EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES

Bannon: Trump Will Fall When People Realize He’s ‘Just Another Scumbag’

Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” sequel says the ex White House strategist called the president “just a crooked business guy.”

Given how badly he came across in Fire and Fury, you might’ve thought Steve Bannon would be wary about contributing to Michael Wolff’s sequel. But extracts from Siege: Trump Under Fire published by The Guardian Wednesday show his antipathy for his former boss hasn’t cooled down just yet. In the book, Bannon predicts Trump’s presidency will fall after investigations into his finances reveal to his supporters that he’s not some incredible self-made billionaire, but a crook. “This is where it isn’t a witch hunt—even for the hard-core, this is where he turns into just a crooked business guy, and one worth $50m instead of $10bn,” Bannon is quoted as saying. “Not the billionaire he said he was, just another scumbag.” Bannon was a major source for Fire and Fury—he described Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.’s Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer “treasonous,” and said Ivanka was “dumb as a brick.” Though Wolff’s prior Trump book had gangbuster sales, his reporting repeatedly has been called into question, including the claim out Tuesday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had prepared a draft indictment against the president, which Mueller’s spokesman flatly denied.