As drowning men lunge for lifebelts, so Trump, Giuliani and Powell clung on. His legal and political arguments wafted out of the fever swamps of the fringes. Landslide acknowledges that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election were born of his disregard for democratic norms and inability to acknowledge defeat. Trump was “the star - never forget that - and the base was his audience.” “He knew nothing about government, they knew nothing about government, so the context of government itself became beside the point,” Wolff writes. Wolff sees that the relationship is unconventional and organic. Landslide homes in on the bond between Trump and his supporters. “I’ve done a thousand things that nobody has done,” he claims. Trump laments four years of “absolute scum and treachery and fake witch-hunts.” Introspection was never his strongest suit. Bill Barr, the attorney general who made the Mueller report go away but wouldn’t back the big lie and resigned before the end, fares badly. Trump calls Andrew Cuomo, now New York’s governor but once, in a way, Trump’s own lawyer, a “thug.” He has kind words for Roy Cohn, another Trump lawyer, before that an aide to Joe McCarthy in the witch-hunts of the 1950s who wore that four-letter word far better. Apparently, Kevin McCarthy’s abject prostration still left something to be desired. He also takes aim at the Republican leader in the House. Under Roberts, the justices refused to overturn the election. Trump accuses Kavanaugh of lacking courage and vents his “disappointment” in his most controversial pick for the bench. Their father was unamused.Īs for the supreme court, Trump lashes out at Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts, the chief justice. He bandied about expressions such as “blood on your hands” and “failure.” He also reminded Trump that while Hunter Biden, his opponent’s scandal-magnet son, was a one-off, there was a whole bunch of Trump kids to target. He brands Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor brutally fired from the transition in 2016, a “very disloyal guy” - apparently as payback for a debate preparation session that stung Trump with its ferocity, laying bare his vulnerabilities as others watched.Ĭhristie told Trump what he didn’t want to hear about his handling of COVID-19. The interview is an exercise in Trumpian score-settling. The club’s “throne room,” in the author’s words, is filled with “blond mothers and blond daughters, infinitely buxom.” Fecundity and lust on parade.

It is held in the lobby at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort to which Trump retreated. Even Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump’s ultra-loyal chief of staff, has resigned rather than bear witness to the president’s implosion in the aftermath of the deadly assault on the US Capitol. Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s fourth and final press secretary, is awol.

Michael wolff new book