Donald Trump insists Fire and Fury is 'full of lies' and author Michael Wolff had zero White House access

David Gardner5 January 2018

President Donald Trump today tried to limit the damage caused by an explosive book about his first year in the White House claiming it is “full of lies” and insisting he gave “zero access” to author Michael Wolff.

The president’s lawyers have issued cease and desist legal letters to Mr Wolff and his publisher as well as to one of the book’s primary sources, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, referred to in Mr Trump’s tweets today as “Sloppy Steve.”

But Mr Trump’s desperate attempts to discredit the tell-all book appeared to be falling on deaf ears.

Mr Wolff says he can back his sensational behind-closed-doors account of life in the West Wing with dozens of hours of taped interviews and the publisher, Henry Holt, reacted to the White House threat by bringing the publication date forward from next Tuesday to today due to “unprecedented demand.”

The president and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckerbee Sanders have sought to play down claims in the book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, as tabloid gossip since excerpts began leaking out earlier this week.

Fire and Fury: the sensational behind-closed-doors account of life in the West Wing

They include allegations that Mr Trump never expected to win the election, eats cheeseburgers in his West Wing bedroom while watching his three TVs, and played seduction games with wives of friends.

Mr Bannon is also quoted in the book as claiming an infamous Trump Tower meeting between Mr Trump’s son and a Russian lawyer during the 2016 election campaign was “treasonous and unpatriotic.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckerbee Sanders have sought to play down claims in the book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, as tabloid gossip

Mr Wolff, 64, a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter who has also written for magazines including Vanity Fair, has claimed he had “something like a semi-permanent seat on a couch in the West Wing.”

He wrote yesterday that he pitched the idea of writing a fly-on-the-wall book to the president.

“A book?” Mr Trump responded, according to the author. “I hear a lot of people want to write books.”

“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,” Wolff writes.

But with the book’s contents making headlines around the world, Mr Trump branded it today as a “phony.”

“I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist. Look at this guy’s past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!” the President tweeted.

Mr Bannon, who was fired from his White House role in August, is quoted extensively in the book.

After Mr Trump posted a tweet yesterday disavowing him and claiming he has “lost his mind,” Mr Bannon said yesterday that he was still a supporter and that the president was a “great man.”

Mr Trump tweeted back today: “I don’t know, he called me a great man last night, so he obviously changed his tune pretty quick.”

It comes as thousands queued up in bookshops across America last night in order to get their hands on the book - which was released at midnight.

In the UK, booksellers were predicting it would be one of the fastest selling books of the year.

Kate Skipper, Waterstones Buying Director, said: “The excitement is spreading across the Atlantic and Fire and Fury is set to be the biggest political book of the year in the UK. It’s fantastic to see a physical book driving headlines across the world and customers responding accordingly.”

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