Fire and Fury: Trump allies dismiss 'fantasy book'

Henry Herrera

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon says he regrets explosive comments he made about Donald Trump Jr. and a 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials and several Russian nationals, walking back his assertion in a new book that the meeting was "treasonous".

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon issued a long statement to the news website Axios apologizing for the bombshell comments he made in the new tell-all, "Fire & Fury: Inside the Trump White House".

"I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president's historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency", according to the statement, first obtained by the news site Axios. "I had a situation where I was a very excellent student". "We have a bold agenda for 2018", he said.

The president also pointed to highlights of his life history in reference to tweets this morning in which he defended his mental fitness and called himself "a very stable genius".

In a much more measured interview on Fox News Sunday, Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski called the book "a complete fabrication".

The strained encounter on CNN ended with the anchor Jake Tapper cutting off Mr Miller, accusing him of being "obsequious".

In "Fire and Fury", Bannon faulted Trump Jr., former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump's adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for taking the meeting with the Russians during the presidential campaign and not reporting it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "You ask people, you get as close as you can to the event, you interview the people who were privy to the event, you interview other people who were privy to the event, you come to know the circumstance as well as anybody and then you report it".

But the author defended the book, saying Trump's response helps prove the USA president lacks credibility. "Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!"

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So he is easy pickings for someone like Michael Wolff, author of "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House", which paints a awful picture of Trump as an undisciplined, tempestuous, incompetent president.

The author also claimed that he did not violate any "off the record" agreements with his sources, but instead tried to blend in with work as usual in the West Wing. White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said earlier in the week that the book includes "mistake after mistake after mistake". "It's all about him", Wolff said.

"I guess "Sloppy Steve" [Bannon] brought him into the White House quite a bit", Trump said.

"I went to the best colleges or college", Trump said to the press Saturday.

Wolff said he conducted over 200 interviews for his new book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House", in which "every" staffer described Trump as mentally unfit to lead and mentally unstable.

"The story that I have told seems to present this presidency in such a way that it say he can't do his job".

In one of his tweets, the president said critics are "taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence".