President Donald Trump reacts as he speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One for travel to Mississippi from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, October 26, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The Trump White House is descending into a "bloody" pressure cooker, according to a one-time biographer of the president, with everyone out to get as much as they can "while the getting is good" before things come to a grinding halt.
Michael Wolff is a longtime author and reporter, best known for his extensive coverage of President Donald Trump's political career, including several books about his chaotic first term in the White House. In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff and co-host Joanna Coles at one point discussed the scandal surrounding Trump's former personal attorney and failed U.S. Attorney attack dog, Alina Habba Mildon, who received a $50 million contract to serve as general counsel for the family of a Venezuelan billionaire, shortly before a member of the family received a clemency deal from the White House.
As Wolff argued, the Trump White House has been behaving like any other authoritarian government, with a bunch of bit players using access to the "central power in the middle" to make money or pursue other personal goals.
"But that's what so many other people around Donald Trump are also doing," Wolff explained. "And this is going to get more intense as... the end comes for the Trump administration. And... the feeling may be that it is ending much sooner [than anticipated], with Tuesday's election... that everybody is going to be so much more focused on getting what they can while the getting is good, which is going to increase the pressure, increase the resentment, increase the competition around Trump. And it's going to be bloody."
On the subject of impending GOP doom in the midterms, Wolff suggested that Trump's recent attempt to back out of several planned rallies might have come down to him getting tired, and the fact that "if he decides he doesn't want to do it, it's very hard to get him to do it."
"It's very hard to get him to focus. I mean, you don't tell Trump what to do," Wolff said. "And, and if he got to the point of saying, I don't want to do this anymore, then you don't do it."
He continued: "Now, in this case, he was pressured. I mean, the entire Republican Party comes and says, 'Come on... We're really in an every last vote situation. I mean, you have one job, Mr. President, and that's to get your base to come out and vote'... You're certainly not going to change the minds, at this point, of Democrats or independents or people who have once voted for you and now hate you."