"HE IS MAD" Trump simply CAN'T do it

There are few people with more direct access to Donald Trump's inner circle from outside of it than journalist Michael Wolff.And we talked about what is happening within the White House, Trump's fears and concerns as we get into the midterms, the cognitive decline question and so much more.You might remember the first time we spoke, we had a disastrous connection problem.Michael returned graciously and we were able to have that conversation.It is great to have back on the program today, Michael Wolff, journalist, bestselling author.His latest book is all or nothing.

How Trump recaptured America.Michael, appreciate your time today.Thank you.Thank you for having me. I want to start with your general impression.of the degree to which Donald Trump is currently engaged in the day to day at the White House.And the context for this question is, on the one hand, there is the story about Donald Trump's physical and cognitive health.

On the other hand, there is the story about some areas of the presidency in which he is quite frankly not interested.They're just not interesting to him.And then thirdly, speculations about Is it Stephen Miller?Is it whoever that is, quote, truly in charge?As the phrase sometimes goes, what can you tell us generally about?

Well, I can tell you, I actually can tell you specifically about this.This is a White House of one.The idea that there are that there are other people operating independently of the president of the United States is not true.with a slight critical understanding that he has all kinds of attention deficits and it's very possible that he wanders out of the room and loses interest.but with the caveat that when he recovers that interest, you are, and if you have acted in a way that he finds disagreeable in any sense, you're in trouble.

Talk a little bit, Michael.

You know, so the effect is here is a government with this one person wandering around who has absolute power, and at all times considers that he has absolute power, and will use this variously and capriciously.

You've used the phrase, and I believe I'm quoting here, It is just little bursts, mini stroke like bursts in his head.No strategy, no plan.

You know that.Let me let me say that I meant that as a metaphor, I have no idea about Donald Trump's physical health.I actually object to the many people who are who are diagnosing on a speculative basis.I think you can look, however, at his behavior and see that it is unlike the way I would behave or you would behave or anyone else we know would behave.But I think that has been the condition for certainly as long as I have been covering Donald Trump.So whether that is a cognitive decline, well actually I don't think it is a cognitive decline.

I think he has always been this way.I think he is that his problems actually in his behavior transcend.let me say, cognitive decline.

That's a very interesting way of phrasing it.Do you mean that there is something so unique going on that even cognitive decline would not mitigate it in some sense?

I think you can set cognitive decline aside, because I think that what he does comes from the heart, it's not a somatic condition.I think he is, as I said, whatever word you want to use, mad, He is he responds to the world in ways that that that that we've we've certainly never seen in a United States president.And frankly, I've never seen in another human being that that I agree with.

I am I've told my audience, I don't expect the 25th Amendment to be invoked.And I don't expect impeachment and conviction to take place.Do you agree that those conversations are simply non starters at this point?

Yeah, I mean, the 25th Amendment thing is complete bullshit.And he may be impeached again, depending upon what happens in the House of Representatives.He's already been impeached twice.So to be impeached three times, I see is not a not a particular That would not be unexpected, nor would it be all that, to Donald Trump, disadvantageous.Whether he would be convicted, that would also be a, you know, I think the Democrats have areasonable shot at becoming the majority party in the Senate, but conviction requires two -thirds, so that would be remote.

Do you do you believe Epstein had blackmail material on Trump, whether it's photos or stories potentially or not?

And well, I mean, I believe that he had knowledge about about Trump that could have been could have been devastating or or or that could have hurt Trump in a variety of ways.But I don't think it was blackmail.He didn't try to blackmail.I mean, I suggested as much.to Epstein, I think Epstein was afraid of Trump and afraid of the threats that he might be in a position to make against Trump.And I think he was afraid of what Trump may have, that Trump may have suspected that he had or may have understood that he had this kind of material.

And that frightened it, frightened Epstein what Trump might might do in that regard.So it was not Epstein threatening Trump, but Epstein thinking that Trump was was at least perfectly capable of threatening him.

You've been criticized by some for telling Epstein, I think you should let him hang himself Or you could save him generating a debt.And if I understand the criticism correctly, I guess it's that it sort of was no longer a reporter type relationship, but it was it was almost like a PR strategy relationship.What do you think?

I think it's I think it's ridiculous.I mean, what I wasdoing in that I was trying to convince Jeffrey Epstein to go public with the information that he had on Trump, and I had a self -interest in this because I was there as a journalist, and that would have been obviously to my advantage, but I also think that it was to that anything that would have been a good idea for the country to have gotten rid of Donald Trump.

And you would have gotten the scoop is what you mean by you had an interest in it.

Yes.And but even if I hadn't gotten this, got gotten the scoop, I think it would be a would have been a good thing to to do.But I did not succeed in that because Jeffrey Epstein was frightened of Donald Trump.

And when we have seen the kind of back and forth as to when ties were cut between Trump and Epstein.Just to catch my audience up on this.Donald Trump has stated a number of times that when he found out what Epstein was up to, he banned him from the club.And it seems as though the timeline does not match that.

Also bullshit.I mean, first thing, anything that Donald Trump says, we ought to know by this point, if we do not know that this point, it's something wrong with us, that he doesn't tell the truth is is he is either no interest in telling the truth or is incapable of telling the truth, which also might might be true.But his timeline on that is weird, that it happened in 2000 or 2001, but we still know that he's close to Epstein until 2004.Anyway, I think Epstein's version of this is the more cogent version.They had a fight over real estate.It's the only thing that these guys really care about anyway.

And that happened in 2004.At that point, they began to threaten each other, Epstein with lawsuits against Donald Trump and threatening to reveal that he was laundering money.And then in Epstein's version, Trump threatening him by going to the police and say, and telling in telling the police about what was going on at his at his house in Palm Beach vis -a -vis all of these girls coming and going.

And so the the sort of replacement story for the one that Trump originally told has become, oh, there was someone working at Trump's spa that Epstein stole.It sounds like you're saying that also is not.It really does seem to be real estate as far as you're concerned.I would be absolutely certain of that.When it comes to the next couple of years, there's the sort of political question of what happens in the House of Representatives in November.What does that do in terms of House oversight investigations, as you talked about a possible impeachment, which would be separate from from a conviction from the point of view of this inner circle immediately around Donald Trump?

If the House of Representatives is lost to Republicans in November, is your belief or expectation that there will be this kind of withdrawal of Trump to his golf courses or and away from the presidency for the final two years?Or might the opposite happen, which is he actually tries to do as much as he can from a legacy perspective?

Well, I don't know.From a legacy perspective, I'm not sure Donald Trump thinks in those in those turns, in those terms.But I think that Donald Trump is is a conflict junkie.So if you set that up with the House of Representatives coming after him again, I think he embraced it.And, you know, the Democrats have mucked this up so many times that I think from Trump's perspective, he can, might count on them mucking it up again.You know, he, they give him a platform on which he then can be the, can be the victim which he loves and which succeeds for him.

I mean, remember, four criminal indictments.What did that succeed in doing?It succeeded, at least in part, in making him the president of the United States again.

What do you make of how he has sort of gone erratically from giving you access to threatening to sue you?

He's done this from the beginning of that.That's that's just the Trump in way on carrot stick.Well, or or and that actually might imply a much greater plan.He gets up in the morning and he likes you or doesn't like you.And that's how it proceeds.

You don't see it as a strategy where he says, well, let me give Michael access to see if he'll write something nice.And then you maybe you don't.And then that angers him.It's not that specific or calibrated.

No.I mean, that that may be.that may be part of it, but it's also a sense of who has an audience, who is, who does he think that, I mean, he's obsessed with the fact that I sell a lot of books.So then that seems separate from the fact that my books are not flattering toward him.

Right.I want to go back, if we can, a little bit to something you said earlier and kind of contextualize.it with your recent commentaries about Operation Epic Fury that that I've seen you do.A couple of things I have in my notes here that you've talked about is the way that Epic Fury has been handled by Trump is evidence of a lack of executive function.And then you also talked about the media rants making his decline all the more obvious and impossible to ignore.What I want to kind of focus in on a little bit is you said earlier that you're not really commenting about the cognitive elements of this, but it sort of sounds like those are comments about it, unless I just misunderstand them.

Well, I don't exactly know what you're referring to.And you may be.you may be misunderstanding.I mean, I think Trump has a mind that's incapable of performing the information and analytic functions that it would be otherwise necessary to perform to be a successful president of the United States, not to mention to wage a war.War is a very complicated process.It's a probably one of the most complicated, most sophisticated management processes that you can assemble.

And Trump given Trump how his mind works, and this is separate from a cognitive decline, this is how his mind has always worked, it's just far -fetched to think that he would be the guy who can marshal all that information, maintain that information, analyze that information, and arrive at a reasonable conclusion.Now, I should add that many presidents before, much more capable in a traditional way than Donald Trump, have messed up the process of going to war.But given And I think that is just to say how difficult it is to wage war, what a complex system of decision -making is required, that even people who have a much greater background in the intellectual requirements of analyzing that kind of situation screw it up.So suddenly you have Trump who doesn't have that at all.And he's in there trying to wage war unsuccessfully, as we've seen.

Michael, last thing I want to ask you about the sources that you develop close to Trump.Is their motivation for talking to you that they are appalled and want to tell someone what's happening or what?What do you believe is their motivation?

Yeah.Well, I'm not sure they would call it appalled.I think they're They often find it as confounding as people outside of the White House and even non -Trumpers find it.In addition to that, I think I have a relationship with these people.We're friends.And we talk, and they talk openly, only with the only requirement being that I protect them.

And so they're happy to talk to me.They're happy to gossip like we all are.

We've been speaking with Michael Wolff.His latest book is All or Nothing.How Trump recaptured America.Michael, I really appreciate your time.Thank you.Anytime.