The author of an explosive new book about the Trump White House doubled down on his reporting on Friday.

In an interview on the "Today" show, Wolff reasserted the book's extraordinary claim that 100% of people around President Donald Trump had questioned his intelligence and fitness for office.

Despite Trump's pushing back on the book and questioning Wolff's credibility, excerpts continue to dominate headlines.



Michael Wolff on Friday doubled down on the reporting in his new book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," hours before it was set to hit stores.

In one noteworthy exchange with the "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, Wolff reasserted the book's claim that every single person around President Donald Trump, including senior advisers and family members, had questioned the president's intelligence and fitness for office.

"Let me put a marker in the sand here: 100% of the people around him," Wolff said.

When Guthrie asked what else people around Trump said about him, Wolff said it was that he is "like a child."

"And what they mean by that is he has a need for immediate gratification," he said. "It's all about him."

Wolff says his book draws on months of research and over 200 interviews, many of them taped, though most of the sources remain anonymous.

One of the more newsworthy excerpts from the book quotes the former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon as saying a meeting between a Kremlin-linked lawyer and the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., in Trump Tower in June 2016 was "treasonous." The Guardian's publication of that excerpt this week set off a war of words between Trump and his former adviser.

Trump has vehemently denied a handful of wild claims in the book. His lawyers have gone so far as to send a cease-and-desist letter to Wolff and his publisher seeking to prevent its publication.

But that move appears to have backfired — Wolff's publisher moved the release date up to Friday from next Tuesday.

Wolff has long had a reputation for stretching the facts and embellishing scenes in his writing.

The New York Times' Maggie Haberman, one of the reporters closest to the Trump White House, called the book "light in fact-checking and copy-editing."

Nevertheless, Wolff's book, billed as an explosive account of the inner workings of the Trump White House, has been promoted widely and dominated news reports in recent days.

Watch the full interview: