Excerpts from new book about Trump presidency
Trump team thought it would lose the election
"Shortly after 8pm on election night, when the unexpected trend - (Donald) Trump might actually win - seemed confirmed, Don Jr told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost.
"Melania was in tears - and not of joy.
"There was, in the space of little more than an hour, in Steve Bannon's not unamused observation, a befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a horrified Trump.
"But still to come was the final transformation: Suddenly, Donald Trump became a man who believed that he deserved to be, and was wholly capable of being, the president of the United States."
Bannon on meeting with Russians
"The three senior guys in the campaign (Donald Trump Jr, son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign manager Paul Manafort) thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor - with no lawyers.
"They didn't have any lawyers. Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) immediately."
Bannon on China
"The real enemy, (Bannon) said, was China. China was the first front in a new Cold War.
"China's everything. Nothing else matters.
"We don't get China right, we don't get anything right.
"This whole thing is very simple. China is where Nazi Germany was in 1929 to 1930.
"The Chinese, like the Germans, are the most rational people in the world, until they're not.
"And they're gonna flip like Germany in the '30s.
"You're going to have a hyper-nationalist state, and once that happens, you can't put the genie back in the bottle."
Ivanka harbours presidential ambitions
"Balancing risk against reward, both Jared and Ivanka (Trump) decided to accept roles in the West Wing over the advice of almost everyone they knew.
"It was a joint decision by the couple, and, in some sense, a joint job.
"Between themselves, the two had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she'd be the one to run for president.
"The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka Trump." - AFP
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