New York Magazine is out with an excerpt from Michael Wolff's upcoming book on the lunatic hellscape that descended on the White House after the 2020 election, which is called Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency . As with his previous Trump book Fire and Fury , this new one promises to be chock full of delicious, too-good-to-check details , which are truth-y if not necessarily entirely true.
Was Rudy Giuliani "drinking heavily and in a constant state of excitation, often almost incoherent in his agitation and mania" in the weeks leading up to the January 6 insurrection? Sounds about right .
Did Princess Goya von Nepotism spend the entire morning of the sixth kvelling because the kids got into private school in Florida — a tacit acknowledgment that the Kushner family would be relocating because they were no longer going to be employed at the White House, even as she joined her father in hyping the Big Lie about election fraud? Maybe! And honestly, was anyone going to think less of that feckless ... twit with this additional anecdote about her self-centered narcissism?
Did Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller survive so long in the White House because their offices were on the second floor, which provided them with "a degree of exclusion but also protection" because "Trump would never climb the stairs (and, by the end of his term, he never had)?" No, that can't be true! Donald Trump was always so good at stairs . And walking . And drinking water .
But this little snippet about Parler, the "free speech" Twitter knock off, is really just perfect. Remember that BuzzFeed story back in February about Trump's people negotiating last summer for Trump to take a stake in the company? The one Trump's people denied? Brad Parscale insisted, "The discussions were never that substantive. And this was just one of many things the campaign was looking into to deal with the cancel culture of Silicon Valley."
In theory, the adults in the White House Counsel's office put the kibosh on that, because negotiating outside business for a sitting president was an ethical oopsie. Or maybe not, if Wolff's book is correct:
Trump representatives, working with Trump-family members, had approached Parler , the social network backed by Bob Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, far-right exponents and large Trump contributors. They had floated a proposition that Trump, after he left office, become an active member of Parler, moving much of his social-media activity there from Twitter. In return, Trump would receive 40 percent of Parler's gross revenues and the service would ban anyone who spoke negatively about him.
Parler was balking only at this last condition.
This was now being offered by the family as a carrot to entice the president out of the White House (it was also a potential future family revenue stream): Trump could do what he loved to do most and potentially make a fortune off it. It was a given in the Trump White House that he was one of social media's most valuable assets and that he would like nothing better than to share, monetarily, in that value.
Hahahaha! Couple-three things come to mind here.
First of all, let us savor the clanging irony of Trump fighting "the cancel culture of Silicon Valley" by insisting that any platform he patronized not only pay him, but also literally cancel anyone who makes mean words about him. Poppy Snowflake needs a safe space!
Second, this guy spent four years howling about the illegality of Barack and Michelle Obama's production deal with Netflix , a contract inked two full years after the former president left the White House. Meanwhile, he was literally trying to line up a deal worth millions of dollars at Mar-a-Lago, after trying and failing to get world leaders to pay him to host the G7 meeting in 2020 at his Doral resort in Miami.
And third, of course, is the pathetic, whinging toddler-ness of it all. His family was waving a multi-million dollar deal to be king of some degraded, low-rent social media fiefdom in front of his orange face in an effort to lure that lardass out of the Oval? Because sometimes you need something stronger than a sack of Big Macs, right?
Look, there are so many things that are better now than they were seven months ago. But let us take a moment to just acknowledge the sheer relief of not being governed by a crazy manbaby and his craven, backstabbing crew of sycophants.
Oh, and BREAKING, but The Former Guy has now joined Rumble , some loser video platform you've never heard of and never will poison your browser with. It makes money on Google ads and bans hate speech directed at Jews — a policy that drew immediate criticism from the bigwigs at Parler and Gab. LOL, cry harder!
As for Poppy and Rumble, well, Mazal Tov! Wonkette wishes you many happy years of lunatic obscurity together.
OPEN THREAD!
[ NYMag ]
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"Not basic enough" would be a more accurate description. And shell fish having difficulty making shells is a real threat, but for the future. Currently there is no measured impact. Meanwhile, pollution and overfishing are having a serious and measurable impact on shellfish populations.
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You mean this guy? It couldn't be!