President Trump slammed his former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on Thursday, calling him “sloppy Steve” and saying the White House tell-all book by Michael Wolff is “full of lies.”
“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!” he wrote late Thursday on Twitter.
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
Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” hit shelves Friday, despite an attempt by the president’s lawyer to halt publication.
Among the insults to Trump's family in the book, Bannon refers to the meeting Donald Trump Jr. had with a Russian lawyer as “treasonous” and insulted Ivanka Trump’s intelligence, saying: “She became a White House staffer and that’s when people suddenly realized she’s as dumb as a brick.”
Wolff said material for the book was based on conversations during an 18-month period, during which he conducted more than 200 interviews and took up “something like a semi-permanent couch in the West Wing.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders slammed the book, telling the press it was nothing but “tabloid gossip” that was riddled with “false and fraudulent claims.”
“The book is mistake after mistake after mistake,” she explained. “I’m not going to waste my time or the country’s time going page by page correcting [the book].”
Sanders also said the book was “sad,” “pathetic,” and a “fantasy.”
Trump took one more shot at it Friday morning, tweeting: "Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!"
Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018