Explosive book claims - and what they mean for Donald Trump
A new book claims Mr Trump did not want to win, the First Lady cried when he did and that his staff think he is a "child".
Thursday 4 January 2018 13:16, UK
According to his press secretary, Donald Trump is "furious and disgusted" at the allegations printed in Michael Wolff's explosive new book.
Reading the excerpts, it is not surprising.
The author was, he said, afforded unchecked access to Trump World for weeks on end, chatting on and off the record with anyone he fancied.
Now, we can divide the incendiary result into two sets of problems for the leader of the free world.
The first deals with Russia.
Mr Wolff quotes former chief strategist Steve Bannon describing a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr and Russian operatives promising dirt on candidate Hillary Clinton as "treasonous" - and adds that he was certain Trump Jr took the Russians to meet his father, directly contradicting many promises to the contrary.
This is problematic because special counsel Robert Mueller is currently conducting a criminal investigation into whether or not Mr Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the elections.
Mr Bannon also said that Mr Mueller's investigation would be all about money laundering, and that his path to Mr Trump would lead through shady business deals, perhaps via his son-in-law Jared Kushner - an astonishing thing to say given it could help Mr Mueller bring about criminal charges.
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The other set of allegations in the book are just plain embarrassing, and so deal a blow to the ego of a man who makes no secret of his love of being treated "well".
These are just some of them:
:: Trump did not want to win, and neither did anyone else on his staff. They weren't prepared to. When he did, Melania cried, and not in happiness.
:: Mr Bannon says Ivanka Trump is as "dumb as a brick" - and he and other staff openly describe President Trump's lack of knowledge and ability to absorb basic information.
:: One adviser describes how Mr Trump's eyes "rolled back in his head" when he tried to explain the constitution to him.
:: His deputy chief of staff characterised him as a "child".
:: Rupert Murdoch is quoted as calling Mr Trump a "f* idiot".
:: His treasury secretary and top economic adviser also apparently both regard him as stupid.
A picture is painted of almost unbelievable incompetence and dysfunction; a White House lurching from self-inflicted crisis to self-inflicted crisis.
Mr Trump's administration has strenuously denied what has been printed, but it almost doesn't matter. The President has been monumentally disrespected.
And if there's one thing Donald Trump hates, it is disrespect.
Now his war with Mr Bannon, a self-described bomb-thrower with an umbilical connection to Mr Trump's base via his Breitbart website, is wide out in the open. This is a moment of peril for the occupant of the Oval Office.
There is a solidifying sense, whether true or not, that he is out of his depth. This will make it much harder for him to do an already hard job.
And worse, there is now a chance that Mr Bannon might use the extraordinary influence and vision that helped him usher Mr Trump into the White House to do as much damage as possible to his former boss.
Mr Bannon will be an unpleasant foe, and the stakes for the 2018 mid-term elections just got a lot higher.