Nobody in President Donald Trump’s inner circle is willing to provide an honest assessment of the president’s capabilities, author Michael Wolff argues, which is leading the president to become more and more uninhibited in his public pronouncements.
Discussing the president’s remarks this week on everything from the tragic murders of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele to the mess the FBI made of first lady Melania Trump’s underwear drawer, Wolff told his Inside Trump’s Head podcast co-host Joanna Coles that what Trump is exhibiting is a problem of “reflex control.”
Wolff also discussed comments made by Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a now-viral Vanity Fair story, in which she described the president as having an “alcoholic’s personality.”
“Susie Wiles might have just as well said, ‘It’s like dealing with a dementia patient.’ I mean, it is the same thing,” Wolff explained. “And because he doesn’t drink, it is probably closer to that, in which he has the uninhibited aspects of his personality—that might be anger, or self-pity, or in his case racism—become increasingly more uninhibited, and that seems to be what’s going on. He opens his mouth and you go, ‘This is a problem.’”
Coles highlighted another example, from September, where Trump took the stage at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service and ranted about how much he hated his enemies. “It’s just peculiar at this stage,” Coles added. “And no one around him seems to be saying, ‘Enough already, you sound deranged.’”
“It’s true, no one around them does say that,” Wolff replied, before going on to discuss the fact that the U.S. has had two octogenarian presidents back-to-back, and few people around former President Joe Biden seemed willing to break ranks and disclose his health concerns to the public.
“Joe Biden had enormous cognitive difficulties, and everyone around him closed ranks to protect him until he could no longer be protected,” Wolff said, adding that there is “no way to diagnose the president.”
“There is no way for us to say, ‘OK, he is experiencing cognitive issues of an alarming variety.’ And no one around him is going to say that. Although Susie Wiles, in acknowledging the alcoholic thing, was curious.”
Medical experts have studied the president’s public speeches and mannerisms, as well as his documented health issues, including chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) and the ever-present bandages on his hand, and concluded that he is in decline and perhaps even exhibiting signs of someone with dementia.
Mary Trump, the president’s niece, has echoed these concerns, noting that her grandfather—Trump’s father, Fred Sr.—lived with Alzheimer’s for many years.
The White House has continued to insist that Trump is in excellent health, even going so far as to claim that the MRI he underwent during his most recent physical exam was standard for patients his age. Medical professionals were quick to dispute this.
The president has also repeatedly bragged about “acing” three separate cognitive assessments, and has described the elementary school-level tests as being “very hard.”
“He bragged about this,” said Wolff of Trump’s claim of acing the medical assessments, “which is yet another symptom, obviously, a heightened sensitivity to this issue and a defensiveness about it.”
“We have a whole set of symptoms here,” Wolff said of the president. “This idea of a president’s mental health, we don’t really have a context for this, when, in fact, the context should be: this is a paramount issue.”
“Obviously, if the president is unwell, we should discuss that. It actually is an issue, probably, of far greater importance than any other political issue.”
When reached for comment, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung replied: “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.”
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