6 points about the characters of women who are related to Trump from ‘Fire and Fury’

Just six women are shown to populate President Trump's orbit: His eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump; his personal public relations wrangler, Hope Hicks; Kellyanne Conway, his TV surrogate; his wife, Melania Trump; and seasoned pros, Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser; and deputy chief of staff, Katie Walsh. Walsh, one of the only female voices Wolff quotes by name, jumped ship barely three months into the new administration because of the constant infighting. Powell announced her pending departure last month.

Here are six takeaways from the book (an account the White house denies) about the women in the president's life:

1. Men get all the top jobs, but women get the one most important to him

Despite the preponderance of men holding cabinet positions (only two traditional Cabinet positions are held by women) and other prestigious posts in the administration, women do what matters most to the president: tend to his needs.

"While Trump was in most ways a conventional misogynist, in the workplace he was much closer to women than to men," Wolff writes. "The former he confided in, the latter he held at arm's length. He liked and needed his office wives, and he trusted them with his most important personal issues. Women, according to Trump, were simply more loyal and trustworthy than men. … Women, by their nature, or Trump's version of their nature, were more likely to focus their purpose on a man. A man like Trump."

2. Ivanka is 'botlike'

In Wolff's telling, Ivanka is "inexpressive and even botlike in public, but among friends, discursive and strategic."

She could barely conceal her "distaste" for her father's third wife. "Ivanka would say to friends: 'All you have to know about Melania is that she thinks if he runs he'll certainly win,'" writes Wolff.

3. No one likes Kellyanne Conway

Wolff describes Conway as a "vulgar," two-faced schemer who mocks the president's bombastic and absurd claims behind closed doors with mouth agape, pointing a finger pistol to her own head, but morphs into his most rabid defender when the cameras go on.

"The president's worst impulses seem to run through Conway without benefit of a filter. She compounded Trump's anger, impulsiveness and miscues. Whereas a presidential adviser was supposed to buffer and interpret his gut calls, Conway expressed them, doubled down on them, made opera out of them."

4. Hope Hicks is Trump's 'real daughter'

The 29-year old former model from Greenwich, Conn., had only minimal experience in public relations when she joined the Trump campaign in 2015. As it grew from a long shot vanity project to a political juggernaut, Hicks's family increasingly "viewed her as having been taken captive." After she moved to Washington following Trump's victory, "friends and intimates talked with great concern about what kind of therapies and recuperation she would need after her tenure was finally over," Wolff explains.

Despite his cutting comment that she was the best "tail" the married Corey Lewandowski would ever have (the book alludes to their affair), observers say Trump has a genuine paternal fondness for her.

Hicks "was thought of as Trump's real daughter, while Ivanka was thought of as his real wife" by White House staffers, according to the book.

Her singular devotion to soothing Trump's ego by presenting him with only positive press and orchestrating soft interviews with obsequious figures like Sean Hannity has raised eyebrows.

"To the senior staff, she seemed not only too young and too inexperienced - she was famous among campaign reporters for her too-hard-to-maneuver-in short skirts - but a way too-overeager yes woman, always in fear of making a mistake, even tremulously second-guessing herself and looking for Trump's approval," Wolff writes. "She became a kind of Stepford factotum, as absolutely dedicated to and tolerant of Mr. Trump as anyone who had ever worked for him."

5. Melania was terrified when Trump won

The prospect of Trump becoming president for Melania was "a horrifying one. She believed it would destroy her carefully sheltered life . . . which was almost entirely focused on her young son."

"Just a little longer, he told her. It would all be over in November. He offered his wife a solemn guarantee: there was simply no way he would win," Wolff writes. Soon, Melania was promised, she could resume her carefully curated life in Manhattan "inconspicuously lunching."

6. Ivanka's thirstiness scares staffers

Ivanka has alienated many White House staffers with her entitled airs and naked striving to use her father's improbable victory as a personal branding opportunity, a steppingstone to move herself and Kushner from being "obscure" Manhattan "rich kids" to the prince and princess of Davos.

"Curiously, for all their callowness, Jared and Ivanka had become quite a fearsome presence, as feared by others as the two of them feared Bannon. What's more, they had become quite accomplished infighters and leakers - they had front room and back-channel power - although with great woundedness, they insisted incredibly that they never leaked," Wolff writes.

Ivanka's decision to accept a formal White House role, despite her distinct lack of knowledge about politics or policy, was the last straw for some.

"That's when people suddenly realized she's dumb as a brick," says Bannon in the book, a bitter enemy.

Source: the lily