General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFrom GQ via Joy Reid on Twitter: why Wolff is having such an impact
https://www.gq.com/story/michael-wolff-white-house-trump-accessMichael Wolff Did What Every Other White House Reporter Is Too Cowardly to Do
All of Wolffs excerpts from Fire & Fury so far (the book was rushed into stores today) read like jayvee fan fiction. They read like a pilot that Steve Bannon himself wrote, pitched to Hollywood, and had rejected 17 times over. They read, in short, like bullshit. And yet Wolff has audio. Hes got hours upon hours of audio. Not only that, but the book has already caused legitimate upheaval in the administration, opened a permanent rift between President Trump and Bannon, AND it confirms what we have all always known to be true: that the president severely lacks the cognitive ability to do this job, and that he is surrounded at all times by a cadre of enablers, dunces, and outright thieves. As much as I wanna discredit Wolff, he got receipts and, more important, he used them. Wolff got it all. Wolff nailed them.
And look how he did it. He did it by sleazily ingratiating himself with the White House, gaining access, hosting weird private dinners, and then taking full advantage of the administration's basic lack of knowledge about how reporting works. Some of the officials Wolff got on tape claim to be unaware that they were on the record. Wolff denies this, but he's very much up front in the book's intro about the fact that he was able to exploit the incredible "lack of experience" on display here. In other words, Wolff got his book by playing a bunch of naive dopes.
Thank God for that. Wolff has spent this week thoroughly exploiting Trump and his minions the same way they've exploited the cluelessness of others. And he pulled it off because, at long last, there was a reporter out there willing to toss decorum aside and burn bridges the same way Trump does.
dchill
(38,532 posts)It was past time for somebody to get down and dirty.
Wounded Bear
(58,706 posts)Like the Maya Angelou quote: When someone shows you who they are, beleive them.
Trump has been showing us this side of his personality for decades, and then for two years as a candidate, and a year pretending to be president. Wolff book is believable because we've seen it all before.
uponit7771
(90,364 posts)rzemanfl
(29,568 posts)Wasn't there a stink early on about visitor logs? Didn't the Drumpfsters refuse to provide them? Is that refusal now poetically biting them square in the ass? Somebody would have asked why Wolff was there every day. K&R.
ginnyinWI
(17,276 posts)I just read the chapter telling how unprepared and ill-equipped they all were for running a White House. The only people Trump could get were chumps who knew very little about governing. The smart ones stayed far away!
What a clown car!
pnwmom
(108,994 posts)rzemanfl
(29,568 posts)necessary. Incompetence all around.
get the red out
(13,468 posts)I have been reading the book and am a bit disappointed that they are probably too damn stupid to have been fully aware of their collusion with Russia, or at least that it wasn't business as usual. I at least wanted them to be smart enough to be aware of what they did!
It is hard for anyone to claim the gist of Wolff's book isn't true when so much of the chaos he writes about has been leaking out all over the place for the past year.
rzemanfl
(29,568 posts)you had missed or forgotten. They are incredibly stupid.
yuiyoshida
(41,861 posts)and its like all the pieces of a puzzle were suddenly put together by magic.
ginnyinWI
(17,276 posts)We've heard a lot of these things before but they are, in this book, put in order of time and with some of the gaps filled in.
I got mine on Kindle on Friday morning.
yuiyoshida
(41,861 posts)Democratic Underground. We seem to have people here who are talented enough to expose information that was very close to the actual truth... amaZing!
Jarqui
(10,130 posts)missing the point that he's really alleging Trump forgot who Boehner was ...
The thing is: Wolff doesn't have to be 100% accurate. If only 25% of what he claims is true, it is a major, major problem.
Typical GOP defense will try to cling to the snippets to try to discredit Wolff and like times past, they'll have some success doing this. We have to stick to our guns to pin what sticks on Trump and the GOP for the midterms.
rzemanfl
(29,568 posts)Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)Only when they try to cast doubt upon those who say things that counteract with their alternate reality.
Was it Cheney who said they create their own reality?
Look what theyve wrought
Jarqui
(10,130 posts)My sister is one (though she voted for Obama both times, she's been a life long moderate Republican)
An old school buddy is another - been very conservative, anti-entitlement his whole life
Both came over to the other side because of Trump's dishonesty - which both are embarrassed by
A hunk of them have busy lives and do not have time to dig into these issues. FOX News misleading them is all they have time for so they take it at face value because it is the only news they get.
Obviously, there are others, like white supremacists or Nazis, and no amount of facts or rational reasoning is going to get through to them.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)That was a point I was making in another thread.
Wolff's writing is awful. His fact-checking is lacking. His style is amateurish.
And yet - he got incredible access and shares some great info about these people - mostly by using their own words.
ouija
(398 posts)Dilly!Dilly!
Johnny2X2X
(19,114 posts)I'd like to see Wolff start releasing selected parts of the tapes. Really start to rattle them even more.
MontanaMama
(23,337 posts)Wouldn't THAT be somethin???
Merlot
(9,696 posts)Johnny2X2X
(19,114 posts)And there have been no specific denials. In fact today Bannon confirmed he said what was quoted to him about the meeting with the Russians.
No specific denials is telling and the Trump team had to be poring over the content looking for something they could point to.
Cha
(297,655 posts)delicious!
Doitnow
(1,103 posts)put it on a pedestal. Trump's downfall is being hastened by his own ignorance. Mr. Know-it-All doesn't know very much.
ginnyinWI
(17,276 posts)He hasn't hit the wall yet, but it is still there, and at some point he'll hit it.
donkeypoofed
(2,187 posts)Wolff stated he was "waiting for someone to make that call" to Rupert Murdoch and inquire about him and they never did! DJT talks to him all the time and never mentioned it, so Rupert could never "tune him in" about Wolff. It's hilarious that no one even bothered to Google the guy's name. Just further proof that this entire administration is "too stupid to live". 😁
uponit7771
(90,364 posts)Cha
(297,655 posts)needed someone like Michael Wolff to get down in the sewer with trump & his doormats and come back and report on it.
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)and agree with this assessment. Pretty spot on if you ask me.
bdamomma
(63,922 posts)Mr Wolff is going to be on Lawrence O'Donnell tonight.
ginnyinWI
(17,276 posts)bdamomma
(63,922 posts)Omarosa's book comes out, should be interesting they will call that all lies too. Jerks.