‘Trump Never Wanted to Be President’: Here’s What We’re Reading

The Daily 5 is Sharp’s essential reading list for what’s happening in the world today. Make sure to follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the Sharp Insider newsletter to stay up to date.

Here’s what we’re reading today.

1. Donald Trump didn’t want to be President

“As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself was sanguine. His ultimate goal, after all, had never been to win. “I can be the most famous man in the world,” he had told his aide Sam Nunberg at the outset of the race. His longtime friend Roger Ailes, the former head of Fox News, liked to say that if you want 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 a week before the election. ‘I don’t think about losing, because it isn’t losing. We’ve totally won.'”

New York Magazine

+1: Trump Tower meeting with Russians ‘treasonous’, Bannon says in explosive book – The Guardian

+1: Trump says Bannon has ‘lost his mind’ after Bannon insults Donald Trump Jr. – New York Times

+1: The wildest claims about Trump’s White House from Michael Wolff’s upcoming book ‘Fire and Fury’ – CNBC

2. Canadian theatre star Albert Schultz sued by 4 women who call him ‘serial sexual predator’

“Four women filed civil lawsuits Wednesday against Albert Schultz, accusing the Canadian actor and artistic director of the Soulpepper Theatre Company of sexual battery and harassment of a sexual nature over a 13-year period.

“Toronto-based Soulpepper has also been named in the statements of claim of each lawsuit, which detail allegations of unwanted groping, harassment and sexual remarks in the workplace from 2000 to 2013.”

CBC News

3. Paul Manafort is suing the Justice Department to get rid of Special Counsel Robert Mueller

“Manafort — who is facing a slew of criminal charges in connection with his past work overseas — is arguing that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein went too far when he gave Mueller authority in May to investigate not only any possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but also any other matters that “arose or may arise” from the investigation.”

BuzzFeed News

4. Joshua Boyle makes court appearance via video link, remanded in custody until Monday

“Boyle is accused of a slew of crimes that are alleged to have occurred since his high profile rescue from captivity in October, when he was released from five years of captivity with his American wife and three children.

“Boyle, 34, faces 15 charges that include eight counts of assault, two counts of sexual assault, two counts of forcible confinement, one count of uttering death threats, one count of misleading police and one count of giving someone a noxious substance.”

Toronto Star

5. America’s forgotten towns: Can they be saved or should people just leave?

“The reality is Americans have become homebodies. People in the United States are moving at about half the rate that they did in the 1970s and ’80s, according to census data, and no one really understands why. There are obvious economic barriers to moving. It’s expensive and risky to leave a place your family has been living in for generations, and there’s no guarantee the job you move for will still exist in a few years. But there seems to be something deeper holding people in place.”

Washington Post