On Friday, Wolff claimed during an interview on HBOâs Real Time with Bill Maher that Trump is having an affair while in the White House. Wolff said the information can be read âbetween the linesâ in the book. Some have wondered whether the subject is U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.
While the award-winning Wolffâs factual reliability is a matter of continued debate, his book is anchored by hours of recorded interviews and copious notes. Many of the most explosive allegations have yet to be examined at-large in the mainstream media. Here are some of the most disturbing and fascinating claims found in the pages of Fire and Fury.
1. Ann Coulter tried to stop Trump from employing his children.
âIn defiance of law and tone, and everybodyâs disbelieving looks, the president seemed intent on surrounding himself in the White House with his family,â Wolff writes. âThe Trumps, all of themâexcept for his wife, who, mystifyingly, was staying in New Yorkâwere moving in, all of them set to assume responsibilities similar to their status in the Trump Organization, without anyone apparently counseling against it.â
But one far-right figure was dead-set against Trumpâs plan to include his family in the administration.
Wolff writes, âTrump supporter Ann Coulter... took the president-elect aside and said, âNobody is apparently telling you this. But you canât. You just canât hire your children.ââ
2. Jared Kushner is the victim of anti-Semitism in the White House.
Trump has a strong tendency to reduce people to their ethnic identities. His own son-in-law didnât escape his bigotry, as Trump applied Jewish stereotyping to his own family.
The coding of âglobalismâ and financial language in Trumpism create a silent tension in which anti-Semitic populists quietly fight against perceived Jewish âglobalistâ elements in the White House.
âIn the Trump White House, it is a war between the Jews and the non-Jews,â former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explains.
âFor Trump, giving Israel to Kushner was not only a test, it was a Jewish test: the president was singling him out for being Jewish, rewarding him for being Jewish, saddling him with an impossible hurdle for being Jewishâand, too, defaulting to the stereotyping belief in the negotiating powers of Jews,â Wolff writes. ââHenry Kissinger says Jared is going to be the new Henry Kissinger,â Trump said more than once, rather a combined compliment and slur.â
3. Trumpâs preferred health care solution is Medicare-for-all.
The president had to be coached by his right-wing handlers to prevent him from embracing socialized medicine.
âAll things considered, he probably preferred the notion of more people having health insurance than fewer people having it. He was even, when push came to shove, rather more for Obamacare than for repealing Obamacare,â Wolff writes.
âAs well, he had made a set of rash Obama-like promises, going so far as to say that under a forthcoming Trumpcare plan (he had to be strongly discouraged from using this kind of rebrandingâpolitical wise men told him that this was one instance where he might not want to claim ownership with his name), no one would lose their health insurance, and that preexisting conditions would continue to be covered. In fact, he probably favored government-funded health care more than any other Republican.â
While the conclusion is the opinion of the author, a direct quote attributed to Trump is eyebrow-raising. It finds Trump flat-out toying with a health care solution to the left of the traditional Democratic position.
ââWhy canât Medicare simply cover everybody?â [Trump] had impatiently wondered aloud during one discussion with aides, all of whom were careful not to react to this heresy,â Wolff writes.
4. Steve Bannon wanted to succeed Trump as president of the United States.
Wolff observes that campaign manager Kellyanne Conway did not seem to be the actual person pulling the strings of Trumpâs 2016 campaign. That person was Steve Bannon.
âHer title was campaign manager, but that was a misnomer. Bannon was the real manager, and she was the senior pollster,â Wolff explains. âBut Bannon shortly replaced her in that role and she was left in what Trump saw as the vastly more important role of cable spokesperson.â
As Trumpâs presidency continued, Bannon became increasingly convinced that the Trump presidency would implode.
âThis is all about money laundering,â he reportedly predicted of the Mueller investigation. âMueller chose Weissmann first and he is a money laundering guy. Their path to f**king Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner."
âTheyâre sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five,â he summarized.
While Bannon often referred to himself as âPresident Bannon,â Wolff writes that he has stopped the tongue-in-cheek references to his own power and openly expresses a plan to run for president in 2020.
5. Hope Hicks is the subject of abuse as Trump keeps her close.
Among the most troubling elements of Wolffâs account are the segments about Hope Hicks. Wolff portrays Hicks as being on the receiving end of bullying behavior, including sexual harassment, from Trump and his White House.
âHicksâs family increasingly, and incredulously, viewed her as rather having been taken captive,â Wolff writes. âFollowing the Trump victory and her move into the White House, her friends and intimates talked with great concern about what kind of therapies and recuperation she would need after her tenure was finally over.â
Wolff explains that Hicks filled more of a traditional daughter role for Trump than Ivanka did, except that he exploited her when it served his options, treating her like a personal servant.
âHicks was the presidentâs chief media handler. She worked by the presidentâs side, wholly separate from the White Houseâs forty-person-strong communications office,â Wolff explains.
âYou must be the worldâs worst PR person,â Trump would say playfully if the media was particularly critical of him on a given day.
Hicksâ function was to serve the whims of Trump, as she wasnât qualified or politically experienced. âThe problem isnât Twitter, itâs Hope,â a communication staffer explained.
One account describes a âloud, scary, clearly threateningâ Bannon screaming at Hicks, âI am going to f**k you and your little group!â Hicks reportedly fled the scene, âvisibly terrifiedâ and âhysterically sobbing.â The president merely inquired: âWhatâs going on?â
Another anecdote finds Hicks fleeing yet another room after the president humiliates her following an alleged romance with Corey Lewandowski. When Hicks asked how Lewandowski could best be protected from the media, Trump told her that sheâd already âdone enoughâ for him, saying, âYouâre the best piece of tail heâll ever have.â
6. Trump isnât convinced Richard Nixon was guilty in the Watergate scandal.
John Wesley Dean III served as White House counsel during the administration of President Richard Nixon. He became a witness for the FBI amid the Watergate scandal in exchange for a plea deal. Now, Dean is an author and political commentator, and Trump is reportedly obsessed with him.
âTrump, who saw history through personalitiesâpeople he might have liked or dislikedâwas a John Dean freak. He went bananas when a now gray and much aged Dean appeared on talk shows to compare the Trump-Russia investigation to Watergate,â Wolff writes. âThat would bring the president to instant attention and launch an inevitable talk-back monologue to the screen about loyalty and what people would do for media attention.â
Trumpâs obsession is linked to a disturbing refusal to accept the historical record about the Nixon administration.
Wolff writes that the president's tirades about Dean were "accompanied by several revisionist theories Trump had about Watergate and how Nixon had been framed.â
7. The war in Afghanistan infuriates Trump for its lack of profitability.
âFor two hours, he angrily railed against the mess he had been handed. He threatened to fire almost every general in the chain of command,â Wolff writes of Trumpâs dissatisfaction with the plan his officials created for continuing the war with Afghanistan. âHe couldnât fathom, he said, how it had taken so many months of study to come up with this nothing-much-different plan.â
Per usual, Trump was only interested in war for its profitability. âHe disparaged the advice that came from generals and praised the advice from enlisted men. If we have to be in Afghanistan, he demanded, why canât we make money off it?â
âChina has mining rights, but not the United States,â Trump continues in the account, before comparing the failed war strategy with a situation involving a New York restaurant needing a bigger kitchen.
8. Trump is sympathetic to the contemporary KKK.
The presidentâs bizarre blame-game after violent white supremacists terrorized Charlottesville, Virginia, gave the public a window into his private beliefs.
He blamed âmany sidesâ for the violence, despite the fact that only one side was populated by neo-Nazis screaming, âJews will not replace us.â
Trumpâs sympathy for hate groups applies to the KKK, according to Wolff.
âPrivately, he kept trying to rationalize why someone would be a member of the KKKâthat is, they might not actually believe what the KKK believed, and the KKK probably does not believe what it used to believe, and, anyway, who really knows what the KKK believes now?â Wolff writes.
The author states that Trump also denies his own fatherâs established connection to the KKK, which may explain his attempts at rationalization.
9. Trump planned to lose the 2016 election and was 'horrified' when he won.
Outlets focused on the negative response Melania Trump was reported to have upon learning of Trumpâs victory. Much less coverage was dedicated to how Trump felt about winning the presidency.
Steve Bannon described a "befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a quite horrified Trump.â Don Jr. reportedly told a friend that his father âlooked as if he had seen a ghost.â
But Trump quickly morphed in a way that will sound familiar to those who have watched him occupy the office for the past year.
â[S]till to come was the final transformation: suddenly, Donald Trump became a man who believed that he deserved to be and was wholly capable of being the president of the United States,â Wolff writes.
Of course, since Republicans are members of the same party as the president, none of this is likely â yet. But if Trump administration officials continue to make investigation difficult, and if Trump escalates an already tense situation by continuing to question Muellerâs legitimacy or even by firing the special counsel, Republicans may face 
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