Who is the author of Fire and Fury?

Michael Wolff is the author of Fire and Fury.

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Fire and Fury Book Summary - Fire and Fury Book explained in key points

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Fire and Fury summary

Name: Fire and Fury
Rating: 4.2 (65 reviews)
Author: Michael Wolff

Michael Wolff

Inside the Trump White House

4.2 (65 ratings)

20 mins

Brief summary

Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff is a controversial tell-all about the early days of President Trump's administration. It paints a picture of chaos, incompetence, and corruption within the White House.

Topics

Political Figures US Politics US Presidents

Table of Contents

Fire and Fury
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What’s in it for me? Get an insider’s pass to the West Wing of Trump’s White House.

From June 2015, the moment he announced his candidacy for the Presidency, to the eve of the 2016 election, few experts believed Donald Trump could win. But win he did.

So how did Trump, in many ways an unlikely President, take to the job?

These blinks, based on Michael Wolff’s lengthy investigations into the Trump administration, offer a behind-the-scenes look at how his administration works. You’ll read about Wolff’s take on who the main figures are, how they interact with each other and what many of them really think about the President.

Upon its publication, Fire and Fury prompted a media storm. Read on to discover why.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

who Jarvanka is;
which activity Trump never engages in; and
why Trump has issued so many executive orders.

Trump wasn’t at all prepared to win the presidency.

Were you shocked when Donald Trump, a man with no political experience whatsoever, won the US presidential election in 2016? If you were, you’re certainly not alone. Even Trump, not to mention the majority of his campaign team, didn’t expect that he’d win.

In the weeks leading up to the election, Donald Trump kept telling his wife, Melania Trump, that things were going to go back to normal in November. Though their relationship isn’t a particularly close one, Melania resented living under the media’s microscope and having her husband’s history of adultery discussed on national news.

But everyone on the campaign, including the campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, believed the wild ride of the Trump presidential campaign was about to come to a screeching halt.

Everyone was preparing their post-campaign lives and plotting their next moves. Trump planned to tell the world that the election had been stolen from him while exploring the possibility of his own television channel, the Trump Network. Conway was eager to transition her newfound notoriety into a regular media job with one of the cable-news networks.

A clear proof of the victory’s unexpectedness is how unprepared many campaign members were for the scrutiny that comes with being in the White House. Donald Trump and other campaign associates like Paul Manafort have real-estate holdings that put them in a financial grey zone, with backgrounds and transactions that don’t stand up well to scrutiny.

Paul Manafort only agreed to help manage the campaign because he was reassured by Jared Kushner that there was no chance they’d win, and therefore no reason he’d be subjected to any investigations.

So when the results were finalized, and Trump was confirmed as the winner, everyone was in a daze, including Trump’s closest friends and most of his staff. The only one who had a suspicion that the numbers were looking good was Trump advisor Steve Bannon and his pollster, John McLaughlin. For everyone else, they were ill prepared for what lay ahead.

Those in Trump’s inner circle of advisors were at constant odds with one another.

Being part of an underdog campaign and part of a White House staff are two entirely different matters, something Jared Kushner learned rather quickly. Once this transition was made, Kushner noticed that Steve Bannon was no longer acting as buddy-buddy as he had been.

Getting Trump elected functioned as a common goal, something that bonded everyone on the staff – but now it was about deciding policy, and Bannon’s agenda was completely different from Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s.

The early days of the Trump presidency have been marked by an attempt to dominate, not negotiate.

Steve Bannon came from the world of Breitbart media, led by Rob Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer, both of whom had a vision of an America that was small government, anti-regulation, anti-Muslim and pro-Christian.

Over the years, Breitbart became a central voice in the alt-right movement of ultra-conservatives, the people who turned up in force at Trump rallies and are seen as his core group of supporters. These are the folks Trump was likely referring to when he said people would continue to support him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.

The Trump administration is torn between the Bannon way and the Kushner way.

After his first week in office, Trump invited Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, co-hosts of the MSNBC talk show Morning Joe, to visit the White House, and he couldn’t understand why they weren’t as pleased with the reaction to the travel ban as he was. Despite the thousands of protesters filling the nation’s airports and the many families torn apart, Trump’s opinion was that “We did great!”

All of Jared’s friends and advisors warned him against taking a job in the White House, but both he and Ivanka felt that they were the best safeguard against unchecked Trumpism and the only ones who could prevent the president from succumbing to his worst impulses.

Firing FBI director James Comey marked a turning point for the Trump administration.

Dating back to mid-2016, there were rumors in the press that the Trump campaign was in cahoots with the Russian government. But just prior to his inauguration, the details of an independent investigation suggested a very troubling connection indeed.

The Steele Dossier – named after its author, Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent – details a disturbing scenario. If the dossier is to be believed, the Russians have incriminating information on Trump and may be using it to manipulate him and his presidential powers.

Trump has a problem with reading and processing information.

Trump doesn’t read. He basically thinks that he shouldn’t have to read, and that’s why he had his assistant, Hope Hicks, read the newspapers for him and present him with a positive spin on the news each morning.

His refusal to read is so absolute that some within the White House staff have wondered if perhaps he has a reading deficiency, or maybe dyslexia.

A meeting set up by Donald Jr. exposed more ties to Russia, and more bad decisions.

At the start of June, Trump was fuming over the Russia investigation and actually kicking around the idea of firing Jeff Sessions and Robert Mueller, and replacing the attorney general with someone still loyal to him – either the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, or Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey.

Bannon had to keep telling him that, first of all, neither Giuliani nor Christie had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting confirmation approval for the position and, second of all, that there’s no such thing as executive privilege to avoid an investigation.

Trump’s own words have repeatedly made his situation worse.

For the most part, Trump has had a hard time seeing how he could possibly be to blame for any of the problems facing his administration. The business with Russia was all the fault of Sessions; how could he recuse himself and not protect Trump?! It didn’t make sense.

Trump is also in the habit of getting a lot of bad press by publishing early-morning, uncontrolled Twitter blasts aimed at various people who he feels have wronged him in some way. Yet, whenever he’s asked about these tweets, he’s always dismissive or confused, as if to say, “What’s the big deal?”

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What is Fire and Fury about?

Fire and Fury (2018) gives a fly-on-the-wall account of the Trump administration’s early days. With his insider access to the West Wing and over two hundred conversations with senior staff under his belt, Michael Wolff paints a fascinating portrait of an administration he claims is wholly unprepared to govern.

Fire and Fury Review

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (2018) is an eye-opening exposé that takes readers behind the scenes of the chaotic Trump administration. Here's why this book is worth reading:

With unprecedented access and insider accounts, it provides an intimate look at the inner workings of the White House.
It offers a shocking portrayal of the political dynamics, power struggles, and controversies that defined Trump's early presidency.
By delving into the personalities and motivations of key players, the book offers valuable insights into the political landscape of the time.

Best quote from Fire and Fury

...the success of the speech confirmed the Jared and Ivanka strategy: look for common ground. It also confirmed Ivankas understanding of her father: he just wanted to be loved.

—Michael Wolff

Who should read Fire and Fury?

Readers who want a behind-the-scenes peek into the White House
US citizens concerned about how fit Donald Trump is for the job
News junkies looking for more insight into the Trump presidency

About the Author

Michael Wolff, a former editor at Adweek, is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Vanity Fair, the Guardian, New York magazine and the Hollywood Reporter. His articles have received two National Magazine Awards, and his previous best-selling books include The Man Who Owns the News and Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet.

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