Talk:Fire and Fury/Archive 1

Archive 1

Parts of the book might not be true

There are definitely parts of Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury" that are wrong, sloppy, or betray off-the-record confidence. But there are two things he gets absolutely right, even in the eyes of White House officials who think some of the book's scenes are fiction: his spot-on portrait of Trump as an emotionally erratic president, and the low opinion of him among some of those serving him.

— Axios

I can't guarantee the trustworthiness of this source. Mass media mostly agree with the entire book. Still, smaller parts of the book might not be fully true. The journalist has been criticised as well. I consider this relevant, though a footnote should be enough. --Albin Schmitt (talk) 01:14, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

References

I see that it has been included. Sorry for wasting your time. Love you all --Albin Schmitt (talk) 01:18, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Organization

I have split off "reviews" from "reaction" but I'm not sure we have everything in the right place. Some of the fallout (Trump's comments, Simpson's Sanders' comments, the lawyer actions) is under "release", some of it is under "reaction", and we might want to include something about the breach between Trump and Bannon that resulted. (Or maybe not; it is already detailed at the Bannon article, maybe that's enough.) I'm hoping someone will be able to put these things together in a way that flows logically; I'm not sure that's where we are at the moment, and I'm not going to have the time to look at it just now. --MelanieN (talk) 19:47, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Were these points covered in the article?

Two lists of claims or revelations that could serve as a checklist of points that the article should perhaps include:

http://variety.com/2018/politics/news/fire-and-fury-biggest-revelations-michael-wolff-trump-book-1202654214/
10 Most Explosive Revelations in Michael Wolff’s Trump Book ‘Fire and Fury’
By Ted Johnson
Variety
January 5, 2018

http://variety.com/2018/politics/news/fire-and-fury-wildest-claims-michael-wolff-book-1202654894/
15 Wildest Claims From Michael Wolff’s ‘Fire and Fury’
Among other things, Steve Bannon just loves cursing
By Sonia Saraiya
Variety
January 5, 2018

--Nbauman (talk) 04:25, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Without clicking on the links, I can presume that a lot of them are already in the article (Trump looking like he saw a ghost, Ivanka for Prez, Bannon's comments), but we can check and see if WP:WEIGHT calls for adding more. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:01, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

NY Times reporter & Washington Post journalist claim major flaws

I believe parts of it. And then there are other parts that are factually wrong. I mean the thing about Michael Wolff and his style, which apparently nobody in the White House appears to have done a cursory Google search on him and sort of what his M.O. is, but he believes in larger truths and narratives. So he creates a narrative that is notionally true, that's conceptually true. The details are often wrong. And I can -- I can see several places in the book that are wrong [...] So, for instance, I mean he in accurately describes a report in "The New York Times." He inaccurately characteri[s]es a couple of incidents that took place early on in the administration. He gets basic details wrong.

— Maggie Haberman, The New York Times published in CNN

Spotted in the new Michael Wolff book about Trump: A Four Seasons breakfast featuring "Washington Post national reporter Mark Berman" (I have never had breakfast at the Four Seasons, never actually been there) (but now I wonder if I can use this to go eat there and expense it?)

— Mark Berman, Washington Post published in Washington Examiner

It seems like there might be some discussion about the reliability of the book ongoing. I don't know how we should handle it. As far as I understand, he is sloppy at points in the book and mistaken or factual wrong at other. More over he gets some of the details wrong, according to some credible journalists. But he got the major picture of Donald Trump right, as far as I can see.--Albin Schmitt (talk) 04:49, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

The WaPo journalist incident doesn't seem like a "major flaw" because it's seems like a mix-up between Mark and Mike Berman which will probably be corrected in the next edition. The concerns raised by NY Times appears to be more substantial to this book. ^Falling_Gravity 21:02, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

References

Temporary Protection?

It looks like this article is about to turn into a lightning rod -- can we temporarily protect it? I've seen the description changing from non-fiction to fiction and non-fiction in the last ten minutes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.211.63.32 (talk) 12:22, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

It's against the spirit of Wikipedia. And we constantly getting new information. I think a tag should be enough.--Albin Schmitt (talk) 15:43, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

If disruption gets to the point of being unmanageable we can have the article semi protected, but I'd say for right now its probably alright. GMG^talk 16:01, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm keeping a close eye on this article. I agree it is close to the point of needing semi-protection but IMO it is not quite there. The fiction/nonfiction thing is particularly a lightning rod, but the one IP who was actually edit-warring it in has been blocked. And there are IPs who are making constructive edits. Ping me if there is additional disruption and I will re-evaluate. Or if I do not respond or am offline, feel free to request semi-protection at WP:RFPP. --MelanieN (talk) 18:03, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

OK, I'm convinced. Semi-protected for a week. --MelanieN (talk) 23:43, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Sentence claiming "contempt" of Trump removed from lead

I removed "It reveals the contempt in which Trump is held by nearly all of his associates." from the lead because it is not documented in the article as far as I can see. Furthermore, in my reading I've actually not come across the word "contempt" being used. Childish or similar is the most common descriptive word. I'm going to remove it again while we discuss. Gandydancer (talk) 04:20, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

The C-word came back in [1] with the odd edit comment of "more neutral", which I don't understand. Anyway, one of "low regard and contempt" is redundant, so I took out C William M. Connolley (talk) 22:02, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

It now reads, Trump is depicted as being held in low regard by his White House staff, leading Wolff to state that "100% of the people around him believe Trump is unfit for office.", which I think is perfect. Gandydancer (talk) 19:03, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Nature of Citations

Normally, citations in an article provide support for the preceding assertion. In this article, though, which is about a book, we have citations that are supporting facts as presented in the book. Is this appropriate? Isn't supporting the facts in the book beyond the scope of this article? Take the section on Content. The first two citations in that section would be appropriate if the purpose of the article was to discuss the factual reliability of the book.--Bemcfarland (talk) 19:36, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the text should be cited to secondary sources with the primary source (the book) only used as support, if at all.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:37, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

The book makes claims, and as a WP:PRIMARY source, it's not the best way to reference. The secondary sources that discuss the book content are appropriate, as long as we make sure to keep things in language that makes it clear it's according to the book, possibly not 100% accurate. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:38, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Why no quotes?

Is there some reason why this article doesn't include more of the quotes (particularly from Bannon) that made this book into such a media sensation? Without them it is not at all clear what all the furor is about. People have been adding those quotes ("treason", "dumb as a brick", impeachment predictions, etc.) to other articles all over Wikipedia, and we have been removing them, saying they don't belong in peripherally related articles, they should be in the article about the book. But they aren't here. Is there consensus not to include them, have they been added and removed, or has just nobody gotten around to it? Will anyone object if I add some of them? Asking Muboshgu in particular since you wrote the article. --MelanieN (talk) 17:44, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN: My writing style, I've noticed, tends to rely less on direct quotes. I included the "treasonous" and "unpatriotic" quotes, and that DJT "looked as if he had seen a ghost". User:Frmorrison wisely added the quote about Melania's tears, and I see someone else added DJT's tweet and Wolff's response on Today, and review quotes from Axios and Vox. We can certainly add more, this is a good article to use quotes. Which ones should we add? – Muboshgu (talk) 18:21, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I did love the "crack like an egg" quote, so I added that one just now. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:29, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I can see a few more quotes being added and the egg one is helpful. The ones I can think of are the insults about Trump, but adding those may show too much bias. --Frmorrison (talk) 19:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I kind of hate the "dumb as a brick" quote, but I think we have to add it because it has been quoted by virtually every source - and it helps to explain why Trump reacted with such fury. I'm also going to start a section for "Reviews". So far all I have is British reviews because of the clock, but we will have American ones to add very soon, I'm sure. --MelanieN (talk) 19:30, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I was just thinking about adding Katie Walsh's quote that dealing with Trump is "like trying to figure out what a child wants". Is that too negative? – Muboshgu (talk) 19:31, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

"Too negative" isn't really a criterion for us; our criterion is WP:WEIGHT. Has that quote been widely cited by secondary sources? If so add it. If it was singled out by only one secondary source, I would say to leave it out. --MelanieN (talk) 19:43, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Google Search results for "katie walsh" "like trying to figure out what a child wants". It has hits. Does it have enough hits to make it "widely cited"? Tough to say. Google "all" says 1,440, Google News says 106. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Walsh may be disputing the child quote: Media Report. Quotes that detail how the President is unfit for his immense responsibilities could be added, such as this allusion to Trump’s mental state: “Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes he’d repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories — now it was within 10 minutes.” --Frmorrison (talk) 20:17, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, quotes are too often tool of the lazy writer: good for filler to reach a word count in high school, but often unnecessary. A good encylopedia article should set itself a step or two above the fray of primary sources, opinions, sensationalism, yellow journalism, punditry, churnalism, and day-to-day minutiae. We can report on controversies without perpetuating or engaging in them. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, so it should not necessarily mimic the tone or structure of any daily news article (which by definition reports the news of the day, hour, or minute, with no regards to lasting importance). --Animalparty! (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

That may well be true with many types of stories. But in this case, the quotes ARE the story. --MelanieN (talk) 00:28, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

That's generally why I don't use many quotes in my writing, but I agree with MelanieN on this case. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:35, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, quotes are a way to force the writer to summarize what the source actually said, rather than turn it into what the writer wanted the source to have said. Quotes are a way to make sure that the writer uses an accurate term, rather than a synonym or paraphrase with a different meaning. Some examples of misused words in Wikipedia: in law, terms like "holding" or "malice" have a specific meaning, different from their everyday meaning. When Bannon says the Russian meeting was "treasonous," or when Trump's own lawyer said that his statement “represented likely an obstruction of justice,” you can't paraphrase that. Unless you're a lawyer, you can't rewrite a lawyer's statement -- and lawyers usually quote. There is a reason why newspapers and legal briefs use quotes. Internet publications that don't use quotes often paraphrase their sources incorrectly. --04:18, 6 January 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nbauman (talk • contribs)

Should Trump's comment on Sally Yates be included? It's also received wide coverage but I'm two minds about it, on BLP grounds. I mean, it's a kind of statement that we would normally delete on Wikipedia for being "grossly insulting" etc. Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:39, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Since Trump is a living person, it is extremely important that the intro quote the book's disclaimer which says that some of the book is not true

I added the following to the intro of this article:

The 10th page of the book's prologue includes a disclaimer which states: "Many of the accounts of what has happened in the Trump White House are in conflict with one another; many, in Trumpian fashion, are baldly untrue. These conflicts, and that looseness with the truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book. Sometimes I have let the players offer their versions, in turn allowing the reader to judge them. In other instances I have, through a consistency in the accounts and through sources I have come to trust, settled on a version of events I believe to be true."

Bk33725681 (talk) 23:40, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Sources

I was going to say it is UNDUE to quote the entire thing, but really there is no fair or accurate way to shorten or summarize it. However, I don't think it belongs in the lede. It should be moved to the article text where the rest of the content is. And it doesn't need four sources, just the first two. --MelanieN (talk) 00:16, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I moved it to a "Content" section, right before the quotes from the book. --MelanieN (talk) 00:24, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree with that decision. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:36, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Does this statement concerning Wolff's "accounts" of material for the book, "many, in Trumpian fashion, are baldly untrue", a claim that Wolff knew the source was a lie, or was it an admission that he intentionally used false statements? I interpreted it as the former, i.e., as a reporter, he's simply reusing sources and statements presented to him, which he believes are untrue "in Trump fashion". --Zefr (talk) 18:51, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

His statement is kind of hard to parse. I took it to mean that he does not necessarily state falsehoods in his own voice, but he does quote false and/or contradictory things said by other people - without labeling them as such. --MelanieN (talk) 23:48, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I think the "disclaimer" (it's not) is given far too much emphasis, and is here only to placate Trump supporters. It is cherry picking (in part of journalists, not just Wikipedians), as the full author's note contains more nuance and context. As is, this blurb in it's entirety, is given undue weight and prominence, and can be paraphrased or described instead using third party sources. Yes, some journalists are lazy and use block quotes to fill space (or generate more page views), but an encyclopedia need not emulate breaking news style. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:07, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

No, folks. What the statement means is simply that Wolff wants the reader to know that some of the people whom he interviewed and whom he quotes were lying to him, since, according to him, they tend to lie all the time. Wolff is very obviously - you have to be a bit strange in the head to think this - NOT saying "I am lying", he is saying "people who I interviewed lied to me". Sheesh.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:10, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Should we include his disclaimer in the article?

I was the one who put the disclaimer into the "content" section (moving it out of the lede). I felt, as some others here felt, that it was important to include that statement in its entirety, since it would not be easy to paraphrase. I see that Volunteer Marek removed it. I guess that makes it "challenged" so consensus is required to restore it. I continue to think that the statement, in its entirety, should be included in the "contents" section. It provides context to the material, and it gives his own take on the veracity of the book which others are challenging. What do others think? --MelanieN (talk) 05:04, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Trump and "The gorilla channel"

There's been press coverage surrounding a hoax which suggested that there was an excerpt from Fire and Fury that described Trump complaining that there wasn't a "gorilla channel" on the TVs at the White House. Given that it's indirectly connected to the book, would this be appropriate to mention here? ViperSnake151  Talk  16:10, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Can you show us some of that coverage? --MelanieN (talk) 17:49, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

While the hoax is indirectly related to the book, it doesn't have much press coverage. I think it should stay out. --Frmorrison (talk) 19:15, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Actually I saw a decent amount of coverage on Google News. ViperSnake151  Talk  00:49, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

So, User:Vipersnake151, I see that you went ahead and added a paragraph about this hoax despite the lack of any enthusiasm here for it. You did have two decent sources - Fox News and NYT. (You could skip the other two.) And in a quick search I find it was also in WaPo (twice), USA Today, and Politico, as well as a debunking by Snopes. So apparently it did get extensive coverage and deserves a mention, although maybe not quite as detailed as the one as the one you added. --MelanieN (talk) 04:39, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

P.S. I have removed the reference to a 20-year-old, marginally related article. --MelanieN (talk) 05:11, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

yeah, I'm against including this as well.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:48, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Not only is this discussion minor content (WP:UNDUE) and a distraction from discussing the book, it gives the impression of further disparagement of Trump, and so is questionable WP:NPOV and WP:OFFTOPIC specifically about the book. Moving here for further evaluation. --Zefr (talk) 14:06, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

On January 4, 2018, political parodist and cartoonist Ben Ward, who was previously known for the "Milkshake Duck" meme, posted a fake excerpt from Fire and Fury on Twitter, which claimed that White House staff members began operating a makeshift television channel devoted entirely to gorilla documentaries, after Trump complained that his TV was broken because it did not have "the gorilla channel". The excerpt added that following critiques by Trump, the documentaries were edited down to only consist of scenes where gorillas were fighting. The posting went viral, with some Twitter personalities unaware that the excerpt was actually a work of satire. Some outlets took advantage of the phenomenon by acknowledging the meme or even creating their own "gorilla channels", including Animal Planet, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, Esquire, and Vice News. Syracuse University professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley compared the spread of the post to those of fake news websites, citing confirmation bias and the suspension of disbelief.

References

I begin to wonder whether the author of said hoax is now a notable subject. Given that the Milkshake Duck thing also got a lot of media attention, it would probably make better sense to expand it into an article on Ben Ward himself. ViperSnake151  Talk  16:10, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Subscription needed sources

Info I added was deleted with the note, "WSJ requires subscription". I got this info from a google search, in full, but when used here as a source one does get the "subscription needed" note for the full article. I see this as a huge problem for WP and it's only going to get worse. However, Jimbo, who does zero editing, sees it as no problem (per a recent post on his talk page). What to do? Gandydancer (talk) 20:41, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I've added two quotes to the citation template using |quote=. I don't think we do much more. I also reviewed the added content and can confirm that nothing was cherrypicked. I have access to The Wall Street Journal through one or more databases (which means that I'm unable see images or captions and such) and if there's something that I can do, please ping me. Politrukki (talk) 21:40, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

There's no reason not to use subscription sites. That's why there's {{subscription required}} for use in the reference. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:59, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

There's no policy or guideline against using sources behind a paywall or a membership wall, however, if we can cite sources that are freely accessible, I think that is preferable. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:11, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Precedence and constitutional concerns

From this analysis and others assessing the impact of the cease and desist letter written by Trump's lawyer, this is a a bookmark on history for Fire and Fury. Quoting:

..as the Supreme Court made clear in the Pentagon Papers case, New York Times Co. v. United States, there is an extremely heavy presumption in this country against any type of prior restraint of publications, and only a compelling governmental interest of the highest could ever even theoretically justify such a restraint—like preventing a terrorist attack. As Justice Hugo Black wrote in his concurring opinion in that case: “To find that the President has ‘inherent power’ to halt the publication of news by resort to the courts would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make ‘secure.’” The Supreme Court has never upheld such a prior restraint, and neither it nor any other court is going to do so to halt publication of Fire and Fury.

It is worthwhile having this in the article because it is unprecedented presidential behavior. It doesn't matter if Trump never pursues the lawsuit. The cease and desist letter against the book creates a piece of history and reveals Trump's action as president, making it historically relevant both for him and the book. --Zefr (talk) 03:50, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I think it's worth including because, as the sources show, this is unprecedented or very unusual. I have, however, copy edited the passage and added in-text attribution in one part. Neutrality^talk 03:52, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it is, because a cease and desist letter from Trump is a frivolous thing. It's WP:ROUTINE behavior from him. [2][3][4][5] It was hot air that doesn't require a section to parse. If he actually went through with filing a law suit, that would be something else. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:39, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, sure, I grant that it's routine behavior from him. But that's not what determines noteworthiness; what's more relevant here is what's routine more generally in the history of modern American presidents. The other thing is that the impact doesn't necessarily come from filing a lawsuit - see this article in Publisher's Weekly ("ABA, Authors Guild Slam Trump's Legal Campaign Against 'Fire and Fury'"), which discuss chilling effects and the reaction from the American Booksellers Association, Authors Guild, and National Coalition Against Censorship. Neutrality^talk 04:45, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

There are dire warnings about the First Amendment, but has anything actually happened that one could argue has abridged it? Or has anyone backed off their free speech out of fear of a cease and desist letter from him? – Muboshgu (talk) 04:47, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't know (and it's really unknowable), but it seems to me that that's really not the standard for inclusion, is it? The standard has been: has this received enough coverage to be worthy of a brief mention in context? It seems to me that 3 sentences or so could cover this proportionally and fairly. Neutrality^talk 04:53, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

It's not a matter of whether the First Amendment has been abridged, but that it has been threatened by a sitting president against this book. We have a reliable secondary source authored by two lawyers who make the point for us to add this section as historical context: "these letters to Bannon, Wolff and Wolff’s publisher mark an unprecedented moment in First Amendment history," and "Such abuse of the litigation process contradicts the Constitution that Trump took an oath to uphold." There is a chorus of similar concern over the First Amendment, such as in Vox, Newsweek, Time Magazine, and The Atlantic. --Zefr (talk) 05:48, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to see more editors weigh in here so we can determine what the consensus is. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:25, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I think a brief mention would be fine, although the paragraph proposed above is too long and probably undue.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:38, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

The original paragraph was factual and neutral; it could be edited now with selective referencing from several high-quality sources:

"Following the cease and desist letter sent by Trump's lawyer to the book publisher, Henry Holt and Co., legal experts assessed the impact this action may have as precedence for a president to threaten freedom of speech which is protected by the First Amendment. According to lawyers and a historian, threats of litigation by Trump as a sitting president against a book author and publisher were unprecedented, and violated freedom of speech represented in the book's contents. Suing for restraint to prevent publication of a book on political reporting simply because Trump resented what was written would violate the First Amendment which Trump swore to protect during his 2017 presidential inauguration. Consequently, the threats against stopping the book's publication were deemed frivolous, recognizing that further litigation would create numerous problems, such as invasive discovery, for Trump as the plaintiff should the case proceed to court." --Zefr (talk) 20:02, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I assume we are talking about the section “Precedence and constitutional concern”, which was added by Zefr and removed by Muboshgu.[6] I agree with removing it. It was a huge, one-sided overreaction to a legal action that Trump threatened but will almost certainly not carry through with. (That is a pattern of his.) The added material also contained the false claim that Trump’s threat of litigation was “unprecedented”. Let’s keep things in proportion, please. Trump’s lawyer sent out some letters, which the recipients ignored. No publication was prevented. No rights were violated. We should and do report on the letters. I don’t think we need to report on all the tsk-tsk-ing from “lawyers and a historian” (actually no lawyers, and just one historian, were quoted in that article). --MelanieN (talk) 04:53, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Just to set the record straight, several lawyers have now commented about how Trump's reaction to the book via his cease and desist letters were a threat against First Amendment rights (as I summarized on Saturday above with links to publications), such as these Politico lawyers, another by The Observer and a third written by a lawyer for Forbes. To keep focus for Muboshgu and MelanieN, my 4-sentence draft (not "huge" or hyperbolic; see 2 paragraphs above) was not about the process and outcome of Trump's cease and desist letter against the book and whether or not it would be pursued to court, but rather the threat itself was unprecedented against a book on political reporting. Neutrality, Volunteer Marek and I appear in agreement to have a brief statement mentioning these key points: cease and desist letter-precedence-First Amendment-potential consequences of further litigation for Trump. It's not only an interesting legal issue relevant to the book, the threat alone is a historical benchmark for presidents or other politicians vs. a book publisher. --Zefr (talk) 14:49, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

• A note was left on my talk requesting I comment, presumably because I was doing some copy editing. No prior involvement other than that. The topic seems overall worthy of inclusion, but the portion that was removed was not neutrally and dispassionately worded. Too many superlatives, too much unattributed-in-text, and tended to stray on to related topics. But having said that it does likely warrant inclusion, just in a more dry robotic prose. GMG^talk 15:13, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• Me too. I'm with the worth-a-brief-mention-but-not-too-much folk. Additionally: I think that threats of litigation by Trump as a sitting president against a book author and publisher were unprecedented, and violated freedom of speech represented in the book's contents is objectively wrong: the threat to sue isn't a violation of FS (if it was, someone would sue Trump for it) it is merely a (very remote) threat to FS. As others have said, this is just std.trump rather than a "real" threat, and Wolff has I think made remarks to that effect. If anywhere, this might belong in more detail on *Trump's* page, since the reflexive attempt to suppress criticism is more a reflection on his character than on the book William M. Connolley (talk) 09:21, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

On January 8, the book's publisher, Henry Holt & Co., issued a legal letter to defy Trump's cease and desist order, reported here. The MacMillan/Henry Holt CEO, John Sargent, informed his company that "as citizens we must demand that President Trump understand and abide by the First Amendment of our Constitution." I propose we conclude this discussion by adding a section at the bottom of the article, entitled Constitutional concern with the content below offered as a draft for discussion/revision. --Zefr (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Following the January 4 cease and desist letter sent by Trump's lawyer to the book publisher, Henry Holt and Company, legal experts assessed the impact this action may have as precedence for a president to threaten freedom of speech which is protected by the First Amendment. According to legal experts and a historian, Trump's threats to suppress a book, its author and publisher were unprecedented for a sitting president attempting to silence legitimate criticism against the president, as presented in Fire and Fury. On January 8, the lawyer representing Michael Wolff and Henry Holt and Company issued a legal letter defying Trump's cease and desist order and claim of defamation, stating that "my clients do not intend to cease publication, no such retraction will occur, and no apology is warranted." John Sargent, the chief executive of Macmillan-Holt, informed the company’s employees that "as citizens, we must demand that President Trump understand and abide by the First Amendment of our Constitution."

References

I think the section is great so I copied it to the article with some copyedits. --Frmorrison (talk) 16:49, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Some tightening and tweaking: GMG^talk 16:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

According to reporting by the Washington Post and Politico, legal experts and historians have viewed threats of imminent legal action over the book as unprecedented for a sitting president and serving to chill public discourse and free speech. On January 8, the lawyer for Wolff and Henry Holt and Company issued a letter defying the cease and desist and claim of defamation, stating "my clients do not intend to cease publication, no such retraction will occur, and no apology is warranted." John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan-Holt, informed the company’s employees that "as citizens, we must demand that President Trump understand and abide by the First Amendment of our Constitution."

References

This seems like a copy of the "White House reaction and fallout" section, just with more commentary and editorializing ("concerns") about Trump's actions. I think the commentary can be trimmed and the two sections should be merged. ^Falling_Gravity 05:49, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Review section question

Would there be any disagreement if I were to remove copy from journalists that have not made a name for themselves and are listed at their site only as "senior journalist"? It seems to me that this gives too much weight to any random journalist who happens to report on the book. If they don't have a WP article I'd guess that they don't qualify as a person we should be giving voice to. Gandydancer (talk) 19:50, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Not necessarily. It's the institution that often counts more than the person. If a non notable journalist is writing for a reputable publication, we know it's subject to that publications editorial oversight. GMG^talk 21:41, 11 January 2018 (UTC)