White House staffers will use copies of Michael Wolff’s new book to keep doors open and to hold things, deputy press secretary Raj Shah told Hugh Hewitt Friday.
“I think we’re going to be picking up a few copies. You know, we need books to be, you know, door openers and holders and things like that,” Shah said jovially before deriding the book as “tabloid trash.”
Wolff’s book includes supposed accounts of conversations with dozens of White House aides and paints a picture of chaos during the first days of the Trump administration. Prominently featured in the book is former chief strategist Steve Bannon. These comments include a personal insult of Ivanka Trump’s intelligence and a suggestion that Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer offering information on then candidate Hillary Clinton was “treasonous.”
President Donald Trump has similarly attacked the book, calling it “phony” and insisting that he has not spoken with Wolff. Other details included in the book, told to Wolff by others, have been proven to be demonstrably false.
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018