Both Seattle's locally owned and corporate bookstores have been inundated with requests for Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, the explosive new book by Michael Wolff detailing the drama inside of the Trump administration. After an excerpt from the book was published in New York magazine earlier this week, publisher Henry Holt and Co. decided to release it ahead of schedule today. And it's easy to see why. Here's a choice passage:
Most presidential candidates spend their entire careers, if not their lives from adolescence, preparing for the role. They rise up the ladder of elected offices, perfect a public face, and prepare themselves to win and to govern. The Trump calculation, quite a conscious one, was different. The candidate and his top lieutenants believed they could get all the benefits of almost becoming president without having to change their behavior or their worldview one whit. Almost everybody on the Trump team, in fact, came with the kind of messy conflicts bound to bite a president once he was in office. Michael Flynn, the retired general who served as Trump’s opening act at campaign rallies, had been told by his friends that it had not been a good idea to take $45,000 from the Russians for a speech. “Well, it would only be a problem if we won,” ÂFlynn assured them.
Not only did Trump disregard the potential conflicts of his own business deals and real-estate holdings, he audaciously refused to release his tax returns. Why should he? Once he lost, Trump would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Crooked Hillary. 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. Losing would work out for everybody. Losing was winning.
In other words, the whole goddamn campaign was a PR stunt, which everyone not currently wearing a MAGA hat already knew. Of course it's going to be a huge best-seller (it's already jumped 4,000 spots on Amazon), and of course Trump has already threatened the publisher with a lawsuit. In fact, the only reason the dude has stopped watching daytime TV and touching his so-called Big Button (a clear over-compensation) since the excerpts were released is to shit-talk his old red-nosed buddy Steve Bannon, who, according to Wolff, called the Trump sons "treasonous" and Ivanka “dumb as a brick.” Trump then retaliated by saying—in an official White House statement—"When [Bannon] was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind." And they say the man has no class.
Unfortunately for Seattle buyers, there is basically nowhere in town to pick up this book, at least not today. I called an array of bookstores in Seattle and not one had any copies available. Third Place Books had 20, but all had been reserved; Elliott Bay said to check back sometime next week and that they'd already recieved multiple calls about it by the time I got them on the phone five minutes after they opened; Barnes & Noble said it won't be available until min-January; and Amazon Books said to check online—which I did, to no avail. Shipping is expected to take between two and four weeks, although it is available on Kindle or audiobook if you're into that kind of thing. Hoping you could skip the price tag and get it from the library? Better get in line: As of right now, the Seattle Public Library has 910 holds on what is sure to be a very interesting read.
UPDATE: University Bookstore has at least 25 copies currently available, but they are going fast. Best get it before they run out or Trump orders them all burned on the White House lawn.
