Fire and fury: Inside the Trump white house - Michael Wolff

Almost everybody in the Trump campaign thought of themselves as clear-eyed and realistic. The unspoken agreement among them: not only would Donald Trump not be president, he should probably not be. Conveniently, the former conviction meant nobody had to deal with the latter issue.  

As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself was sanguine. His longtime friend Roger Ailes liked to say that if you wanted a career in television, first run for president. Now Trump, encouraged by Ailes, was floating rumors about a Trump network. It was a great future.  

He would come out of this campaign, Trump assured Ailes, with a far more powerful brand and untold opportunities. “This is bigger than I ever dreamed of,” he told Ailes in a conversation a week before the election. “I don’t think about losing because it isn’t losing. We’ve totally won.” What’s more, he was already laying down his public response to losing the election: It was stolen!   Donald Trump and his tiny band of campaign warriors were ready to lose with fire and fury. They were not ready to win.