{UAH} Rupert Murdoch called Donald Trump a f---ing idiot, new book says

Rupert Murdoch called Donald Trump a f---ing idiot, new book says

By Alex Wayne and Jennifer Jacobs

Updated 04 Jan 2018 — 8:16 AM,first published at 5:51 AM

Rupert Murdoch called US President Donald Trump a "f---ing idiot" after a phone call with the newly elected president, a new book detailing the US administration says.

The first extracts of Michael Wolff's book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, details how the Trump administration works and some of the tensions between top advisers, including now-departed White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

On Wednesday, Trump denounced Bannon, saying that he "lost his mind" after leaving the White House last summer.

Rupert Murdoch is one of the US President's confidantes, but that doesn't mean he always speaks highly of him, the new book says.  MIKE SEGAR

Wolff, whose New York magazine said conducted more than 200 interviews for his book including with the president and most of his senior staff, also reported that Trump never expected to win the election against Hillary Clinton in November 2016 and had promised his wife, Melania, that he wouldn't be president.

She "was in tears -- and not of joy" on election night as it became clear Trump would beat Clinton, Wolff reported.

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"The book is clearly going to be sold in the bargain fiction section," Melania Trump's spokesman, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement. "Mrs. Trump supported her husband's decision to run for president and in fact, encouraged him to do so. She was confident he would win and was very happy when he did."

Murdoch, the confidante

Wolff reported that friends Trump phoned at night after leaving the Oval Office for the day would leak details of those conversations to reporters and that many of them consider him ignorant.

Rupert Murdoch, co-chairman of Twenty-First Century Fox and a close Trump confidante, called him a "f---king idiot' after one such call, Wolff wrote.

In his statement from the White House and speaking of Bannon, Trump said: "When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind".

"Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind," Trump said in a statement. Brynn Anderson

"Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look," the statement said.

The statement represented an emphatic break from the person considered the architect of Trump's presidential campaign. Bannon continued to enjoy access to the president after he left the White House, but that has ended, one person familiar with the matter said.

New York published excerpts of the book in which Bannon criticises Trump's campaign as well as the president and his family. The Guardian published excerpts of the book in which Bannon predicts that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will "crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV" over the president's son's meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June 2016.

Bannon also called Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with the lawyer, in which he expected to receive damaging information on Trump's election opponent Clinton, "treasonous" and "unpatriotic," according to the Guardian.

Little to do with victory

In his 265-word statement, Trump went on to indict Bannon for some of his activities at the White House and afterward. He blamed him for the loss of a Republican Senate seat in Alabama in a special election last month and accused him of leaking to news reporters while he served as the White House chief strategist.

"Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country," Trump said. "Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn't represent my base -- he's only in it for himself."

Bannon backed former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore over Trump's preferred candidate, incumbent Senator Luther Strange, in a primary election for the Alabama seat. Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones in the special election after several women accused him of sexual misconduct while they were teenagers.

After Trump issued his statement on Bannon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign staff tweeted a GIF image of the Kentucky Republican sitting at his desk, grinning. Bannon, a populist and nationalist who considers much of the Republican establishment corrupt, has said Senate Republicans should replace McConnell and has sought to recruit people to run against McConnell's favoured candidates in Republican primaries, including in Alabama.

'This book is filled with false and misleading accounts from individuals who have no access or influence with the White House,' White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says.  AP

"This book is filled with false and misleading accounts from individuals who have no access or influence with the White House," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

"Participating in a book that can only be described as trashy tabloid fiction exposes their sad desperate attempts at relevancy."

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

Find Me on LinkedIn

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"Even a small dog can piss on a tall building." Jim Hightower

"If I'm right, and I'm pretty sure I am," writes Dr. Epstein, Trump is capable of only a minimal level of analytical or critical thinking." (Photo: DonkeyHotey/flickr/cc)

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