U.S. President Donald Trump makes an announcement regarding his administration's policies against cartels and human trafficking, from the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 23, 2025.
Art of the Deal Co-author Tony Schwartz predicts Trump is destined to make history — just not the side of it he probably wants.
MS NOW anchor Ari Melber asked Schwartz to comment on Trump’s most recent slate of gaffes, particularly his devastating claim that he “loves” the inflation currently racking voters and threatening to destroy his own Republican Party in the November midterms.
“It's demented. I mean, it's so self-destructive,” said Schwartz, who described Trump as an addict who acts as a kind of “black hole.”
“And you pour stuff into it. And he poured it in and maxed out when he was reelected president. And it looked fantastic. But it seeped out incredibly quickly. And then he has to keep upping the ante and chasing the high. And so now where he's at is there's no high to chase. So that's just that's just a piece of self-destructiveness. He's going to go down as the worst president in the history of this country,” said Schwartz, the founder of consulting firm the Energy Project.
The worst of Trump’s crisis will hit when Democrats re-take Congress as a result of Trump’s self-imposed crises with the war in Iran, rampant inflation and other Trump-sources plagues, said MS NOW host Ari Melbar, citing a claim be Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that Trump was hurting his own party with self-serving decisions and his insistence on a kind of slavish loyalty, ultimately setting himself up for a midterm disaster.
Cornyn added that Trump’s following two years of powerlessness will be “the most miserable two years of his life.”
Schwartz said Trump’s “got something going on pretty significant physically, given the number of visits to the hospital,” and his debilitating health problems will likely merge with his post-midterm powerlessness to drive Trump into the permanent doldrums.
“He would not step down or bow out,” said Schwartz, predicting the second half of Trump’s impotent second term to be “a tortuous time” for him. “I think he's going to quit in his own mind. It's like you're playing a basketball game. You're playing a basketball game, you're down by 29 [points] and you say, ‘you know what? I've had it.’ And that's where we go if they lose the midterms. … He is going to quietly quit, even if he just loses the House.”
But Shwartz predicted Trump’s time of torture is unavoidable.
“I think people really — maybe this is my hope — are underestimating how big this [blue] wave is going to be. I think it’s going to be bigger.”