How to quantify credibility

Don’s attempts to make that Wolff guy go away aren’t working out for him.

The author of a scathing new book about President Trump said on Friday that the president’s attempt to block its publication would not only help with sales but would also confirm the book’s key finding: Mr. Trump is unfit for office.

Speaking on the “Today” show, Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” called the administration’s attempt to block the book “extraordinary” and dismissed the president’s criticisms of him out of hand.

“My credibility is being questioned by a man who has less credibility than, perhaps, anyone who has ever walked on earth at this point,” Mr. Wolff said.

Or to put it another way, more negative credibility – more confidence that he is not credible. That’s easier to argue, because now with more billions of people and far more ways of spreading information all over the globe instantaneously, Don probably does have more negative credibility than any one person has ever had before.

Mr. Wolff characterized the book as an investigation of what it was like to work with Mr. Trump. He wrote that the president’s associates called him a “moron” and an “idiot,” and almost unanimously described him as being “like a child.”

“What they mean by that is he has a need for immediate gratification,” Mr. Wolff said. “It’s all about him.”

We can see that ourselves without even working with him; he illustrates it on Twitter several times a day.

On Thursday, a lawyer for the president sent an 11-page letter to the book’s publisher, Henry Holt and Co., saying that it included false statements about the president that “give rise to claims of libel.”

In reaction, the publisher moved up the release date. Originally scheduled for a Tuesday debut, “Fire and Fury” was made available early Friday morning.

“We see ‘Fire and Fury’ as an extraordinary contribution to our national discourse, and are proceeding with the publication of the book,” the publisher said in a statement.

So that went well.

There are people who say Wolff is not notable for accuracy.

Others have said that the book, while filled with new and lurid details, corroborates previous reporting about the Trump White House. Writing in The Atlantic on Thursday, James Fallows, a former Carter administration official and prominent critic of Mr. Trump, called the book’s details “unforgettable and potentially historic.”

“We’ll see how many of them fully stand up, and in what particulars, but even at a heavy discount, it’s a remarkable tale,” he said.

Is Trump batshit crazy cubed, or only squared? Time will tell, or not.

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