Trump book 'to be published today' despite legal threats

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Publication has been brought forward to Friday of the explosive new book on the Trump administration, despite threats of legal action by the US president, notably targeting his former aide Steve Bannon.

Bannon is cited in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House making critical and damaging remarks but his latest comments were more complimentary.

On his Breitbart radio show on Wednesday, he described Trump as "a great man".

Trump had said his ex-adviser had "lost his mind," after the comments attributed to him in the book were made public but seemed happy at the apparent turnaround.

"He called me a great man last night so he obviously changed his tune pretty quick," Trump told reporters on Thursday.

"I don't talk to him. That's a misnomer."

Taking to Twitter, the US president said he had authorised "zero access" to the White House for the author of the "phony book."

"Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don't exist," he wrote.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders heaped scorn on the book at her press briefing on Thursday.

She called the book "some trash" that came from "an author that no one had ever heard of until today."

"This book is mistake after mistake after mistake," she said.

The book by author Michael Wolff portrays Trump as not really wanting to win the presidency and being unprepared for the job.

Bannon is quoted in it as describing a June 2016 meeting with a group of Russians at Trump Tower as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic".

The meeting, held after the Russians promised damaging information on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, was attended by Donald Trump Jr., Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager at the time.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia to interfere with the election.

Russia has denied meddling and Trump has said there was no collusion.

With Reuters