I Know What Trump Will Do After Crushing Defeat: Author
Michael Wolff says we can look back to 2020 to see how the president will react to a devastating defeat.
President Donald Trump will not go gently if the midterms end in a disaster for Republicans as expected, his longtime biographer says.
Author Michael Wolff tells the Inside Trump’s Head podcast that Trump, 80, will react to a midterm defeat as he did after the 2020 presidential election, which eventually snowballed into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“He will understand that what he has to do on the day after,” Wolff said. “The imperative for him is to seize as much attention as he can.”
Wolff recounted how Trump “started his acting out” after Joe Biden was found to have won the election, which included falsely declaring himself the winner on social media and pressuring his Justice Department to overturn the election results.
Trump's 2020 election lies reached a climax in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection attempt, as Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the election.
Leah Millis/REUTERS
With only two weeks until Nov. 3, and many polls indicating a blue wave is increasingly likely, both the House and Senate are at risk of coming under Democratic control. Such a development would likely lead to the president’s third impeachment, which the Senate could confirm this time.
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The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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Wolff said he does not think Trump’s next possible meltdown will lead to real violence, like on Jan. 6, but the essence of Trump’s rage will manifest similarly in terms of desperate attention-seeking.
“The Democrats, if they win, will be obviously celebrating,” Wolff said. “Obviously trying to impress upon the world that it is a new day. Donald Trump, for his part, will be trying to impress upon the world that he still controls the stage, that it doesn’t make any difference.”
“They may say they won, and they may act like they’ve... won, and maybe they technically have won, but the reality is it is still Donald Trump’s world, and he will do everything possible to make that case,” Wolff said. “And he will do everything possible to make that case the day after and then the day after that.”
Wolff said that after such a defeat, the president may be emboldened to follow through on some of the bonkers threats he has teased this term—such as an invasion of Cuba.
“There will be a series of Trumpian things greater than, you know, greater than anything we’ve ever seen, greater than anything, actually, I think we’ve imagined,” he explained. “Donald Trump will not go willingly. He will not be humbled.”
“That goes back to this idea that he never loses. The idea of humility does not exist in Donald Trump’s soul,” Wolff concluded. “Therefore, he will do the opposite—not retreat, but attack.”
Find and subscribe to Inside Trump’s Head with Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes of incomparable insight into the psyche of the world’s most talked-about man drop every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evening on YouTube and Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday mornings on other podcast platforms.
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