“As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself was sanguine. His ultimate goal, after all, had never been to win.”

No, you did not read that incorrectly.

This quote in the new novel “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” is one of many written by author and journalist Michael Wolff.

Released on Jan. 5, “Fire and Fury” has caused quite a stir in the media. The novel had been in the making from Election Day to this past October, according to New York Magazine, and is composed of hundreds of interviews with the president himself, several members of his senior staff and many others they were in contact with.

An excerpt released by New York Magazine contains the chapter that reveals President Trump’s initial plan to run for president but, in the end, fail.

“‘I can be the most powerful 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,” Wolff wrote. “Now Trump, encouraged by Ailes, was floating rumors about a Trump network. It was a great future. He would come out of his campaign, Trump assured Ailes, with a far more powerful brand and untold opportunities.”

Since the book was released, outbursts of denials and accusations have been thrown around the media. Many of Wolff’s quoted sources say they never said such things. Trump himself even tweeted “Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book.”

Steve Bannon, current White House chief strategist, also denies what was said in the novel.

“I think Steve Bannon expected Trump to be caught by now with Russian collusion, so he threw Trump under the bus to save himself,” junior Alex Joseph said. “But since the book came out before Trump has been caught, now Bannon has to back track and try to save faces again, but is still trying to distance himself from the whole scandal because he knows Trump did it.”

Despite all of the denial, Wolff has no doubt that everything he wrote was recorded and accurate.

“I have records, I have notes,” Wolff said in an interview with NBC. “I am certainly in every way comfortable with everything I have reported in this book.”

It’s hard to say who’s lying and who’s telling the truth, but until the latter is found, “Fire and Fury” will continue to sell all over the country.