Writers for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah know how difficult it can be to keep up with President Trump‘s incessant tweets, which is why they’ve written a new book, The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library. The satirical book, out Tuesday, serves as a companion to The Daily Show‘s interactive pop-up exhibition, which catalogues the commander-in-chief’s most shocking and controversial tweets.
“When we saw [the tweets] all together in one place, even for those of us who had worked on it for six months, it made a huge impression,” says executive producer Steve Bodow in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE. “This guy [President Trump] has said and tweeted so many crazy, incredible things that you can’t possibly keep up because it comes so fast and furious. [We] collect[ed] them all, first in the exhibit and then in the book, [because] we wanted to do a service for the people.”
“We want [readers] to be able to laugh instead of cry,” adds executive producer Jen Flanz.
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah opened its first pop-up library dedicated to the president’s tweets in New York City in June 2017. Crowds flocked to the exhibition, which also appeared in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The book serves as an exhibition catalog based on the real-life library, and also features brand-new collections, according to the press release. Just like the exhibition, the book divides Trump’s tweets into categories like: “SAD!: A Retrospective,” “Trump vs. Trump,” “The Nicknames” and “Verified Survivors.”
The “Verified Survivors” section references a tweet that Trump wrote on Feb. 25, 2016, after he learned that former Mexican president Vicente Fox used profanity while declaring that Mexico will not pay for the wall that Trump insists should be built between the U.S. and Mexico.
“FMR PRES of Mexico, Vicente Fox horribly used the F word when discussing the wall,” Trump wrote. “He must apologize! If I did that there would be a uproar!”
The book shows Fox’s response to his adversary’s criticism.
“Donald, every time I read your tweets and hear you on the TV, I struggle not to say the F word. I apologized once.” Fox writes. “I f—ing regret it. You will be hearing from me every day until you leave office, so you better get used to it.”
Under the “Masterworks” category, a frame has been placed ironically around Trump’s first tweet questioning then-President Barack Obama’s citizenship.
“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud,” Trump tweeted on Aug. 6, 2012.
“Critics may disagree on the greatest of Trump’s tweets, but all cite ‘Birth of a Birther’ as his first unquestionable masterpiece,” reads The Daily Show contributors’ caption next to the tweet. “Taken as a standalone work, one can marvel at the audacity of his creative imagination — the delicacy of the halo of quotations encircling ‘extremely credible source.’ ”
While extensive, the book isn’t a comprehensive look at all of Trump’s most memorable tweets. Bodow explains that because Trump fires off so many tweets a week, the book only includes the “masterpieces” that Trump tweeted before May 2018.
“People [at The Daily Show] know the history of Trump’s Twitter feed probably better than anybody else in the world,” he jokes.
“Probably better than Trump,” Flanz adds.
Flanz’s favorite section of the book is an illustration of a grey “Wall of Tweets.”
“It’s a big monolithic wall which is made up of [Trump’s] tweets about building a wall,” she says. “It’s actually beautiful.”
Adds Bodow, “He hasn’t built the wall yet, but he’s tweeted enough about the wall that you could build a wall out of the tweets [he writes about] building a wall.”
The book puts a humorous lens on a presidency that is increasingly disturbing to some citizens and world leaders.
RELATED VIDEO: PEOPLE Writer Natasha Stoynoff Breaks Silence, Accuses Donald Trump of Sexual Attack
Since his inauguration in January 2017, President Trump’s Twitter feed has stirred up numerous controversies on a global scale. Recently, on July 22, he lashed out at Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani in a late-night tweet, writing an all-caps warning in response to a foreboding statement issued by the foreign leader.
Addressing Rouhani directly, the president tweeted, “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.”
Trump continued, “WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”
Trump also made headlines in January when he wrote that he has a “bigger and more powerful” nuclear button than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in a tweet that some interpreted as a threat of nuclear war.
While these explosive outbursts, as well as the multiple instances in which Trump has contradicted himself on Twitter, make people wonder if the president means everything he tweets, Bodow and Flanz think he’s probably sincere.
“[Trump is] either being authentic or he’s faking it better than anybody,” Bodow says.
“He’s stayed in character longer than any James Franco role ever,” jokes Flanz.
They add that writers for The Daily Show are “well trained in [calling out bullshit].” The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library exhibit and book are just one way the show is attempting to push back against the controversial president. That’s a task that, Flanz explains, “may be our greatest challenge of all time.”
“[Trump] continues to drive the political narrative literally every day now. Now that he’s the president, his Twitter feed plays a large role in determining which way the world is pointed,” Bodow says. “[Just recently, he thought,] ‘Oh, maybe we’re going to have a war with Iran now,’ because at 11:30 at night he had indigestion… This is the actual president.”
The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library is on sale now.
