Fire and Fury

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House is a 2018 book by journalist Michael Wolff which according to Wolff, details the behavior of U.S. President Donald Trump, the staff of his 2016 presidential campaign, and the White House staff. The title refers to a quote by Trump about the conflict with North Korea. The book became a New York Times number one bestseller. Reviewers generally accepted Wolff's portrait of a dysfunctional Trump administration, but were skeptical of many of Wolff's particular claims.

The book highlights descriptions of Trump's behavior, chaotic interactions among senior White House staff, and derogatory comments about the Trump family by former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. Trump is depicted as being held in low regard by his White House staff, leading Wolff to claim that "100% of the people around him" believe Trump is unfit for office.

According to Michael Wolff, when he approached Donald Trump about writing a book on his presidency, Trump agreed to give him access to the White House because he liked an article Wolff wrote about him in June 2016 for The Hollywood Reporter. However, Trump later claimed that he had never authorized access for Wolff and never spoke to him for the book.

Starting in mid-2016, Wolff interviewed campaign and transition staff. After Trump's inauguration and continuing through most of the first year of his presidency, Wolff was allowed access to the West Wing of the White House, conducting research for his book through interviews and as a "fly on the wall" observer. He said he conducted over 200 interviews with Trump and his associates including the senior staff and was allowed to witness events at the White House without his presence being managed. This allowed Wolff to be present the day of the dismissal of James Comey. Wolff reportedly audiotaped some of the conversations mentioned in the book. The working title for Wolff's book was The Great Transition: The First 100 Days of the Trump Administration, leading many in the White House to believe the book he was writing would be sympathetic to the Trump administration.

Wolff chose the title after hearing Trump refer to "fire and fury" when discussing the conflict with North Korea. According to the book, nobody in the presidential campaign team expected to win the 2016 presidential election, including Donald Trump (who reportedly did not want to win) and his wife. Donald Trump Jr. said his father "looked as if he had seen a ghost" on the night of the election, and Melania Trump was "in tears—and not of joy."

Many of the most controversial quotes in the book came from Steve Bannon, the chief executive of the Trump campaign in its final months and White House Chief Strategist from January to August 2017. Bannon referred to the meeting during the presidential campaign of Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner with Russian officials as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic," described Ivanka Trump as "dumb as a brick", and—referencing the now-completed Special Counsel investigation being led by Robert Mueller—said, "they're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV." Bannon also said that Mueller's investigation would likely uncover money laundering involving Kushner from loans received by his family business from Deutsche Bank. Another quote from Bannon was that lawyer Marc Kasowitz had gotten Trump "out of all kinds of jams [...] on the campaign—what did we have, a hundred women? Kasowitz took care of all of them."

Wolff said Trump himself was characterized by "wide-ranging ignorance." For example, Sam Nunberg, a campaign advisor, reportedly tried to explain the United States Constitution to Trump but could not get past the Fourth Amendment. Wolff also claims that Kushner and Ivanka Trump discussed having Ivanka run in a future presidential campaign.

The book was originally scheduled to go on sale on January 9, 2018, but the publisher, Henry Holt and Company, moved up the release date to January 5 due to "unprecedented demand." An excerpt of the book was released by New York magazine on January 3, 2018. The same day, other media outlets reported on further content of the book; for example, The Guardian reported "explosive" highlights, stating they were based on the full book. That day, preorders of the book made it the number 1 bestseller in the country. Fire and Fury debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list, and within a week had become the fastest selling book in the publisher's history, with over 700,000 orders shipped and 1.4 million orders placed.