Michael Wolff: The Truth About Trump And Melania | The Daily Beast Podcast

Hello, I'm Joanna Coles, chief content officer. of The Daily Beast, and you are listening to The Daily Beast. podcast. If you're used to the new abnormal, stick around, because today's guest. is one of the most maddeningly insightful chroniclers. of American power, and one of the few writers. alive who still makes Washington squirm. Michael Wolfe is with us. You probably know him as the author of "Fire and Fury,".

the book that blew the lid off Trump's West Wing dysfunction, and most recently, "All or Nothing,". his sharp, unnerving dispatch covering the run-up. to Trump's second term. But long before the best sellers, Michael was already in the room where the secrets were. whispered. He has the uncanny ability to get people, even presidents, to tell him things they absolutely shouldn't tell him. Michael also has a history with The Daily Beast. In fact, he and the beast broke a certain story just days.

before the last election. Remember the Epstein tapes? The ones where the disgraced financier, Jeffrey Epstein, friend to many a rich and powerful man, was caught on camera discussing Donald Trump, as he said, one of his best friends. Yes, those tapes. We ran them. That was us. That was Michael. So whether you believe Trump is a savior, a symptom, or a catastrophe, Michael Wolf has become the go-to writer.

for the shadow version of that reality. The one whispered in the White House corners. and media green rooms, the one people pretend they're not. reading, but absolutely are. He's provocative, he's polarizing, and unlike most pundits, he's actually. in conversation with the people in power, especially the ones who pretend to loathe him. Michael, you have taken to Instagram recently, which is a change of cadence for you. How are you enjoying the change of pace?

Oh, I hate it. Social media, you know, I was dragged kicking. and screaming into this, and I would have much preferred. it was still 20 years ago, but alas, it is not. But I have to give all the credit to this, to my wife, Victoria, who is the one. who has dragged me kicking and screaming. And also, you're getting a lot of props. for Victoria's decor. A lot of the comments I'm reading about.

how wonderful and springy your house looks. You always have flowers, you've got great furniture. I seem to be irrelevant to this. I'm the foreground to her background, but I am really the background to her foreground. It is an interesting time, and you were spotted, or your last post, you were sitting on the stoop. of your lovely house in the Hamptons with your son, Jack, talking about the Qatar plane that is coming to Trump.

Why is everybody so excited about it? I mean, it's clear why everybody's so excited about it, but talk about why the plane has a specific significance. for Donald Trump. Yeah, so the real question is, why is Donald Trump so excited about it? Right. And he is more excited than anyone else. And it's, I mean, there's a sort of thing. among billionaires that the thing they get, one of the things they all get most excited about. is their airplane.

And they all get most agitated about, 'cause these airplanes always break. And on the campaign trail, this was one of the persistent themes. The Trump plane, Trump Force One, was always breaking down. And it would go out of commission for a month here, a month there, and he would go, he would freak. He would, as they say, lose his shit.

And they would say this, they would call me up and say, "God, he's losing his shit.". And that's because the plane was old? Yeah, I mean, all, yeah. The plane was old, of course. And also these planes always break down. These are complicated things. And I mean, you've sat many times in an airport. waiting for your flight. Well, what happened? The plane broke down. And this would happen repeatedly.

There was one time the windshield cracked. And then there was another time the chute deployed. It was actually someone made a mistake. and deployed the chute. That person was promptly fired. But the functional point is that his planes. are pieces of Trump branding. So in other words, he could at any point. just lease, get another plane, bring in another plane, and then we go off, we charter a plane.

But those planes don't say Donald Trump on them. Well, and indeed he got into trouble. because one of them had belonged to Jeffrey Epstein. when he had to lease a plane on the last campaign trail, right? His plane broke down. Yes. And actually that plane, they slapped on the decal. So he was happy until he found out. that it was Jeffrey Epstein's plane. And then, matter of fact, that was a rocky ride. And then he started to scream, "I'm going to die on Jeffrey Epstein's plane.".

Now he's going to be traveling on a plane. that the Qataris are giving him, which is this a substitute for Air Force One? We know there's a new Air Force One being built by Boeing. I think they were going to charge five billion for it, and he's bogging that price down, but now it looks like he's getting a free one. Yes, long delays on that. So he's desperate for a new plane, so he's going to take the Qatari plane. And then apparently we'll be able to take the Qatari plane with him. after he finishes the presidency.

So can we just talk about the obvious corruption implications here, but surely accepting an Air Force One from another country. leaves you open to all sorts of security issues, not least bugging from a foreign government? Surely. It doesn't seem to matter. I mean, it doesn't seem to matter that he will be bugged. It doesn't mean it seemed to matter that he's clearly being bribed. It doesn't-- nothing seems to matter.

And there was a back and forth, apparently, today about him saying, "Who wouldn't take a billion-dollar plane?". So let's talk about some of the people. that might be on the plane with him. Laura Luma, who's one of his advisors, has said she doesn't approve of him taking the plane. Where is she in the pecking order right now? You know, there is no pecking order, per se.

There are people who come in and come out largely without plan. I mean, largely it's people who slip in. and then people who are pushed out. And she slips in from time to time. One of Trump's people, a woman who's very close to him. and does a lot of the appointments, is this woman Natalie Harp, who is another--. The human printer. Yes. And she's a friend of Laura Luma, so she gets her in there.

And then Suzy Wiles, who is the chief of staff, pushes Laura Luma out. So this is all this kind of constant--. I hesitate to even call it back and forth, because that makes it seem more structured than it is. It's just a low level of chaos. in which people can come in, grab his ear, flatter him, and then are pushed out, and then someone else comes in to undo.

what the other person has done, or at least try to undo. I thought Suzy Wiles, his chief of staff, was supposed to have all this under control. I mean, the thing that they were messaging about Suzy Wiles. that she was bringing order to this chaos, is that not the case? Yeah, that's not the case at all. I mean, she is better than other people. at-- have been at controlling the lower level details.

I mean, the problems with his chief of staffs in the past. is that they want to beat chiefs of staff, which is to say they want to basically be the person. in charge of the West Wing, the COO, if you will. So that would be like John Kelly from his first term, from Trump's first term. Yeah, Mariah's pre-bis, John Kelly. I mean, each of those, and there were four of them, they tried to exert control over the executive branch,

and to some degree exert control over the president. in the United States, or at least regulate what he did, or at least rationalize, at least give him some strategy. And Suzy Wiles' virtue for him is that she hasn't tried. to do any of that. She just tends to the stuff that he's not interested in, essentially getting the lower level trains to run on time.

She's the kind of the doorkeeper. OK, so she's the doorkeeper. And you talk to people in the White House all the time. What are they saying to you about how the first 110 days have gone? There are two sides of the coin here. I mean, the first 110 days have gone brilliantly in one respect. I mean, he's dominated everything. He is the only story. He is mostly happy about things, how things have gone,

which would be the key measure for most people in the White House. You know, the press has been overwhelmed by the march of events. Having said that, they are all equally on the edge of their seats. about what can happen here.

I mean, they're not stupid people. They know what are the dangers here. You know, and I've had this specific conversation with people. who I think in the White House are pretty clear eyed. And their response is, you know, recession, a NATO-Russian confrontation, a breakdown in basic government services.

You know, I mean, the substantial things that loom on the horizon. and that could ultimately bite them and defeat them. Can we just talk about his craving of attention? You say that he's very happy after the first 110 days. that he's utterly dominated pretty much everything. What's striking is also that he seems to have dominated at a global level, which is different to his first term. And in his first time, he clearly dominated everything media-wise.

and the public conversation. But now it feels like he's gone on to a global level. Like, if this is season two, it's season two the world. Well, yeah, I'm not sure if that's true. I mean, or to the extent it is true, it basically comes from the tariff business. You know, I mean, this almost operatic decision.

to impose these tariffs at an unimaginable level. And that was like, well, we've got everybody's attention. And of course we have. You know, at the same time, and this was, I mean, the headlines yesterday. and today are basically, you know, having a deal with China. and a rollback of tariffs.

So you have this. A rollback. But it's all a created argument, right? He imposes a ridiculous tariff. There's a sort of phony back and forth. And now he appears to have saved the day. Exactly. So you get a headline going in and a headline going out. He dominates the stories both ways. And now suddenly, I mean, the subtext of the stories. and the subtext of Wall Street's response is he's a hero.

He's a hero for removing the tariffs that he imposed. So we have this again. This is he. He dominates the story going up, going down every aspect of the story he owns. It's just extraordinary. And the people that you say who are alongside him in the White House, who you say are not stupid people by any means, are they trying to safeguard things like making sure that government services don't go down? Oh, I think that they understand they have limited capacity.

Yes, they might. They might if they could, but they really can't. They exist to service him, to facilitate whatever he wants, to keep him happy. I mean, it all flows from, it all flows top down. So there's very little. I mean, there's some we want. I mean, some of the crazies are trying to force their agenda. Yes, but they clear-eyed people are basically passive.

And is the goal that they're just trying to make him happy. so he doesn't do even crazier things? Or it's very hard to understand the motivation of people who are around him, who know that he might do things like to use your phrase, make a decision that leads to a Russian NATO confrontation. Is there nothing they can do? Or they're just walking on eggshells trying to keep him? Yeah, I'd say walking on eggshells. I mean, I think that if there's to the limited extent.

that there is something that they can do and limited, you know, they might well do it. But largely they accept the reality, the Donald Trump reality. The Donald Trump reality is that it's Donald Trump. You can't pretend it is anything else but that. And the Donald Trump thing, this counter-reality or bubble reality. or anomalous moment in history exists because of Donald Trump.

Because he gets out, because he actually wins. He loses too, but then he comes back and wins. And we're along for the ride. Not we as in the people around him in the White House. And it's a kind of shrug. You know, what can we do? It's Donald Trump's will. We just live in. Right. It really does feel like that at the moment. To what extent is it significant that Ivanka, his daughter,

and Melania, his wife, appear to want to have nothing to do with him at this point? Well, I would say, and you know, his son-in-law, Jared. And, you know, I mean, just to go to Jared, Jared was the most successful person, and I would say the only successful person in the first Trump White House. And if I were in the White House now, I would kind of say, and realizing that Jared is nowhere to be seen, I would say, what does he know that I don't know?

And I'm sure there are many things he knows that nobody else knows. And likewise, Ivanka and certainly Melania. I mean, the Melania story is, you know, is head-smacking. It is the most obvious. It is right there in front of our faces. And no one can quite, I don't have, find the language to express it. Well, the story appears to be that she's just not there, right?

She turns up for things like the Easter egg roll. She turned up for the inauguration. There's clearly no physical affection between them. Is that what you mean? Or does she have a whole separate life with someone else? Let's just proceed from the fact that they clearly are, they clearly do not in any way inhabit a marriage as we define marriage. And I think maybe we can more specifically say they live separate lives.

They are separated. The president of the United States and the first lady are separated. That's a huge headline. No one will say it as in that way. Let's reduce it to what we understand, which is here's a marriage and the principles are estranged. They don't speak to each other. They're separated. The marriage is crumbling. The New York Times did a piece the other day, but it was all kind of coy about this queue.

Oh, you know, Melania is in the... I don't even know what the message was. I think the message was about how many times she'd been to the White House or how many days she'd been there in the first 100 days. Right. And it turned out to be 14. Yes, that was the fact basis. But they didn't go and say, this is obviously a marriage in trouble. It is a marriage that is we... The American public has been sold a bill of goods here that Donald Trump and his glamorous wife.

that runs entirely counter to all of the facts here, including the fact that they don't spend any time together. And the fact that people at the White House say that when she goes there, she's treated as if she is a visitor. In the White House, this is the way it was at Mar-a-Lago. It's the way it was in the first White House. Do you think people care? Why is it significant? Why does it matter? Just think about how it would read for any other presidential couple if Jill Biden suddenly walked out.

If the Obama... Wait, Michelle Obama had surprised. And that actually, the Michelle Obama story, that story now lurks all over the... Right. It's all over the internet. We can't yet say it, but we're on the verge. We're on the edge of our seats ready to say it.

When you could say it, obviously about the Trumps. All right. Let's talk about Elon. Elon has suddenly disappeared. He was everywhere and now he's gone. He's been voted off the island. What is the White House saying about that? What are you hearing about that? You know, let me just make the broader point. Everyone will be voted off the island. Everyone, every person who is close to Trump will not be close to him.

Everyone will end up humiliated, indicted, fired. This is 100%. Everybody actually in the first term except Jared. Is there a feeling that Elon did the right thing, came in with his chainsaw, that Doge was a net positive? From within the White House, the regard was that always that Elon was on his own island.

He didn't have really anything to do with the White House, didn't have anything to do with the people there. And he existed exclusively on Trump's sufferance, which is, in a sense, true, of course, about everybody. Except for the fact that nobody else had any input here. I mean, so everybody was just waiting. And Elon felt, or at least it felt from the outside point of view,

that Elon had more power than many of the others, simply because he was the richest man in the world and Trump responds to that. Yeah, I think Trump liked the fact for a while that Elon got the bad headlines. So he was a useful person for Trump. And then they were too bad. And then so it's, you know, I get rid of him. In other words, here's the Elon chapter and here's the Doge chapter.

And within a very short period of time, we will say, what? I remember that. Remember Doge? Right. It's extraordinary how fast it's come and gone and the Sturman rang with it. So does Donald Trump make it through the next four years? Well, it's very possible he could keel over at any moment. But I mean, barring that, I mean, I mean, I'll tell you what's going to happen. I will tell you the future.

Tell me, tell me the future. Right back. So he will lose the midterms. They've got what, three seats in the conference. Yeah. And remember, fundamentally, Donald Trump is self-destructive. So all of the kinds of things he's doing now will result in him. losing, losing, certainly losing the House of Representatives. Investigations will begin in Peachtman, all of that. And he will become then the victim again of a role he is perfectly comfortable in.

and no doubt enjoys. There will be a proxy, his proxy, who will run for. who will be the who will be the Republican nominee. That person will lose because he will undermine them because he doesn't want them to win. He will go back to Mar-a-Lago and he will say it's a stolen election. and he will yet be the head of the Republican Party. And we will begin again, that whole Mar-a-Lago phase of of the Republicans.

rushing to rushing to Palm Beach to get his endorsements. And and nothing will change because nothing will ever changes. in Donald Trump's playbook. Is that anyone? Are you hearing any rumblings from within the Republican Party. of any kind of challenge to his. Authority. You don't really ask that question, did you? I'm just hopeful.

I'm hopeful that someone somewhere is bubbling. I mean, you hear the signal chat with J.D. Vance saying he doesn't agree with what Trump is planning to do. And you think, oh, there is some independent thought going on. No, no, there's just J.D. Vance. He he doesn't he doesn't exist only as a Donald Trump proxy. And he will be. As I say, he will ultimately be undermined as they all are,

as anyone in the Republican Party is. How big do you think the loss will be in the midterms? Mike, I think it will be impressive. Well, Michael, we're going to have you back on to see if your predictions come true. But there is no one I enjoy talking to more about the Donald Trump phenomenon. And your point about him doing what he always does, which is he self-destructs. He he has cycles of winning and he has cycles of losing. Yeah. And remember, because you, you know, he wins.

When he does win, it's also because of his self-destructive nature, because you can't take your eyes off of him, because he is whatever he is, more compelling than any other politician in the United States. He's more compelling than any other actor, too, or any any other person who's in public life. Right. I mean, an extraordinary, an extraordinary creature. I've got one final question for you. Is he on a weight loss drug?

Yeah, he is. Yes. Which do we know each one? Yeah, I think he's on a zimp. I mean, that's the that's the that's what the people on the Mar-a-Lago terrorists say. And they want they monitor his his intake. Excellent. All right, Michael, you've answered a question that again, I thought was happening in plain sight that you can see that he's losing weight. and he's wearing different suits.

It was provoked by him wearing a blue suit to the Pope's to the Pope's funeral. Anyway, always a delight to talk to you. Thank you very much. And we will have you back on certainly before the midtimes, midterms to see to see what else will happen with him. Cool. And good luck with your Instagram. Where can everybody find you on Instagram? You know, I'm always a little vague on where even Instagram exists. But I think it's Michael Wolf, NYC. Join us on Thursday for the next podcast with Susan Dominus,

the author of Family Dynamics, in which she explores sibling rivalries. and sibling relationships and why actually birth order is not as much. of a prediction of a child's success as we have hitherto been led to believe. And we'll be joined with the author and the actor from Hacks currently, Dan Bukitinski, who raked the book, Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight? See you on Thursday until then.

Stay well and Be Beast.