Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff releases earlier than originally planned today, after an incredible hype train with Wolff releasing excerpts of the book to the media. The book itself contains interviews with major players in the White House, including former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Sam Nunberg, a former campaign aide to Trump.
President Trump's lawyers had attempted to quash the book by sending a cease-and-desist letter to Wolff and his publisher, Henry Holt. The letter alleges that the book excerpts contain "false/baseless statements" about the president. Though Wolff claims to have recorded interviews, including those with Steve Bannon.
In the book, Wolff quotes Bannon as calling a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic." Bannon allegedly went on to say that the Mueller investigation is “going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV."
Wolff goes on to claim that Trump "assured" his wife Melania that he would not win the 2016 election.
"Once he lost, Trump would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Crooked Hillary," an excerpt reads. "His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared would be international celebrities. Steve Bannon would become the de facto head of the tea-party movement. Kellyanne Conway would be a cable-news star. Melania Trump, who had been assured by her husband that he wouldn’t become president, could return to inconspicuously lunching."
The books goes on to claim that as it became clearer Trump would win on election night, "Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears—and not of joy."
Further, the book claims that Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka, "wasn't above a chortle with her friends about her father's infamous orange comb-over." Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, also have plans to make Ivanka the first female President, according to Wolff.
While the above excerpts are actual claims made in the book, many fake excerpts have also made their way online. One of the fake claims is that President Trump loves gorillas so much that White House staff made a TV channel dedicated to the animals fighting each other.
Wow, this extract from Wolff’s book is a shocking insight into Trump’s mind: pic.twitter.com/1ZecclggSa
— the gorilla channel thing is a joke (@pixelatedboat) January 5, 2018
That excerpt has attracted more than 12,000 retweets and 40,000 likes. The problem? It's from the same guy who wrote a fake excerpt from Hillary Clinton's memoir titled What Happened.
So many people believed the parody that the creator was forced to respond to it...
tfw you parody a guy making up shit about Trump but people believe it so you become part of the problem
— the gorilla channel thing is a joke (@pixelatedboat) January 5, 2018
And change his Twitter profile name...
Some social media users bought the excerpt, while some didn't. Which just goes to show how far we've come...
It’s more credible than most of the shit I make up
— the gorilla channel thing is a joke (@pixelatedboat) January 5, 2018
I read pretty far in before I realized...
— Tara Mehrbach (@TaraMehrbach) January 5, 2018
Just in case it isn't clear, this is a fake extract, so now your questions have all been answered :)
— Danielle Ryan (@DanielleRyanJ) January 5, 2018
He fucking has this on tape?? Like, literally someone on the White House staff told him this while being recorded? There are pictures of the rig? He has the engineers or programmers on record corroborating this? That would be absolutely amazing!
— Vote or GTFO (@SteveMazzie) January 5, 2018
— Karma Lodro (@BitcoinBuddhist) January 5, 2018
How do you think we feel knowing you can vote?
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) January 5, 2018
Pretty sure this is from the Hodder & Stoughton edition.
— Benjamin Dreyer (@BCDreyer) January 5, 2018
Actually, that was the part that made it believable for me.
— DF (Duane) Hobbs (@DFHobbs) January 5, 2018
The fucking insane thing about this is that you really didn't fly too close to the sun until that final paragraph. The first two actually come across as totally believable.
— Scott Wampler™ (@ScottWamplerBMD) January 5, 2018
Watch for the giant King Kong hanging off the Discovery building next June to promote “Gorilla Week.”
— Ben Harris (@BenHarris_1) January 5, 2018
Is this just fantasy
— 高地柏地（香港） (@HighlandPaddyHK) January 5, 2018
If anyone can write, leave alone believe, that President Trump would spend 17 hours straight watching gorillas fighting on tv, (as this Book extract claims) then that personal is a fool or mad or both. Trump may be childish but this claim is practically impossible
— Andrew M. Mwenda (@AndrewMwenda) January 5, 2018
@realDonaldTrump couldn't sit for 17 hours...first tip
— #TheStormIsHere 🌫⛈ (@SR4get) January 5, 2018
I believed this right up until the on his knees and 17 hrs. No way he'd miss that much Fox "News " .
— Colleen Vawter (@colleenv123) January 5, 2018
Another round of applause for at least these 4 blue checkmarks who thought the Gorilla Channel was real....@ericgarland @funder @samanthamaiden @shadihamid
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) January 5, 2018
Great work @pixelatedboat! pic.twitter.com/LALxGiFRmN
Everyone loves the Gorilla Channel, a channel in which gorillas do nothing but fight!
— Philip Bump (@pbump) January 5, 2018
*five minutes later*
We regret to inform you that the possible existence of the Gorilla Channel has revealed uncomfortable things about the American electorate.
My favorite excuse for being such an idiot that you believe a "gorilla channel" tweet from a known comedy account is "Trump is so nuts that it COULD have been real!"
— neontaster 🚟 (@neontaster) January 5, 2018
Yeah, no. You were just an idiot. That's the only reason this happened.
How did people believe this?
