President Donald Trump visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum on May 23, 2017, in Jerusalem, Israel. Image by GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images

By Aiden Pink January 8, 2018

The author of the bombshell new book exposing the inner workings of the White House said in an interview on Monday that President Trump is “aware of who is Jewish in a way that feels creepy.”

Michael Wolff, the author of the new book “Fire and Fury,” also said on MSNBC that he believes that Trump is racist, xenophobic and sexist, and that he views women in “as transactional a way as he thinks about everything.”

When asked by host Katy Tur whether he thinks Trump is anti-Semitic, Wolff demurred, saying that former White House chief advisor Steve Bannon — himself accused of anti-Semitism — thought Trump was a racist but not an anti-Semite.

Antisemitism Notebook

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Trump has repeatedly rejected claims that he is anti-Semitic. His daughter Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism, and she and her husband Jared Kushner are high-level advisors to the president (as are other Jews like Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn). But the president has been criticized for retweeting anti-Semites and for failing to unequivocally condemn neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia last year.

In his book, Wolff quoted former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger describing the internal battle between Bannon and senior advisor/son-in-law Jared Kushner for control of Trump’s agenda as “a war between the Jews and the non-Jews.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount