Michael Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury is igniting flames in Washington and beyond. In this tell-all exposé, Wolff details his alleged observations of the Donald Trump presidency over a period of 18 months, beginning in mid-2016 with the campaign. He claims he conducted over 200 interview of staff and others close to the president.
An excerpt of the book that was released on Jan. 3 2018 in New York Magazine made waves, propelling it to the status of number one bestseller without even having been released yet. Due the demand, the sale date was moved from Jan. 9 to Jan. 5.
The book has received understandably mixed reviews. The White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has called the it “trash”. One of Trump’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to Michael Wolff and the publishers. The president tweeted that the book is “really boring and untruthful.” Meanwhile sources such as the Guardian deem Wolff “brilliant” and say that he “nailed it.”
The books credibility has come into question. Michael Wolff is a reporter for the Hollywood Reporter and as such, his prose has been deemed “tabloidy” and the content of the book “gossipy.” In addition, although Wolff has claimed that he has recordings of conversations he had with staffers, he refuses to release them. Although no consensus has been reached, the middle ground seems to be that although not every bit of the book can be taken for absolute truth, the picture painted of the president in the book is generally congruent with the Trump Americans have grown accustomed to.
In light of the controversy surrounding the book, we reached out to RBHS students to get their take.
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on ‘Fire and Fury’
January 23, 2018
“It sounds like an interesting book to read, something I’d like to go through at least once or twice, but I don’t if every word in there would be trustworthy. I feel like there’s probably some true statements or at least true general ideas, but I wouldn’t trust every little bit of it.”-Zach Tips, junior
“I think it’s interesting having all these controversies and the information about Trump and it’s in perspective, I guess from the people that surround him and maybe some of them are true and some of them are not. I think writing a book like that can ease the tension [and] just add some laughter once in a while from bad news and bad events. We need some entertainment, something positive once in a while and I think that’s a positive thing, getting an insider.”-Raghad Nasraldeen, senior
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