John Bolton’s book publisher owes Trump a debt of gratitude for all the publicity

President Donald Trump should get some kind of appreciation award from U.S. publishers and bookstores. He inspires — and even helps promote through controversy — negative books about him that the Washington media describes as “bombshells” and “shockers.”

Numerous books get written about every president, eventually. But the 45th president is at least seven months from leaving office. And the shelves are already filling up with revelatory tomes about the 74-year-old man who’s shattering presidential norms by the day.

Trump is, as you may have noticed, a perennial publicity magnet. He always has been, starting in New York, where he courted media attention as if he needed it to survive. He still does.

And he brought that publicity aura into the White House, where he uses tweets and impromptu media exchanges to dominate news cycle after news cycle, often to his own detriment and political standing.

He may attack. He may praise. But he loves it all because it’s all about him. All publicity is good publicity, right? Well, we’ll let you know for sure come the evening of Nov. 3 when we’ll learn if Americans collectively have had enough of Trump Turmoil Fatigue to veto a second term.

And love him or loathe him, Americans lap up almost anything about Trump online, in books, on TV. Who cares if it’s true? The latest such volume, like all the others that didn’t, is surely certain to doom Trump’s political life. This book, “The Room Where It Happened,” is by former national security adviser John Bolton.

Like most exposé books about Trump, it’s said to be full of juicy allegations of the president’s ignorance, buffoonery and rampant self-interest. As if these books do not have the same self-interest in attention and profits. Oh, and spite. How, for instance, Trump was allegedly unaware that Britain has nuclear weapons or how one day, the president allegedly asked if Finland was part of Russia, which it was until 1917.

Omarosa Manigault Newman was a contestant on “The Apprentice” who was later hired by Trump into his campaign and administration. The next year, like Bolton, she was fired and wrote “Unhinged,” an unflattering exposé acclaimed briefly by the media for its gossipy allegations about Trump’s ignorance, arrogance, racism and blunt speech. Among them, her theory that Trump’s long “addiction” to Diet Coke has caused mental impairment.

This may shock you, but there are a lot of toads in Washington, people who suck up to power by day, then leverage that access to information by night with select leaks to the media, Democrats or Republicans. The Trump White House holds its secrets like a new colander holds water because staff and Trump are more interested in self-interest.

Remember the similar stream of unauthorized leaks from the George W. Bush White House? No, you don’t. He cultivated staff with simple reciprocal loyalty through sympathetic notes, appreciative comments and generous gestures. After Tony Snow resigned as his press secretary and was nearing death from cancer, Bush took him along on one last overseas junket aboard Air Force One.

When Trump made his first overseas trip in 2017 and visited the Vatican, his press secretary, Sean Spicer, a devout Catholic, was there. For unknown, gratuitous reasons Trump blocked him from meeting the Pope.

After leaving that job Spicer too wrote a book, “The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President.” You probably don’t remember that book because it didn’t attack Trump or confirm a broad dislike for him. So, D.C. media interest amounted to just a brief nod, bad reviews, then zero.

Republican presidents are favored media targets. On “Saturday Night Live,” Chevy Chase launched a successful show-business career by stumbling over every piece of furniture, mocking President Gerald Ford who slipped once on a wet airplane step. See, Ford played Big Ten college football so he clearly had brain damage. Bushisms such as “misunderestimating” became a frequent reference point for the 43rd president.

Truth is, every president has stupid spots. We just don’t hear so much about the Democrats’ gaps. You probably don’t recall candidate Barack Obama claiming he’d visited all 57 states with one more to go. He once vowed to union leaders to straighten out the NAFTA mess by calling the president of Canada, which doesn’t have one.

He claimed Austrians speak Austrian. Perhaps more embarrassing, while visiting Indonesia, his childhood home, in a nationally-televised speech, Obama told a nationwide TV audience in the world’s most populous Muslim nation that his country’s national motto was ‘E Pluribus Unum.’ It’s actually “In God We Trust.”

Americans didn’t hear so much about his gaffes because, after all, everybody makes misstatements and, if they’re Democrats, it’s understandable.

Bolton did not testify in last winter’s impeachment hearings, saving his ammo for the book. You’ve no doubt heard how Trump is “not fit for office” and lacks the “competence to carry out the job.” Charges which echo Omarosa’s book. In leaked excerpts, we’ve also heard much about Bolton’s allegation that Trump was “pleading” with China’s President Xi Jinping to buy agricultural products and help his reelection.

Conversely, we didn’t hear so much during Obama’s reelection year when he was caught on a hot mic in Seoul seeking patience from Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev because Obama could offer them more “flexibility” in second-term negotiations.

Trump has attacked Bolton and his book, and the Justice Department sought unsuccessfully to prohibit publication over alleged national security concerns and seeks to seize profits from Bolton violating his nondisclosure agreement. We’ll likely hear most of the juiciest allegations one way or another, attracting Trump supporters and Trump haters, all of which helps drive interest in accessing the forbidden fruit. And feeds this president’s ravenous ego.

Now, about that award for Trump’s help promoting this stuff.

This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "John Bolton’s book publisher owes Trump a debt of gratitude for all the publicity."