“The heart of this book,” Wolff says, is the experience of the Trump presidency: “an emotional state rather than a political state.” Policies, decision-making, anything that requires even a minimal amount of attention to detail — that happens, as much as possible, without Trump, Wolff says. So now Wolff gets another probable best seller, and Bannon, who boasts about communicating with Trump through the media, gets to show the president who’s really boss. “Bannon believed he was the man of populist destiny and not Donald Trump,” Wolff writes, with Bannon even entertaining the idea of being a presidential contender in 2020. Wolff describes Bannon staying in a $4,500-a-night hotel suite in London — not quite the typical peasant digs, but Bannon thinks like a hedge fund guy even as he rails against them. As Bannon tells Wolff, in a rambling, five-page monologue: “I’ll cover myself on the downside.”

Source: New York Times May 28, 2019 20:06 UTC