President Donald Trump has begun a downfall that will become more apparent by the day as the challenges facing him grow increasingly difficult to overcome, according to his biographer.
“This Trump enterprise is coming apart,” author Michael Wolff said on the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head podcast, arguing that while Trump will remain “mendacious and dangerous and damaging,” his grip on power is starting to weaken.
“We’re right at the center, right at the beginning of this, which we will see this progress on an almost day-by-day basis,” Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles.
The Fire and Fury author identified the war in Iran as the biggest issue the 79-year-old president “cannot extricate himself” from, saying it will “finish him off in the end.”
The Iran war, which was “the most unpopular” on record when it began on Feb. 28, has become “even more unpopular” after dragging on for more than three months, according to a CNN data analysis.
The war has also exposed deep divisions within the president’s own party, with some MAGA loyalists pushing for a tougher approach and others angry that Trump initiated the conflict at all after pledging during his campaign to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars.
That split was on display on Wednesday, when four Republican lawmakers broke with the president and joined Democrats in a vote to curb Trump’s war powers in Iran.
“The Republican Congress that has, for almost 10 years now, bent to his will is saying, ‘Hey, hey, whoa, we’re not doing this,’ and that was a devastating vote,” Wolff said of the measure, which passed the House 215-208 and must now go to the Senate before reaching Trump’s desk, where he could veto it.
The president has suffered several setbacks over the past few weeks, including the Justice Department announcing that it will abandon plans for a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund; 18 Republicans breaking with him Thursday to vote for the Ukraine Support Act; a judge rejecting his attempt to rename the Kennedy Center after himself; and Senate Republicans abandoning efforts to secure $1 billion in taxpayer funding for the White House ballroom.
“This goes into broader territory,” Wolff said, arguing that Trump’s “falling poll numbers” and the fact that he is “in trouble on all of the foundational policies of his administration” make his political decline apparent.
In response to the Daily Beast’s request for comment, White House communications director Steven Cheung offered a recycled statement: “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.”
The latest YouGov/Economist polling shows that Trump’s net approval rating stands at -25, down 1.1 points from last week, and the lowest approval rating of any president since the survey began in 2009.
“It’s one problem after another after another that he cannot surmount,” Wolff said.
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