By Ethan Tan

Staff Writer

On Jan. 5, Michael Wolff, USA Today columnist, released his new book “Fire and Fury” four days ahead of schedule due to the unprecedented press coverage of the book. Currently at the top of both Amazon and the New York Times bestseller list, “Fire and Fury,” is a tell-all about the inner-workings of the Trump White House that has garnered a lot of media attention not only because of the content it contains but also due to the circumstances in which it was written.

Wolff reveals that the Trump campaign did not expect to win the election and that Trump himself wanted to run to boost his media ratings and following. The book continues to explain how Trump is unfit for the presidency and that the White House is dysfunctional in its day to day operation.

During the Jan. 3 press briefing, White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the “Fire and Fury” was “trashy tabloid fiction […] filled with false and misleading accounts.”

This was as a result of speculation that former Presidential Adviser, Stephen Bannon, was making demeaning remarks about the Trump White House to Wolff. Trump’s lawyers sent cease-and-desist letters to both Bannon and Wolff the next day under the threat of a lawsuit for libel.

On Jan. 5, President Donald Trump tweeted, “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 [Bannon]!” in an attempt to discredit Wolff.

In response to Wolff’s claim that Trump is unfit for the presidency, Trump tweeted that he is “not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!”

However the Trump Administration is not the only party under fire. Michael Wolff himself is under scrutiny as there have been issues with his credibility in the past.

President Trump disputes that he gave permission to Wolff to be in the White House, in response Wolff told CNN that he had unprecedented access to the White House and was merely a “fly on the wall.”

Despite this, many point out that the book contains numerous errors. Wolff wrote that John Boehner left Congress in 2011, but Boehner actually left in 2015.

Furthermore, in interviews with talk-show hosts, Wolff gave conflicting stories about his role in the Trump White House. Moreover, he has publicly stated on these shows that he will not publically reveal the tapes of his interviews, his notes, or the identity of the unnamed sources that were cited in his book.

Despite this, The Hill writes that even though this book is full of gossip and unprecedented claims, “Fire and Fury’ confirms what we already knew.”