President Donald Trump evidently wants to keep up his antagonistic relationships with his opponents for as long as possible, reportedly planning a tell-all memoir for after his time in the White House according to sources speaking to the Daily Beast. One individual offered of the prospect:
‘He sounded excited about it. He said it would sell better than even The Art of the Deal.’
Trump has long touted that 90s work when discussing the high points of his career; to this day, it’s the best-selling work that he’s put his name to. It sold just over 1 million copies in its first rounds of publication and promotion — Trump revived the book as part of his 2016 presidential campaign. During that campaign season, his name also appeared on the front of Crippled America, a book that laid out some of his political agenda — and did significantly poorer than his 90s business “manual.”
The yet untitled memoir from the long controversial president covering his time in the White House would take a different focus than those two books, according to another source speaking to the Daily Beast. They said that Trump has “casually discussed how such a book could be used to dish dirt and settle scores with his foes in the media, the Democratic Party, non-loyal Republicans, law enforcement, and even individuals in his own administration.”
The president certainly clearly maintains a list of opponents matching that broad scope of potential targets — just check his personal Twitter feed. He has consistently returned to the idea of some faction of operatives seeking to undermine his administration operating behind-the-scenes everywhere from the halls of the Justice Department — which he’s at times roped into culpability for the “witch hunt” Russia investigation — to the “fake news” media that the second Daily Beast source added the president’s book could specifically counter.
Trump has actually publicly suggested he could incorporate his particularly antagonistic White House stance into a book. At an October press conference, he suggested he had knowledge of members of Congress involving themselves in somehow inappropriate sexual encounters — but would save the material for a book. An anonymous White House official pointed to that moment in trying to convince the Daily Beast that the president had “joked about” writing a book, although signs point to him being serious.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that a president wrote a memoir chronicling their time in office. Barack Obama’s memoir is currently in production, as Michelle Obama’s already available book Becoming has rocketed to the point of seemingly the best-selling memoir ever. (Some 10 million copies and counting have been purchased.)
Still, this literary endeavor would no doubt be yet another mark of Trump’s particular scorched earth approach to policy, politics, and life in general. He’s sought to capitalize financially on his presidency numerous times already, with his campaign even turning an insult he lobbed at California Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff into a t-shirt.
Trump has dragged American national politics further into the pit of that gradeschool-style bullying, and a memoir from the president would no doubt be more of the same.
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