Michael Wolff‘s new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, is making huge waves on the political stage.
The book had already sparked a war between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon when an excerpt posted by The Guardian revealed that Bannon had called Donald Trump Jr.’s Russia meeting in Trump Tower “treasonous.”
Now, another excerpt, this time published by New York Magazine, is making waves. This one reveals that Trump never wanted to win the election.
Wolff wrote that Trump had hoped the election would give him notoriety, not the presidential title itself:
“His longtime friend Roger Ailes, the former head of Fox News, liked to say that if you want a career in television, first run for president. Now Trump, encouraged by Ailes, was floating rumors about a Trump network. It was a great future. He would come out of this campaign, Trump assured Ailes, with a far more powerful brand and untold opportunities.”
He reportedly told Ailes just before the election, “This is bigger than I ever dreamed of. I don’t think about losing, because it isn’t losing. We’ve totally won.”
But then he went and won
Wolff wrote that Melania Trump was crying as the election results came in, and Donald Trump Jr. admitted to his father being horrified by the results.
But that meant that when Trump did win, neither he nor his team were ready to make the transition, even if Trump, according to Wolff, quickly decided that he “deserved to be, and was wholly capable of being, the president.”
“The day after the election, the bare-bones transition team that had been set up during the campaign hurriedly shifted from Washington to Trump Tower. The building—now the headquarters of a populist revolution—suddenly seemed like an alien spaceship on Fifth Avenue. But its otherworldly air helped obscure the fact that few in Trump’s inner circle, with their overnight responsibility for assembling a government, had any relevant experience,” Wolff wrote.
Ivanka Trump for president?
Wolff also reports that Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have political aspirations for the Oval Office themselves.
The power couple, he writes, accepted roles in Donald Trump’s administration, against the advice of many, because they thought it would propel their political careers.
What’s more, Ivanka has her sights set on becoming the first woman president.
“Between themselves, the two had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she’d be the one to run for president. The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka Trump,” Wolff reports.