Donald Trump’s longtime biographer, Michael Wolff, claims the president’s inability to absorb information has turned Washington into “a government of one” that his advisers manipulate to advance their own agendas.
Speaking during a live taping of the Inside Trump’s Head podcast at the Museum of the City of New York, Wolff discussed Trump’s aversion to reading and listening, describing how his administration functioned under a leader uninterested in details. The event, hosted before a sold-out audience, also featured journalist Joanna Coles and touched on Trump’s habits, personality, and ongoing influence.
Wolff, who spent nine months observing the Trump White House in 2017, said the president’s aides repeatedly told him, “He doesn’t read.” The author recalled that even during his early days as a flashy New York real estate developer, Trump compensated for his lack of focus by talking endlessly. “From the first conversation I had with Trump, he was already compensating for the fact that he can’t take in information,” Wolff explained to the Daily Beast.
He said that despite the presidency being “the most information-intensive job in the world,” Trump refused to read even a single paragraph of written material. “You can’t give him things to read, not even a paragraph,” Wolff said, adding that the problem was made worse by Trump’s unwillingness to listen.
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon once described Trump as being in a “lifelong war against information,” according to Wolff. “It is just a wall of words of his verbiage constantly,” he said. “The United States government, one of the most complex systems in the world, has become a government of one man.”
Wolff claimed that those around Trump have learned to use his lack of attention to their advantage. “Those who are smart in managing Trump capitalize on his lack of focus, finding areas he’s not interested in to push their own agendas,” he said.
The author also described Trump’s daily routine, which reportedly begins with aides summarizing television programs he has already watched. “He starts working in the Oval Office at around 11 a.m.,” Wolff said. “There’s not a real sense of urgency here.”
Discussing New York’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, Wolff noted that Trump’s circle has already turned his victory into a talking point. “Bad news must become good news if you’re Donald Trump,” he said. “Bad news that cannot become good news then necessarily becomes a conspiracy against him.”
Wolff ended by predicting that Mamdani could use Trump as a political foil rather than be overshadowed by him. “I think Mamdani is in a perfect position to make Donald Trump his foil,” he said.