President Donald Trump has spent his entire political career getting into predicaments, many of his own making, that he cannot deal with, his biographer has claimed.
Michael Wolff, appearing on the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head Podcast, said the president’s current situation is not much unlike others during his first term and in his out-of-office years that followed.
“I’ve seen him in the middle of the Russia investigation, in the middle when he fired...Comey and everything seemed to be coming down on his head. I’ve seen him in the middle of COVID when he absolutely had no idea what to do. And, I’ve seen him in the middle of deciding... or believing that the election had been stolen from him,” Wolff, the author of four books about Trump, told co-host Joanna Coles.
“The truth is that Donald Trump’s entire...political career and maybe longer career has been a series of these predicaments—many of his own making—that he appeared not to be able to deal with, cope with, or get out of,” Wolff continued. “Now, the curious thing is that he has so often, in fact, gotten out of them.”
As for how Trump, 79, is trying to resolve the Iran war by declaring it “won,” Wolff was skeptical, since the regime is still in place, with new leadership that some say is more hardline. Also, Iran continues to have “basic control” of the Strait of Hormuz.
“How does he not fall on his sword and say, ‘I failed’? And the answer is, as it has always been in everything that he does, is this remarkable ability, this rhetoric and will to deny reality. And he has done that better than anybody else in so many situations,” Wolff said.
“His entire life and persona is essentially that: ‘I am the world’s greatest businessman,’ where every piece of evidence suggests absolutely the opposite of that.”
Trump, for instance, has claimed that Iran’s ballistic missiles were “mostly decimated,” even though a confidential CIA analysis viewed by policymakers this week found that the country still had about 70 percent of its prewar stockpile. Also, Iran could survive a naval blockade for three to four months, according to the analysis. Trump has called the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz “unbelievable.”
Trump even claimed on Wednesday that the Iran war has lasted six weeks instead of the actual number: nine.
When reached for comment, the White House disputed Wolff’s credibility.
“Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--- and has been proven to be a fraud,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast in a statement. “He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
On Thursday, Iran was discussing with the U.S. a proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, lift the U.S. blockade, and stop hostilities for 30 days. Iranian officials, the New York Times reported, said a major point of concern is how Iran’s nuclear enrichment program will be addressed.
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