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The Trump Comeback... Michael Wolff’s Inside Story
00:25:17
And what does Melania really think about her husband?
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- [00:00]
Justin Webb
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:06]
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- [00:33]
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- [01:10]
Justin Webb
BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. What do we really know about Donald Trump? What do we know about his relationship with his wife? What do we know about how much he takes his own decisions? How many of those decisions are foisted on him by his team and perhaps by one Elon Musk. What do we know about the workings of of the Trump inner sanctum? We're going to find out in just a second. Welcome to AmericasT.
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Sarah Smith
AmericasT.
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Michael Wolff
AmericasT from BBC News. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War Three. President Trump's message is very simple. We are done being taken advantage of. Mr. President, in the name of our God, have mercy upon the people. We're scared now.
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Sarah Smith
Are you supportive of these onesies?
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I'm supportive of vaccines.
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Sarah Smith
What is happening?
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Justin Webb
Like, this is not America.
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This is a terrible nightmare.
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Sarah Smith
This is what victory feels like. Yeah, hello, it's Sarah here in the BBC's bureau in Washington.
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Justin Webb
And it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT in London, England. And we're going to be hearing Sarah in just a second from Michael Wolff. Michael Wolff, who has written quite a few books about Donald Trump and about his inner circle, but has just brought out a new one which deals with that kind of crucial period, actually that seminal period where he was out of everything, it seemed, and clawed his way back, first into contention and then of course, back into the White House.
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Sarah Smith
Yeah. What has of course, frequently been described as the greatest political comeback in American history, which I think is by whom. It's not actually over. Used to be in our titles that J.D. vance shouting that. And that's actually, I think, not an exaggeration from the Trump camp for once. And I mean, it's fascinating, Justin, when you say, you know, he's written several books about Donald Trump. I am sure you have. And many of our Americasters read quite a few books about Donald Trump as well. There must be more than there have been about just about any other American president, bar I guess maybe Abe Lincoln. We're kind of absolutely fascinated, aren't we, by what goes on behind the scenes, what happens behind the mask. Even though he's very open and he's talking to us all the time, we just want to know more and more and more.
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Justin Webb
Yeah. And we want to know how he rolls really, don't we? Because there is something so disinhibited about Donald Trump that I don't know, certainly in your own life, you struggle, don't you, to think of people, you know, who are so kind of wild in what they're willing to do and say and the risks actually as well that they're willing to take. And what's fascinating about Michael Wolff is that he's got this real access, he's actually had access in the past to Donald Trump himself. I'll ask him when I talk to him in a few seconds time, we'll ask him about the access that he has at the moment. But in the past, he's had access to the man himself and certainly still has access to his people. And you get this picture of how it is that this man actually operates from really kind of weird details about what he likes to eat when he celebrates a success through to the kind of broader thing of how he governs, how many people get involved in the decision making and what that kind of process, indeed, if the word process is usable at all when it comes to Donald Trump.
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Sarah Smith
Justin, apologies, I'm gonna have to run. There are, you know, geopolitical conflicts around the world that I have to cover for the news. Much as I would love to stay and talk to Michael Wolfe, I will be listening to this episode with interest as soon as it drops. Good luck.
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Justin Webb
Yeah, don't rub it. Have a day job and I don't. But it's, it's a great pleasure to talk to you and it's going to be a pleasure now to talk to Michael Wolf. So on the line now, Michael Wolf, author of all or Nothing But Author, also several other books About Donald Trump. This is not the first of them, by any means. And Michael. Well, first of all, hello, thanks a lot for talking to us, of course. And secondly, why does he keep having you back?
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Michael Wolff
Well, there is the question, I think over. I mean, I've been writing about Donald Trump now for almost 10 years, so I am, I think I am part of the experience. And certainly many people around him have not only become, I would say, quite used to me, but we have become very good friends, in fact. So this is a moment in history that I think that we all share and their willingness to talk to me is part of, is part of the phenomenon of Donald Trump. The people around him are pretty clear eyed about who he is, what he is, and about the sheer incredible nature of this, of the experience that they've had and that the whole world has had.
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Justin Webb
It is weird, isn't it? Because on the one hand they trash your books and they're trashing this one too, and saying it's all rubbish and all made up and all the rest of it. On the other hand, they're part of them and they very obviously do talk to you. Nobody is suggesting that they don't.
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Michael Wolff
Well, let me, I'll tell you a little story that when two weeks ago or so when the book came out and Trump posted typical and rather long winded invective against me, as soon as he posted this, someone in the White House sent me a link and along with the link was the message, you're welcome, exclamation point.
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Justin Webb
Okay, let's get to the substance of what you're saying and you write a bit about Melania and this relationship with Melania. I got into some trouble on the podcast some time ago when I suggested that Melania was in some senses a feminist icon. Just meaning that she, she really does do her own thing and did do, of course, during the election campaign. But you're writing about mainly before the election campaign and it is fascinating. That relationship is weird, isn't it?
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Michael Wolff
Well, yeah. I mean, a feminist icon, that would be some stretch. It's a wholly transactional relationship. They don't really live together, they don't really support each other, or they only support each other if the trade is, is right for one or the other. I mean, and so the more interesting thing is how they get away with this, how he gets away with this. And it's just part of the many things that he does get away with.
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Justin Webb
How does he get away with it? I mean, why, I mean, get away with in the sense of this is not the traditional presidential first lady relationship that is presented to the world, but does he. Is there also at a kind of deeper level, a kind of subterfuge going on that is relevant, I suppose, to the nation?
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Michael Wolff
Well, I think the interesting thing is that it's an open subterfuge. And anyone looking at this, I mean, everybody knows once, once I was trying to figure. I was talking to a person very close to Trump, and I was trying to figure this out. She's not. She has made no campaign appearances, never shows up in a courtroom, doesn't really, you know, seldom. Seldom is at Mar a Lago when he was living there, was seldom at the White House when he was living there. And I kind of said, well, what's this about in this purpose? Looks at me like I'm a complete moron and says, what do you mean she hates his guts? And it was one of those instances. It's like you smack your head and say, well, of course it's right in front of everybody's nose.
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Justin Webb
Let's go back to his professional relationships now. But actually still a relationship with women. You write about the woman, the very young woman who carries the printer that goes onto the golf course with him. Tell us about her and about that thing.
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Michael Wolff
Well, this is a young woman whose name is Natalie Harp. She's 30 years old, perhaps she's now 31. And she came into the campaign in 2022 as his go fetch it girl, which all politicians have, such a person. But she continued to rise up the ranks, and she did this on the basis of her ability to say always what he wanted to hear, to use this portable printer she carried around to print out things that he wanted to see, a world free of criticism, a world in which his every move and every inclination was confirmed as correct. And it is part of this bubble world he occupies. And one of the ways he's able to do this is surrounding him with people like Natalie Harp, the quintessential yes person. And not just that she really became the person that he spent the most time with. And to this day, she's outside of the Oval Office. He doesn't go anywhere without her. She is his effective alter ego, except there is no alter there. She is, like, at all times, the echo of what he wants to hear.
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Justin Webb
You mentioned the bubble. And I think one of the images we have of Donald Trump, particularly during the election campaign, is that he's willing to kind of go outside the bubble and mix it with people and do contentious interviews and all the rest of it, but actually you write in the book and you mentioned this incident. Well, it wasn't an incident because he didn't go. But his aides come up with the idea of him going out and sucking it to the students at Columbia University. This is the anti Israeli protests. And that doesn't come to anything. Explain why that is important when it comes to understanding this man.
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Michael Wolff
Well, in that when his aides went to him because a lot of other Republican politicians were going to Colombia and that, you know, it was a good, a good move to confirm their position as very much pro Israel. And when Trump was presented with this idea, he immediately reacted and violently reacted in saying, no students, no students. You know, he didn't want to get in front of students. And that kind of confirms or conforms to every other aspect of what he does here. I mean, he doesn't engage in debate, he doesn't engage in anything that's contentious be in a situation where he is confronted. And this played out the week before last when Zelensky went to the White House and suddenly you had this Zelensky there, the president of Ukraine, and he's trying to explain the situation there and then trying to engage Trump in a discussion of it and then perish the thought, a debate about it. I mean, watching this, I thought, oh my God, this is going to go south because Trump won't do it. He won't engage in any kind of debate or he will only engage in a one sided debate. He's the name caller, he's the insulter, he's the guy who's posting these terrible things about people. But never is he in a situation where he can be confronted back.
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Justin Webb
And that brings us then to the people who are close to him now professionally and obviously the biggest of those, Elon Musk, what do you make of that relationship? Cause Musk comes on the scene quite late on in the period you're writing about, doesn't he?
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Michael Wolff
Right. I mean, Musk essentially buys his way into the Trump circle. And it is, by the way, very costly to Elon Musk. But I look at Musk is sort of in the Steve Bannon role in the first administration. And they've both gotten been on the COVID of Time magazine as the real president. Their function is as the tip of the spear disruptors. These are the guys who theoretically have the ideas. And you know, Bannon lasted six months. So I would say that's a pretty good measure for how long Elon Musk will last.
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Justin Webb
But when Musk first comes onto the scene, what does Trump make of Him.
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Michael Wolff
Well, there's a moment, and this happens at the Butler rally. Remember, Butler is the place where the first assassination attempt took place. And then in the last days of the campaign, there was another rally to kind of recall the assassination. And Elon Musk appeared. This is in Pennsylvania, by the way. And Elon Musk is in the process of pouring tens of, actually it will be hundreds of millions of dollars into helping Trump win Pennsylvania. And Trump. And Elon Musk comes onto the stage. And he comes onto the stage, it's a sort of, suddenly it's Elon Musk as Mick Jagger and he's wearing a T shirt, rises up his belly and Trump says, he seems genuinely confounded by this. He says, why doesn't the guy's shirt fit?
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Justin Webb
There was a moment during, well, look, there were several moments, weren't there, during the whole of the coming back of Donald Trump, of this extraordinary kind of way in which he put all the pieces back together again where it might have gone wrong. And obviously the legal cases would have brought down a more self reflective man.
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Michael Wolff
No, no, no, the legal cases would have brought down anyone else in United States political history, not to put too fine a point on it.
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Justin Webb
Yeah, no, but it's a point very well made, very well taken. Why in his case was it that he saw them simply as politics and was able to in a way that someone else wouldn't have done?
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Michael Wolff
You know, I think because he is fundamentally self destructive, whereas everyone else would have looked at this as, you know, I got to cut my losses here. I got to get out of this in the best possible situation. But Trump, on the other hand, said, no, it's going to be all or nothing, which is obviously why I called my book all or Nothing and that he was willing to do this. So he was willing to risk everything, risk his fundamental freedom, his career, his freedom, his fortune, all of that. And obviously that raises the dramatic stakes and makes him all the more of a compelling figure of his story. All the more a riveting one. But the fact that he would do this, really, you have to, you have to kind of pause and say, what kind of guy would do this? Now, as it happens, he turned out to be the absolute correct strategy. But as easily it could have gone the other way.
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Justin Webb
There's a moment where you talk about the mugshot. We made a lot about the mugshots and obviously, well, everyone has, but we covered it a lot during the campaign, the way in which he kind of politicized the mugshot. But he likes it from the Moment it's taken, doesn't he?
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Michael Wolff
Completely. Again, it's him. Whereas anyone else would have seen their mugshot as the kind of ultimate humiliation, he sees it as the ultimate promotional opportunity.
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Justin Webb
And he did promote it and he did use it, and he used it politically. Is it fair to say that the Democrats should have seen this coming and either the Biden, Justice Department, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, should have acted quicker if they were going to take legal action against it or should have binned it?
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Michael Wolff
Yeah. Well, I think you can go, you can analyze what the Democrats did and find fault with everything. They did everything wrong. You know, they have, they, like the, the media, like most other institutions in the US have misunderstood Donald Trump. I mean, they just had no idea who this guy is, how he functions. And the fact that if they were going to prosecute him, yes, they should have prosecuted him from the get go. They should have understood that he would have responded this, responded to this with delay, delay, delay, delay, which he did. And he ultimately ran out the clock on so much of this. But they didn't understand that. I mean, they just assumed he would respond. Like every other politician. I've been indicted in a criminal case. I fold, I go away, I will, like everyone else, plea bargain. And clearly he did not do that. What's more, they really gave him the issue that he ran on. I mean, that was the issue of the campaign. They are victimizing me. They are coming after me. If they're coming after me, they're coming after you.
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Justin Webb
It's interesting, isn't it? Because that is exactly what's happening, you could say, at the moment, isn't it? I mean, he's in another battle with the courts, albeit from a different perspective. But it's the same paper.
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Michael Wolff
Absolutely. But it is very important, as we think about this, to understand how much, how dopey the Democrats have been. They just don't get it. Their inability here is an important piece of history.
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Justin Webb
And when it comes to coverage of Trump now, I mean, certainly a lot of people contact us, Michael, and say, you know, it's all going wrong. He's not being, we're not calling out the things that he's doing or the media more widely aren't. And the zone is flooded in the old Steve Bannon phrase. I mean, what do you make of the way in which what he is doing at the moment is being covered and fed through to people as information?
- [21:05]
Michael Wolff
Well, you know, I mean, the political media, which I would take pains to point out, I am not a part of, consistently sees him in the role of a politician. He's the President of the United States. The therefore he must be a politician. Instead of seeing him as a complete anomaly to every assumption that we have made about politics and politicians. So the media reports on him as they report on all politics and politicians as an issue of cause and effect. He does this to accomplish that. And they assume that's a range of policy ideas and ideological ideas. Instead of understanding that he does this actually only for what they will do the media. This is a wholly circular relationship. I'm going to announce this because the media will then make this a story. So the entire Trump mo is a headline, headline, headline. He gets up in the morning, what's the headline for the day?
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Justin Webb
And that's really interesting because your books are not about policy, are they? And that actually is crucial. It's really important.
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Michael Wolff
Well, there is no policy. It's about attention. So when I first, when I did the. I've known Trump for a long time and I knew him in New York cause I was a journalist and he was, you know, that was a natural relationship. But when I first interviewed him in his political life, which would have been in the spring of 2016, and it still seemed utterly preposterous that he would truly ever be the President of the United States. But I said to him, I said, okay, okay, so tell me, why are you doing this? And he didn't hesitate for a second. Seamlessly he said, to be the most famous man in the world. And I thought that is a goal that really does exist wholly outside of politics. And it's a motivation that I think is confounding to anyone who is interested in politics. Again, not about policy, not about legislative agenda, agenda, not about even legacy. It is just about me. Donald Trump.
- [23:40]
Justin Webb
How does this end, Michael?
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Michael Wolff
Well, you know, it ends as all things end. He's 78 years old and this will end. And he is term limited. He will not be able to run again either because he's too old and because, because the barriers of doing that are too great. But it also ends because there is only one Donald Trump. He's not going to. His shoes will not be filled by JD Vance or anyone else in the so called MAGA movement. I mean he is truly unique. There has never been anyone in politics like him. There will not be for a very long time to come.
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Justin Webb
Just a final thought then. How did you approach this? Number one, did you talk to Donald Trump himself? And number two, those people who have talked to you, what's the arrangement?
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Michael Wolff
The arrangement is you talk to me and I protect you. There will never be a situation in which you will be identified as having been one of my sources. Easy. And for that? For that. In exchange for that, you tell me everything. And the readers of my books get the kind of view that they're not going to get from any other source.
- [25:07]
Justin Webb
Michael Wolves, it's a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for sparing us the time. The book is called all or Nothing. And are you going to write another? Do you think about him? Is there another in this presidency?
- [25:19]
Michael Wolff
I certainly hope not, but I've said that after every book.
- [25:23]
Justin Webb
We'll talk to you again if you do. Thanks.
- [25:26]
Michael Wolff
Anytime. Ameracast ameracast from BBC News.
- [25:33]
Sarah Smith
Well done for getting all the way to the end of another AmericasT episode that makes you officially an Americaster. It's not easy navigating your way through the news in America, particularly at the moment, but you did it and we're delighted to to have you with us. So if you do have a comment or a question about any of the stories we've talked about or anything you'd like us to talk about, do please get in touch. You can email us americastbc.co.uk, you can WhatsApp us a message on 033-01-2390. And we do answer your questions every single week on the podcast. You can always join the discussion in our online community on Discord. The link is in our podcast description, in your app, and we'll be back with another episode very soon. Till then, see you later. Bye Bye.
- [26:27]
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