From @chucktodd's interview with Wolff and other things he's said, it's clear how this book happened— and the way he punked them. 1/
Wolff was going to do the contrarian thing: go deep on liberal media bias. Sales would come from that controversy + a cheering right wing. 2/
He was perfectly positioned for this. Enjoys being hated, gives as good as he gets, loves scandalizing "elites," wrote the predicate pieces. 3/
Wolff conned Bannon into thinking him a fellow traveler, a mutual hater of the "opposition" media. Trump was dimly aware, not opposed. 4/
Everything was in place for Wolff's 'surprising genius of Donald Trump' book, trolling the national media to jump start sales. 5/
Then the shock: Wolff realized that if anything the press was under-playing the chaos and unfitness. So he switched narrative tracks. 6/
His new spectacle generator: the demolition job he'd do on Trump. The game became to conceal this intention as long as possible. 7/
His track-switching worked brilliantly. The marks for his con wrote the checks he silently cashed. Just one minor hitch. 8/
His book puts the lie to what he wrote earlier: that Trump got a raw deal from the liberal media. @chucktodd asked about that. 9/
Wolff skated. My paraphrase: 'At the time they didn't know what I learned by being that fly on the wall. So yeah... bias!" Ha, ha. END
