The new year began with high expectations for U.S. President Donald Trump. Passage of the tax bill was heralded as a turning point and was anticipated to provide momentum for a successful second year. Instead, the White House has been consumed with the publication of a tell-all book about the inner workings of the Trump administration. Its salacious details — some of which are disputed — and the administration's response have prompted public speculation about the president's mental health and made plain the challenges that U.S. friends, allies and partners face as they work together to tackle global challenges.
"Fire and Fury," journalist Michael Wolff's expose of the Trump campaign and presidency, provides little that is new or unsuspected about the president and his team. The key theme is the haphazard nature of presidential decision-making. The president seems to have little background on issues, little appetite for details, no ideology to guide him and embraces a management style that encourages competition (or worse) among staff. This is compounded by a desire to disrupt the status quo in Washington. The result is a lurching policy machine that is often out of sync with the president and is invariably playing catchup with his pronouncements. The book's most quoted comment is that all White House staff see the president as "a child" who needs "immediate gratification."
The White House has denounced the book as "fake news" and calls its negative comments fabrications. In an unprecedented move, the White House let the press attend the first hour — rather than the first five minutes — of a meeting with congressional representatives as they discussed immigration to show that the president was in charge. Trump's lawyers tried to halt publication of the book, charging that it contained falsehoods and they added that they were considering libel charges. The president has not helped his case by responding to charges that "his mental powers were slipping" with tweets insisting that he is a "very stable genius" whose "two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart."