A new book by best-selling author Michael Wolff offers a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election campaign.
Wolff’s exposé of Trump’s first term, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, caused a sensation, with revelations ranging from the president’s hairstyle to the nicknames he gave his inner circle to the claim that he never expected to become president.
Now the author has turned to Trump’s historic bid for a second White House term in his upcoming book All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America.
Author Michael Wolffe. / Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image
Here are 10 nuggets Wolff reports from behind the campaign curtain.
Trump Wanted a Woman VP
Sorry JD, but Wolff writes that Trump was keen to have a woman by his side in the White House. Top of his list were Fox Business MAGA fan Maria Bartiromo and Fox News host Harris Faulkner. But “Elon Musk told Trump his support for the ticket was contingent on Trump’s picking Vance,” writes Wolff.
Just Call Him the Candyman
Wolff writes that Trump celebrates with his “poison”, a basket of Starbursts, Hershey’s Miniatures, Laffy Taffy, and Tootsie Rolls, “taking two handfuls and asking for them to be removed.”
Trump’s Inner Circle Believes He Takes Ozempic
Wolff claims that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago cronies believed Trump was taking Ozempic, or another weight-loss drug.
Trump Aides Could Never Find Melania
Not even Trump’s campaign staff knew where Melania Trump was living during the campaign, he writes. “Nobody can tell you where Melania even actually lives. It may be, on its own peculiar terms, the most successful marriage in America. Or, it may be ready to blow up at any moment.”
Trump Was ‘On the Verge of Cracking’
Wolff writes that after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania and before his infamous Madison Square Garden rally, Trump “seemed possibly on the verge of cracking.” He adds that Trump, “frequently gave up trying to complete sentences; that he turned left when he should have known it was right; that he elided obvious names, repeated himself beyond the one or two allowances, and erupted in rages that, even for him, seemed irrational.” He even forgot Vance’s name at one point, writes Wolff.
The Moment Trump Thought He Would Die With Epstein
Trump thought he was going to die on Jeffrey Epstein’s old plane. According to Wolff, campaign staff rented a stand-in aircraft after Trump Force One broke down. During the most turbulent, heart-in-the-mouth flight many on board had ever experienced as they flew to Colorado, Trump “howled” out, “I’m going to die on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane!”
Trump Insisted on Tweeting From the Golf Course
His close aide, Natalie Harp, followed Trump around in a golf cart when he was playing at his Bedminster course with a portable printer and his phone so he could keep posting on social media.
Trump Tried to Provoke Protests About Impending Arrest
When Trump told the world he was going to be arrested the following Tuesday in connection with the Stormy Daniels hush money investigation, he didn’t know he was facing arrest. Wolff writes that he made it up on his golf course in Florida and then demanded that people protest against the move.
Trump Asked ‘What the F— Is Wrong’ With Elon Musk
Trump was “bewildered” by Elon Musk’s bizarre behavior at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when the campaign returned to the scene of the failed assassination, and the Tesla boss leaped and flailed around the stage. “What the f— is wrong with this guy? And why doesn’t his shirt fit?” said Trump, according to Wolff.
Trump Thought Biden’s Bad Debate Performance Was a Set-Up by Democrats
Trump went full conspiracy theorist after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance. According to Wolff he believed it was a set up by Democrats who wanted the president to drop out of the election race–“an elaborate plot to screw Joe and thereby screw him,” writes Wolff. Trump was going to announce JD Vance as his VP and “blow up” Biden but decided Biden had blown up himself.
Asked for comment, the White House sent the Daily Beast a statement from Steven Cheung, the White House Communications Director, which read: “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s*** and has been proven to be a fraud.
“He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
