Wolff Claims White House ‘Sort of Invited’ Him to Write Book on Trump

Controversial author Michael Wolff claimed Sunday he “literally kind of knocked on the door” to the White House and asked if he could “come in” to write his error-ridden book during the first year of President Donald Trump’s administration.

Wolff, author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” said during an interview Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that Trump and White House officials “sort of invited him” and granted him access last year.

Critics claim his book is filled with factual errors and mistakes. Trump, White House officials, members of Congress and even some members of the mainstream media have pointed to errors in the book’s more sensational claims.

[lz_ndn video=33405361]

“You know, I literally kind of knocked on the door and said, ‘Can I come in?’ And they said, ‘OK.’ And I came in, I sat on the couch and that’s the point of view I have written this book from,” Wolff told host Chuck Todd.

“I was certainly not brought in to be the court chronicler. I was sort of invited,” Wolff added. “My goal was to keep going until somebody said, ‘Go away.'”

Trump, Wolff claimed, was “sort of ‘Oh, yeah, yeah.’ And I said to him, I said, ‘Listen, I would like to do a book.’ And I remember because I remember he seemed deflated, a book, who cares about a book? I said, ‘No, no, I’d really like to do this.’

“And then he named a couple of other authors, who he knew, who he said, ‘Oh, yeah, they’d like to do this too.’ And I said, but, you know, is it, is it okay? ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.’ So then I went around and so it was basically me saying, ‘The president says this is, this is — he likes this idea.’ Um, and then everyone would say, ‘Oh, okay, great, sit down. Talk.'”

Todd did not ask Wolff who in the White House specifically approved giving him access to the complex, access to which is intensively guarded.

Wolff also claimed he “would have been delighted to have written a contrarian account” of Trump, “this unexpected president” who “is actually going to succeed.” But his observations led him to the conclusion that “that’s not the story. He is not going to succeed. This is worse than everybody thought.”

When Todd confronted him about the many errors in his book — including one page that contained three errors — Wolff deflected, saying “the book speaks for itself. Read the book. See if you don’t feel like you are with me on that couch in the White House and see if you don’t feel alarmed, as you said.”

Among those blasting Wolff on Sunday were White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, who during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” referred to him as a “garbage author of a garbage book.”

Related: Sarah Sanders Schools Reporter: ‘You Guys Are the Ones Drawing the Attention’

“And the tragic thing about this book — and there are many things about it that are unfortunate — but the portrayal of the president in the book is so contrary to reality, to the experience of those who work with him, to my own experience having spent the last two years with him,” Miller told host Jake Tapper. “The book is best understood as a work of very poorly written fiction.”

Miller also ripped CNN for what he called its “salacious coverage” of Wolff’s claims.

“Your network’s been going 24/7 with all the salacious coverage and I know it brings a lot of you guys a lot of joy to try to stick the knife in, but the reality is that page after page after page of the book is [purely] false,” Miller said. “I see sections of the book where events I participated in are described and I have firsthand knowledge as they’re described, [and] they’re completely and utterly fraudulent.”

PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.