The White House said Thursday that Donald Trump doesn't believe an explosive book leveling sensational claims about his time as president should go on sale January 9 as scheduled.

The publisher responded hours later by saying it agreed – and bumped up the release by four days, to January 5.

One of Trump's personal lawyers demanded on Thursday morning 'Fire and Fury,' by columnist Michael Wolff, be shelved because of what he said were maliciously false claims made in the book against the president.

Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters on Thursday afternoon that the book is 'full of false and fake information' and that Trump 'clearly believes that it shouldn't be' published.

'It's completely tabloid gossip, full of false and fraudulent claims,' she said.

Henry Holt, the publisher, confirmed to DailyMail.com and other outlets late in the afternoon that 'due to unprecedented demand, we are moving the on-sale date for all formats of "Fire and Fury," by Michael Wolff, to Friday, January 5, at 9 a.m. ET.'

Sanders had insisted that 'the president absolutely believes in the First Amendment,' but suggested that libel and defamation can outweigh freedom of speech.

Trump 'believes in making sure that information is accurate before pushing it out as fact,' she said, and in this case 'it certainly and clearly is not.'

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The White House said Thursday that Donald Trump doesn't want 'Fire and Fury,' an explosive book about his time as president, published next week – but it's not a First Amendment issue because the president's personal lawyer, not the federal government itself, is making the demand

Michael Wolff, 64 (right) is the man behind the sensational tell-all from Donald Trump's first months in the White House, and now the president is trying to stop the book before it's released on January 9

Lawyer Charles Harder, who has represented Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan in the past, wrote a scathing 11-page letter to Henry Holt & Company and its newest star author Michael Wolff

Sanders insisted that Thursday morning's cease-and-desist letter from California attorney Charles J. Harder, known for representing pro wrestler Hulk Hogan and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, was a demand from Trump personally, and not a command from the federal government.

The distinction is a crucial one: So-called 'prior restraint' of free speech by a government agency, preventing an author from publishing something, is seldom permitted under the U.S. Constitution.

Harder, the president's lawyer, demanded Thursday that publisher Henry Holt and Co. 'immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination of the book,' including excerpts and summaries.

'Your publication of false/baseless statements about Mr. Trump gives rise to, among other claims, defamation by libel per se, false light invasion of privacy, tortious interference with contractual relations, and inducement of breach of contract,' he wrote.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has emerged as the villain in the new year's first seismic political quake, drawing condemnation and a separate lawsuit threat from the president's legal orbit.

Sanders also said Breitbart News, the right-wing outlet where Bannon is executive chairman, would be right to re-evaluate that relationship.

'I certainly think it's something they should look at and consider,' she said.

'This book is mistake after mistake after mistake,' Sanders insisted Thursday, noting that some quoted subjects have already disputed words attributed to them and that other information presented as fact.

Attorney Charles Harder (center) is leading the charge for Trump again Michael Wolff and his publisher; Harder previously represented Hulk Hogan (right) in a case against the now-defunct Gawker website

She criticized one passage that claimed the president didn't know who former Speaker of the House John Boehner was – the pair had played golf together and Trump had tweeted about him repeatedly – and blasted Wolff for getting the ages of White House aides wrong.

And Sanders parried a question about why the White House had granted Wolff such extraordinary access by claiming it had done its level best to keep him on the sidelines.

'There are probably more than 30 requests for access to information from Michael Wolff that were repeatedly denied including, within that, at least two dozen requests of him asking to have an interview with the president, which he never did,' she said.

'He never discussed this book with the president. ... He was repeatedly denied that, I think because we saw him for what he was.'

Among the 'most ridiculous things' in a book filled with 'ridiculous lies,' Sanders said, was the thesis that Trump never thought he could win the 2016 election – and saw losing as a victory for his future public relations.

'It is absolutely laughable to think that somebody like this president would run for office for the purpose of losing,' she said.

Representing the Trump Organization, the president's private company, Harder had already accused Bannon of breaching a confidentiality agreement, saying legal action was 'imminent.'

'You have breached the Agreement by, among other things, communicating with author Michael Wolff about Mr. Trump, his family members, and the Company, disclosing Confidential Information to Mr. Wolff, and making disparaging statements and in some cases outright defamatory statements to Mr. Wolff about Mr. Trump, his family members, and the Company,” read Harder's letter to Bannon.

20 MOST JAW-DROPPING CLAIMS IN EXPLOSIVE TRUMP BOOK Steve Bannon described Don Jr's Trump Tower meeting with Russians as 'treasonous and unpatriotic' and thinks he will 'crack like an egg' under the pressure of the Russia investigation

Bannon said there's 'zero' chance Donald Trump didn't know about the meeting and said Don Jr likely 'walked them to his father's office'

First Lady Melania Trump openly wept on the night her husband won the election - and the tears 'were not of joy'

The whole campaign from the top down thought Trump would lose and everyone had planned for defeat, with Trump himself planning a TV network because he would be 'the most famous man in the world'

Trump and Melania sleep in separate bedrooms and he demanded a lock on his bedroom door against the wishes of the Secret Service

Trump orders McDonald's so he's not poisoned, told staff not to touch his toothbrush and strips his own bedsheets

Trump regularly sits in bed eating a cheeseburger at 6.30pm while calling his friends and watching three TVs

Rupert Murdoch called Trump a 'f***ing idiot' after a phone call and billionaire backer Tom Barrack said 'he's not only crazy, he's stupid'

Trump's aides say he doesn't read and 'for all practical purposes is no more than semi-literate'

Trump would try to bed his friends' wives by goading their husbands to cheat while the wife listened in on speakerphone

White House Communications Director Hope Hicks dated married Corey Lewandowski and Trump later told her: 'You're the best piece of tail he'll ever have.'

The president called acting attorney general Sally Yates a 'c***' after she refused to enforce his immigration ban

Sean Spicer, then press secretary, said 'you can't make this s*** up' after his first briefing and went on adopt the phrase as his personal mantra

Trump tells the same stories three times in ten minutes and forgot a succession of old friends' names at a Mar-a-Lago party

He called Jared Kushner a 'suck-up' and said he should never have let Ivanka and her husband move to Washington

Among his verdicts on his staff: Bannon 'looked like s***', Reince Priebus was a midget and Kellyanne Conway was a crybaby

Among his staff's verdicts on him: 'dope', 'dumb as s***', 'hopeless idiot', 'just a f***ing fool', 'lost his mind', 'incapable of functioning in his job'

Trump wondered what a 'golden shower' was after reading reports about the notorious Russian dossier

Trump offered to marry Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough - and mocked Jared Kushner for saying he'd do it

Ivanka Trump jokes with friends about her father's hair secrets: He had a scalp reduction, combs over from the sides, and uses Just for Men badly


In a brutal statement Wednesday, Trump denounced his former campaign CEO as a self-promoting political faker who was exposed as a fraud when he was fired last year.

'Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency,' the statement said. 'When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.'

The White House also released a statement from first lady Melania Trump's office slamming the Wolff book as a 'bargain fiction' offering.

The Republican National Committee defended Trump by claiming Wolff has 'a long history of making stuff up.'

Sanders told reporters Wednesday that the president was 'furious' and 'disgusted' at the pre-release material from Wolff's book that found its way online.

TRUMP'S WHITE HOUSE LIFE President Donald Trump and former chief strategist Steve Bannon used to be so close they'd have dinner nearly every evening, an explosive new book about Trump's first year in office reveals. If the two former friends weren't dining at 6:30 pm, Trump would retire to the residence, where he allegedly ate cheeseburgers from bed, sometimes watching three television screens while ranting about the media in phone calls to friends. Author Michael Wolff claims that Trump added a lock to his bedroom door in the early days of the administration to the chagrin of Secret Service and screamed at housekeeping staff who tidied up after him. 'If my shirt is on the floor, it’s because I want it on the floor,' Trump allegedly said. Wolff writes in 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House' that Trump told staff not to touch anything - especially not his toothbrush - as he's notoriously afraid of being poisoned. He would even strip his own bed and let housekeeping know when he wanted his sheets washed, Wolff says in a set of unsourced claims. Advertisement

Sanders also said Wolff had 'never actually sat down with the president' since Inauguration Day and had shared only on brief phone call 'that had nothing to do, originally, with the book.'

Trump unleashed the full weight of his presidential bully pulpit on Bannon, casting him Wednesday as an opportunist who sought to steal credit for his stunning 2016 election victory.

'Steve doesn't represent my base – he's only in it for himself,” Trump said in his Wednesday statement.

'Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was,' the statement continued. 'It is the only thing he does well.'

'Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.'