Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael WolffMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
It's pretty obvious from the outside that the Trump administration is more than a bit chaotic. Fire and Fury is a long and detailed confirmation of that impression.
Michael Wolff describes in an author's note to begin the book how he was more or less left to his own devices inside the White House, gathering information from a wide variety of actors. Confidential conversations would often be later repeated in public by one of the parties, official statements would reveal contents of previously confidential discussions, and pretty much no official restrictions were placed on Wolff's access. This alone is very strange, as strict information control is a pretty basic tenet of modern government.
Much of the book describes the maneuvering of the various factions within the administration. Most notably, three top advisors to the President: Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner (and Ivanka Trump), and Reince Priebus. Priebus' impact is minor, but rivalry between the Bannon and Kushner camps is a recurring theme throughout. There's no need for me to detail the specifics - plenty has been written about that already - but Wolff draws a pretty clear picture of constant undercutting of the competition from both sides.
There's a lot about the President himself, of course, and very little of it is complimentary. Again, plenty has been written about the specifics already, but I'll say that it's pretty clear that (at least from Wolff's point of view) Trump cares about little beyond his own image. Whether that's how the media portrays him, what his billionaire friends are saying, or the opinion of world leaders, it all comes down to Trump either wanting attention or reacting to some (real or imagined) slight. His actions make sense viewed in this light...even if they look completely illogical from any other angle.
Wolff doesn't stop at describing events and statements as he witnessed them. He includes a lot of speculation about the reasons behind various actions, about what was going on the heads of various figures as they made decisions. Most of it makes sense to me, but I can't help feeling that at least some of it has to be overstated. Wolff is an entertainer as well as a documentarian, and it seems to me that he knows very well that more spicy gossip sells better.
After the 2016 campaign and a year of the Trump administration in the headlines, I can't say that I was particularly surprised by anything in Fire and Fury. There's a lot of crazy things described that would have been unthinkable just a couple of years ago. It's disappointing to see that a behind-the-scenes view confirms that things are just as crazy as they seem from the everyday headlines...disappointing, but not surprising.
