Just think: That could have been Tucker Carlson arguing with reporters over the size of Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day crowds.
So suggests Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” the book rush-released today that has, according to current White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, made President Trump “furious.” The president tried and failed to block the book’s release.
Wolff writes that conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, right-wing provocateur Ann Coulter and Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo were all considered for the job.
“This was television, the president-elect said, and it ought to be a good-looking woman,” Wolff wrote in a parenthetical.
But he added: “When none of these ideas panned out, the job was offered to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, who turned it down.”
Carlson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Maybe it was for the best. Yes, some Trump insiders wanted a star. “But there was a counterview,” Wolff wrote. “The press secretary ought to be the opposite of a star. In fact, the entire press operation ought to be downgraded. If the press was the enemy, why pander to it, why give it more visibility? This was fundamental [Steve] Bannonism: stop thinking you can somehow get along with your enemies.”
The president eventually chose Sean Spicer, who passed it off to Sanders in July. One of Spicer’s first tasks was angrily accusing the press of underreporting the size of Trump’s Inauguration Day turnout. He later went on to commit a major gaffe involving the Holocaust.
And we all know, thanks to Wolff, what the White House now thinks of Bannon and his Bannonisms.