course have been contingency planning, but to me Trump would have preferred a TV career to a Presidential one.
The other big theme in the first half of the book is the dysfunctional WH, with Trump as this vacuous "leader", unable or unwilling to focus on anything approaching detail, heavily influenced by pictures and the last person he spoke to, with no chain of command/management structure under him and no clear vision over what to do. Where there ought to have been a chief of staff, there were three: Priebus (the official one), Bannon (the Rasputin like policy driver) and Kushner (trying to be a moderating force - a "New York Democrat" as he is described). All three hated each other (though Kushner was the most hated) and all three were constantly trying to subvert each other and brief against each other. At the same time Trump woudl spend the evenings raging on the phone to his billionaire chums (I'm assuming Wolff spoke to them, but they wished to remain anon) about the incompetence around him; they spoke to each other, and leaks and rumours abounded.
Now all that, to me, sounds perfectly plausible and a credible overlay on what actually happened at the time. YMMV.
I've no doubt there are errors, exaggerations, whatever. But do those detract from the overall thrust? No, not in my view.
And for the Trumpettes who are sure the Russian collusion thing is going nowhere: Bannon's view is that it won't ended up with Russian collusion, but it will lead to a dirty money trail which will be very uncomfortable for all members of the Trump family.
The writing style is engaging, charming - so much so that when it becomes caustic (and it does, often) you laugh rather than wince.
There's a semi-disclaimer at the beginning: where he had competing accounts, if he couldn't resolve which was accurate he set them both out (this is usually a conflict between Bannon's story and the Jared/Ivanka story and lets the reader decide. Where he had enough other material to make a call between the two versions, he did so. I took the view that as he claims to have a few hundred hours of tapes, where he quotes someone, he has a tape to back the quote. Of course, the context or nuance of the quote may have been lost or misrepresented between utterance and writing, but not much the reader can do about. And there's a question over whether the quote came directly from the maker, or was relayed through an intermediary.
For the most part (I'd say 60% or slightly more), this book could have been sub-titled "What Steve Bannon thinks of his colleagues in the WH". There is certainly material that came from Jared, but it is less obvious. And there's material from plenty of other players both in the WH (Spicer, Priebus, Conway) and outside (Ailes, Murdoch).
It's odd because it's "new but not new". In many ways it confirms what had been common currency (at least outside the Breitbart/Trump/Trumpette world), but at the same time it provides colour and depth to what had been known. For example, I remember Trump trying to discredit the election result as fixed pre-election day, and announcing plans to set up Trump TV. Together the two were to delegitimise a Hillary win and them to snipe at her constantly. There's some colour about those plans and Trump's discussions with Roger Ailes (Fox News founder) to set up the new channel; Hannity was on board as well as some others. It could of course have been contingency planning, but to me Trump would have preferred a TV career to a Presidential one.
The other big theme in the first half of the book is the dysfunctional WH, with Trump as this vacuous "leader", unable or unwilling to focus on anything approaching detail, heavily influenced by pictures and the last person he spoke to, with no chain of command/management structure under him and no clear vision over what to do. Where there ought to have been a chief of staff, there were three: Priebus (the official one), Bannon (the Rasputin like policy driver) and Kushner (trying to be a moderating force - a "New York Democrat" as he is described). All three hated each other (though Kushner was the most hated) and all three were constantly trying to subvert each other and brief against each other. At the same time Trump woudl spend the evenings raging on the phone to his billionaire chums (I'm assuming Wolff spoke to them, but they wished to remain anon) about the incompetence around him; they spoke to each other, and leaks and rumours abounded.
Now all that, to me, sounds perfectly plausible and a credible overlay on what actually happened at the time. YMMV.
I've no doubt there are errors, exaggerations, whatever. But do those detract from the overall thrust? No, not in my view.
And for the Trumpettes who are sure the Russian collusion thing is going nowhere: Bannon's view is that it won't ended up with Russian collusion, but it will lead to a dirty money trail which will be very uncomfortable for all members of the Trump family.
jmorgan said:
http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com
Book seems to have hit a spot.
Tweets on his smarts. His tweets on his smarts. Should that be smarties?
Top TV Star?
Liked Mark Hamill's response to Trump's sloppy Steve tweet :-Book seems to have hit a spot.
Tweets on his smarts. His tweets on his smarts. Should that be smarties?
Top TV Star?
Congratulations, sir! This dignified, statesman-like tweet is the perfect way to counter the book's narrative that you're an impulsive, childish dimwit. https://t.co/VW1uzqu5pr
rscott said:
jmorgan said:
http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com
Book seems to have hit a spot.
Tweets on his smarts. His tweets on his smarts. Should that be smarties?
Top TV Star?
Liked Mark Hamill's response to Trump's sloppy Steve tweet :-Book seems to have hit a spot.
Tweets on his smarts. His tweets on his smarts. Should that be smarties?
Top TV Star?
Congratulations, sir! This dignified, statesman-like tweet is the perfect way to counter the book's narrative that you're an impulsive, childish dimwit. https://t.co/VW1uzqu5pr
The Wolff book is almost all gossip and tittle-tattle. It's not a serious book. It is like Woman's Own for the political bubble. When your best headline is that someone eats a cheeseburger in bed, you know there is little proper substance in there. Trump shouldn't really have dignified the book by trying to ban it.
Yipper said:
The Wolff book is almost all gossip and tittle-tattle. It's not a serious book. It is like Woman's Own for the political bubble. When your best headline is that someone eats a cheeseburger in bed, you know there is little proper substance in there. Trump shouldn't really have dignified the book by trying to ban it.
If that's what you think the best headline is, that says far more about you than it does about the book...Says a lot that such a dysfunctional f
kwit still managed to get elected and is still the one in charge.
I don't think he's very bright and he's definitely never been stable (or worked hard or sweated the details or anything else) but somehow he still has the money and control.
So quite why none of the people around him have never managed to get the upper hand would be interesting to know.
Could be that real estate & business types just work around him on decent profitable projects & ignore him, while US politics/Washington is full of other equally stupid types?
kwit still managed to get elected and is still the one in charge.I don't think he's very bright and he's definitely never been stable (or worked hard or sweated the details or anything else) but somehow he still has the money and control.
So quite why none of the people around him have never managed to get the upper hand would be interesting to know.
Could be that real estate & business types just work around him on decent profitable projects & ignore him, while US politics/Washington is full of other equally stupid types?
Yipper said:
The Wolff book is almost all gossip and tittle-tattle. It's not a serious book. It is like Woman's Own for the political bubble. When your best headline is that someone eats a cheeseburger in bed, you know there is little proper substance in there. Trump shouldn't really have dignified the book by trying to ban it.
What is your favourite bit from the book and what is the worst when you read it?I have not read it yet so I do not know.
p1stonhead said:
A very stable genius!
Thing is, his followers will now just think - ‘see, he is a genius! He just said so!’
Edited by p1stonhead on Saturday 6th January 13:09
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