To understand President Donald Trump’s presidency, it helps to think of Trump not only as a master manipulator but as a performer.
“It’s really more helpful to think of him in terms of being an actor than in terms of being a politician,” author Michael Wolff explained to the Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles. “In his courtship of the audience, in his own egomania, in his desire for attention.”
Referring to the first interview he conducted with Trump in 2016 for what would eventually become Fire & Fury, Wolff recalled asking the then-presidential candidate why he was running for office.
“He said, without missing a beat, and as though this was a perfectly normal goal, ‘To become the most famous man in the world,’” Wolff said.
Once Trump entered the White House, Wolff explained, “he didn’t read, he didn’t listen, but you could talk to him through the television.”
Fox News capitalized on that most effectively, Wolff continued, meaning that suddenly, “everybody had to have a relationship with the people at Fox News.”
“The people at Fox News would then echo what the White House wanted them to say so that Trump would hear this and, and he would he would listen and appreciate and understand, because it was on television,” Wolff said.
“A very closed circle was being created. He was running a White House that was largely a reality television show. And the television itself was supplying him with much of the script for this show.”
Wolff added that Roger Ailes, the Fox News founder who was a close friend of Trump, once described Trump as “that kid whose parents never pulled him away from the television.”
“So he grew up just glued to the television at all times, not doing anything else, not paying attention to his schoolwork, not doing his homework, not really having friends, just glued to the television,” Wolff noted.
Citing the New York trial where Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, Wolff explained that the president’s entire frame of reference for how he wanted his legal team to defend him was television.
“He wants Perry Mason. He wants the guy who goes in and wins every case. He wants Roy Cohn, who he elevated to the guy who has won every case. He sees this just in terms of performance,” Wolff said.
“He wanted television lawyers. It was his entire reference. Everything is about television.”
Wolff also said that Trump almost always has the television on, adding, “There are very few moments in the car or when he’s doing a rally and a public appearance, but those are pretty much the only times that the television is not on.”
Above everything else, Trump responds to ratings. Wolff notes in one of his four books about the president that he is obsessed with the Nielsen ratings.
“His measure is always a popular audience measure. He’s kind of like a comedian working. He just throws out stuff, throws it out, throws it out,“ Wolff said, “and you can see him measuring the response. And when he really gets the response he likes, he just repeats it and repeats it and repeats it.”
“To judge him as a politician… you’re not going to get it. You’re not going to understand what’s going on here.”
When reached for comment on Wolff’s remarks, the White House repeated its boilerplate attack against the writer. “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--t and has been proven to be a fraud. 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,” a spokesperson said.
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