You might think that Michael Wolff, whose blockbuster “Fire and Fury” wasn't exactly a glowing portrait of President Trump's first year in the White House, might have burned so many bridges that a second insider book on the administration would have been an impossible task.
But it's not as if the Trump team became more disciplined and tight-lipped in its second year. As Wolff explains in “Siege,” a number of the people who helped him on the first book have left the administration but are still in on the gossip loop, joining Wolff in what he calls “my train-wreck fascination with Trump — that certain knowledge that in the end he will destroy himself.”
One of these people is Stephen K. Bannon, who gets pride of place in Wolff's acknowledgments, thanked for “his trust and cooperation” as “the Virgil anyone might be lucky to have as a guide for a descent into Trumpworld.” Wolff says “it is a measure of Bannon's character that he stood by his remarks in ‘Fire and Fury' without complaint, quibbles or hurt feelings.”
This is a strangely effusive measure of gratitude for Bannon, whom Wolff calls “the man arguably most responsible” for Trump's presidency. After all, Bannon isn't exactly known for holding traditional values like “character” and “trust and cooperation” in much esteem.
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