WASHINGTON—A new book depicts Donald Trump as wildly unequipped to be president: an ignoramus who doesn’t read and doesn’t understand, a narcissist and a sexist, mentally deteriorating, unable to sit still, a “child.”

Trump’s opponents have been saying all of this for a long time. What’s new in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, now scheduled for release on Friday morning, is that the accusations are coming from within the Trump tent.

Former chief strategist Steve Bannon. Former deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh. National security adviser H.R. McMaster. Top economic adviser Gary Cohn. Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Even daughter Ivanka Trump. All of them are quoted by Wolff mocking or insulting the president.

The book has seized the attention of the Washington media, stealing headlines from such weighty matters as major Thursday changes to policy on marijuana, Pakistan and offshore drilling. It has created a significant rift among key Trump supporters.

And it has rocketed to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list — in part, fittingly, because of Trump’s furious attempt to make it go away.

Trump had his lawyer send a Thursday letter to the book’s publisher demanding that the company not publish the “defamatory” book at all. The day prior, his lawyer sent Bannon a letter threatening “imminent” legal action for alleged defamation and alleged breach of a confidentiality agreement.

Some of the book — such as Ivanka Trump’s colourful description of her dad’s unique hair — can be dismissed as tabloid gossip. Bannon’s remarks are far more important.

Among other things, Bannon told Wolff that it was “treasonous” that Donald Trump Jr. held a Trump Tower meeting with Russians during the 2016 campaign. His accusation undercuts the Trump narrative that there is nothing to the Russia story at all.

Wolff has a reputation for imprecision, Bannon for strategic deception. Trump’s press secretary calls the book “complete fantasy.” But this is a tough one to write off as “fake news”: Trump granted Wolff regular access to the West Wing of the White House, most of Trump’s team cooperated with him, and he is said to have recordings to back up some of his assertions.

Here are seven things to know about the book:

It has shaken Trump’s backroom coalition

Even after Bannon was fired as chief strategist, he has been a key part of Trump’s circle. As the head of the website Breitbart, he has published daily pro-Trump propaganda. As a campaign strategist, he has made an effort to elect Republicans who are similar to Trump.

His future in the movement is now in question. Trump press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday that Breitbart should “look at” dumping Bannon, and the Wall Street Journal reported Breitbart was indeed considering it. Billionaire political donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Bannon’s chief benefactor, announced they were cutting off financial support for him.

It shows Trump backers think the Russia probe is no hoax

Trump describes the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” concocted by Democratic partisans and a runaway Justice Department.

Bannon, at least, does not agree.

In addition to his denunciation of Donald Trump Jr.’s decision to take the meeting with Russians, Bannon claimed that it was highly unlikely the junior Trump did not introduce the Russians to his father. And Bannon, an avowed opponent of Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, predicted that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation would end up ensnaring members of the Trump team, including Kushner, on the issue of “money laundering.”

It suggests things are as chaotic as they look

From the outside, Trump’s administration looks like a dysfunctional mess. From the inside, Wolff shows, it looks the same. He depicts an administration where everybody fights, the president’s aides treat him more like a toddler to be babysat than a boss to be obeyed, and there is no strategic direction of any kind.

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In one memorable March exchange, Wolff wrote, Walsh asked Kushner to simply tell her what Trump’s three priorities were. “Six weeks into Trump’s presidency, Kushner was wholly without an answer,” Wolff wrote, quoting Kushner as saying, “We should probably have that conversation.”

Caveats: these early excerpts are largely from the period before Trump appointed Marine general John Kelly to clean up his operation; weak predecessor Reince Priebus and agent provocateur Bannon are both gone; Walsh has disputed some of Wolff’s reporting.

It raises further questions about Trump’s mental health

The White House says the upcoming book that paints an unflattering portrait of U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration is 'disgraceful and laughable." (The Associated Press)

The U.S. media has tiptoed around questions about the president’s mental health. Wolff has raised those questions anew. In a book excerpt published in New York magazine, Wolff wrote that former secretary of state James Baker was disconcerted by a meeting in which Trump “constantly repeated himself.”

In a column in the Hollywood Reporter, Wolff said, “Everybody (on Trump’s team) was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes he’d repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories — now it was within 10 minutes.”

In Florida on his Christmas holiday, he wrote, Trump “failed to recognize a succession of old friends.”

It depicts Trump as a workplace sexist

Trump, Wolff wrote, referred to Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general he fired, as “such a c--t.” He told communications director Hope Hicks, Wolff wrote, that she was a good “piece of tail.” And according to Wolff, Trump made frequent efforts to sleep with his friends’ wives, using elaborate trickery to try to damage their marriages.

Trump, Wolff wrote, trusted women more than men. Even this “trust,” though, is rooted in sexism.

“Men might be more forceful and competent, but they were also more likely to have their own agendas. Women, by their nature — or Trump’s version of their nature — were more likely to focus their purpose on a man. A man like Trump,” he wrote.

It suggests Trump and his team were unprepared to win

Trump claims he always knew he was going to win the election. Wolff suggests he did not. Trump, he wrote, went so far as to assure his wife that he would lose. When he won, Wolff wrote, “Melania was in tears — and not of joy.”

Pessimism about the campaign may have influenced other aides’ behaviour. When top foreign policy aide Michael Flynn was advised against taking $45,000 for a 2015 speech to Russian broadcaster RT, he responded, Wolff said, “Well, it would only be a problem if we won.”

It should be greeted with skepticism

Wolff has a years-old reputation for at least occasionally stretching the truth. In 2004, a New Republic writer wrote, “Much to the annoyance of Wolff’s critics, the scenes in his columns aren’t recreated so much as created — springing from Wolff’s imagination rather than from actual knowledge of events.”

So don’t take Fire and Fury as gospel. Some of its anecdotes, such as one in which Trump does not appear to know who former House speaker John Boehner is, defy belief. Others, such as Walsh’s quotes, have been contested by the supposed participants.

But crucial sections, such as Bannon’s remarks, have not been challenged. And top reporters on the Trump beat for the New York Times and Washington Post suggested on Twitter that they believe the book is largely accurate.

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