May 29, 2019

Trump muses about Protestant Supreme Court picks in Michael Wolff's new book

Michael Wolff, whose "Fire and Fury" sold more than 4 million copies, will be out next Tuesday with a sequel, "Siege."

Here's an excerpt from a chapter called "Kavanaugh," where President Trump seems confounded by a "new and remarkable fact" about the Supreme Court:

Of the eight justices currently serving, all were either Jews or Catholics. [Brett] Kavanaugh was also a Catholic ... Trump wondered[:] Weren't there any WASP lawyers anymore? (Yes ... Bob Mueller.) ...
"You had all Protestants and then in a few years none. Doesn't that seem strange?" he ruminated. "None at all." The nominally Presbyterian Trump went on: "But I can't say, 'I want to put a Protestant on the Court for better representation.' No, you can't say that. But I should be able to. ...
This ... fed into a larger theme that had surfaced during the Gorsuch nomination: Why wasn't he being allowed to choose people he knew? He knew a lot of lawyers; why couldn't he just pick one?

The backdrop: Publishing sources told Axios' Mike Allen that the book is about what Wolff considers the insurmountable legal, personal and political challenges ahead of Trump — about everybody coming after him.

  • The publisher says Wolff interviewed 150 sources for the new book. The two key groups of sources were former senior officials, and acquaintances outside the White House who talk to Trump at night.

Go deeper: Michael Wolff finishes "Fire and Fury" sequel, "Siege"

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