President Donald Trump reacts as he speaks to members of the media on board Air Force One en route from Scotland, Britain, to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, July 29, 2025. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein
President Donald Trump has made no secret of his plans to try and subvert GOP losses in the upcoming midterms, and according to his one-time biographer, he is plotting to use "chaos" and "uncertainty" to attack the results of any races that do not go the way he wants.
Michael Wolff is a veteran journalist and author, best known for the book Fire & Fury, which used insider sources to document the chaos behind the scenes of Trump's first term in the White House. He now co-hosts the Daily Beast's podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," and during the most recent episode, he revealed why Trump is pushing so hard for the doomed voting reform bill, the SAVE America Act.
According to Wolff, the president sees a way to shape the narrative around the GOP's inevitable midterm losses by claiming that the election system is flawed and corrupt. By pointing to his SAVE Act efforts, he can say that he tried to fix it and, in turn, demonize successful Democrats further.
“It’s just what is to his advantage is just the narrative that the election system in the United States is broken,” Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles. “And chaos is to his advantage, and to create a bubble of uncertainty and controversy around that, no matter what happens, reverts to his advantage.”
He continued: "Let’s assume this [bill] is not going to pass. So why is he doing this? The reason he is doing this is to set up and to continue the narrative when he loses the midterms. This then becomes the reason he lost the midterms, and he lost the midterms illegitimately… we’ve set up the enemy here."
While the party in the White House traditionally sees midterm losses in Congress, they are expected to be much more severe for the GOP, given the increasingly toxic voter reaction to Trump's presidency. The party could lose its House majority by dozens of seats, and its odds of retaining the Senate majority have also begun to seriously deteriorate.
“He’s pushing this forward because he has pushed this story forward from day one of his political career,” Wolff added. “That’s what, essentially, his politics is founded on this... narrative.”
“So if he wins, the system is perfect. And if he loses, the system is rigged,” Coles replied.
“Yes, but he’s not going to win," Wolff said in return. "So the system is going to be rigged.”