Real Reason Trump Is Never Going to Recover: Wolff

Summary

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The Daily Beast Podcast

Episode: Real Reason Trump Is Never Going to Recover: Wolff
Host: Joanna Coles
Date: April 8, 2026
Guests: Michael Wolff, Emma

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Episode Overview

In this charged and incisive episode, Joanna Coles welcomes journalist and author Michael Wolff, alongside regular Emma, to unpack the escalating Iran crisis under President Donald Trump’s second administration. The conversation weaves analysis of Trump’s increasingly bellicose foreign policy, the cornering of MAGA figures like J.D. Vance, and the broader unraveling of the MAGA movement—while examining Trump’s psychology, internal White House drama, and the impact on global power dynamics. The episode also includes vivid anecdotes from Wolff’s media career, the Trump-Bannon dynamic, and a deep dive into the ephemeral nature of American magazines.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Wartime Presidency and the Iran Crisis

• Trump’s Escalation and Cornered Mindset

  • Wolff argues Trump is “trapped very clearly in a forever war on a tipping point scale. This is very much, very clearly, I think, indispensably, indisputably the beginning of the end.” – Michael Wolff, [00:29]
  • Trump’s language and threats are becoming more explicit, violent, and “stupid.” - [02:58]
  • Despite branding himself a ‘no forever wars’ president, Trump is now mired in conflict he can’t escape.

• The Strait of Hormuz & Global Power Shift

  • U.S. actions in Iran have granted the Iranians leverage: “The Iranians have taken over the Strait of Hormuz… They have a claim and a kind of stranglehold… it’s an embargo on 20% of the world’s oil without really doing very much.” – Michael Wolff, [04:20]
  • Emma draws parallels to “David and Goliath,” observing how American military might is not translating into victory or respect.

• Impact on American Politics & Blame-Shifting

  • Trump starts offloading blame for the quagmire onto younger MAGA politicians, notably J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth, both potential future candidates.
  • Emma notes: “He’s managed to put a grappling hook around JD Vance, who always wanted to get away from the war.” – [08:00]
  • Rubio, as an “old neocon,” is also implicated and shows visible stress.
  • Wolff: “There cannot be another Republican president because that would supersede Donald Trump… Any new Republican president compromises Donald Trump’s identity, so that won’t happen.” – [09:18]

2. Trump’s Leadership Style: Chaos, Insecurity & Control

• Trump surrounds himself with people less intelligent or equally “stupid”, eroding governmental IQ.

• “Structurally, you cannot be around Donald Trump and be smarter than he is… so the entire IQ of the American government has been lowered.” – Michael Wolff, [06:23]

• Emma: “Nobody has agency here. Everybody's agency has literally been removed by Donald Trump. Think of Donald Trump as you would think of the world around Stalin. He could kill you any minute.” – [12:02]

• Truth Social Easter post and reactions (Tucker Carlson):

  • “Open the fucking Straits, you crazy bastard.”
  • Wolff: “Tucker’s main issue is saying ‘fuck’ on Easter morning… this is nuts. What is the man saying?” – [13:01]

• Trump’s reality-TV mindset: public bravado, split-screen contradictions, and empty rhetorical threats.

  • Wolff: “He is raising the expectations… of obliteration and Armageddon… which he is not going to do… and then he’s going to have to run away from them again.” – [13:01]

3. Detailed Examples of Dysfunction

• Trump’s inconsistent messaging, especially in relation to religion and credibility:
  • Pope’s Easter rebuke (“those with power should use it peacefully”), Trump’s clumsy responses, and awkward religious pandering. – [13:54]
• Trump’s bizarre public comments, even with children present.
  • “Actually, in the presence of children, he always says something strange… remember when he told some child there was no Santa Claus.” – Michael Wolff, [18:08]
• Aides and allies are trapped, evoking a “split screen” of U.S. overwhelming force vs. Iranian resourcefulness. – [15:34]

4. J.D. Vance in Hungary & MAGA’s Global Struggles

• Vance’s tone-deaf diplomatic blunders, his ignorance of current events, and his wife’s subversive children’s podcast.
• Orban’s looming defeat points to the waning of global MAGA influence.
  • “The MAGA movement was spreading around the world. So right now Orban is in trouble. Orban will probably lose. This could not come at a more dicey time for Trump and the MAGA movement… the beginning of the end of Trumpism and MAGA.” – Michael Wolff, [28:58]
• Embarrassing email leaks showing Orban’s collusion with Russia—implicating Vance by association.

5. Broader Geopolitical Consequences

• U.S. entanglement in Iran strengthens China and Russia.
  • “China has developed a whole alternative energy industry… the impact of this loss of oil on China is so much less than all other places in the world… they will reap the benefits…” – Michael Wolff, [31:17]

6. Steve Bannon, Pardons, and the Trump-Bannon Rift

• Supreme Court is set to vacate Steve Bannon’s congressional contempt conviction, partly through behind-the-scenes Trump deal-making.
  • Wolff theorizes: “It wasn’t free… Steve made a promise to go easy on the war. He’s anti-war, a central MAGA voice.” – [36:08]
• Bannon’s falling out with Trump:
  • “[Bannon] was the man who probably got Trump elected… should get the credit for Trump’s victory, which has always pissed Trump off.” – [33:10]
  • Wolff describes Bannon as “incredibly entertaining, insightful, and, of course, utterly opportunistic.” – [36:57]

7. Media, Publishing, and Personal Anecdotes

• Wolff recounts dramatic, often farcical attempts to buy New York Magazine with a “diabolical” cast: Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, Mort Zuckerman, and Nelson Peltz.
• The surreal end to the bid: Epstein’s blunt phone call—“Bruce Wasserstein has bettered our bid. We’re done. Let me get back to you. I got Clinton here.” – Jeffrey Epstein, quoted by Michael Wolff, [46:37]
• Memoir nostalgia about the heyday and decline of magazines:
  • “I’ve never seen an industry disappear faster than the magazine business… for it to puff gone.” – Michael Wolff, [48:55]

8. Enduring Trumpism and War Crimes

• Wolff on Trump’s media dominance and political legacy:
  • “The entire world has become obviously reshaped by Donald Trump, not just by his mendaciousness, but by his command of such attention. Still.” – [49:38]
• Brief whimsical speculation about prosecuting Trump for war crimes:
  • “If he gets prosecuted for war crimes, at least they've got lots of evidence of what he was planning to do. It's not like he can say he didn't mean it.” – Emma, [50:11]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He’s gotten himself into a situation that he can’t get out of…the no forever wars president is right now trapped very clearly in a forever war.”
  — Michael Wolff, [00:29]

• “It could be darkness at noon… This is Donald Trump.”
  — Michael Wolff, [01:16]

• “The entire IQ of the American government has been lowered by Donald Trump.”
  — Michael Wolff, [06:23]

• “Think of Donald Trump as you would think of the world around Stalin. He could kill you any minute.”
  — Michael Wolff, [12:02]

• “Trump is…raising expectations of what he will do—of obliteration and Armageddon and the end of the world—which he is not going to do.”
  — Michael Wolff, [13:01]

• “This is very much, very clearly, I think, indisputably the beginning of the end. He’s not going to recover from this.”
  — Michael Wolff, [20:05]

• “There cannot be another Republican president because that would supersede Donald Trump…”
  — Michael Wolff, [09:18]

• On Bannon:
  “He was willing to give me the story because at that point, he so hated Donald Trump. That’s an interesting example of someone who actually was willing to talk about the pain of working for Donald Trump…” — Michael Wolff, [38:23]

• On Media Nostalgia:
  “I've never seen an industry disappear faster than the magazine business.” — Michael Wolff, [48:55]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Trump’s State of Mind, Iran Crisis Introduced – [00:29] to [05:21]
• White House Dynamics & Blame Shifting – [05:21] to [09:13]
• MAGA Succession, Vance, Hegseth, Rubio – [09:13] to [12:02]
• Stalin Metaphor, Agency, Press Conference Analysis – [12:02] to [16:09]
• Public Outbursts, Split-Screen Reality – [16:09] to [18:34]
• Hungary, Orban, MAGA on Global Stage – [23:33] to [31:11]
• China, Russia, Global Repercussions – [31:11] to [32:28]
• Steve Bannon, Pardons, Trump-Bannon Dynamic – [32:30] to [38:16]
• New York Magazine Bid, Epstein & Weinstein – [39:05] to [45:50]
• Reflections on Magazines & Media – [48:08] to end

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Tone and Language

The episode is unsparing, witty, conversational, and often darkly comic. Wolff delivers caustic yet insightful takes, never shying away from mockery (both affectionate and cutting) of Trump and his enablers, leaning into metaphors and historic analogies. Emma and Coles inject dry humor and occasional exasperation, creating the atmosphere of a dinner party where the main course is political chaos, personal reminiscence, and gallows humor.

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Transcript

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[Michael Wolff]

And he's rightly cornered. He doesn't know what to do because no one knows what to do. He's gotten himself into a situation that he can't get out of the no forever wars. President is right now trapped very clearly in a forever war on a tipping point scale. This is very much, very clearly, I think, indispensably, indisputably the beginning of the end.

[Emma]

Michael. Joanna, what's happening, man? What's happening? We're recording this on Tuesday morning. The president has thrown out lots of ultimatums.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, it's possible that the world is ending.

[Emma]

Well, I would just like to say it is.

[Michael Wolff]

I mean, essentially, Donald Trump is right now, as we speak, through threatening to end the world. I mean, civilization, I think, in his words, civilization as at least the Iranian people know it. So we are at a moment, a critical moment in which he is essentially saying, I'm going to go further in warfare than we have gone since the Second World War. This, I mean, I don't think any American president, I'm not sure any leader, Putin, possibly with the exception of Putin, has ever been this explicit in his intention to create a level of destruction that the world has not seen in a very, very long time. So this is like, let's not hold back here now. This is Donald Trump. So we have no idea what's going to happen. And he can scamper away any second. But right now, at this juncture, it sort of could be darkness at noon.

[Emma]

So we're recording this on Tuesday morning. We have no idea what's going to happen. But what's going on where we go three times a week inside that big head of his with its moldy hay hair and its orange complexion and its increasingly hunched neck.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, he's cornered, obviously. I mean, he doesn't know what to do. When he doesn't know what to do, the threats get greater, the language gets more. More explicitly, well, stupid, of course, but violent. Explicitly violent and threatening. And he'si meand he's rightly cornered. He doesn't know what to do because no one knows what to do. He's gotten himself into a situation that he can't get out of. So the no forever wars president is right now trapped very clearly in, in a forever war.

[Emma]

And the sort of foolish bragging which would work well in a television show, in a reality show. And we're always talking about how this is the spinoff and how he looks at everything through the lens of a reality show. This is reality. And there's been so much knock on effect from the bombing campaign against Iran and his sort of ridiculous comments like five presidents didn't have the balls to do this. I, I am the only person that can do this. And in fact, what he's brought us is a crisis around the Strait of Hormuz that no one had heard of really, before he started this.

[Michael Wolff]

No, no. And he's off. The balance of power there has been altered, not in our favor. So before it was just a free passage waterway. Now essentially, the Iranians have taken over the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, before the war, they had no claim on the Strait of Hormuz. Now they have a claim and they have actually a kind of stranglehold. I mean, nobody knows what to do. The balance of power, literally the balance of power has shifted because they've figured out that all you have to do is. Well, actually all you have to do is threaten. And that inhibits insurers and boat owners and everybody who might try to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. So therefore, it's an embargo on 20% of the world's oil without really doing very much.

[Emma]

Right. Well, and it's the most extraordinary story yet again of David and Goliath that America strides along as Goliath Pete Hegseth shouts that we've got the biggest military in the world. We've got unfathomable bombing capacity, which is true, but it's not always what wins in the end, as we know from the last few wars. And the thing that really irritates me is that this makes you root against Donald Trump. So you're rooting against America, which nobody, you know, no American actually wants to do, but it's hard to feel anything but unenthusiastic about this foolishness.

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah. And it also goes to the point that not only do you have to be the most powerful nation on earth, but. But you do have to be a little bit intelligent. And Donald Trump and his collection of stupids. And these are stupid, stupid, stupid people. I mean, more stupid because they're wedded to Donald Trump's stupidity.

[Emma]

Right.

[Michael Wolff]

I mean, you cannot be. I Mean, structurally, you cannot be around Donald Trump and be smarter than he is, then you're gonna, you won't be around him. So the entire intelligence, the entire IQ of the American government has been lowered by Donald Trump.

[Emma]

And what's interesting is that he knows he's cornered despite his ludicrous press conference, which we can go into in a minute. But he's already started laying the blame for HEGSETH and for J.D. vance. And there was a wonderful moment where J.D. vance gets caught out. Trump throws it to him and says, how's it going, J.D. vance? How's the negotiations going? And J.D. vance isn't expecting to have the ball thrown at him. So he's kind of, you know, obfuscating because he really doesn't know. And it's very clear that Trump is saying this is on JD and we know that JD didn't want to go to war. He's got a book coming out called How He Found His Faith Again. I'm sure he did find his faith again after working for Donald Trump. So J.D. vance is thinking, when's my book tour starting? How can I make some more money out of this whole thing? He doesn't want to be lumbered with the war.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, and more importantly, J.D. vance, who will run for president in 2028, at least run for the Republican nomination, has to be, is set up to be the MAGA candidate, but the MAGA candidate has to be a no forever wars candidate. And suddenly Donald Trump has linked J.D. vance to a forever war.

[Emma]

I mean, it's pretty smart from Trump's point of view. I mean, I'm definitely not rooting for J.D. vance. So it's pretty smart that he's managed to put a grappling hook around JD Vance, who was always get away from the war and then another one random.

[Michael Wolff]

Whoever the nominee is going to be, he is going to undermine, of course, so it doesn't matter and why not start now?

[Emma]

Right? But he's obviously figured out that both Hegseth and JD Vance are sort of young enough to be, to possibly present as a kind of new future for America and he's not having any of it. And they're both going to get lumbered with the blame for this war, which is not going well. And Marco Rubio actually, because he sort of somehow managed to really associate himself with a 24 hours of glory in Venezuela at the moment, seems a little less slimed fair. I mean, Rubio just did too.

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah, I mean Rubio is just an old neocon, right? So I mean, he's gonna get, as the neocons always do, gonna get saddled with this war, and he's gonna go down.

[Emma]

These wars don't work, so he's going down too.

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[Michael Wolff]

Oh. I mean, the principle is that Trump will bring anybody down. There cannot be another Republican president because that would supersede Donald Trump, who is going to leave office and go back to Mar? A Lago as the once and future president. He will be Donald Trump. Any new Republican president compromises Donald Trump's identity, so that won't happen.

[Emma]

At least Rubio has the decency to look anxious about this whole thing. Every time you see a picture of him, you look like his soul's left his body.

[Michael Wolff]

He's a real sweaty guy.

[Emma]

Yeah. And he's just, he looks older. His face is crumbling in on itself, and he looks utterly panicked, whereas JD Vance just looks swollen.

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[Michael Wolff]

All of these people are the people around Donald Trump. So everything that they think and everything that they feel and every action they take is about reaction to Donald Trump. What will Donald Trump think? How will Donald Trump. Trump's hit back at them if they don't do it right? What does Donald Trump expect of them? I mean, this is.

[Emma]

No, it's embarrassing. And the way they said yesterday in the press conference. And this is all possible because of the great courage of Donald Trump, because of the majesty of Donald Trump. You're just like, ridiculous.

[Michael Wolff]

Nobody has agency here. Everybody's agency has literally been removed by, by Donald Trump. I mean, this is just Think of Donald Trump as you would think of the world around Stalin. He could kill you any minute.

[Emma]

Right. And you do not want to be just a. You don't want to be the first person who stops clapping Stalin. Right? That's the sign.

[Michael Wolff]

Exactly.

[Emma]

What comes out of his mouth is a reflection of what's going on in his head, obviously. And it's bonkers. And it's obvious he's cornered and panicked.

[Michael Wolff]

I mean, I was the. The Truth social on Easter morning, which Tucker Carlson has now flagged in a particularly Tucker like way, and obviously for Tucker's own benefit, is like, that post was the fuck.

[Emma]

Well, it was. What was it? Open the fucking Straits, you crazy bastard.

[Michael Wolff]

Exactly. And so, and so Tucker Carlson has said. I mean, I think his main issue is saying fuck on Christmas, Easter darling on Easter morning. And so we can burnish Tucker's Christian credentials. But it also goes to the fact that this is nuts. What is the man saying? What is the point here? And also from a strategic level, he is raising the expectations, expectations of what he will do of obliteration and Armageddon and the end of the world, which he is not going to do. So he is going to raise the expectations and then he's going to have to run away from them again.

[Emma]

Right, ok.

[Michael Wolff]

So how can this be good for Donald Trump?

[Emma]

I mean, well, and he sent the Truth social out on Easter morning, probably having woken up to the realization he's been attacked by the Pope. So the Pope, you know, addresses his crowd. It's his first Easter, first American Pope, that those who have power should use it peacefully, which is obviously not what Trump is doing. And then there was the strange conversation when he was asked about, you know, is God on your side during the Monday press conference? And he was like, God is great, God is good. And he, and I mean, he and Hegseth have sort of dragged God into this for obvious reasons, for political gain, but it just feels ridiculous.

[Michael Wolff]

No, it's. I mean, that's the other thing, the believability gap here, or in my day, during the war in Vietnam, what we used to call the credibility gap is. I mean, I think that, I think we are seeing that again, what he says versus what the reality is. And this goes back to always that metaphor that I come back to, the split screen, because Trump is obviously a television performer, so you might as well stick with the central metaphor that we always come back to. And in this split screen, he has, you know, it is Armageddon and obliteration and the, the full force of the United States military, the greatest force that the world has ever known.

[Emma]

No one's ever seen anything like it. No one's seen anything like it, which

[Michael Wolff]

is true, except for. Then in the other screen, you have the Iranians, whose military has clearly been degraded, if not devastated, nevertheless managing to hold the world hostage. So it is again in this Trump thing, these absolute contradictory realities, which he does not know how to bridge.

[Emma]

Well, and the other thing is, when he goes into his speeches, you can see him then trying to sort of wander off. So he attacks Biden as a retard. And he says, you know, he goes off. There's some sort of moment there where he pulls in North Korea and he says, aren't you pleased about the way I've, you know, I've got a great relationship with North Korea. And actually, Kim Jong Il or UN or whichever one it is, said that Biden was retard. So he says that twice. Then he says, he says that he inherited. He said this twice in the last two or three days. He inherited a crippled and dead country, which he's now made into the hottest country. I mean, again, falling back on his language that he used for his team of lawyers that you always used to say. He used to. I was going to say, he used to say to you, I may not have the best lawyers, but I've got the hottest lawyers. And now he may not have the best country, but he's got the hottest country. Many people saying it's the hottest country.

[Michael Wolff]

No, I mean, it's just so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing, but it's beyond embarrassing. I mean, it is. And it goes to. It reflects what is going on in his head, which is all kinds of weird, all kinds of dangerous, all kinds of incoherence. So he doesn't know. He doesn't know not only what he's doing, but he doesn't really even know what he's thinking from moment to moment.

[Emma]

Well, at the Easter egg hunt or the Easter egg roll at the White House on Monday, he was signing things for children, I think he was signing eggs. And he said, you know, if Biden, he wouldn't be using a pen, he'd be using the auto pen. And there's a child looking at him, and the child just goes, what? And the child has no idea. And you're conscious that in Trump's head, he's just like, Biden, Biden.

[Michael Wolff]

No, actually, in the presence of children, he always says something strange, Right?

[Emma]

Super aggressive, I think.

[Michael Wolff]

Remember when he told some child there was no Santa Claus.

[Emma]

That's right. That's right. And Melania is just standing there and she's become even more silent. Hello. I say nothing. I'm totally silent. I mean, she just, she was standing there grinning as he was talking about inheriting a crippled and dead country.

[Michael Wolff]

I mean, it's this other thing. Cause, I mean, I've seen this. I've literally witnessed this countless times. Trump there, blah, blah, blah. And everyone around him kind of holding their breath. What is he going to say now? It's not as if the people around Trump think that this is normal and logical and business as usual. They think this is crazy. And they also kind of think, you know, when is the world going to call them? I mean, how do they. I mean, it's a sense almost of, are we going to get away with this again?

[Emma]

Well, and perhaps please don't let us get away with this again. I mean, I'm really concerned that actually Susie Wiles getting treatment for her cancer is actually part of this whole thing. What are you hearing in terms of.

[Michael Wolff]

I mean, this is that sort of, sort of.

[Emma]

Is that giving her too much power?

[Michael Wolff]

Well, no, but it assumes it's anything. Something different has happened. I mean, this is what has been. No, but it's, this is the story and has been the story every day of certainly the second administration, but also the first administration.

[Emma]

Right, but you just started this conversation by saying, you know, he may bomb a civilization out of existence tonight. It has ramped up.

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It is worse.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, it is in this situation because I think this situation is. Is the worst situation he has gotten himself into. So this is. And I think we can go broader on a tipping point scale. This is very much, very clearly, I think, indisputably the beginning of the end. He's not going to recover from this.

[Emma]

Right. He can't recover from this.

[Michael Wolff]

And so he is. This is like, oh, my God, you know, and the danger is to take everyone with him. I mean, he does. I mean, he's already. He's going to take everyone around him with him. But what does it do if were he to actually do what he's threatening to do to Iran? I'm just trying to think. I can't almost imagine the effect of this because, A, I don't think this is going to happen, and I may absolutely be proved wrong. It is Donald Trump. You don't know. He is a crazy man. So does restraint, you know, Taco Kick in some point today? I don't know. I expect that it will, but if it doesn't, I Don't know.

[Emma]

Is he listening to Tucker on something like this?

[Michael Wolff]

How many times have we gone over this? He doesn't listen to anyone.

[Emma]

I know, but he reads the room. The thing that he does do is read the room. And in the room, there are a lot of people saying this isn't a good idea, especially his. I mean, even Marjorie Traitor Greene, who's turned out to be a truth teller about this and sent out a.

[Michael Wolff]

No, no.

[Emma]

I mean, saying he's lost his mind and you're all incomplicit and everybody in the cab and I wish I'd been in the Cabinet, but I wasn't. So now I can say this stuff is complicit in this craziness.

[Michael Wolff]

This is all true, except for the fact that he's in this. He still has to deal with this circumstance, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. I mean, he literally doesn't know how. I mean, what do you do? I mean, in normal Trump business as usual, he would declare victory, but we're over that line. That's not believable anymore. Him declaring victory would immediately. It would immediately be clear that we had lost and the Iranians had won. And the other side of that is that he can become more aggressive, but more aggression only seems to give the Iranians more. Backbone, more determination to use the leverage they have against us and actually the world.

[Emma]

Right. And it's actually a very biblical story. I mean, the irony of Trump and Hegseth clothing themselves in the Bible is that this feels a very biblical story and that it's a giant power that's trying to crush a little power, or a smaller power, I should say. And the smaller power manages to sort of intelligence its way through it.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, actually, the greater irony is that it has turned Iran, a regional, heretofore regional power, into a super power, into a bigger power.

[Emma]

Yeah, yeah. So J.D. vance has been dispatched to Hungary as we speak, where he seemed to be out of touch with what's actually been going on. And of course, a little ironic, too, that he's been dispatched to Hungary to support Orban, who doesn't look like he's going to win the election on Sunday.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, let's talk about that, because I think that's also a theme, a key indicator at this moment in time. But tell this other, this story, because this is.

[Emma]

Well, I'm reading it from our swamp column, which we drop every Tuesday, and it's written by our excellent White House chief correspondent, David Gardner. JD Vlance flew overnight to Hungary to suck up to the country's right wing leader and Trump buddy Victor Orban. But he clearly didn't check his messages before going on stage for a press conference in Budapest on Tuesday morning, moments after mentioning he had a note from Steve Witkoff that he hadn't had the chance to read. And then, of course, because he's J.D. vance and he can't resist doing this, he goes, wouldn't you like to know what's in it?

[Michael Wolff]

The guy is so unpleasant.

[Emma]

So unpleasant. A Reuters reporter has to tell him to check his messages. And he should have read it because he didn't seem to know that the US had launched a wave of strikes against Kharg Island. So dozens of military targets across the island were hit, and J.D. vance didn't appear to know any of it. So he said, wouldn't you like to know what's in my text? Well, we know what's in your text. Carg island is being bombed. So he's there with his poor little wife. And we need to talk about an excellent piece that we ran by Nels Gavel, who pointed out that ushavants has started a podcast where she reads books to children. And actually, if you go down the piles of books that she has, it's.

[Michael Wolff]

Wait a minute, let me. So this is a podcast for children?

[Emma]

It's a podcast for children.

[Michael Wolff]

Children listen to podcasts now?

[Emma]

Who knows? I mean, sadly not

[Michael Wolff]

a kind of heretofore the premise that children should not be on devices.

[Emma]

Very good point, Very good point. But were they to be on devices? Were they to be. They could listen to Usha's podcast, But it's actually a very subversive podcast. And of course, she opens with Peter Rabbit, Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, female author who got rejected by all the traditional male publishing houses, publishes the books herself, makes tons of money and becomes an environmentalist. And of course, little Peter Rabbit is a bit like an immigrant who runs into the garden. Big agriculture, Mr. McGregor, the farmer drives him out, steals his jacket. And then the next book is of a little. I think it's some sort of creature, a rabbit who is driven around by all the presidents, going back sometime to Reagan and Biden, but not Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the only president missing. So, White House. I think we called the White House for comment because this is actually Usha being rather subversive and nobody's noticed apart from us.

[Michael Wolff]

You're always calling the White House for comment. Have you ever gotten a comment that is anything other than an insult or dismissal?

[Emma]

No, but we still Call them anyway.

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah, well, I mean old fashioned, this kind of journalistic.

[Emma]

Yeah. And because we know as it happens, as Caroline Levitt told a panel last week, that we're in her head that she likes to hang out with her kids because then who cares what the Daily Beasts think.

[Michael Wolff]

Go back to Vance in Hungary because I think that this is really interesting. So Viktor Orban has been taken up, and this was true in the first administration to by the MAGA people. So he was the, the indicator that the Maga movement was spreading around the world. He was taken up first by Steve Bannon and then he was taken up by Tucker Carlson. And of course, Orban has always been very close to Putin and of course Donald Trump has always had a mysterious relationship with Vladimir Putin. So this was the Maga part of the Maga world, the Maga movement spreading around the world. So right now Orban is in trouble. Orban will probably lose. So this could not come at a more dicey time for Trump and the MAGA movement or a more, depending upon how you look at more propitious time. This is again, the, I think we are seeing the writing of an end of this finally. And I'm gonna now from here on in insist that this is what we're,

[Emma]

this is the beginning of the end of Trumpism and Maga. And also when J.D. vance landed, a slew of emails came out fromwell between Putin and Orban with Orban saying, you know, I want to help you in Ukraine. Tell me how I can do that. Suck, suck, suck, suck, suck, suck, suck. And then it became clear that the Hungarian foreign minister had been taking information from EU meetings and giving it straight to Sergey Lavrov in Russia, the Russian foreign minister for, you know, to help the Russians in the war with Ukraine. So embarrassing for J.D. vance. And it looks like Orban's going to lose, sent him there, I think deliberately. I mean, it feels like he's playing

[Michael Wolff]

with him to hook him to that. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that they're kind of desperate. I mean, this is other. They are seeing the writing on the wall here and it's interesting that they're looking at Orban like you might look at a MAGA person in some state who needed support. I mean, this isif Orban goes down, that's a red flag for them. I mean, I don't know what they do. I don't know if they can ignore that. But it is one of those other things on the march to the midterms and on the march to the end of Donald Trump.

[Emma]

But it's significant that Donald Trump hasn't gone there for an unexpected last minute Visit. He sent J.D. vance.

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah, I mean, I think that would beI meanwhere Donald Trump to show up in Orban to lose. Even Donald Trump is going to have enough restraint not to set himself up like that.

[Emma]

Right, but he's managed to set up his number two, is all I'm saying.

[Michael Wolff]

Yes, and of course he has set himself up in this war, which again, he just can't get out of. He's stuck. It is going to bring him down.

[Emma]

And let's just talk about how this helps China and how it helps Russia.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, it clearly helps China in almost, in almost every way. Not least of all, it isi mean China has, over the last number of years, which the US has not done, in which or at least the US Attempts have been repeatedly frustrated by Donald Trump developed a whole alternative energy industry. So the impact of this loss of oil on China is so much less than all other places in the world. It makes China, I mean, their industry, their industry has been proved out. Their industry now will be the, their investment in this industry will be thewill make them the leaders, has made them the leaders in the development of alternative, alternative energy around the world. They arethey will reap the benefits of

[Emma]

this while Donald Trump is ripping out windmills and stopping every kind of renewable energy he can do here.

[Michael Wolff]

Extraordinary.

[Emma]

So let's talk about Steve Bannon.

[Michael Wolff]

Okay.

[Emma]

What is going to happen?

[Michael Wolff]

So Bannon is. The Supreme Court has taken steps which will allow Steve Bannon's conviction on contempt charges to be vacated. Now, this is because the White House and the Justice Department has basically said, we don't want to pursue this anymore. We think this is, we think that this is wrong. We wouldn't have pursued it then. And we want this to go away.

[Emma]

And let's just remind people he spent what, four months in jail for this?

[Michael Wolff]

I think three months. Yeah.

[Emma]

In Connecticut.

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah. I mean, and this was a contempt. He refused to appear before Congress and this was with regard to January 6th and what he knew about that he refused to appear. He was then held in contempt and that conviction was upheld and he went to jail for three months. Now, this is part of thei mean, Donald Trump's systematic effort to forgive everybody who, who was implicated and dinged in January 6th. But the interesting thing about this is the Trump Bannon relationship. So Bannon, I mean, Bannon, Bannon was, was the man who probably got Trump elected. He took over the campaign in August 2016, he imposed discipline on it. I mean, he had a vision of how to do this and was the guy who should get the credit for Trump's victory, which has always pissed Trump off. And then Bannon went into the White House and pissed everybody off and, you know, and billed himself as, you know, Donald Trump's brain, which was.

[Emma]

Well. And there was a famous cover of Time where Steve Bannon was sitting behind the Resolute desk, looking as if he were in charge, which Donald Trump. I think that was the beginning of the end for Steve Bannon. Exactly. In the Trump White House.

[Michael Wolff]

Right. So Steve Bannon lasted until August 2017, and then he was out. And he was a kind of. And let's point out that one of Steve Bannon's problems was that he became my significant source in my book Fire and Fury, and said all kinds of terrible things about Donald Trump and everyone in his family. So there has always been an amount of tension between them. So the interesting thing is, what did Bannon have to do? What was the negotiation to get Donald Trump and the Trump White House to support him in getting this conviction thrown out? It wasn'ti can guarantee it wasn't free. So. And I suspect that it was that Steve made a promise to go easy on the war.

[Emma]

Oh, interesting. Because he's anti war. Anti forever wars.

[Michael Wolff]

Anti forever wars. He's a central MAGA voice. Continues to be a central MAGA voice. So that is my theory.

[Emma]

So when you say it wasn't free, you're not talking about the regular pardons economy where you can pay to get out of jail, and people have done frequently. Yeah, no, this is literally. This is much more valuable.

[Michael Wolff]

Exactly.

[Emma]

Okay, that is interesting.

[Michael Wolff]

Exactly.

[Emma]

And you always made the point when he came out of jail and we sent a reporter up there to watch him come out, that Trump hadn't organized. This was not one of those scenarios where you get picked up in a flashcar and brought to the White House or someone from the White House meets you. He was just left on his own.

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah. I mean, Trump doesn't like Bannon, can't stand him. Actually, he's an irritant. Has always been an irritant to Trump. You know, I mean, he's clearly brags. I mean, Steve brags about how much smarter than he. Of course he's smarter. Right. And just as a. You know, I havei am not now speaking to Steve, but have had a long relationship with him and have always thought that he was incredibly entertaining, insightful, and, of course, utterly opportunistic.

[Emma]

But, well, you sort of outmaneuvered him, actually. I mean, interestingly, you know, because he brought you on board into the White House. You sat there for seven months. You then produced the first book, which everybody says this can't possibly be true. Michael Wolff is exaggerating. And in fact, if anything, you were under. Underplaying what chaos it was. But in fact, you actually outplayed Bamman. Well, perhaps he didn't understand as a source quite how.

[Michael Wolff]

No, I think that he understood that he was. We were in a symbiotic relationship.

[Emma]

You were both in a chokehold.

[Michael Wolff]

Yes. So he wanted to kill Donald Trump and I wanted to.

[Emma]

To kill Donald Trump?

[Michael Wolff]

No, I didn't want to kill. I just wanted. I wanted the story. So he was willing to give me the story because at that point, he so hated Donald Trump. I mean, that's an interesting example of someone who actually was willing to talk about the pain of working for Donald Trump, of how much Donald Trump made everyone around him, makes everyone around him suffer.

[Emma]

So the other person that you used to get the story and now you're telling the story on your substack is Jeffrey Epstein, much more controversial figure even than Steve Bannon, which is hard to

[Michael Wolff]

be, although Bannon and Epstein then became a duo.

[Emma]

Well, because you introduced them. But in this week's episode, which I read with great interest, and this is

[Michael Wolff]

just as so, every. I am writing the Epstein story as I know it in an episodic, on an episodic basis in installments every week, which is on substack. So this is a kind of a 19th century novel form.

[Emma]

Right. It's the sort of pamphlet that drops every. Every Monday. And it has a cliffhanger to it. And in this particular one, you bring together what I think is fair to say the most diabolical people in New York without quite understanding what you're doing at the time. So you're trying to bring together a consortium to buy New York magazine you call Mortz.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, I was New York magazine, where we both worked at the time, was put on the. Was put up for sale, was owned by a private equity group who had no idea what it was doing and was put up for sale in 2003. And you know, when magazines are put up, that's always a dicey moment of what's going to happen there. Usually nothing good.

[Emma]

Found something funny, send it instantly. TikTok makes sharing with friends effortless. One tap. Whole group laughing moments move fast. Download TikTok now.

[Michael Wolff]

So I was. And I loved working for New York Magazine. Best job I ever had. So I called one per. I knew sort of one person in New York who had millions to spare and love the title of being publisher, a man by the name of Mortimer Zuckerman, who then owned the Daily News and before that he had owned the Atlantic Monthly. But he was a guy really in the real estate business. Anyway, I called him and said, because we knew each other and we were kind of friendly, and I said, would you be interested? And then he sort of got excited about it, but also wanted to do it with others because it's the magazine business and even a billionaire knows not to buy a magazine.

[Emma]

Well, I think it's probably fair to say New York magazine was losing money, wasn't it?

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah, yeah, it was. Yes, it had lost money for some years, yes, as most magazines were. But at any rate, he said. So I called him and he said, okay, well, we got to get other people. And he said, do you know this guy Jeffrey Epstein, who I had known in the two previous episodes on Substack will explain the background of how I knew Epstein. And then it was after Epstein came in, 10 million. I'll put in 10 million. And then I got the call and it was actually Epstein who called me and said, I just spoke to Morton. He's going to bring in Harvey Weinstein to this deal.

[Emma]

So you literally have Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein as your hopeful benefactor?

[Michael Wolff]

Yes. No, no. And then more. And then this other guy, Nelson Peltz, who's a rapacious raider

[Emma]

and whose daughter, I think, is married to Brooklyn Beckham, Nicola Peltz, Brooklyn Beckham, who no longer speaks to Victoria or David.

[Michael Wolff]

It's a lovely group of people, but also, we should point out, you know, we were there at the same time and it was your magazine, too. So you then had to go work for the other people who then came in.

[Emma]

But anyway, well, that was Bruce Wasserstein. So explain what happened, though, because in the story, for those of you who haven't read the substack, there's a good sort of drama moment in the story.

[Michael Wolff]

So I am. There was a. This was going on and these guys, Moore, Jeffrey, Harvey, whoever, you know, kept saying, yeah, and I kept saying, hey, I'm hearing other people are, you know, are trying to buy this magazine. No, no, no, no. Don't worry about anything.

[Emma]

And can I just mention, actually, because I've now remembered another character in all this that every Monday, Keith Kelly, then the reporter for the New York Post, would be writing updates. He was a very good Media reporter. Everybody in the media read him, and he was writing weekly updates, if not more than that, about what was happening with your bid. And I remember thinking, I don't know who these people are, but I hope they win, because I want Michael to stay at New York Magazine. Anyway. Please continue.

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah. No, no, no. This was a very hot. This was everywhere. I mean, the New York. David Carr in the New York Times, who was then their media reporter, covering this constantly. I mean, there was a time now, quite some time ago, when what happened in the magazine business was a very hot topic.

[Emma]

Right. There was a time. Hard to believe that time has gone. But also, wasn't there a moment when Harvey Weinstein finds out that you're involved and says to Mort Zuckerman, you have to get rid of Michael Wolff?

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah. No. Epstein calls me and says, oh, yeah, Harvey doesn't like you. He wants you fired. And then he says, did you write something bad about him? And I said. I said, everybody writes bad things about Harvey. And then Epstein said, well, he's an animal. Don't worry about it. I'll take care of him.

[Emma]

Epstein says about Harvey Weinstein, he's an animal.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, it's hard not to forgive one

[Emma]

to no one, takes one to no one.

[Michael Wolff]

But anyway, the denouement of. Of this is that there's a New York Magazine Awards luncheon, which you were at. You were. I think you were the main organizer.

[Emma]

I was the organizer of that lunchtime. Yes.

[Michael Wolff]

I was filled with the great and

[Emma]

the good, but it was the first time they'd done it. And I felt massively under pressure to pull in as many celebrities as I possibly could. And actually, we had a very good lineup of people. We had Meryl Streep and we had Kevin Klein, who I think gave Meryl an award, but it's possible she gave him an award. We had Caroline Kennedy, who'd just been put in as head of some partnership at the New York School. She was supposed to raise resources for it. It was actually a very glamorous group of people.

[Michael Wolff]

But then I was sitting between. And this was discordant, to say the least, I was sitting between Hillary Clinton and Roger Ailes. Then the head of Fox News, who

[Emma]

I don't think had been invited, Roger Ailes. I think you spotted him and brought

[Michael Wolff]

him in, didn't you?

[Emma]

And I had to reorganize the seating for everybody because you were like, I'm bringing Roger Ailes.

[Michael Wolff]

Anyway, I was there between these two, who are actually rather cordial to each other. But anyway, sitting between these two, my phone rings and it's Jeffrey Epstein. And he says, Bruce Wasserstein. Bruce Wasserstein is another financier raider, five

[Emma]

times married, I think.

[Michael Wolff]

And so he said, bruce Wasserstein has bettered our bid. We're done. I said, what do you mean, what are we going to do? And he says, and Epstein said, what do you mean, what are we going to do? We're done. Let me get back to you. I got Clinton here.

[Emma]

So he had Bill Clinton there, who probably knew that Hillary was at a lunch, and he had a couple of

[Michael Wolff]

hours to play with Jeffrey Epstein, and that was it. There you go.

[Emma]

Okay, well, where would we be now? Oh, my goodness me, Emma. Ook you would have been in business with them. It's probably better than you were. Honestly, it's so much better that it never happened.

[Michael Wolff]

I felt immediately. I mean, I felt both that moment in which you can feel both disappointment and utter relief.

[Emma]

And I remember sitting you next to Julianne Moore at this lunch, and then you replaced her with Roger Ailes.

[Michael Wolff]

Yeah, I had to get out, and

[Emma]

I was like, who would replace Julianne Moore? In what world would you replace the heavenly Julianne Moore with Roger Ailes? Sit next to.

[Michael Wolff]

Oh, no. Roger Ailes was. Was great, and a great talker and incredibly funny. And all kinds of bad things, but also smart. Julianne Moore was just not. She was not interested in me. And she's a movie star.

[Emma]

She's a movie star. I've always liked Julianne Moore. I think she's a very good actress. And I've always sat next to her at lunches and actually always found her very lively and entertaining.

[Michael Wolff]

Really.

[Emma]

So there you go. So you left New York magazine, you went to Vanity Fair. Yeah, and I left New York magazine, too. That was a bit of a trip down memory lane for us, which was kind of fun.

[Michael Wolff]

But this is how we met. We sort of begin at New York Magazine.

[Emma]

Yeah, well, you got me the job at New York.

[Michael Wolff]

I got you the job.

[Emma]

Said to me, you should come and work at New York magazine. And I'm very glad I did. And it was enormous fun. And magazines have disappeared. I've never seen an industry disappear faster than the magazine business. I mean, the music business has reinvented itself. Television reinvented itself. Magazines have just disappeared.

[Michael Wolff]

I mean, I spent my entire career in the magazine business. And then for it to puff gone.

[Emma]

Well, now you're on substack and people can read this episodic story.

[Michael Wolff]

No. Well, it's interesting to go down all of the people on substack, everyone I've ever known in the magazine business, it's all on substack.

[Emma]

Well, I noticed you were numbered at number one on substack, so you must be doing something right.

[Michael Wolff]

I'm trying to think what that is. I guess you just.

[Emma]

Well, I think you're writing about Epstein and people want to understand the actual truth of what you experienced.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, you know, I'm Epstein and I'm writing about Trump. I mean, these are. These are the. I mean, how many subjects are there, Frank? Frankly, not too many.

[Emma]

Right.

[Michael Wolff]

I mean, the entire world has become obviously reshaped by Donald Trump, not just by his mendaciousness, but by his command of such attention. Still. I mean, still. And we go back to this, all these threats against Iran and what he's going to do, and he's going to end civilization as they know it. I mean, this is all. And let us never forget about putting the attention back on him.

[Emma]

Yep. Well, if he gets prosecuted for war crimes, at least they've got lots of evidence of what he was planning to do. It's not like he can say he didn't mean it.

[Michael Wolff]

And to be well prosecuted. I wonder how that happens. Well, that's for another time.

[Emma]

Well, that's for the Democrats to win the midterms, you know.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, they still can't prosecute him for war crimes if they win the.

[Emma]

No, but let's take it. My point is, let's take it one step at a time before we go from here straight to the Hague. If you want updates on Michael Wolf's substack, you can click on the QR code and magically he will come to life. Are you reading it? You should be reading it like Dickens used to do that. He used to go and read his. His things. Why aren't you reading them?

[Michael Wolff]

Should I read it here? Maybe we could. Every inside Trump's head episode could now become a reading of.

[Emma]

No, you read it on substack. Read it on substack. You should be reading it like Dickens did. You could even apply a beard and dress up.

[Michael Wolff]

Well, let's, let's. Okay. You know, I just read my Murdoch book, so. My Murdoch book, which is now 10 years old, but, you know, since Murdoch.

[Emma]

There are two Murdoch books. Which one?

[Michael Wolff]

The first Murdoch book. And since he's going to die any minute,

[Emma]

making the world better. He's had his 95th birthday and his mother lived to 100, 303. So he could have. He's got good genes.

[Michael Wolff]

Nobody has good genes to take them past 95, he's already on borrowed time. When that ends could be right this very minute. But anyway, anyway, I read this because I think the publisher now expects that with the passing. With the. The coming death of Rupert Murdoch, people

[Emma]

will want to hear Michael Wolff read his life story.

[Michael Wolff]

You know, and I kind of. I kind of. Have you ever done this? Read a book.

[Emma]

I have. It's very well, except I read my book and I was like, this is terribly badly written. I can't believe I did this. And I was extemporizing.

[Michael Wolff]

I had the exact opposite feeling, of

[Emma]

course, that your book was brilliantly written.

[Michael Wolff]

Oh, my God.

[Emma]

But I will say that at the end of my reading, my book called Love Rules about how to find a real relationship in a digital world, the engineer looked up and she said, this book has helped me enormously. And then she unfolded her romantic life and we discussed it, and she felt that the book had been very helpful. So there you go. If you have been. Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast. And what else?

[Michael Wolff]

Thanks to our incredible team. Such a incredible team.

[Emma]

They are an incredible team.

[Michael Wolff]

Devin, Rachel, Ryan, Heather and Neil.

[Emma]

We'll be back on Thursday, and who knows if Iran will still be standing.

[Michael Wolff]

Okay.

[Emma]

Okay.