"Wolff is not merely out of his depth—he frequently seems confused by even basic matters of political ideology." Reviewing for The Guardian, Matthew d'Ancona, a former commissioner and editor of Wolff's work, stated that the fact that Wolff was admitted to the White House at all indicated significant incompetence within the Trump administration. D'Ancona described Wolff's version of President Trump and his daughter Ivanka as "the world's stupidest King Lear" and a "clueless Cordelia." Warning the reader against distraction by those searching for "minor errors," d'Ancona described Wolff as a "brilliant journalist," who has a "terrier-like pursuit of the truth." He concluded that Wolff had "nailed it," and had "scotched once and for all the nonsensical claim that we should take Trump seriously but not literally." In a Wall Street Journal review, Barton Swaim sees the book as an unverifiable "gossipy" collection of "every unseemly tidbit he could extract from murmuring White House staffers" written as though he "were the omniscient narrator of a novel." Swaim asserts that the reaction to the book, rather than the book itself, will give reason for it to be historically notable. Axios reporters Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote that parts of the book were "wrong, sloppy, or betray[ed] off-the-record confidence. But there are two things he gets absolutely right." They wrote that Wolff's depiction "of Trump as an emotionally erratic president" was accurate as well as his writing of some White House officials having a "low opinion" of Trump. Andrew Prokop wrote in Vox that "we should interpret the book as a compendium of gossip Wolff heard. A fair amount of it does clearly seem to be accurate." Aaron Blake of The Washington Post wrote that "Wolff seems to have arrived at a stunning amount of incredible conclusions that hundreds of dogged reporters from major newspapers haven't. [...] [I]t's worth evaluating each claim individually and not just taking every scandalous thing said about the White House as gospel." A review by Mick Brown in The Telegraph described the book as "overheated, sensationalist—and completely true to its subject." David Sexton of the London Evening Standard said the book is a political exposé worth reading and is "destined to become the primary account of the first nine months of the Trump presidency." Nikki Haley controversy While being interviewed during Fire and Fury'''s publicity tour Wolff told Bill Maher that he was "absolutely sure" President Trump