all right. cnn chief media correspondent brian stelter is joining us. i want to take a closer look at this because neither of these guys are inside the white house. so you got to ask what is their motivation? are they after money with this book or influence? they re after both. this new book tells us two things one that the infighting, the back fighting, are still very much in affect and still very real and people who are on the periphery and outside of trump world who want to get back in, they re willing to talk about and that exploit that. there s money to be made through this infighting, through these if i have doms. this is their first book. it tells a story about a deep state. and the second book tells a similar story. it reminds me of that the new york times op ed, remember that anonymous op ed, we never found out who that was, that op ed writer was saying i m trying to help the country and protect the
announce it. she didn t have a seat on the plane. that she threatened to pull resources from the trip. the series of slights regarding the trip seems to be the most recent cause of friction. and the question is, why did melania trump feel like her only recourse here was to go public. essentially pulling a donald trump, right? i mean, trump never obviously, he goes public with all kinds of things that most presidents would never do. and let s remember, there s a long history of trump campaign officials at the very least going public, airing dirty laundry. internal back fighting.
it is all about the money now. i know her. i m sure she s deeply embarrassed about it. but what you first said there, are they using this as an excuse because they wanted to end this show? i understand this is reprehensible, but were they waiting for something to end her show? i think there is an element to that for sure. there has been two years of back fighting and bitterness. she gets fired from fox. she gets treated as this all star. there was a lot of resentment. she was also paid a lot. she was going to be paid more than other stars. that has been a factor over there at nbc for almost two years now. there has been other factors as well. she challenged management very publically. she aggressively covered me too
here. but how can it inflict the significance or similar economic pain on the united states, for example one of the companies affected here is one of russia s principal arms exporters. they have said that the sanctions really just show that the united states is trying to gain unfair advantage essentially in the global sales of weapons. so, you know, how will they come back against that particular issue. it is very clear that they will come back fighting, but as i say, asymmetric is the most likely way forward. all right. nic robertson live for us in moscow. thank you so much. we ll stay in touch with you. there is talk of a trade war between the united states and china. it heated up on frir a friday a.
michael wolff. he s dealt with everyone in a new york media circle. and, you know, mike wolff has often embellished work that has turned out to be essentially true, let s be fair. and this book sounds, though it is a lot based on steve bannon, and different people who have different axes to grind, this is a portrait of a president unprepared for office, which tracks with all the other reporting that we have done and you ve done and the washington post and other papers have done. now, what gives the spice to the book is the sense of this, you know, internal confusion and the back fighting and the bits of gossip about, you know, ivanka and her husband and so on. and that makes it very spicy. but in the essence of it, it doesn t really change our understanding of mr. trump as a