Cannes, France 
 
 At the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the south of France, Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff spoke onstage today with Jeff Goodby, the cofounder of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, a San Francisco-based ad agency. Wolff testified to Donald Trump’s ability to sell books. (Wolff’s chronicle of Trump’s first nine months as president, which was released in January, remains at the top of Amazon’s bestseller list.) US vice president Mike Pence, he said, was another story. 
 
 “When Mike Pence becomes the president—which I believe that he will become—the media business goes into a deep depression,” said Wolff. “Mike Pence is literally the most boring man on earth.” 
 
 “He’s not even mentioned in your book!” observed Goodby. 
 
 “Faceless. He’s so faceless,” said Wolff. “Even in the White House they only talk about Pence’s wife. Mother, she is called.” 
 
 “He calls her mother?” said Goodby. 
 
 “Everyone in the White House calls her mother,” said Wolff. ||||| File this one under “not a surprise.” 
 
 Michael Wolff predicts a bleak future for Donald Trump — and the media. 
 
 The “Fire & Fury” author predicted before a packed house at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Monday morning that President Trump will be ousted from the White House in short order. 
 
 “We will soon find ourselves in the mother of all constitutional crises … When [Vice President] Mike Pence becomes president, which I believe that he will become, the media business goes into a deep depression,” Wolff said. “Mike Pence is literally the most boring person on Earth. He’s faceless.” 
 
 A nonchalant Wolff delivered the news, while basking in the success of his colorful, bestselling book that describes Trump’s dysfunctional White House. 
 
 The book has sold over 2 million hard copies in the US since its Jan. 5 release — plus millions of e-copies. 
 
 Wolff’s explosive book’s rise was meteoric. On Jan. 4, the day that The Guardian leaked excerpts from “Fire & Fury,” Wolff saw pre-sales of his book skyrocket to No. 1 on Amazon’s bestseller’s list within hours. Soon after, the White House sent a cease-and-desist letter, which boosted sales even higher. 
 
 Wolff has since cashed in on what he called the “aberrant entertainment” that is the Trump presidency, and will soon see his book turned into a 10-part television series directed by Jay Roach. He is also planning on penning a sequel, according to reports. 
 
 “Once a day, I cast my eyes heavenward and say, ‘Thank God for Donald Trump,’” the journalist said. 
 
 Despite the massive success, Wolff threw a few jabs at his competitors, who have questioned the accuracy of the gossipy tome. 
 
 “The press corps over there, the Washington political reporters, they do a different thing than I do,” he said with a touch of arrogance. “They are all very resentful that I got this story and I made all this money.” 
 
 What Wolff did was observe the administration at work for seven months. 
 
 “I never asked a question beyond, ‘How’s it going?,’” he said. “It’s an older style of reporting.” 
 
 To be sure, there were plenty of errors in the book — which sparked a lot of the pushback. 
 
 Wolff didn’t leave Cannes’ main stage before getting in a jab at the New York Times for its scoop that the president threatened to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, who is heading the investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties. 
 
 “Every day he tried to fire Mueller. He did this constantly, to virtually everyone,” Wolff said smugly. “So the Times story was not wrong, but the Times story missed that fact.” ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Adam Edelman 
 
 Michael Wolff, the author of a new book that gives a behind-the-scenes account of the White House, defended his work Friday, insisting he spoke with President Donald Trump on the record and calling the commander in chief "a man who has less credibility than, perhaps, anyone who has ever walked on earth." 
 
 Wolff, in an exclusive interview on NBC's "Today," said that everyone he spoke to for the book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," described the president the same way. 
 
 "I will tell you the one description that everyone gave, everyone has in common: They all say he is like a child," Wolff explained. "And what they mean by that is, he has a need for immediate gratification. It is all about him." 
 
 Wolff added that "100 percent of the people around" Trump, "senior advisers, family members, every single one of them, questions his intelligence and fitness for office." 
 
 Trump hit back in a tweet late on Friday, claiming Wolff made up stories and used his former chief strategist "Sloppy Steve Bannon" to sell the book. 
 
 Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9 — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 
 
 Wolff also contended that he "absolutely" spoke to the president during his reporting of the book. 
 
 "Whether he realized it was an interview or not, I don’t know, but it certainly was not off the record," Wolff said. "I spoke to him after the inauguration, yes. And I had spoken to, I mean I spent about three hours with the president over the course of the campaign and in the White House, so my window into Donald Trump is pretty significant." 
 
 Trump, however, said on Twitter Thursday night that he "authorized Zero access to White House" for the author and "never spoke to him for book." 
 
 Responding to Trump, Wolff said Friday that Trump isn't one to talk when it comes to credibility. 
 
 "My credibility is being questioned by a man who has less credibility than, perhaps, anyone who has ever walked on earth at this point," Wolff said. 
 
 Wolff added that he has the evidence to back up his work. 
 
 "I work like every journalist works so I have recordings, I have notes," Wolff said. "I am certainly and absolutely in every way comfortable with everything I’ve reported in this book." 
 
 "Fire and Fury" features behind-the-scenes anecdotes from Trump's White House, including details on how the most powerful men and women in Washington worked to make Trump president — and then turned on one another after he took the oath of office. 
 
 Wolff writes in the book, and explained during his “Today” interview, that top aides said at various points Trump that is “a moron, an idiot.” 
 
 “Actually there’s a competition to sort of get to the bottom line here of who this man is. Let’s remember, this man does not read, does not listen. So he’s like a pinball, just shooting off the sides,” Wolff said. 
 
 President Trump meets with GOP senators in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday. Alex Wong / Getty Images 
 
 Wolff also revealed how people around the president noticed an apparent decline in his mental stamina. 
 
 “In the beginning, it was like every 25 or 30 minutes, you would get the same three stories repeated," Wolff said about Trump. "Now it’s the same three stories in every 10 minutes." 
 
 Wolff was then asked to elaborate on an anecdote he described in an article in The Hollywood Reporter this week in which he said Trump, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida over the winter holiday break, didn't recognize old friends. 
 
 "I will quote Steve Bannon — he’s lost it," Wolff said, referring to Trump's former strategist. 
 
 White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, appearing on Fox News Friday morning, said it was "outrageous to make these types of accusations" about Trump's mental health. 
 
 It's "sad that people are going and making these desperate attempts to attack the president," she added. 
 
 Widely reported excerpts from the book have roiled Washington, including claims from Bannon that Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russians at Trump Tower in June 2016 was "treasonous" and "unpatriotic." 
 
 The president apparently referred to Bannon as "Sloppy Steve," on Twitter Thursday night. On Friday afternoon, as he left the White House for a weekend at Camp David, he ignored shouted questions from reporters about whether he had read the book himself yet. 
 
 Wolff’s book was released early Friday by Henry Holt, which announced a day earlier that it was pushing up the publication date due to demand. Earlier Thursday, Trump attorney Charles Harder demanded in a letter sent to Wolff and his publisher that the book not be published or disseminated. The book reached No. 1 on the Amazon best-seller list Wednesday. 
 
 A copy of the letter obtained by NBC News cites defamation, libel and "actual malice" among the alleged wrongdoings in the book. 
 
 NBC News has not confirmed much of the book. Wolff has been accused in the past of suspect reporting, most notably in his 1998 book "Burn Rate." In its review, the now-defunct media journal Brill's Content cited 13 people depicted in the book as saying that Wolff invented or changed quotations and that they couldn't recall his taking any notes or recording their interviews. ||||| The old-fashioned quality of Vice President Mike Pence’s relationship with wife Karen has made their marriage something of an obsession. 
 
 Pence said in 2002 that in the interest of "building a zone around (his) marriage," he never dines alone with a woman other than Karen and avoids attending events without her if alcohol is present. It’s unclear if this remains his practice, but the Pences’ distinctive relationship has taken on greater interest since the former Indiana governor became vice president. (His boss President Donald Trump has noted his wingman "has one hell of a good marriage going.") 
 
 Several days after the inaugural, Rolling Stone published a 6,500-word profile on Pence, which revealed a colorful detail about the vice president and the second lady. Citing an anonymous source, the magazine reported that Pence refers to wife Karen as "Mother." 
 
 The article described a scene from a dinner at the governor’s mansion where Pence was hosting Democratic state lawmakers. In the presence of his dinner guests, Pence was reportedly overheard shouting to Karen from one end of the table to the other: 
 
 "Mother, Mother, who prepared our meal this evening?" 
 
 The legislators looked at one another, speaking with their eyes: He just called his wife "Mother." 
 
 Maybe it was a joke, the legislator reasoned. But a few minutes later, Pence shouted again. 
 
 "Mother, Mother, whose china are we eating on?" 
 
 A couple of his dinner guests raised their eyebrows at the nickname, but Pence wouldn’t be the first man at the highest rungs of the executive branch to call his wife "Mother," or some variation of it, according to Carl Sferrazza Anthony, a historian of first ladies. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln called Mary "Mother" (or Molly), and Calvin Coolidge referred to wife Grace as "Mamma." More recently, Gerald Ford referred to Betty as "Mother" (after they had children) and Ronald Reagan called Nancy "Mommy." 
 
 We emailed the vice president’s office to ask if Pence refers to Karen as "Mother." His office initially declined to comment on the record, before an aide later emailed to say: "This is false." 
 
 We decided to break from our usual mission of analyzing the nitty gritty of public policy to look into this unusual feature of Pences' relationship that has captured readers' interest. We found several people willing to go on the record that Pence calls his wife "Mother," but we were unable to find video or other documentary evidence, so the claim will remain unrated. 
 
 ‘Mother, Mother’ 
 
 On the evening of March 12, 2013, seven Democratic lawmakers from the Indiana Legislature arrived at the governor’s mansion in Indianapolis for dinner with the Pences. Rep. Linda Lawson recalled being seated nearest to Pence. 
 
 The evening was intended to bridge the gulf between Pence, whose Republican party held a supermajority in the state Legislature, and the Democratic minority. But for Lawson — who confirmed she was the source of the Rolling Stone story — the dinner was memorable more for what it revealed about the Pences’ relationship than for any bipartisan bonhomie it may have stirred. 
 
 Here’s how Lawson recalled the evening to PolitiFact: 
 
 "We didn't have an awful lot to talk about because we haven't anything in common. I mean, his concerns about women's reproductive rights and LGBT issues weren't part of his priority list and they were part of ours. 
 
 "So there was a big lull in our conversation and he shouted down at the end of the table to his wife and said: ‘Mother! Mother! Could you tell us who's china we're eating on this evening?’ And she responded by saying, ‘Yes, this belonged to (former Indiana Gov. Mitch) Daniels’ family. It's very efficient and it's white and you can use it with everything, blah, blah, blah.’ 
 
 "So the conversation went on and we were oohing and aahing at how great that was. But then there was still nothing to talk about. So maybe 15 minutes later it was, ‘Mother! Mother! Who prepared our meal this evening?’ And she went on to explain it was a caterer in town and he was new and he was really good and blah blah blah." 
 
 "The leader of the Democrats was sitting next to me on my right side, and I looked at him and I said, ‘He called his wife f------ 'Mother'!’ " 
 
 A group photo of the Democratic guests on the evening when then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was overheard referring to wife Karen Pence as "Mother." Rep. Linda Lawson is second from left. (March 12, 2013. Courtesy of Ryan Dvorak) 
 
 We asked Lawson if men referring to their wives as "Mother" was a regional custom, or a commonplace term of endearment in her neck of the woods. 
 
 "I am going to be 70 years old in November. I was in the General Assembly for 20 years, and I was a police officer for 24 years before that, and I have never heard a man call his wife ‘Mother,’ " she said. "I just never have. So that's why I was so shocked." 
 
 Pence’s office referred us to Marc Lotter, who served as Pence’s press secretary until he resigned last fall. Lotter, who’s known and worked for Pence since the mid 1990s, said Lawson is "not a fan" of the vice president. 
 
 "I don't ever recall hearing that," he said. "About the closest you could come would be if the kids were in the room or something and it was, you know, 'Talk to your mom, talk to your mother,' those kinds of things like many parents do." 
 
 Lotter did not attend dinner at the governor’s mansion with the Democratic lawmakers. But he held out the possibility that Pence had been "making some kind of joke or something along those lines." 
 
 But according to a former Democratic lawmaker who sat next to the governor at one of the dinners, Pence himself seemed to indicate "Mother" was more of an enduring moniker rather than an isolated reference. 
 
 "I remember him saying that about Karen — referring to his lovely wife — saying, you know, 'I refer to her as ‘Mother.’ ‘Mother Pence,’ " said former Indiana Democratic State Sen. James Arnold. "It was just kind of comical. But then again all of us in politics need somebody to watch over us. We all need mothers, I'll tell ya." 
 
 Arnold’s former aide, Michelle Moody, said that while she couldn’t confirm the context of the conversation, "I do know that Pence referred to his wife as ‘mother’ several times during the dinner." (It’s unclear if Moody herself attended the dinner, or if she heard this secondhand.) 
 
 Separately, longtime Indiana politics reporter Jim Shella, who covered the Pences, recalled hearing the nickname in 2013 while at the governor’s residence to conduct an interview. 
 
 "Offhand, I'm going to say that I did hear him use that term on at least one occasion, but it's not a clear memory," said Shella, a political reporter with Indianapolis-based WISH-TV Channel 8. "It certainly fits with his general demeanor." 
 
 Democratic Rep. Scott Pelath said he remembers attending dinner at the governor’s mansion. He doesn’t recall hearing Pence call Karen "Mother," though he doesn’t dispute it either, in part because it aligns with the Pences’ quaint manner. 
 
 "When I was a child, I personally knew a lot of rural progenitors born in the 1800s, and perhaps that archaic manner of address skipped past my ears," Pelath said. "There were countless other things about the Pences that left a lasting impression. One, perhaps, is that they reminded me of rural progenitors born in the 1800s."
– Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff had some amusing tidbits to share about the VP during an appearance at the Cannes Lions advertising festival Monday, Quartz reports. While President Trump sells books—Fire and Fury, which details his first nine months as POTUS, is still a bestseller after being released in January—Mike Pence, not so much. "When Mike Pence becomes the president—which I believe that he will become—the media business goes into a deep depression," Wolff predicted. "Mike Pence is literally the most boring man on earth." Wolff predicts Pence will get a job promotion due to Trump being booted from office, the New York Post reports. Wolff went on to say that Pence is "faceless" even at work: "Even in the White House they only talk about Pence’s wife. Mother, she is called." Jeff Goodby, the ad agency cofounder onstage with Wolff, asked whether Pence really calls his wife "Mother." Wolff's response: "Everyone in the White House calls her Mother." Rolling Stone first reported back in 2017 that Pence refers to wife Karen as "Mother." Politifact has since spoken to a number of people who say they've witnessed him calling her that, but since the site couldn't find "video or other documentary evidence," it has not rated the claim as true.