Michael Wolff, one of the biographers of President Donald Trump, revealed that he will begin telling his long tale of trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the relationships he had and the stories he told.

In a kind of introduction, Wolff likened the "fog of war" to a similar "fog" in the ongoing Epstein scandal.

"The Fog of Epstein" is similar in that his story can be "shaped to fit almost everybody’s view, right-wing or left, of what has gone wrong with our time, and to confirm the depravity of virtually anybody you don’t like," wrote Wolff on his Substack Friday.

The problem, he explained, is that anyone who had an up-close view of Epstein's life had every reason to want to hide it because by sharing it, they were making a confession, Wolff said. They risked becoming part of the cover-up or the conspiracy. It means the majority of the stories come from the accusers.

"So," he explained. "What I am going to try to do is tell the story as I have been privy to it. All battles for truth seem to end up creating even greater fog. My intention is not to engage with the battle, but to offer a personal version of the story—I will tell it only according to what I have seen."

He prefaced it by saying, "This is a story I inadvertently walked into. In the beginning, it did not appear much different from other stories of grandiosity, wealth, and opportunity that seemed to regularly present themselves in Manhattan. I stayed, in part, because the story seemed to unfold as a heightened, purer version of that tale of life in the city during the years of its greatest avarice."

The story Wolff had, he explained, was never told by journalists, survivors or prosecutors, much less Epstein's friends, in large part because he controlled the story. To Epstein, his story wasn't all that interesting or unique, and there were others he could tell.

They seem to all be about "greed and aggrandizement and entitlement; what’s more, Epstein, like his friend Trump, was too vulgar, excessive, and not of our class, to take seriously," said Wolff.

All of these stories, he teased, will unfold on Monday.

All eyes have been on Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the names most likely to chase after Trump's "MAGA crown" after his second term. However, a one-time biographer with inside sources this week claimed that a new name has been circling the "lame duck" president, looking for his own shot at being the successor.

Despite his earlier teases and musings, Trump is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in office, setting the stage for an unprecedented fight for his place as the 2028 GOP presidential nominee and, in effect, the new leader of the Republican and the MAGA movement. As vice president, Vance has long been seen as the most obvious candidate, but due to his historic unpopularity, other names have also been under serious consideration.

Michael Wolff is a veteran writer and journalist, best known for his tell-all books about the chaos behind the scenes of Trump's first term, based on sources he maintains close to the White House. During the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff explained that the president's plummeting approval and the suspected drubbing coming for the GOP in the midterms mean that his "lame duck" era is fast approaching, and will see "power starts to ebb because other people start to step up” as “the party begins to think beyond the current presidency.”

In this search for the next MAGA leader, Wolff revealed one name within the administration possibly angling for a shot: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. His chances, however, are strongly dependent on whether or not both Vance and Rubio flame out on the path to the nomination.

"Is Pete Hegseth somehow, because he’s a performer, because he seems shameless, because he’s pro-military in some comical way, does this make him someone who can be a number two or three, and then number one and two fall, and he rises? Unlikely, but not impossible," Wolff said.

He also mentioned a name outside of the administration, making serious considerations about mounting a run for president, one who has emerged as a vocal critic of Trump in recent months: Tucker Carlson.

"I’ve had this discussion on quite a number of occasions with Tucker about his desire to run for president,” Wolff said. “And he has done the deflecting, but not the denying.”

Former congresswoman and Trump-ally-turned-critic Marjorie Taylor Greene has also purportedly been pushing for a Carlson candidacy, potentially priming herself to be his running mate.

Wolff also predicted that, no matter who ends up on the GOP ticket, Trump will try to sabotage their run in some way.

“He will hobble anyone trying to be the nominee. But whoever is the nominee, he will then undermine,” he suggested. “It’s part of the story to be told, and that I trust we will be telling, how he reacts to all of this over the next two and a half years. It won’t be pretty.”

Donald Trump's pursuit of Greenland appears to be winding down for the time being, and according to his one-time biographer, this particular obsession was always "meaningless" and doomed to go nowhere.

Michael Wolff is a veteran reporter and author best known for his book Fire & Fury, a behind-the-scenes account of the tumultuous first Trump administration. In a recent episode of his podcast for the Daily Beast, "Inside Trump's Head," he argued that the president's bluster about Greenland was never actually about achieving anything tangible or gaining territory for the U.S., but rather it was about feeding his desire for attention.

“We are some of the few people who said from the beginning this means nothing,” Wolff explained to his co-host, Joanna Coles. “He is not going to take Greenland. He is not going to apply these tariffs. This is meaningless.”

He continued: "The only meaning here is that this is a new Trump chapter, which will close. He’s going to squeeze this for all of the attention he can get... and it is really an offering to him because it’s attention.”

For most of the new year so far, Trump has escalated his assertion that the U.S. must annex Greenland from Denmark, giving various vague rationales based on "national security" concerns that critics said did not make any real sense. In the face of fierce opposition to this campaign from European leaders, Trump threatened to levy new tariffs against any nation that did not back his plan to take Greenland.

Despite all that, after meeting with several leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, Trump backed off these plans and said that no tariffs would be issued, claiming that a tentative agreement had been reached on a deal to give the U.S. more presence in Greenland. Reports indicate that this might include granting the U.S. sovereignty over certain pockets of land on the Arctic island for defense purposes.

Wolff argued further that this push for Greenland acted for Trump as both a way to distract people from less flattering stories, like the Epstein files, and to help keep him at the center of the global political conversation.

“I think people understand this,” Wolff said. “He distracts from whatever happened yesterday. He distracts with whatever happens today. But the distraction in itself—whatever he does—also has this value to him, which is attention. That’s what he wants. He is one more day at the center of the world... One of his aides said to me, ‘You know, he sets these fires constantly, but it’s really not the fire that he focuses on. What he focuses on is the fire engines rushing to put the fire out.'"

Donald Trump's penchant for "deranged" posting sprees on his Truth Social platform in the middle of the night has become a consistent hallmark presence on the political scene, and according to biographer and White House insider Michael Wolff, officials and staffers in the White House are "as surprised as we are" by the things he says on social media.

Wolff is a veteran reporter and author who previously conducted extensive interviews with Trump and his associates for the 2018 book, Fire & Fury. On Wednesday, he spoke about the president's posting habit on the Daily Beast's "Inside Trump's Head" podcast, which he co-hosts with Joanna Coles.

As much as the rest of the world tends to be alarmed by Trump's late-night rants, Wolff revealed that those working for him are also taken by surprise. The difference is, he noted, that they then have to translate his posts into swift policy accomplishments.

“This certainly goes right to the heart of who Donald Trump is and how he governs,” Wolff explained. “And I use the word ‘govern’ loosely. It is literally off the top of his head.”

He continued: “I know people in the White House, and I speak to people in the White House often, and I think this is very difficult to appreciate — and probably impossible to appreciate — that the people within the White House are often as surprised as we are by what happens. They go to bed at night, and then they open up their phones in the morning, and they look to see what he has posted. And that becomes policy, that becomes reality.”

While the examples of these posting sprees are countless by now, the most recent example caused some of the biggest shockwaves after Trump revealed a text he sent to the Prime Minister of Norway. In it, he claimed that the decision not to give him the Nobel Peace Prize — a choice not controlled by the Norwegian government — was part of his recent motivation to keep doubling down on his desire to annex Greenland. He also later shared a text he received from French President Emmanuel Macron, in which the leader said, "I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland."

These sorts of revelations, Wolff explained, are still just as much of a shock to Trump's officials as they are to the outside world.

“A friend of mine was saying the other day that, ‘We just wake up to see what he’s posted and then we go into the office,’” Wolff added. “So Susie Wiles is, of course, the chief of staff, the person who is literally in charge of moving these policies through the executive branch to some kind of fruition or resolution. And she is as unaware of what is going to happen from day to day as again as we are.”

First Lady Melania Trump is pursuing new sanctions in her battle against Michael Wolff, but as the prominent former biographer of her husband explained this week, her "preposterous" legal strategy is doomed to fail.

Wolff is a veteran reporter and author, best known for several books documenting President Donald Trump's first term in the White House. In the last year, he has also been embroiled in a legal battle with the first lady after she initially threatened to sue him over comments about her and her family's connections to Jeffrey Epstein. He responded with an anti-SLAPP lawsuit, accusing Melania Trump of attempting to silence him, in breach of freedom of the press.

In May, New York District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Trump appointee, tossed out Wolff's suit, saying that he must wait for an actual defamation suit from the first lady, while also noting that there appeared to be legitimate issues brought up between the two parties. In the past week, Melania Trump has moved to try and have Wolff's lawyers sanctioned, over what she described as "factual misrepresentations, frivolous legal arguments and bad-faith conduct."

In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, Wolff touched on these new developments in the situation, calling the first lady's strategy "preposterous."

"Essentially, they are moving to sanction my lawyers for doing nothing more than bringing the lawsuit against Melania Trump,” Wolff explained. “So this is preposterous on its face."

Speaking further on the matter, he said that the first lady's move fits the strategy established by her notoriously litigious husband, which means that it is almost certain to fail.

"... It is just another... kind of thing that comes with all of Trump-style... litigation, which is you do everything, no matter how... sordid and not respectable... and bound to be thrown out of court, you do this stuff to cost your opponents more money and to cause delay," Wolff explained.

Indeed, Judge Vyskocil seemed to urge the first lady against continuing to pursue legal action against Wolff and his team during a hearing earlier this week.

"I wonder if it’s in the interest of the parties to continue litigating in this court," she said. "I think sometimes people get so caught up in the fervor of the moment that they don’t really stop and think about the cost-benefit analysis of motions that are contemplated and the burden you put a court to."

Wolff further claimed to have known that this sort of sanction request was coming after he accidentally received a text from one of the first lady's lawyers, which also exposed how the case "was being coordinated at the highest levels of Trump law.”

"On January 26th of this year, I got a text... from the president’s personal lawyer, a man by the name of Boris Epshteyn, and the text said, ‘Hey team, what’s our timing on the Section 11 filing?’” Wolff detailed. "I was not part of the team. I am in Boris Epshteyn’s address book because he’s... a frequent off-the-record chatterer... and as can happen, he was thinking about me and writing a text about me, but it wasn’t supposed to go to me.”

One of President Donald Trump's longtime biographers, Michael Wolff, is warning that the obsessive focus on the Reflecting Pool reveals something much deeper about the 80-year-old leader.

Speaking on the Daily Beast podcast, Wolff explained that, according to his sources, Trump is spending as much as 80 percent of his time on things like the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

Chatting with those he said are close to Trump, Wolff said that the Reflecting Pool failure is drawing "All of his anger, all of his rage, all of his demands — and now his need for vengeance: someone must be responsible."

The pool disaster has largely been a joke online, with mocking memes and comedy ranging from social media accounts championing the pool algae, along with "make algae great again" merchandise. For political analysts, it is described as a metaphor for Trump's entire presidency: big promises, overspending and, ultimately, a failure to deliver.

Trump is seeing it all as "an insult to the country and a challenge to him personally," Wolff said.

“The discussion that I’m having with people is that, you know, 60, 70, 80 percent of his time — and remember, he doesn’t work that much — is devoted to the Reflecting Pool,” Wolff explained.

“But he is focused on the Reflecting Pool,” Wolff told the Beast.

“Now we can obviously make a little nod here to Narcissus and his reflecting pool... It is, even for people who work with Donald Trump every day, a weird moment.”

Co-host Joanna Coles was curious whether the obsession stems from Trump's image of himself as a "builder."

Wolff questioned if it was “one of those dementia things.”

"I'm against diagnosing people," he explained. "But you know, Jesus, for anybody who has seen this before, and I have seen this before and so many people have."

"You close out the rest of the world and you just and you focus on these problems which are, which are really minor, and you turn them into obsessions.

"I mean, this clearly has become, in his mind, and hence in the White House, an obsession," he added. "What is the largest problem in the world today? It is apparently the Reflecting Pool."

"... I think he obviously has signs of dementia," Wolff corrected. "I'm just not comfortable with moving that to a diagnosis. I mean, you have that guy on 'Doctor John Gartner.' He says that because Trump's been in plain sight for so many years, you can actually diagnose the decline of his language, which is key to understanding someone's mental state. That's what all television doctors say."

Coles said that it's the first time she's heard Wolff acknowledge that Trump may have such a problem.

Wolff explained that what can be confirmed is that "something is unusual. Something is not as it should be. Something is weird. The president of the United States of America, in all kinds of crises, which again, larger and larger, has chosen for the past week and a half at least, to focus almost exclusively on the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. That's odd, is it?"

President Donald Trump's relentless financial grifts are only going to keep getting "worse and worse and worse," according to his one-time biographer, and it all comes down to a simple fact.

Michael Wolff is a veteran reporter and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's personal and political life over the years, including a series of books about the chaos that roiled his first term. During the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, Wolff discussed the fallout of Trump's latest scheme to extract money from his supporters: a cryptocurrency coin that left around 900,000 investors with $3.8 billion in losses, while he walked away with roughly $636 million.

“What I wonder is, what’s in their head? I mean... wouldn’t you say that... there should be a collective revolt at this point, if you were among the 900,000 people who lost this money?” Wolff said. “Because, remember: they lost this money, Trump made billions... So what are these people thinking?”

“Are they thinking, ‘I just got in too late. If only I got in earlier. It’s my fault, I’m a terrible investor?’” Wolff's co-host Joanna Coles responded. “Or are they thinking it’s going to come back? ‘It’s going to come back, it’s just low right now. Bitcoin is low right now. At least I’m in the crypto game.’ Because obviously, this is a crypto grift.”

“I can’t fathom it. I mean, first thing: Who... are these people who would invest alongside Donald Trump?” Wolff continued. “I mean, this is... the classic rigged market. Of course, Donald Trump — the house — is going to win. Of course you’re going to lose."

According to recent financial disclosures, the money Trump made from the licensing of these "celebration coins" made up a significant chunk of the $1.4 billion that he made from crypto ventures last year. That sum also included over $525 million from token sales by World Liberty Financial, a firm established by his two sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.

Wolff suggested that the wider public "clearly" has not put any "moral attention," and this lack of attention is in large part why Trump has been able to get away with such grifts, and why he suggested that they are only going to keep getting worse.

"They have not [paid attention] at any point of the Trump grift... which is now 10 years running, getting worse and worse and worse, and more lucrative... for him," Wolff said. "He’s a businessman—of course, he’s going to take advantage of every opportunity that comes his way. I wish I could take advantage of every opportunity like that. Not I... but the man on the street.”

President Donald Trump is "stuck" in a conflict that appears doomed to swallow up his presidency, and according to his one-time biographer, it is all because he has run up against an enemy who knows precisely "how to play him."

Michael Wolff is a longtime reporter and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's personal and political histories, including a series of books about the chaos of his first term. In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he touched on the disintegration of Trump's Iran ceasefire deal, making a bold proclamation about where the ordeal ranks across his entire political career.

“This is the worst mistake he has made," Wolff said, adding that the Iranians have been able to play Trump by way of "trolling," later adding. "These presidents get into these forever wars, and they can’t get out of them."

Wolff argued that Trump now finds himself trapped in the sort of foreign conflict that can "bring presidencies down," something that Iran is keenly aware of.

"These presidents get into these forever wars, and they can’t get out of them," he added.

Wolff further claimed that Trump had effectively told Iran, "I’ll give you any kind of agreement you want if you just stop this war," even going so far as to offer to pay them, something he had relentlessly attacked former President Barack Obama for supposedly doing with his Iran deal.

“They keep coming back,” Wolff said of Iran. “This is a whole process of trolling Donald Trump.”

Trump has now threatened to attack Iran with "1000 Missiles" if they attempt to assassinate him, even reportedly laying out instructions for Vice President JD Vance on how to approach the situation if he is killed. Wolff suggested, however, that "the death thing is probably more clearly related to his polling numbers than it is to whatever threats the Iranians are making."

Wolff also noted that the notion of threats against his life "does get under [Trump's] skin, and he is somewhat paranoid about this."

Veteran journalist Simon Marks made similar arguments last week, suggesting that Trump "fundamentally lacks the skills and temperament to successfully manage a diplomatic deal with" a country that operates like Iran, which does not operate anything like the world of New York real estate dealing that he is used to, and is not interested in giving him something he can tout as a victory.

President Donald Trump is in for a miserable time after the forthcoming midterm elections, but according to his one-time biographer, there is another hardship he cannot see that "will become an incredible noose around his neck."

Michael Wolff is a longtime reporter and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's political career, including several books about his chaotic first term. On the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff said that Trump is in for a rough time serving out the rest of his term after the midterms, in which Democrats are widely expected to at least retake the House majority.

"They will do everything possible to frustrate him and to humiliate him and to make him pay for being Donald Trump," Wolff explained. "And that may be good politics or bad politics. That’s unclear because they’ve done this before and it turned out to be actually probably bad politics.”

He also argued that he will be in for an unexpected difficulty once those pivotal races wrap up: his own party.

“But the other thing is, in terms of being a lame duck, is that things happen in his own party. So his own party begins to move further and further away from him, and we’re already seeing this now,” Wolff added, noting the GOP's current inability to pass the SAVE America Act. “They keep telling him, ‘We can’t do it,’ but for whatever reason, that is not going to happen. That’s a clear rebuff.”

The SAVE Act is an election reform bill that Trump has repeatedly called his number one priority for Congress. If signed into law, the bill would impose new rules requiring Americans to present certain proof of citizenship when registering to vote, a move that critics have said would disenfranchise millions of voters without easy access to their birth certificates or passports. Despite his relentless push for it, Republicans in the Senate have shot down the possibility, stressing that it does not have the support needed to overcome the filibuster.

Wolff also said that, in the wake of the 2026 midterms, Trump will start to see Republican 2028 hopefuls begin to distance themselves from him, in an effort to avoid being too heavily associated with his unpopular agenda.

“We saw [Vice President] JD Vance this past week go on Joe Rogan and — godd——, if he wasn’t basically publicly proclaiming his distance from Donald Trump," Wolff said.

He added: “During the 2024 race, everybody was saying [Kamala Harris] has got to get some more — put distance between herself and Joe Biden. And she really didn’t. But in this case, JD Vance was clearly putting distance between himself and Donald Trump. So, I think we will see that across the spectrum of 2028 contenders.”