Michael Wolff at the door: his new bombs book on Donald Trump and La Bulle Maga
Michael WolffDocky story of Donald Trump“Is an incredible return to power, All or nothing: how Trump has taken up America, already makes headlines and drawing Rebukes of the president and his allies. On this episode, host Radhika Jones, with Claire Howrth And Michael Calderone, Discuss with Wolff once again infiltrating the inner circle, what to expect uber-insiders like Elon Musk And Jared Kushner During Trump 2.0, and how, even for the most faithful subjects, working for Trump “ends in tears”.
In the heart of Wolff’s pages turner, which VF Last week, the distribution of characters, is extracted from the characters, many of which consider it their responsibility to keep the president isolated from reality. During his 2024 campaign, which included Natalie Harp, 33 at the time, and known internally as “human printer“, Whose ostensible work reports Wolff, imprinted positive news so that the candidate of the time could read on himself. Also in the mixture was the lawyer Boris Epshteyn, Who was a kind of Trump information guard, often soothing him with false assurances on his legal dilemmas. “These are, I mean, there is no other way to describe them, except as the last” yes “,” explains Wolff. “They are there precisely because they know what he wants to hear … they can surprise him With what he wants to hear to such an extent that he will sometimes make fun of them. »»
Then there are Trumpworld figures like Kushner, which Calderone suggests seemed to be “strategic and disciplined” when – and how often it is committed. From the start, the president’s son -in -law has always been the “alone”, explains Wolff, who remained “in the circle (Trump), maintain the relationship and enjoy it”. Kushner, he continues, may have stayed by doing “things that were essentially not interested”, as by browsing the Abraham agreements. “It gave Jared a kind of carte blanche. And he obviously did a credible job in terms of diplomacy there. »»
Howrth, for her part, is particularly curious about the First Lady Melania Trump, which was notably less visible than it was during Trump 1.0. However, she notes: “There (Melania) was at the inauguration of the hat which has become viral and people love it, and you must think that it could mean something more for its public image than any of us.” Needless to say, Trump and Melania’s relationship is far from conventional-but what mystifies Wolff is “Why does the American public say,” What’s going on? ” It is not a marriage like any marriage which, uh, that We have experienced, that We To have. “He adds:” Everyone knows that this is not the case-they do not live together. She is not there. She was not there at the first White House. She is not there now. She is not even in Mar-A-Lago. “
Speaking of Mar-A-Lago, Wolff remembers having visited Florida enclave after the publication of his 2018 book Fire and Fury And dinner with Donald and Melania Trump: “You go down, he is sitting with you for two hours in monologization. You don’t get a word by the edge. And then it’s the, he’s waiting for the patio to fill. And then he goes out, a big round of applause. And then he sits at this table, which is in the center. “For the couple,” when she is there, it’s like at the wedding table, “he adds. “They are the bride and groom.”
As for Wolff’s new book, Trump has called It is “a total false work, like the other waste he has written”, while the director of communications of the White House Steven Cheung attack The author as a “S ** T * bag” with a “brain the size of an peanut”.
However, Trump has always devoted great importance to cultivating friendships with the greatest movers and media shakers. One of them is Rupert Murdoch, Who Jones supports “holds his own power” given his control of points of sale like Fox News, THE Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post. We saw their relations crash after January 6, when Murdoch “decided to do everything he could to thwart any possibility that Donald Trump presents himself again as the presidency, in particular by being almost responsible for the Ron Desantis Bubble until it fails completely, “explains Wolff. “And then because Rupert is ultimately a guy who understands power – you have it or you don’t have it, and there is not between the two – he had to make Trump a fine.”
Finally and above all, we cannot forget a major addition to the Maga bubble: Elon Musk. The head of the government’s efficiency department was very active in emptying the federal bureaucracy. But, as Wolff notes, he could possibly burn himself by Trump if he flies too close to the sun. “Elon now becomes perfect aluminum foil. If something is wrong, it can be blamed in Elon. But the other thing is that Trump got into a sort of corner here because of the press saying that it will end in tears with Elon. Therefore, the press cannot be right. Therefore, Trump must be willing to accept this, ”he says. “So, how long does it last?” I mean, he has an end date; We just don’t know what this end date is. »»
