Donald Trump

New Trump Book Brings 'Fire and Fury' to Twitter

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Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff's new book about the first year of the Donald Trump White House, has taken the internet by storm. It includes some stunning claims and explosive quotes from former Trump aides, most prominently Steve Bannon, whose comments to Wolff have prompted President Trump to start calling him "Sloppy Steve" (a phrase that has a NSFW pre-existing entry in Urban Dictionary).

Trump's lawyers tried to squash the book with a cease and desist letter, which only led the publisher to move the release date up to today.

Some bookstores in Washington, D.C., even held midnight releases.

Journalists pored over the book looking for scoops, pranksters on Twitter had fun passing around fake stories, like the one from @pixelatedboat about Trump demanding a 24-hour gorilla TV network.

As Peter Suderman noted here earlier today, the fake stories illustrated the propensity of some Trump critics to believe nearly anything about him that they see being shared on Twitter.

"It would be a mistake, I think, to simply dismiss Wolff's book as a work of pure fiction or baseless speculation," Suderman continued. "Yet it's also worth approaching any individual story or event it describes with some amount of skepticism."

Wolff, for his part, insists his book is accurate and says he recorded many of his interviews. Whether his sources' claims are accurate, and what additional work he might have done to corroborate them, remain unclear.

Pointing out that you have more credibility than Donald Trump not the most compelling defense. While the entire affair is boosting book sales, it may also end up making it more difficult to treat the book seriously.

Fire and Fury is currently at the top of Amazon.com's bestseller list.