President Trump’s attempt to block publication of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury failed. It’s available for purchase and immediate download at 9 a.m. ET.
The book was originally scheduled for release next week.
Become a member to get many great benefits -- exclusive analysis, trending news, a private podcast, no ads and more!
The Trump-Fox Feedback Loop
Matthew Gertz: “Everyone has a theory about Trump’s hyper-aggressive early morning tweetstorms. Some think they are a deliberate ploy the president uses to distract the press from his administration’s potential weaknesses, or to frame the public debate to his liking. Others warn his rapid shifts from one topic to another indicate mental instability.”
“But my many hours following the president’s tweets for Media Matters for America, the progressive media watchdog organization, have convinced me the truth is often much simpler: The president is just live-tweeting Fox, particularly the network’s Trump-loving morning show, Fox & Friends.”
For members: Rupert Murdoch Controls What Trump Thinks
What Wolff Got Right
Mike Allen and Jim Vande Hei: “There are definitely parts of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury that are wrong, sloppy, or betray off-the-record confidence. But there are two things he gets absolutely right, even in the eyes of White House officials who think some of the book’s scenes are fiction: his spot-on portrait of Trump as an emotionally erratic president, and the low opinion of him among some of those serving him.”
“In the past year, we have had many of the same conversations with the same sources Wolff used. We won’t betray them, or put on the record what was off.”
Democrats Now Want to Keep Sessions as Attorney General
“Last year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was blunt in his assessment of Jeff Sessions: ‘For the good of the country, Attorney General Sessions should resign,'” CNN reports.
“Now, Schumer and other Democrats have changed their tune, suggesting Sessions should stay in the job as long as special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.”
Said Schumer: “I voted against Jeff Sessions and said he never should be there in the first place, given his record on civil rights, on immigration, on so many other issues. My view now is very simple: nothing, nothing should ever interfere with the Mueller investigation.”
Ryan Backs Nunes In Dispute with FBI
“Speaker Paul Ryan backed his fellow congressional Republican, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), during a meeting over the Russia investigation Wednesday, capping off a months-long dispute between the committee and the Justice Department, CNN reports.
“Over the summer Nunes served subpoenas seeking a broad range of documents connected to the dossier of compromising allegations about President Trump’s connections to the Kremlin… While Ryan had already been in contact with Rosenstein for months about the dispute over documents, Rosenstein and Wray wanted to make one last effort to persuade him to support their position… During the meeting, however, it became clear that Ryan wasn’t moved and the officials wouldn’t have his support if they proceeded to resist Nunes’ remaining highly classified requests.”
Trump Talks to Romney About Senate Bid
“President Trump spoke by phone with Mitt Romney on Thursday evening, a conversation that comes amid mounting speculation that Romney — a fierce Trump critic — is preparing to run for Senate in Utah,” Politico reports.
“The brief call, which was described by two sources who were briefed on it, lasted less than 10 minutes… The two men also spoke about 83-year-old Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who announced his retirement earlier this week, opening the seat for Romney to run. Trump had aggressively pressured Hatch to run for reelection in an effort to block Romney from taking the seat.”
Trump Wants $18 Billion for Border Wall
Wall Street Journal: “The Trump administration is asking Congress for nearly $18 billion to construct more than 700 miles of new and replacement barriers along the southwest border, offering its most detailed description yet of the president’s vision for a border wall with Mexico.”
GOP Leaders Will Brief Trump on Midterm Outlook
“Congressional leaders are slated to brief President Trump on the perilous midterm landscape on Friday afternoon at Camp David,” Politico reports.
“Amid rising concern that Republicans could lose their majorities in November, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will lead separate presentations on 2018.”
“The briefing will be part of a broader slate of meetings between the president and Republican congressional leadership to take place at Camp David through the weekend, when they are scheduled to discuss the legislative agenda for this year. Also attending will be House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX).”
New Book Consumes White House
Politico: “White House staffers are poring over copies of Michael Wolff’s forthcoming book, scanning the index for their names and crossing their fingers that they aren’t mentioned… The book is also reviving frustration with other former aides whom the president’s close advisers have long suspected of leaking to the press. Former White House deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh, who was quoted in the book saying that managing the president was ‘like trying to figure out what a child wants,’ is under fire from some in the administration for her apparent role in the book.”
Exchange of the Day
Gabriel Sherman: “One of the baffling things about Trumpworld giving access to Wolff: all they needed to do was call Murdoch and he would have said don’t cooperate b/c Wolff had written nasty book on him. And Jared/Trump speak to Murdoch all the time!”
Michael Wolff: “I kept waiting for that call to be made.”
Trump Demanded that Sessions Protect Him
“President Trump gave firm instructions in March to the White House’s top lawyer: stop the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, from recusing himself in the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s associates had helped a Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election,” the New York Times reports.
“Public pressure was building for Mr. Sessions, who had been a senior member of the Trump campaign, to step aside. But the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, carried out the president’s orders… Mr. McGahn was unsuccessful, and the president erupted in anger in front of numerous White House officials, saying he needed his attorney general to protect him… Mr. Trump then asked, ‘Where’s my Roy Cohn?'”
Also: “The New York Times has also learned that four days before Mr. Comey was fired, one of Mr. Sessions’s aides asked a congressional staff member whether he had damaging information about Mr. Comey, part of an apparent effort to undermine the F.B.I. director.”
Roy Moore’s ‘Jewish Attorney’ Is Actually Christian
Martin Wishnatsky, who worked for failed Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R), tells the Birmingham News that his background “is 100 percent Jewish” but that “he accepted Christ in his thirties.”
Said Wishnatsky: “I’m a Messianic Jew. That’s the term they use for a Jewish person who has accepted Christ.”
Bannon May Be Ousted from Breitbart
President Trump’s growing feud with Steve Bannon is threatening the former White House strategist’s leadership of the conservative Breitbart News website and upending Bannon’s plans to wage “war” on party incumbents he deemed insufficiently loyal to the White House agenda, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Mr. Bannon’s longtime benefactors, billionaires Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer, are actively distancing from him… They and other Breitbart News Network LLC board members on Thursday were debating whether to oust Mr. Bannon as chairman, with many supportive of the move.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post notes Rebekah Mercer issued a rare public statement: “My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements.”
Why 2018 Will Make 2017 Seem Tame
Join now to continue reading.
Members get exclusive analysis, bonus features and no advertising. Learn more.
How Michael Wolff Wrote the Book
Hollywood Reporter: “After the election, I proposed to him that I come to the White House and report an inside story for later publication — journalistically, as a fly on the wall — which he seemed to misconstrue as a request for a job. No, I said. I’d like to just watch and write a book. ‘A book?’ he responded, losing interest. ‘I hear a lot of people want to write books,’ he added, clearly not understanding why anybody would. ‘Do you know Ed Klein?’– author of several virulently anti-Hillary books. ‘Great guy. I think he should write a book about me.’ But sure, Trump seemed to say, knock yourself out.”
“Since the new White House was often uncertain about what the president meant or did not mean in any given utterance, his non-disapproval became a kind of passport for me to hang around — checking in each week at the Hay-Adams hotel, making appointments with various senior staffers who put my name in the ‘system,’ and then wandering across the street to the White House and plunking myself down, day after day, on a West Wing couch.”
Harper Will Not Seek Re-Election
Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS), who chairs the Committee on House Administration, will not run for re-election in 2018, Roll Call reports.
Trump Will Dramatically Expand Offshore Drilling
“The Trump administration unveiled a controversial proposal to permit drilling in most U.S. continental-shelf waters, including protected areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic, where oil and gas exploration is opposed by governors from New Jersey to Florida, nearly a dozen attorneys general, more than 100 U.S. lawmakers and the Defense Department,” the Washington Post reports.
“Under the proposal, only one of 26 planning areas in the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean would be off limits to oil and gas exploration.”
Is Something Neurologically Wrong With Donald Trump?
James Hamblin in The Atlantic:
After more than a year of talking to doctors and researchers about whether and how the cognitive sciences could offer a lens to explain Trump’s behavior, I’ve come to believe there should be a role for professional evaluation beyond speculating from afar.
The idea that the president should not be diagnosed from afar only underscores the point that the president needs to be evaluated up close. A presidential-fitness committee … could exist in a capacity similar to the Congressional Budget Office. It could regularly assess the president’s neurologic status and give a battery of cognitive tests to assess judgment, recall, decision-making, attention — the sorts of tests that might help a school system assess whether a child is suited to a particular grade level or classroom — and make the results available.
