President Donald Trump’s biggest fear is the world finding out he is stupid, his longtime biographer alleges.
Trump’s fear of this is so great, Michael Wolff tells the Inside Trump’s Head Podcast that the president’s college transcripts may very well be what Russian President Vladimir Putin holds over him.
Wolff says the theory is not just his, adding that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon raised the same possibility.
“Steve Bannon and I were talking about what Putin might have on Trump, and Bannon went through all the things dismissing them,” Wolff said. “He said, what I think he has on him are his college transcripts.”
Trump’s transcripts from Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School have never been released, despite efforts to unearth them during the 2016 election.
“We haven’t seen his high school transcripts. We haven’t seen either of his college transcripts,” co-host Joanna Coles pointed out. “They have been so successful in locking that stuff down. And, you know, if they were good, he would have floated them out there immediately.”
Wolff added, “I think top of his list, top of the things that plagues him is being seen as stupid, for one reason: Because he is stupid.”
Wolff and Coles discussed the 10 things Trump fears most, and how his own intellect is perceived by others was top of the list.
“We should say that the point of going through these fears is to understand why he is as he is, because actually, he’s a man that’s been created through his fears,” Coles explained.
As recently as Monday, Trump was insisting he had inherited a big beautiful brain from an uncle who was a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“I have the highest of IQs,” he said. “I have the highest. I’m fine, and I understand that stuff. You know, my uncle was at MIT for 41 years, and you know, I’m a—I believe in genetics, frankly, and I understand.”
Trump continued, “I understand it much more than I think any president would, because I do have an ability on this. I have an ability on those things that were the new frontiers.”
Wolff said that when he was first beginning to gather material for his best-selling Trump biography, Fire and Fury, he sat down with Sam Nunberg, a former aide to Trump who was fired after racist posts he had made online became public.
“Sam looked at me like I was, I mean, like, he was incredulous,” Wolff recalled. “And he said to me, ‘You don’t get it.’ And I said, ‘What?’ And then he said, Sam said, ‘He’s an idiot. And it suddenly, you know, it suddenly became clear.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump has used social media to trumpet his own intellect countless times. He likes to congratulate himself for passing basic cognitive tests and for surrounding himself with what he describes as “high quality” people.
Last year, he also implied his base was not that intelligent, saying “smart people don’t like me.”
Wolff said the revelation of Trump’s lack of intelligence, in his eyes, had caught him off guard.
“You don’t think someone’s been elected the president of the United States...they can be many things, but you don’t think that they’re an idiot,” Wolff said. “Someone who knows nothing about nothing. And that really is Trump.”
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