U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media before boarding Marine One upon departure for New York, in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 11, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Donald Trump's obsession with television has been widely observed and dissected, but according to Michael Wolff, the obsession runs much deeper and defines Trump's approach to everything, with the author and insider calling him more of "a comedian" than a politician who runs the White House like a "reality television show."
Wolff has, over the last decade, written and reported extensively about the inner workings of Trump's political career, including the 2018 book Fire & Fury, which offered an inside look at his first term so damaging that Trump attempted to block its publication. In the latest episode of "Inside Trump's Head," a podcast he co-hosts for the Daily Beast, Wolff dug deep into the ways in which TV defines Trump's understanding of the world and his approach to everything in his political career. According to Wolff, Fox News founder Roger Ailes once described the president as “that kid whose parents never pulled him away from the television.”
"So he grew up just glued to the television at all times, not doing anything else, not paying attention to his schoolwork, not doing his homework, not really having friends, just glued to the television," Wolff explained.
“It’s really more helpful to think of him in terms of being an actor than in terms of being a politician,” he continued. “In his courtship of the audience, in his own egomania, in his desire for attention.”
Upon entering the White House for the first time, Wolff said that Trump was notable for his lack of attention to any other forms of communication besides TV, explaining that “he didn’t read, he didn’t listen, but you could talk to him through the television.” This created a loop in which White House officials fed information to Fox News, so that Trump would actually hear it.
“The people at Fox News would then echo what the White House wanted them to say so that Trump would hear this and, and he would he would listen and appreciate and understand, because it was on television,” Wolff said. “A very closed circle was being created. He was running a White House that was largely a reality television show. And the television itself was supplying him with much of the script for this show.”
Wolff claimed that "there are very few moments" in Trump's life when he does not have a TV on, such as when he is "in the car or when he’s doing a rally and a public appearance."
Trump is also said to define success heavily based on audience reception, as Wolff noted his obsession with Nielsen ratings for TV programming, as well as his tendency to endlessly repeat things once they get a good response from his base.
“His measure is always a popular audience measure. He’s kind of like a comedian working," Wolff added. "He just throws out stuff, throws it out, throws it out, and you can see him measuring the response. And when he really gets the response he likes, he just repeats it and repeats it and repeats it... To judge him as a politician... you’re not going to get it. You’re not going to understand what’s going on here.”
