124. The Man Who Got To Trump (Michael Wolff)

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0:19Welcome to The Rest Is Politics Leading with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And we have today with us a gentleman by the name of Michael Wolfe. and Michael is a he's kind of more than a journalist he's a writer and he's a chronicler and in recent years he's been chronicling the lives and times of two of the most right-wing powerful people on the planet one of them is Donald J Trump and the other is Rupert Murdoch and on Trump Michael has just published his fourth book about Trump The first one, Fire and Fury, was a massive international bestseller, which made him a huge enemy of Donald Trump, who made the mistake of allowing Michael to sort of wander around the White House chronicling what he saw and heard.

1:17I'd be delighted to know in a minute whether he still gets any access at all. and the latest one the subtitle kind of speaks to a lot of the things we want to talk about how trump recaptured america so michael thanks for being with us and rory why don't you kick us off yeah well michael will you just begin by giving us a sense of that access and how you got that access and how you got to find out so much about the first trump administration well i'm not sure how i can say how i got the access as though there were some secret there was no secret i kind of in 2016 expressed interest. And Donald Trump was like, sure.

1:55In that way in which nothing in the Trump world is particularly thought out, I was just there. I said, you know, I'd like to do this. And he kind of shrugged. I was brought in. I said, you know, I'd like to come in as an observer. And he thought that was a job. And then I said, no, no, no, I want to write a book, and then he couldn't be less interested. So it was like, okay, yeah, sure, sure, sure. And that was my pass for basically seven months in the White House. And no one really knew why I was there, but they just assumed that if I was there, I was there for a reason and under someone's approval.

2:37So just by keeping my mouth shut and smiling, I saw, practically speaking, most everything. And that's now, you know, seven years ago began this relationship with many of the people around Donald Trump, all who had a need, a driving need to talk about their experiences, because everybody around Donald Trump has an understanding that this is strange, weird, not right, even if they're a part of it. Do you have any indication? I mean, And I assume that the access is not as good now as it was, because they basically threw the book at you when you wrote the first book. It's actually better, I would say, because I know so many of these people better.

3:27And over this period of time, the relationship becomes more than, you know, source and journalists. I mean, we're kind of we're kind of friends. But there are also some of them see you as an enemy because you exposed the monstrosity, the absurdity, the ridiculousness, the incompetence of the whole operation. You know, it's a funny thing. You can be their enemy. And at the same time, I mean, there be their public enemy and their private friend. You know, the other day when Trump unleashed a post, you know, long, long post about how what a terrible person I was and and I was fake and I was a loser and I, you know, all of the Trump things.

4:11This was as soon as he he posted it, someone in the White House texted me a link and with the link said, you're welcome, exclamation point. I mean, there are two realities going on here. There's living in the Trump reality. And then there is other these same people being kind of normal. Michael, so much to talk about, because this is obviously the central topic almost of our age. But I think one of the most bewildering things is the way in which he seems to have changed from somebody who, from 2017, 18, 19, seemed like a kind of buffoon, but who wasn't necessarily doing anything very radical. And it's quite difficult to point to what he actually achieved that was any different.

5:00I think you've actually pointed this out, that a lot of it felt like Mitch McConnell's agenda. To where we are now, where we're talking to you at a moment, where really it feels like an existential threat to the world order. Where if you're speaking as we are, you know, from Europe, you're looking at somebody who genuinely feels like he's tearing up some of the most fundamental aspects of the last 80 years. Well, I don't know. I might challenge that. I mean, I think fundamentally, one of the things about Donald Trump and the people who have known him well over a long period of time all kind of go to this point is he doesn't change.

5:40I mean, he does the same thing over and over and over again. He doesn't grow. He doesn't rethink. He doesn't come up with new desires, really. To the extent that it seems different now, it seems clearer or it seems faster. it is still this fundamentally the same operation, Donald Trump looking for a headline and it's headline, headline, headline. And I'm not sure, you know, I think if you go back and look at the first month of the first Trump administration, there were similar kinds of things. You know, we were banning people from these countries, you know, that whole series of announcements and executive orders, you know, a lot of which involved Steve Bannon at the time.

6:28You know, some of that happened, some of it didn't happen, but it was, again, mostly governing by headlines, which is where we are now. I mean, and to interpret, yes, I mean, it could be that the world order as we know it will never return, but it could equally be all of this is a kind of a punk rock provocation to no ultimate point. And with the likelihood that it collapses in on itself, which I actually think will happen. And I think, you know, the Elon Musk now is performing the Steve Bannon role. Steve Bannon lasted six months. I think probably Elon will last no longer than six months. When the fire and fury came out, Michael, I interviewed you for GQ magazine.

7:16and you said at the time the two people who were there who were the most important people to besides bannon was kind of on the way out well hope hicks this young woman who was kind of looking after him on you know sort of logistics and making him feel good and so forth and the other person you mentioned i i watched it again this morning was was stephen miller now of course he is still there. He has endured. Is he somebody that we should be looking at more than some of these other characters that we spend a lot of time talking and thinking about? No, I think that's one of the mistakes that people make around Trump, to look at the people around him and elevate them in some kind of specific and knowledgeable way.

8:03This is the person, this person is smart. They don't matter. No, nobody matters but Donald Trump. Everybody exists in his orbit and everybody really exists in their willingness to please him. And as soon as they stop pleasing him, they fall out of favor and usually fall out of or are usually gone. Except for actually the girls. And Hope Hicks was the fundamental person of the first Trump administration. And now, you know, in this new book of mine, I wrote right about his relationship with this woman, Natalie Harp. Tell us about her because she sounds like she has one of the most, the weirdest jobs I've ever heard about in any political operation.

8:48She has no real job except to attend to Donald Trump, to comfort Donald Trump or cushion Donald Trump, or to be the ultimate, the ultimate yes person to say exactly what he wants to hear at any given moment in time. And she has done this. I mean, she came into the campaign in 2022 as a kind of a fetch it girl. I mean, just really, you come in, you're in turn, you run errands. She has risen to, I would say, to be the most important person around him, like Hope Hicks. I mean, she is certainly the person who spends the most time with him. I mean, fundamentally every waking hour, which led to a lot of speculation on, well, is it just waking hours?

9:35And then that led to speculation, does he really do it anymore? And with the answer being probably not, but he continues to surround himself with these women, all who look alike. Michael, let's just sort of take one example to try to help listeners get what's going on. So let's take USAID. So that entire$45 billion budget has stopped. 10 ,000 people have lost their jobs. I mean, they're quite literally being pulled out of embassies all around the world. NGOs received successive stop orders over the last three weeks. So vaccination programs are stopping. emergency feeding stopping. Governments are teetering.

10:21Governments like Jordan that relied on$10 billion American money. Governments like Nepal that were relying on the US for its funding. Help us understand this and help us how that works with the fact that he's breaking congressional rules. He's ignoring judges. I think you should look at it as the escalation of headlines. And one of the problems of ruling by headlines or existing by headlines is that the headlines have to get bigger and bigger and bigger. That's what we are seeing now. I have to be bigger. And this is always the Trump, a Trump refrain, give me more, bigger. But I think it also presents another danger to Donald Trump.

11:04It is difficult to imagine how this is sustainable and not just the U.S. aid abroad. There is on every level. Now, we are into a level of doing things that if you say, okay, let's play this out. How does this work? What happens from here? I think the answer is, well, you don't know. You can't even begin to imagine what happens here, which probably means that it's unsustainable, and that it collapses in on itself. And that in the not too distant future, Donald Trump finds himself in a very, very difficult situation. So one of the things that I think has really thrown Europe back is the sense that for the first time we have the administration deliberately interfering in European elections.

11:57So during the German elections, for example, you had Musk trying to promote the far right against the government that won. We've had the threats against Greenland. We've had these extraordinary outreaches towards Putin. We've had the sense of him showing kind of real contempt towards European allies. And Canada. And Canada, yeah. It suddenly feels for the first time as though we can't actually rely on the US president for nuclear guarantees or Article 5 protection in NATO states. It seems perfectly plausible to us that if Russia rolled into Lithuania, Trump might be like, yeah, you know what, I'm having a great conversation with that and we're sorting stuff out.

12:37I think that's wholly true. I mean, the idea of relying on Trump in and of itself seems like one of the strangest leaps of faith that I can imagine. But having said this and having outlined it, you know, don't you look back and step back and say, this cannot possibly work. This cannot possibly stand. There is no path here in which we kind of get to the other side or which Trump gets to the other side. I mean, this is just creating a world in which everybody sooner or later is against him. You know, to assume that Trump knows what he's doing, to assume that he has gamed this out, that he knows two steps, three steps down the road is false.

13:24He doesn't. This all exists in the moment. And because in the moment you get the headline. I absolutely think we are we are in new territory. We have never seen a political leader with this kind of method and this kind of motivations. but Michael so with that interview that I did with you a few years ago I asked you in this battle between the good guys and the bad guys and we kind of both agree who the good guys are and who the bad guys are who's winning you said the good guy I think the good guys are winning and the reason we thought that we both thought Trump's not going to win but then you went on to say and I agreed with you at the time he said I don't think he'll run again and if he did run again And he definitely wouldn't win.

14:07And there's another event we did together. You said Donald Trump's not going to go back to the White House. He's going to go to jail. Now, he has won again. Well, he he lost again. Wait a minute. Let's let's you have to parse the episodes here. He did lose. Yeah, but he didn't go away. No, he did not go away. But he he left the White House. Remember where he was. He left the White House in disgrace. He was impeached twice. He was rejected by every significant figure in his party, not least of all Rupert Murdoch, who it appeared that he depended on because of the support of Fox News. And he won again.

14:48Which he did. And then he rose again. So, you know, it's one of the this things, one of the extraordinary things, one of the things that I I get to write about and why I write that that he does these things that no one can no one can imagine how this could have happened, that he could have this utterly disgraced figure could have risen again. So you might be wrong that he this time he might actually end up not being hated by everybody. He might end up achieving things that last time he didn't because he's maybe learned a little bit. I don't think so. I mean, I think what happens is that he crashes again.

15:29Now, could he rise again after that? As we've seen, it is certainly possible. And we are only saved by the fact that he's eventually and sooner rather than later going to be too old to rise again. But yes, I mean, and it's part of that that extraordinary character that lets him do rise again and do what he does, which is that he has no sense of an external reality, no sense of thinking about himself as others might think about him. I'm in disgrace. I have been disgraced. Well, that doesn't ever cross his mind. I've lost the election, which everyone knows he lost the election, but one person himself.

16:11And so it is living in that absolutely alternative reality that lets him rise again, but also causes him to do the things that bring him down again. Apologies, Michael. What is it about us that makes him able to flourish and live? What is it about his supporters? What is it about social media? Yeah. What is it about the modern age that allows this thing that you've just pointed out that is completely sort of unimaginable to happen? He's an extraordinary showman. I mean, let's remember, what's the fundamental thing about Donald Trump? What's the thing that distinguishes him from every other politician who has ever walked the earth?

16:49He was the star of a reality television show for 14 years, not one year, not two years, 14 years. And, you know, reality's television is a very fixed formula. You know what has to happen in order to maintain the interest of your audience. Conflict, conflict, conflict. You just have to constantly invent new conflict. And it doesn't have to mean anything, this conflict. You just have to say, well, who's going to prevail in this situation at this moment? Michael, you mentioned there that he felt slightly dependent upon Murdoch and his newspapers and Fox News that became such a big part of the drive for MAGA.

17:35And then after January the 6th and the insurrection, Murdoch sort of pulled away. And then he realized that Trump wasn't going to go away and he fell back in with him. Just give us your interpretation of the character of Murdoch. Well, Murdoch hates Trump. I mean, as far back as when I spent a year interviewing Murdoch, you know, Trump was like one of those tropes that he would bring up as, you know, one of the foolish celebrities who populated the tabloid world. I don't think at any point he ever took Trump seriously. And when he became friends with Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that was a kind of running, running theme that Ivanka's father was, you know, not remotely a serious person.

18:29When Ivanka took Murdoch out to lunch to say her father was going to run for president, he waved it away as too ridiculous to spend a moment of time even talking about. And then when he when he was elected, I mean, it became, I think, one of the great bitter ironies in Murdoch's life. His dream of electing a U.S. president and the person he elected was was effectively Donald Trump. And as soon as the election happened, and then January 6th, that was it. He not only wrote Trump off, but really rejigged Fox to make it what he believed would be impossible for Trump to ever run again. And the Ron DeSantis bubble was largely of Rupert's making.

19:19And one of the things about the election, I think, is this was a sort of a test. Who needed who more? Did Trump need Fox or did Fox need Trump? Which it turned out Fox needs Trump. I mean, it is so fascinating this, but you're also pointing to something really bizarre. So there is Rupert Murdoch, who I guess would consider himself or would have considered himself unbelievably realistic, ruthless. He believed he had a finger on the pulse of the right wing public. He felt that he understood politics and media better than anyone. And he'd been at the game for 40, 50 years. And his conclusion was this man, Trump, is a joke.

20:02And he believed it twice. How did somebody like Murdoch, with all that knowledge, all that power, all that sort of Machiavellian instinct, get it wrong? What did he miss? Let us give Rupert his due. He is 94 years old, so he isn't the Rupert that we used to know. You know, I think that Rupert has never been a man in the television age. And, you know, another bitter Rupert irony is that Fox becomes the thing that he will be most remembered for Fox News. And it's the thing that he was least involved in creating. Fox remade the world in a way that Rupert Murdoch fundamentally didn't recognize. All right, Michael, Alisa, quick break and then back for more.

21:00we're going to obviously we're going to come back to trump but just finally on on murdoch you seem to think and we've seen a lot in recently coming out of this court case with the the four kids and where things go do you think murdoch is going to be one of those empires where when the big daddy dies the whole thing kind of starts to collapse yeah well i mean remember And it's always important. The empire has already gone away. So in 2018, they sold the bulk of the empire. I mean, they're kind of left with this facade, the facade of the newspapers and Fox News. But the real empire is no longer there.

21:40But as to what is left, yeah, I mean, I think that there's no question that the empire will be inherited by four children who don't agree with each other. And the ultimate disposition will be, I mean, just to, I assume, to get rid of it. Not to mention that the empire rests on old technology, which in itself, it doesn't matter what happens, is already dying. It's not just newspapers, which clearly have been shunted off into some netherworld, but Fox News, which is cable television, which has a finite life at this point. Coming back to Trump, of the things that people commonly say about Trump, the cliches about Trump, I don't know, he's transactional.

22:27You know, he's never going to allow anyone like Musk or Vance to remain around for long if they get in the way of his ego. Which of the cliches about Trump do you think are wrong? Well, I don't necessarily think he is transactional. I think there's only one thing that motivates him, and it's personal attention. When I first interviewed Trump, I had known him for years before in New York, but in his new political life in 2016, when it still seemed preposterous that he was going to be, would ever be elected president, I said, okay, okay, just tell me why you were doing this. And he said, and he was perfectly comfortable with this, he said, to be the most famous man in the world.

23:11So I think that in everything that he does, this is what he's after. So there's never an idea of the transaction. OK, you know, I'm going to get a slightly better deal than you are. I mean, yeah, this is sort of in the background. But in the foreground is I'm going to do things which give me more attention. Michael, what else do we get wrong? What other things do you sometimes read or hear people say about Trump, which are repeated as cliches? I think the media has always treated Donald Trump as though he's in politics, that the issues here are ultimately political issues, policy issues, legislative agenda issues, Washington, D .C.

23:55sort of issues, the bureaucracy, etc., etc. But I don't think that any of that is true. He doesn't think that way. He's not interested in those things. Politics itself, I mean, he either has no interest in or has contempt for and sees himself as being so much greater than. I am greater than that because I can command an audience. You politicians, you have no idea what you're interested in these petty legislative things. I have a base. And when he says a base, he doesn't really mean a political base. He means a fan base. I have people who are devoted to me, who just like to see me. Their pleasure is in me doing what I do.

24:46You start the latest book with a quote from Jared Kushner. And again, going back to the first time we spoke for GQ, you described Kushner and Ivanka as an utterly preposterous couple who had no place in the White House. But you use this quote where you ask him kind of what Trump's future is. I think this is in 2021. And he says, what was Nixon's future? What did he mean by that? Well, I think he understood that his father-in-law had left the White House in disgrace. He had been rejected by everyone who had previously supported him. He had no political future. You know, he blew it. So he's proved him wrong as well.

25:33He's proved them all wrong. Yes. Well, as I say, he proves them right and then he proves them wrong. You know, when I was writing this book, you know, and I wrote it in real time, which is why it's come out so quickly after the election. And and that worried me as I went along. I was I was thinking, well, you know, I don't know the end of the story. But then I realized if he lost, you'd read what I wrote and say and say, well, of course he was going to lose. But if he won, you would read the same thing and say, of course, he was going to win, which is this strange poetry of Donald Trump. um fascism is obviously a big word that we apply to donald trump quite a lot at the moment and there are clearly things that resonate from the 20s or 30s there's the cult of the leader there's the authoritarianism there's this sort of contempt for constitutions for congress for inspectors.

26:37There's the support of these fire right parties in Europe. There's the admiration for Putin. There's this weird obsession with minerals. You know, when he's talking to Ukraine, what he wants to do is get$500 billion of stuff out of them. How far does that take you? How much truth is there in that? How much is it misleading as a way of viewing Trump? I think that the danger of fascism is that it implies that there is a plan, that there is intention, that there is a goal. And I think that's a misunderstanding. If you start to think about Donald Trump that way, it's like much of the political press that tries to put him into a pretty conventional box.

27:21And then you misunderstand what's going on, that his motivations are different. I, you know, I genuinely believe from the motivations of perhaps any political leader ever, that this is, I mean, it is certainly a cult of personality, but it's not a cult of personality toward accomplishing anything other than to increase the cult of personality. Except he's now surrounded himself, I guess, with people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance. And they do seem to have been involved for eight or 10 years around the edge of a kind of tech theory of government, which feels very authoritarian. Absolutely.

28:02But I would say that, at least to judge by what has happened in the past, 100 % of the people who have been around Donald Trump, their relationships have broken down. They've been humiliated. They've been publicly fired. Often they have been indicted. No one has survived this. So to assume that Elon Musk will because he has X hundreds of billions of dollars or Peter Thiel because he's smarter than Donald Trump, I don't know. It just has never, ever worked out for anyone. So I think we can reasonably say that for each of these people, it is their own hubris that has led them into proximity with Donald Trump, and they will pay for that.

28:54Michael, you said earlier that Trump had said to you his ambition was to be the most famous man in the world. And he's certainly gone a long way towards that. Do you think it's also possible that the relationship with Putin can be explained by a desire to be the richest man in the world, which he currently think is Vladimir Putin? And that means that he has to turn America into a country as corrupt as Russia. Yeah, I think there's a little of that. Certainly. I mean, Trump admires money above all else I would say he admires. He does admire money. Why Americans not more upset by the stuff that's happening that to us just looks not even borderline corrupt, but outright corrupt?

29:39Musk's position, the conflicts of interest being decided by him and by Trump, the meme coin that he sold, the fact that foreign leaders can now just sort of ship their currency into that if they want to. This feels very corrupt. Well, it is very corrupt. Why aren't people more upset? Well, I think that they will become more upset by this. That's number one. Number two, there is the Trumpian method here, which is whatever you are upset by now, I'm going to do something more egregious that will upset you even more today, but then successively something else the next day. So it is very hard for people to get their footing.