Michael Wolff on Trump’s Secret Connections

This is Marshawn Beast Mode Lynch.

Prize Pick is making sports season even more fun.

On Prize Picks, whether you're a football fan, a basketball fan, it always feels good to be right.

And right now, new users get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5.

The app is simple to use.

Pick two or more players, pick more or less on their stat projections.

Anything from touchdown to threes, and if you're right, you can win big mix and match players from any sport on PrizePicks, Prize America's number one daily fantasy sports app.

PrizePicks is available in 40-plus states, including California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia.

Most importantly, all the transactions on the app are fast, safe, and secure.

Download the PrizePicks app today and use code Spotify to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.

That's code Spotify to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.

PrizePicks, it's good to be right.

Must be present in a certain six.

Visit PrizePicks.com for restrictions and

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance.

Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.

They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business.

Quote in as little as eight minutes at progressivecommercial.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers.

Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.

CRM was supposed to improve customer relationships.

Instead, it's shorthand for can't resolve much.

Which means you may have sunk a fortune into software that just bounces customer issues around but never actually solves them.

On the ServiceNow AI platform, CRM stands for something better.

With AI built into one platform, customers aren't mired in endless loops of automated indifference.

They get what they need when they need it.

Bad CRM was then.

This is ServiceNow.

You want want your master's degree.

You know you can earn it, but life gets busy.

The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected.

American Public University was built for all of it.

With monthly starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life.

Start your master's journey today at apu.apus.edu.

You want it?

Come get it at APU.

Let's Let's talk about someone who Donald Trump attacks over and over again, probably almost more than anyone.

It's a reporter and author by the name of Michael Wolf.

And I'm sure you've seen Donald Trump attack him like this.

So-called author Michael Wolf's new book is a total fake job.

Just like the other junk he wrote, he called me many times trying to set up a meeting, but I never called him back because I didn't want to give him credibility of an interview blah blah blah there's so many other posts like this and michael wolf's out with a new book called all or nothing how trump recaptured america and frankly because of posts like that

He's kind of persona non-grata when it comes to corporate media.

And normally you do a book tour, you talk about your book.

Michael Wolf wrote about it in the Hollywood Reporter.

Michael Wolf, Trump scared the news networks into banning my book.

It's a guest column in the Hollywood Reporter.

And And does it shock you that the corporate media oligarchs who went and kissed the ring at Mar-a-Lago would not want someone like Michael Wolf on their network?

They used to have him on the network all the time to talk about his reporting.

I think there may be another reason as well that Trump attacks Wolf more than anybody.

What can it be?

I thought for a second they were going to release those Epstein files.

Remember all of those MAGA influencers?

They went outside and they were holding their binders up saying that they had those Epstein files.

And it turned out it was just like Epstein's phone list, by the way, which has Trump's name on it, which was released many years ago in connection with the various cases involving Epstein.

But if y'all remember, Wolf's got a lot of tapes of Epstein talking about Donald Trump.

Like you may recall this one that we in the Daily Beast reported, but almost no one else was reporting before the election.

Seems like a big deal to me, but you remember this?

Let's play it.

I think we have a snippet from one of the conversations that I recorded with Epstein, and I think this was in a restaurant in 2017.

His people fight each other.

Right.

And then outsiders,

he sort of poisons the well outside.

He will tell 10 people Bang's a scumbag.

And Priest is not doing a good job.

And Kelly has a big mouth.

What do you think?

Jamie Dimon says that you're a problem and I shouldn't keep you.

And I spoke to Carl Icon

and Carl thinks I need a new spokesperson.

So Kelly, even though I hired Kelly Ann's

husband,

Kelly Ann is just too much of a wild boy.

Let's bring on Michael Wolf, since we now have a platform bigger than corporate media platform and they don't want to have him on.

Let's have him on the author of All or Nothing, How Trump Recaptured America.

First, Mr.

Wolf, my question for you is, how have you uncovered that you're pretty much banned from being on corporate media?

You know, it was so this book came out, and

this is my fourth book.

And all of the other books, you know, they come out and everybody invites you on to talk about Donald Trump because it's Donald Trump and

Donald Trump gets ratings.

So,

and my books, and I sell a lot of books, so therefore it seems unnatural for television.

And then, so this book came out,

or we began planning for it, and it was crickets out there.

Everybody was going, well, no, I know, you know, we'll get back to you.

And MSNBC, which of course would book this, want me on to talk about this book because what else do they talk about besides Donald Trump and

disliking Donald Trump.

And they had booked me for that first publication week, which was, I guess, two, three weeks ago.

But then just as

the White House started to attack me, excerpts began to, leaks began to appear about the book.

And then the White House attacked me and

they canceled everything.

And it was like, well, it's now with,

it's with our standards committee or some strange thing, which I've never heard of.

And, you know, clearly, and then actually somebody from the White House called up to threaten me and said, you know, it's a new climate

and then cited the ABC settlement,

this ongoing negotiations with CBS to settle over

the way they edited the Kamala Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes.

And then actually MSNBC, the people there, were fairly straightforward in saying, well, you know, it's a new climate.

So

I thought

it was time for someone to acknowledge that things had changed in this new Trump world order.

And

that included

the media running incredibly scared.

It must have shocked you.

I mean, you spent your whole career as a reporter.

You write these books.

You read a lot of books that before I even got into quitting my law practice and doing this full time,

I read your books.

I read Fire and Fury.

Just this idea that you would be told.

It's a that the climate has shifted where you can talk about your book.

And like, I know the exhaustive process.

I mean, you go through hours and hours of interviews and fact checks, and they're being told because you're writing a book critical, you can't go on the networks.

And then Trump's people are saying it's a different climate, which you perceived, I think, rightfully so, as a threat.

Well, I mean, I might say that nothing about television ever surprises me.

But I think at this moment in time is a very precarious moment.

Virtually Trump is out there threatening anybody he perceives as an enemy.

And the media companies are very vulnerable here.

They all have, I mean,

we're suddenly in this media environment where everybody is looking at some consolidation play, and they're all going to need

regulatory approval from the FCC.

And Trump is holding this over their heads.

I mean, very clearly and very, you know, this is not even a soft suggestion.

It's an outright threat.

We can block your business future.

Now, all of these media companies, I mean,

there are the news.

news channels and news divisions, which I'm talking to, but

those are owned by these very large companies,

Comcast, Warner Brothers Discovery, Disney,

who have many

where the stakes are much higher than just their news division.

Yeah, well, you're going to be stuck with me right now for this interview, Michael.

So let me ask you one question.

And we get more viewers than a lot of them.

So, and I think all of them.

So let me start here.

And I want to go talk about your book in a moment, but I did show that clip of the Epstein tapes.

And I think it's in the news a lot because Trump's putting it in the news.

His regime people are saying, We've got the files.

We're going to release the files.

And then they release nothing.

They give binders to influencers who then say these are the Epstein files.

And then they blamed it on like FBI in New York and said that's the reason why.

And then I think they're just hoping that everybody like just forgets about it.

Just can you remind us and let us know the the amount of one why do you have these the the audio recordings like that how many do you have

and just remind the audience of like a general flavor of of what they are so people so people know what it is that i even showed him

um in 2014 um epstein who i who i knew through some New York connections, asked me if I would be interested in writing a book book about him.

And I was like, well, you know,

I don't know.

I said, I don't know, and I probably wasn't.

But he was,

there was something about Epstein,

you might even call it his charm.

I mean, there is a reason so many people were around him,

so many well-regarded, powerful people were around him.

And it was partly his expansiveness.

And

he said to me, well, you decide if you want to write a book about me, but you can come

my house

at this dining room table where

people came from morning

till evening, incredibly famous people, and sat around and

just discussed the state of the world, really.

And while he fed them and his cooks brought out all kinds of food, I mean, a really kind of incredibly peculiar scene to witness, in which I witnessed over and over again and

ran the tape recorder.

And he sat for many, many hours of discussion with me.

I mean,

certainly 80, 90,

probably 100 hours I I have of Epstein on tape.

And one of the discussions, because this was occurring, Trump became the president in 2017, I began writing about Trump.

And so we spent a lot of time talking about Donald Trump and Epstein's relationship with

Trump, which went on for a good certainly 15 years and was incredibly close.

They were,

you know, each other's closest friend for a very long time.

And Epstein,

you know, I think Epstein is one of those people who truly knew Donald Trump, knew many secrets about Donald Trump,

and was

threatening to Donald Trump.

So, and actually, so at this moment

in the White House, you know,

the whole MAGA people think, oh, Epstein, and this is a conspiracy and the, you know, pedophilia is all Democrats or pedophiles.

But at the same time, Trump is totally freaked out about the Epstein thing.

And, you know, I mean,

they were very close friends.

There's a moment in my

last book

where I talk about Trump talking to his people about

what Ghelene Maxwell might have on him and what she might say, and should he pardon her.

How many hours would you say is

about audio?

You said there's like maybe 80, 100 hours total, but of that, what do you think would be of Trump-related conversations?

You know, I can't.

I mean, Trump weaved in and out of all conversations.

And remember, and also there's a lot in these

tapes of Steve Bannon, who

became very friendly with Epstein.

So it's Bannon and Trump, Bannon and Epstein also talking about Trump, which was their kind of bond.

I mean,

they both...

They're both kind of incredulous about the character of Donald Trump and that this character became the president of the United States.

Are you planning on ever releasing?

I saw the snippets on Daily Beast, the other portions that haven't been released.

Yeah, you know, this is a funny thing because I have really tried to

try to find venues for this material for quite a number of years now.

And

everybody kind of gets excited about it because

it's kind of riveting stuff.

And then everybody goes, oh, but you know, it's Epstein.

We can't do Epstein because he's Epstein.

And

project after project kind of meets its

untimely end.

Well,

we'll chat afterwards and

I'll make a pitch to you, but let's talk about the book, All or Nothing right now.

Tell us what's in this book.

Tell us why people should get it and why this is

kind of the evolution of your books, whether it was Fire and Fury, where does this?

Sure.

I mean,

this is the campaign.

i mean i started writing this book in in um

um in 2022 so it's it really the is the campaign the trump campaign from the beginning right till the

um till till um till the election and um

you know and i think it's it's interesting again because this is just another window into who this guy is this is this is the character of donald trump i mean you know and i often point out i'm I'm not a political reporter.

I'm a writer.

I'm interested in

character.

I'm interested in getting the guy on the page.

So to be able to see him through this campaign, really day by day, day after day, to be talking on a constant basis to the people around him, I mean,

I think offers just this

vivid window into

A, how this happened, how he comes back from total disgrace after January 6th to winning the presidency again.

And also

just the peculiarness of this guy.

You know, it's

it, you know, it's a kind of story in which in which he veers between this kind of mania

and this depressive rage.

So this is Donald Trump Raw.

You know, there's something too, though, about your legacy as a writer of these types of biographies that I think scares him.

It's peculiar and particularly focused on

you.

And I think it's because, you know, and this is a compliment to you that you're one of the kind of remaining old school biographers kind of out there.

And in his own mind,

he respects your work in a sense, and he knows your process.

So when you're giving that lens, his fragile ego can't accept it.

I don't know if there's parts of that, but it's something unique about you.

that pisses him off.

There's a lot of people.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's because, again, I'm not a political reporter.

I don't,

you know, I'm, you know, most other reporters, people covering Donald Trump are seeing him in a political context.

That's not really the way I see him or the way I want to see him.

I want to see the guy as

real as possible,

as personally as possible.

You know, when I wrote my biography of Rupert Murdoch,

he called me up.

He was enraged by it.

And he called me up yelling.

And I said, Rupert, just please tell me what's wrong with this.

And he kind of sputtered and he says, it's just so personal.

And I said, well, Rupert, it is a biography.

And I think that's part of what happens

with Trump.

It's very difficult for these guys to

see themselves in a,

you know,

through someone else's eyes and seeing them

with some degree of the emperor with no, with no clothes.

And finally,

I don't want to ruin the book for everybody, so they should all get it here.

Flash the book one more time, salty, so people can see it.

All or nothing by Michael Wolf, How Trump Recaptured America.

And thanks to your team for sending it my way.

And I'd recommend everybody to read it.

But what do you make right now?

Obviously,

you're observing, I think, the way the rest of the world is,

this manic Trump of tariffs, no tariffs, tariffs, no tariffs, him sitting in front of these world leaders in the Oval Office talking about annexing this country, annexing that country.

How does your research on him maybe inform people on this moment that they're seeing right now?

Are you seeing something different right now in his pathology or is this consistent with who you've covered?

Completely consistent.

I mean,

Donald Trump, I don't think, has changed the way he operates or what he wants or how he sees things in decades.

And

these first weeks of the new administration, which are actually rather like the first weeks of the first administration, all goes back to what does he want?

And he wants headlines, headlines, headlines, headlines.

He doesn't care about policy.

He doesn't care about a legislative agenda.

He cares about

dominating the news cycle every day.

So you can read the New York Times today, and literally every story is a Trump-related story.

That's what he wants.

And there's some method to this madness, which is to say that

if he gets airtime or or headlines,

nobody else does.

Therefore, he is the only thing that matters.

He's the only person on the stage.

And that's how he has run his political life.

That's how he ran his real estate life.

That's how he ran his entertainment business life.

And

it doesn't matter if

he contradicts the headlines the next day, tariffs on, tariffs off, because

it just gives him another headline.

As I like to say now, we are all somewhat trapped as kind of non-consensual participants in this dystopian reality show that he's, you know, that he's created.

You're going to do any more books?

What are you thinking?

What's the next one?

You know, after every book,

I say I certainly hope not, and I swear off any possibility.

So, and that's, that's where I am today in this moment.

So we will see.

Well, you've written a lot of books after swearing it off.

So we'll come back in a year and we'll check in on you.

Michael Wolf, thanks for everything.

And everybody, check out the book, All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America.

Appreciate you, Michael, for coming on.

Thanks so much.

Can't get enough, Midas?

Check out the Midas Plus substack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, and more.

Sign up for free now at midasplus.com.

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock.

It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and LifeLock has tips to protect your identity.

Use strong passwords, set up multi-factor authentication, report phishing, and update the software on your devices.

And for comprehensive identity protection, let LifeLock alert you to suspicious uses of your personal information.

Lifelock also fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back.

Stay smart, safe, and protected with a 30-day free trial at lifelock.com/slash podcast.

Terms apply.

Did you know California cryobank sperm donors can make up to $2,400 a month while making a difference?

Plus, get free health and genetic screenings?

Discover all the benefits of donating with California Cryobank, the world's number one sperm bank.

Apply now at spermbank.com.

With the state of today's economy, it is more important than ever to invest in products that last for years to come.

As the seasons shift and get cooler, make sure your closet is stocked with durable layers that stand the test of time from American Giant.

American Giants' clothes work harder and are wearable season after season.

Their greatest hoodie ever made is made of the highest quality materials that are cut and sewn right here in the United States.

So you're investing right back into your local community.

Choosing American Giant means taking a stand for American manufacturing and hardworking Americans, something other megacorporations don't care about.

From fleece to knit, all in a range of colors for versatile daily wear.

America Giant delivers everyday pieces designed for everyday life.

Feel the difference of quality made-to-last clothes from American Giant.

Get twenty percent off your first order with CodeStaple Twenty at American-Giant.com.

That's twenty percent off your first order at American-Giant dot com with CodeStaple Twenty.