Op-Ed: Post Election Books Serve As Attack Vehicles On Trump

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – The American, and particularly the Holiday, book reader is already under assault by an avalanche of post-election books by “insiders” in the media regarding Donald Trump and the Trump Presidency. As a New York Times best-selling author myself, I fully understand the cycle in which political books are strategically written and leaked, for the tabloid-type media and fit to leave their particular imprimatur on all things Trump.  

This is not a new phenomenon, important post-election books are a huge tradition in the swamp and have for years been strategically manipulated by winning politicians to put their “spin” on the events they participated in during a Presidency or Presidential campaign. 

Originally these books were published by Newsweek and Time Magazine but in more recent years, reporters who actually covered the events of the Trump Presidency are now jockeying for market share amongst readers who despise Donald Trump and his family. and who utterly reject Donald Trump’s extraordinary accomplishments as a political outsider. 

In the past, these times were used by old Washington hands to aggrandize their role in history. Today, these books are designed to essentially recycle the anti-Trump narrative repeated over and over again by the “mainstream” media, but embellish it with a few – probably false – revelations that the book pitched to the Trump-hating readers market, is titillated. 

Foremost and worst of these, is Michael Wolff, who wrote at least two vicious cut-and-paste hit jobs on Trump, one of them very clearly co-authored by Steve Bannon, Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House. This is the one where Wolff tells us that Bannon is the genius behind the Trump Revolution but also tells us that Bannon says that Trump is “not a billionaire but a scumbag” as well as saying that the Trump Family Real Estate Company and The Trump Organization is a “criminal enterprise.”  

Here is a demonstration of the absurdity of these book generated attacks on President Trump:

• The Daily Beast: New Michael Wolff Book Says Murdoch Told Fox to Call Arizona Against Trump: ‘F*ck Him.’
• The Mercury News: Ivanka Trump tried to calm ‘agitated’ Trump on Jan. 6, acting as ‘stable pony,’ new book says.
• Business Insider: ‘That’s my money!’ Trump exploded at Brad Parscale over stories about his lavish lifestyle and spending, according to a new book.
• PoliticalFlare: Book Says Trump Raged After George Floyd Unrest, ‘I’ve Done All This Stuff for the Blacks.’
• Forbes: ‘Where Would He Be Without Me?’: Trump rips into Kavanaugh in a new book.
• Yahoo General Milley Called Trump’s Election Lies ‘The Gospel of the Führer,’ book says.
• HuffPost: ‘You Can’t F**king Talk To Me That Way!’ Trump yelled at Gen. Milley amid protests, book says.
• TMZ: Trump Threatened over Hitler quote … tried to influence book.
• CNBC: Trump praised Hitler to the chief of staff John Kelly during Europe trip, new book claims. 
• TalkingPointsMemo: Morning Memo: New Book Says Trump Claimed Hitler ‘Did A Lot Of Good Things.’
• Business Insider: Trump called McConnell ‘a stupid person’ and a ‘knucklehead’ for not eliminating the filibuster during his term, the book says.
• CNN Politics: Trump said whoever ‘leaked’ info on his White House bunker stay should be ‘executed,’ new book claims.
• The Guardian: “A madman with millions of followers,” what the new Trump books tell us.
• MSN: Trump’s Inner Circle Worried He Was ‘Dangerous for the Country’ New Book Says.
• USA Today: “If George Washington came back from the dead,” in a new book, Trump brags that even a founding father might not have beaten him.
• NPR: An Analysis Of New Books About Donald Trump’s Presidency.
• Politico: Trump rages over post-presidential books he did interviews for.
• Washingtonian: “Nine Juicy Details to Come Out of the Barrage of New Trump Books.”
• The Guardian: “I Alone Can Fix It,” Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker on their Trump bestseller.
• NPR: ‘Michael Wolff’s Third Strike At Trump White House Has Hits And Misses.”
• CNN Politics: “The single most revealing fact in the new Trump books.”
• The New York Times: “Two Accounts of Donald Trump’s Final Year in Office, One More Vivid and Apt Than the Other.”
• The New York Times: “What Do Trump and Marinara Have in Common?”
• Slate: “Michael Wolff’s Latest Page-Turner Gives Trump’s Final Year the Trashy Treatment It Deserves.”
• CBS News: In a new book, “Top U.S. general feared Trump would attempt a coup after the election loss.”
• CNN Politics: ‘They’re not going to f**king succeeded’: Top generals feared Trump would attempt a coup after the election, according to a new book.
• The Independent: Drunk Rudy Giuliani told Trump to just say he won on election night, book claims.
• Yahoo: “Donald Trump Jr. says he was ‘just f—ing’ with Mitt Romney by calling for him to be expelled from the Senate,” new book says.

For some strange reason, President Trump himself granted Wolff a live record interview for his book. Trump World Hustler, Jason Miller urged Trump Attorney David Schoen to speak to Wolff but to no avail. Wolff’s claim in his book that lawyer, David Schoen, did anything less than his full duty to represent the President of the United States in the impeachment, is a complete willingness to make his arguments on the Senate floor false and defamatory.  Wolff never bothered to ask Attorney Schoen his version of events or make any effort to confirm this falsehood.  

Others pursuing this genre are Michael C. Bender, formerly of the Palm Beach Post and now of The Wall Street Journal.  Olivia Nuzzi of New York Magazine, one of the most precious knife artists in journalism today, is doing a trump book with Ryan Lizza of POLITICO. Jonathan Martin, one of the better-dressed reporters is doing a book with Alex Burns also of the New York Times. Jennifer Jacobs who covered the Trump White House for Bloomberg is penning a Trump tome. As is John Karl of NBC.

Robert Costa of the Washington Post, a sloppy journalist who actually reported that I had been fired from Trump’s 2016 campaign when in fact I not only resigned but supplied my letter of resignation to two reporters. They were also I was going to resign in advance including Marc Caputo then of the Miami Herald. I had decided I could be more effective on Trump’s behalf outside the campaign structure and that life was just too short to have to deal with an asshole like Cory Lewandowski.

Trump insiders Bill Barr, Kelly Anne Conway, and Peter Navarro are writing Trump books perhaps in their own defense. What the market is for true pro-Trump books remains to be seen. Not since Abraham Lincoln has any political figure had to weather the overwhelming vituperations of the media of the day. The big enchilada in the Trump book bonanza will be The New York Times political reporter, Maggie Haberman. Because Haberman covered Trump in earlier stints at the New York Daily News, The New York Post, Politico, and now writes for the Old Gray Lady, Haberman probably has a better understanding of Donald Trump and what makes him tick. While the President has sometimes been critical of her reporting, I know from my own discussions with him that while he regards her as an adversary and is quite wary of her, he “likes her as a person.” In other words, Trump is obsessed with her. To a certain extent, she may be just as obsessed with him. There’s definitely an Ahab and the White Whale dynamic going on between those two.

In the meantime,  the very fact that these books are going to be published created a modern-day tsunami of click-bait in which all kinds of allegations are made against Donald Trump, the First Lady, or members of the Trump family.  This leads to ridiculous headlines, such as Trump telling military leaders that they were “fucked up” when they refused presidential orders to quash the BLM /Antifa riots early in the last year of Trump’s presidency. The real news of course is that the Pentagon’s leaders ignored a presidential order which is an act of treason, as well as the fact Trump should have utilized the military to maintain order because the protection of the American people is his first responsibility as President. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff should’ve been court-martialed for refusing such a presidential order. Sadly, left-wing reporters don’t see these realities.

Due to my political prosecution and essentially the fabrication of charges against me, as well as the Soviet-style show trial in Washington D.C., in which the judge legally prohibited every reasonable, legal defense based on the revelations of the DOJ on November 3, 2020,  exculpatory evidence was withheld from me leading to an initial grant of clemency in which I avoided prison time and ultimately led to a Presidential pardon on December 23, 2020. My own upcoming book, “Roger Stone Did Nothing Wrong: My Political Persecution And The Loss Of The 2020 Election” will cover some of the same ground as a number of the “Trump books” out now.