U.S. President Donald Trump at an observance ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C., September 11, 2026. REUTERS
A journalist and author with multiple inside sources into President Donald Trump's White House says Trump is unquestioningly fading into the background — and he must be furious.
“It’s all about attention because A: he can’t resist the idea of it, and B: because the idea of someone else getting the attention is anathema to him,” said Trump biographer Michael Wolff, speaking to co-host Joanna Coles about Trump’s desperate bid to launch a “Trump-a-Palooza” in Dallas, as Wolff described it.
“But I think there’s a longer-term strategy [behind the festival],” Wolff added. “Trump does not want the Republican Party to ever imagine life without him.”
“Remember we are going into this other phase,” Wolff explained. “In a president’s second term, after the midterms, the president begins the ‘long goodbye.’ His possible successors come to the forefront. Okay, that’s not going to happen here, and you can see this convention’s announcement of that. ‘I am not going away. I am going to play this in the total opposite of that.’”
In another "Inside Trump's Head" podcast episode, Wolff and co-host Joanna Coles had discussed the shadow of death Trump must feel creeping closer after the spate of recent celebrity deaths.
“Eighty is a seriously mortal moment,” said Wolff, who is best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's political career, including several books about his first term based on purported insider sources. “You’re in your 80s. This is your 9th decade.”
Wolff described Trump as a morbidly overweight octogenarian who is now also being faced with a recent slate of celebrity deaths, making him question his own mortality even harder.
“When I see people who are my age who go down, I register it. I think everybody does,” said Wolff. “Everybody does, but in particular a 300lb pound man who stuffs himself with poison and who hasn’t done a lick of exercise ever might have an even more immediate reaction to other people’s mortality at his age.”
But Trump’s reaction to his rapidly encroaching end appears to be to deny it at the top of his lungs.
“The cult of personality is going to go into hyperdrive now,” warned Wolff.
“Ugh,” Coles groaned.
“He’s saying ‘I’m not going to allow the party, the country or the world to get me, Donald Trump, out of its head,’” Wolff continued, adding that Trump understands “that his talent is getting inside other people’s heads and staying there.”
Coles suggested a personality like Trump would even be offended with having to compete — even for a day — with the deaths of thousands of Americans on the 25th anniversary of 9-11.
“How is he going to react when the 9-11 event on Friday, because he’s a New Yorker, and he’s not going to be there,” said Coles. “The other presidents are going to be there, so George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, the Clintons will all be there, and he won’t be there. They’ve automatically upstaged his RNC-palooza.”
“Oh, he’s hoping his Trump-a-Palooza will upstage 9-11,” assured Wolff. “That’s what this whole Trump-a-palooza is all about. I’m sure he’s been stewing about that, saying ‘I should’ve been there. I should’ve gone down there. I should’ve gotten some pictures of me there [at the tower collapse].
“Exactly,” laughed Coles. “Where are the pictures? There would have been pictures had he been there, but there aren’t. There are just hilarious fake AI videos of firemen carting him out. … and tweets of him as a heroic figure, when people were literally jumping from the buildings.”
“It’s unspeakable. It’s unconscionable,” said Wolff. “But Trump sees this and he’s triangulating it. It’s not just happenstance. This whole idea of a mini convention. He demanded this. He ordered this into place [to upstage it].