Siege: Trump Under Fire

Michael Wolff can build a scene, choose a quote and tell a story. He has help here from Steve Bannon who was part of the previous book as well. Now Bannon's out of the White House, but he's still good with a snarky phrase and Wolff, like many better journalists, can't resist a Bannon quote. It always spices up the text.

The good thing about Bannon is that he's unafraid to be identified. That isn't true for everyone and it creates a problem for the book. There's a lot of "friends say...", and "Many people around Trump believed that..." which, along with the complete lack of any footnoting creates a real problem. What's true here? What isn't? The Mueller team has already denied what Wolff wrote about them writing up an indictment of the president. One of the "friends say" stories is pretty significant.

It's about Kellyanne Conway, whose job is defending Trump to the press, and her husband George, a lawyer who has become one of his most vocal critics. Wolff explains their marriage by saying "friends say that" they actually both feel the same way about Trump--they both loathe him. While that may be true, including that friends may know and say it, it doesn't seem like a high enough standard to assert it via anonymous sources. I mean, why couldn't someone else write a book and say, "Friends say the Conways did this as a way for Kellyanne to demonstrate her loyalty to the boss. 'I'll even take on my husband on your behalf!" (This quote didn't happen but it's concerning how easily the "no sources/no footnotes" style of writing could open the door for writing anything you like as if its true. Especially in an age of so-called "fake news" , it's a real concern.

Recently, we've heard that the Mueller report was "the book" and Mueller's public testimony before Congress would be "the movie". With "Siege", Michael Wolff has given us both. To top it all off, he's not only an encompassing author but a terrific screenwriter as well.

"Siege" covers the second year of the Trump presidency and ends with the release of the Mueller report and Attorney General William Barr's summary of that report. Was Trump's second year worse than his first? Most probably as the things that haunted Trump in the first year only added to his trials and tribulations in the second. There are winners in "Siege"... Nancy Pelosi, Nikki Haley and, in a cameo role, Henry Kissinger. There are hangers-on...Ivanka and Jared and there are certainly losers. Besides Trump, himself, Giuliani ranks high on this list with his drinking before tv appearances. Add to that almost everybody that served in the Trump White House. Humpty Trumpty is as thin-skinned (or thin-shelled) as Humpty Dumpty.

Wolff's narrative is his gift and that's why this book is hard to put down, even for a minute. He covers everything from Mueller to the mid-terms, to the Helsinki disaster, to Saudi Arabia to the wall, and so on. "Siege" serves as an indictable diary of 2018, much as "Fire and Fury" had done for the previous year. This is one absolutely wonderful book and I highly recommend it. I only wonder what the title of the author's next book will be. I might suggest "Meltdown".

This book by Michael Wolff is basically a sequel to his first one: FIRE AND FURY. The real tragedy presented in this book is the expose of a dysfunctional WH and President who has learned nothing in 2+ years and only gotten worse. There are no less than 23 chapters contained herein focused on either a particular individual, subject, or event. A few examples: Mueller, M. Cohen, Flynn, Kushner, Hannity, Manafort, Kavanaugh, Putin, Trump Abroad, Home Alone, Nov. 6, Shutdown, The Wall, etc. The method of organizing the material in this book may disrupt a sense of flow and continuity, but it is easy to read while being informative at the same time. Only the devout Trump worshipers would deny what is presented here. Wolff is scrupulous with his detail and sources. He has to be in order to avoid a liable suit. If he appears to rely too much on the words and thoughts of Bannon, one need only look at the daily tweets emanating from T and the revolving door of those who are constantly coming and going to fill key administrative positions to confirm the incompetence, immorality, ignorance, and duplicity of T and the WH. It is downright ugly and scary. To see all this is to look directly into the face of Medusa. To not look at this is to suddenly wake up and be shocked to discover that we are once again on the edge of a cliff or about to be involved in yet another war of our own making.

There are probably more than a dozen books currently available about Trump and surely more to come. The beauty of Wolff's presentation is that it contains side splitting hilarity in its detailed description of characters and events, though none of this should be a laughing matter. That Jared Kushner should be T's key adviser - an arrogant class climbing individual, mediocre student, and nearly bankrupt realty Mogul! That Sean Hannity, a bloated pompous faux news reporter, should be one of T's unofficial major consultants! And that's only the tip of the obelisk. One individual who demands scrutiny is Mitch McConnell, T's enabler par excellence. He is playing Cardinal Richelieu to T's Dumb Louis. Wolff's book would make good reading while alternating it with the Mueller Report. They complement each other. Read it and judge for yourselves. It is eminently worthwhile.

Trump is a TV lover like no other President before him. Yet he denies what is recorded right there on the screen before him when it reflects his own unchecked lying, swaggering, infantile behavior, alienation of allies, lovemaking to autocrats. "I just received another beautiful love letter from Kim!" Someone should turn this into a song. It may also remind one of the last scene from Dr. Strangelove.

Too long . Vocabulary much too confusing!

This is an interesting book, with lots of delicious snark directed at President Trump. There's lots of red meat in it for Trump-haters.

But I really think this book is about Bannon, who is the main source for this book, trying to manipulate his image using Wolff as a mouthpiece. Bannon always comes off as a masterful genius in it rather than the dangerous neo-fascist with delusions of grandeur he actually is. The quite obvious efforts of Putin to undermine the western democracies with the help of Trump are completely underplayed when they are obvious to anyone with eyes--I think Bannon is afraid of being tied to the anti-democratic traitors he actually has made common cause with.

In any case, it's a good read, full of fun, shocking detail of how horrible a person Trump is. Yet a reader should be cautioned that it appears to be the result of Bannon giving access to Wolff in exchange for Wolff's complicity in presenting Bannon's self-serving and deceitful narrative.

Repetitive

By now everyone who's been paying attention knows what Trump is, so though there are many new examples in this book, there are no further insights or revelations -- unless one counts Wolff's claim that even many of the people who lie for Trump in public say in private that he's the craziest individual they've ever dealt with. The book is mainly a summary of the cascading events of the second year of the Trump debacle and America's humiliation, and a "where are they now" catchup on the bizarre cast of characters involved. Steve Bannon still thinks he's the architect of a "movement" that will outlast and supplant Trump. Bannon, Sean Hannity, and Nikki Haley each imagines themself as the Republican presidential nominee in 2020, when an exhausted Trump stumbles off into the sunset. Nobody can figure out what Putin has on Trump, though he obviously has something devastating. You'll get some unusual, even startling, perspectives on other personages -- a timid, indecisive Robert Mueller?!? -- and an update on the clown show of sycophants, incompetents, and delusional opportunists that Trump pulls swirling along in his wake. If you're disgusted by Trump, read this book to feel further vindicated. If you're a Trump fan, stick your fingers in your ears, squeeze your eyes tight shut, and squeal "fake news, fake news"!

If you haven't read it. both of michael wolff's books are chronologies that cannot be put together if they weren't real and happening in front of our eyes. Incredibly entertaining - reality beats fiction every single time...

Addendum: I don't love Steve Bannon. But both books are amazing windows into him and his crusade against the establishment. These two books are the chronicles of a modern day Don Quixote from a different universe. By the end of the book I come to respect Mr. Bannon. I still don't love him or what he stands for, but I understand and respect him. The sooner the entire nation wakes up from this nightmare, the better off we all are. This entire administration is a giant chess game and Trump is just one of the pawns; not even the knight, just a pawn.

The good guys don't always win in history. In the book, Wolff shows how incompetent the whole administration is, and how Trump does not have the character to be President. It relays stories about Trump and how he was always chasing after women. When he became President, he did not stop. The author relates how Trump bragged how Nicki Halley-his ambassador to the UN- had an sexual encounter. Whether this story is true or not, it shows how Trump acts around people. When Ambassador Halley found out about this, she did not disparage the President. She later resigned. It also shows Trump trying to frighten Special Counsel Robert Mueller about whether he was going to be fired, Trump figured he needed to frighten Mueller to get his way.

This book shows the depravity of the current Administration. Wolff states that if he survives the Mueller Report, another event will take down Donald J. Trump. This is an interesting read for those fascinated by U.S. History. Hopefully the good guys will win eventually.

Enjoyed Wolff's first book. Not reading for truthfulness. In age of Trump that's pretty much lost all meaning. Trump's presidency is hopefully a once in a universe aberration. The truest description of Trump as Wolff quoted a source;