Donald Trump began his second calendar year as president fighting a new enemy.
This time it wasn't a Democrat, a foreign leader or the news media.
It was a book.
Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House portrayed Trump's administration as consumed by infighting, rival factions, leaking and doubts among some people around the president about his temperament and capabilities.
Many of the book's accounts were disputed, and the White House denounced it as inaccurate.
But the most politically explosive material came from someone who had once been among Trump's closest political allies:
Steve Bannon.
Bannon was quoted harshly criticizing Donald Trump Jr.'s June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians and describing the meeting as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
Trump responded with a blistering public attack on his former chief strategist.
“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency,” Trump declared. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”
Then the controversy became even stranger.
Three days later, amid public discussion about his mental fitness prompted in part by the book, Trump took to Twitter to defend himself.
He described himself as a:
“very stable genius.”
Inside Trump's White House
Michael Wolff had spent considerable time around the Trump White House during the administration's first months.
He later said he conducted more than 200 interviews while preparing the book.
The White House strongly disputed his portrayal.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wolff had never conducted a formal sit-down interview with Trump for the book and that Trump had only one brief telephone conversation with him after taking office.
White House officials and others quoted or described in the book challenged portions of Wolff's reporting.
Wolff, meanwhile, defended his work.
The resulting dispute made Fire and Fury more than a conventional political book release.
The central question became how much of Wolff's chaotic portrait of the administration was accurate.
And some of the people who had worked inside Trump's own operation were now publicly fighting over the answer.
Bannon Turns on the Trump Family
The most damaging excerpts involved Steve Bannon.
Bannon had joined Trump's presidential campaign in August 2016 and became its chief executive.
After Trump won, Bannon entered the White House as chief strategist.
For months, he was portrayed as one of the administration's most influential ideological figures.
His relationship with Trump eventually deteriorated, and Bannon left the White House in August 2017.
But Fire and Fury revealed just how far the relationship had apparently fallen.
Bannon's reported comments about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting were particularly explosive.
Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort had attended the meeting after Trump Jr. was told that a Russian lawyer could provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton as part of what an intermediary described as Russian government support for Trump's campaign.
Bannon reportedly described the decision to hold the meeting as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
Those were extraordinary accusations coming from Trump's former chief strategist.
Trump responded almost immediately.
“He Lost His Mind”
The president issued a lengthy statement attacking Bannon.
Trump attempted to minimize Bannon's importance to his political success.
“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency,” Trump said.
He argued that Bannon had little involvement in his primary victory because he joined the campaign only during the general election.
Trump accused Bannon of leaking false information to the media and exaggerating his own influence.
Then came the line that dominated coverage:
“When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”
The public rupture was remarkable.
Only months earlier, Trump had spoken positively about Bannon after his departure from the White House.
Now the president was portraying his former chief strategist as a disgruntled former employee who had inflated his role in Trump's victory.
The White House did not attempt to hide Trump's anger.
Asked whether Trump was furious about Bannon's remarks, Sanders responded that “furious” and “disgusted” would accurately describe his reaction.
The White House Tries to Discredit the Book
The administration attacked Wolff's credibility as aggressively as it attacked Bannon.
Sanders described the book as filled with false information.
The White House disputed Wolff's level of access to Trump and challenged numerous anecdotes attributed to administration officials.
That distinction is important in assessing Fire and Fury historically.
The book generated enormous attention and contained extensive descriptions of internal White House conversations, but many of its claims were based on anonymous or disputed accounts.
Some people described in the book publicly challenged Wolff's version of events.
Others did not.
The book therefore cannot simply be treated as a verbatim transcript of life inside Trump's White House.
But the reaction to it was itself revealing.
Instead of dismissing the book and moving on, the administration launched an extraordinary counterattack.
Trump Tries to Stop Publication
Trump's attorneys went beyond public criticism.
A lawyer representing the president sent the publisher a cease-and-desist letter demanding that publication be halted.
The effort failed.
In fact, it helped create even more publicity.
Henry Holt and Company moved the book's release forward.
Instead of being published on January 9 as originally scheduled, Fire and Fury went on sale on January 5.
Demand surged.
Booksellers reported extraordinary interest.
Television networks devoted extensive coverage to the allegations.
Trump's attempt to suppress the book had helped turn its publication into an even larger political event.
Questions About Trump's Fitness Become Part of the Story
The controversy then expanded beyond Bannon.
Fire and Fury included claims that people around Trump questioned his intellectual capacity, attention span and fitness for the presidency.
Those were reported opinions and allegations from Wolff's sources, not independent medical conclusions.
But they fed an existing public debate about Trump's behavior.
Trump reacted personally.
On January 6, while spending the weekend at Camp David, he posted a series of tweets defending himself.
He argued that Democrats and the media had failed to prove collusion with Russia and had therefore moved to another strategy.
Then he addressed his own mental capacity.
Trump wrote that his “two greatest assets” throughout his life had been “mental stability” and being “really smart.”
He cited his career in business, television and politics.
Then came the phrase that would become one of the most memorable self-descriptions of his presidency.
Trump said he had gone from successful businessman to television star to president on his first attempt.
That, he wrote, qualified him not merely as smart but as:
“genius....and a very stable genius at that!”
The Phrase Takes on a Life of Its Own
“Very stable genius” instantly entered the political vocabulary surrounding Trump.
Supporters saw the tweets as Trump fighting back against attacks they regarded as unfair and politically motivated.
Critics saw something different: a president responding to questions about his temperament by publicly declaring himself a genius.
The phrase followed Trump for years.
It appeared in headlines.
It appeared in political commentary.
It appeared in late-night comedy.
It eventually became shorthand for the unusual way Trump responded to criticism about himself.
Rather than ignoring the allegation, delegating the response to aides or simply challenging the accuracy of Wolff's reporting, Trump made the argument intensely personal.
He defended his own intelligence.
He defended his own stability.
And he awarded himself the title of genius.
Trump and Bannon Had Once Been Allies
The speed with which Trump attempted to distance himself from Bannon also stood out.
Bannon had not been an obscure campaign volunteer.
He had run Trump's campaign during its final months.
After the election, Trump named him White House chief strategist and senior counselor.
Early in the administration, Bannon even received a controversial seat on the National Security Council's principals committee before later being removed from it.
Trump had publicly praised Bannon in the past.
When Bannon left the White House in August 2017, Trump thanked him for his service.
Less than five months later, Trump was saying Bannon had “lost his mind.”
The relationship had gone from political alliance to public warfare.
Bannon Tries to Repair the Damage
The fallout was particularly dangerous for Bannon.
After leaving the White House, he had returned to Breitbart News and attempted to position himself as an influential force within Trump's populist political movement.
That position depended heavily on maintaining credibility with Trump's supporters.
Open warfare with Trump threatened it.
Bannon soon attempted to soften the dispute.
He praised Trump and eventually expressed regret over the controversy surrounding his remarks about Donald Trump Jr.
But the damage had been done.
The White House indicated there was little chance of reconciliation.
Within days, Bannon would leave Breitbart.
The man who had once been portrayed as one of the architects of Trump's political movement had suddenly found himself pushed outside it.
A Book Becomes a White House Crisis
Political books criticizing presidents are nothing unusual.
Most administrations respond with carefully worded denials and move on.
Fire and Fury produced something considerably more dramatic.
Trump attacked his former chief strategist.
The White House attacked the author.
Trump's attorneys tried to stop publication.
The publisher accelerated publication instead.
The book became a bestseller.
Questions about Trump's temperament dominated national coverage.
And the president personally entered the argument by declaring himself mentally stable and extraordinarily intelligent.
The spectacle itself seemed to reinforce at least one aspect of Wolff's broader portrayal:
Trump's White House was an administration in which personal rivalries could rapidly become public battles.
The Problem With Trying to Kill a Story
Trump's response demonstrated a recurring feature of his presidency.
An unfavorable story would appear.
Trump would attack it.
The attack would generate additional coverage.
Trump would respond to that coverage.
And the controversy would grow larger.
Fire and Fury followed that pattern almost perfectly.
Excerpts from a forthcoming political book became national news.
Trump's response became national news.
The cease-and-desist letter became national news.
The publisher's refusal became national news.
Bannon's response became national news.
Then Trump's declaration that he was a “very stable genius” became national news.
Instead of disappearing, the book became impossible to ignore.
“Very Stable Genius”
Whether every anecdote in Michael Wolff's book was accurate was contested from the moment Fire and Fury appeared.
The White House disputed numerous claims.
Trump denied Wolff had meaningful access to him.
People quoted or described in the book challenged portions of Wolff's reporting.
Those disputes belong in the historical record.
So does what happened publicly.
Trump's former chief strategist was quoted calling a meeting involving the president's son “treasonous.”
Trump responded that Bannon had “lost his mind.”
The president's lawyers tried to stop the book from being published.
The publisher released it early instead.
And amid the resulting discussion about Trump's temperament, the president of the United States decided to offer his own assessment.
He was stable.
He was smart.
In fact, Donald Trump announced to the world, he was a:
“very stable genius.”