The Daily Beast Podcast - These Are the 10 Things that Terrify Trump Most

Episode Date: October 4, 2026

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles reveal the fears they believe drive Donald Trump—from being exposed as unintelligent and unable to absorb information to his dread of rejection, ridicule, loneliness, and losing the spotlight. Wolff recounts the extraordinary efforts allegedly made to keep Trump’s academic records hidden, explains why ordinary conversation can leave him vulnerable, and describes a president who needs an audience but recoils from genuine human contact. As they trace how these insecurities shape his attacks, obsessions, and refusal to accept defeat, Wolff offers a chilling prediction of how Trump could preserve his power after leaving office—and why his hunger for attention may never let him disappear. #ad Download Saily's app and use code beast at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase! For further details go to https://saily.com/beast #ad For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life, when you head to https://Smalls.com/HEAD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. voters abroad. Have you got your ballot yet? All states are now sending ballots to overseas voters. So if you want to vote this year, you should request your ballot right away. Go to votefromabroad.org and click request my ballot, as to receive it by email. Questions? Ask our support team directly. Don't miss this chance to shape the future. Don't delay. Vote fromabroad.org. Top of his list. Top of the things that plagues him is being seen as stupid. for one reason because he is stupid.

You know, and I think that he probably does have some learning disability. That is one of the roots of his major insecurities. You don't think someone's been elected to president in the United States. I mean, they can be many things, but you don't think that they're an idiot, someone who knows nothing about nothing. And that really is Trump. He's not as other presidents. He's not like other people.

Michael? We must remind people. We will be at the Terragam Ballroom in L.A., October the 20th at, I guess, 7pm, 7pm Pacific Time, Obvi. If you would like to come and join us and see Michael completely unplugged, no holds barred, unedited by moi, he will be in full form. And you can buy tickets at beast.pub slash ITH live. That's beast.pub slash ITH live. Or you can go to Ticketmaster and just tap in inside Trump's head. Are you looking forward to it?

I am. Good. I am also looking forward to it. And very much looking forward to meeting people. There are some meet and greets, which I'm very excited about because there's nothing more fun than talking to people who've actually listened to us. Pressing the flesh. Pressing the flesh.

Running for president. Oh, you are running for president. Michael wants to run. I guess as an independent, right? As a writer. As a writer. As a writer. The first writer candidate.

Well, they all go and monetize their writing afterwards, right? With J.R. Moringo, whoever. Who co-wrote Obama's memoir? Did he write it himself? He probably did write it himself, didn't he? Two volumes. Yeah, no, I think he did. Probably the only person who did.

At least he claims to, yes. All right. So today we have a special episode. But they still have a lot of people around them. What's this? Well, the people, they call out. I have no one around me. I write, I write.

But these people have, oh, what's getting it? Can you get me the thing? Remember what I said about that? Get me that. So it's a different writing experience. Different writing experience. Fair. And don't forget, please subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast.

We are going to have, I hope, a conversation I've really been looking for. to having for some time, actually, we're really going to go deep, deep, deep into Trump's head, where we go three times a week to try and explain a president who really rules with no regard for anybody else. Is that fair? Just to remind people why we do this journey every week. No regard to anyone else. No regard to anything that has ever been done before. No regard to what will be done in the future. No regard to literally anything. It is just one man who exists in his own bubble and fantasy world, which somehow has become power world. All our world.

All our worlds. So we were, I mean, obviously Michael and I have endless conversations when we don't have microphones in front of us. And we try and pare everything down when we do have actual podcast conversations. So we leave out the dull bits. But one conversation we've been having is about what is Trump actually afraid of? Is there anything he's afraid of? He behaves as if he's not remotely afraid of anything, including a drubbing at the midterm elections. And so Michael made a list of the 10 things that he thought Donald Trump was actually afraid of.

Well, and I made this list counter to the list that you made. And the list that Joanna made was a list of things that most people would be afraid of. Right. Including death. And including looking. I wondered if he looked at Mitch McConnell and thought, oh, that could be me. And the thing that I try to say in this list and things that I try to say all of the time is that Donald Trump is not like you nor I. nor anyone we know or have ever known.

Yeah, you sent me back a text saying, stop trying to normalize him. Of course, he's not afraid of any of these things that I'd listed. Instead, you came up with a much more interesting list. And then we thought, well, we should do this as a special episode of the podcast because what he's afraid of, well, it illuminates so much about him. Okay, so the first thing you say about him is, well, The first thing is...

You have to... Because our printer doesn't work, so we can't print out... Still doesn't work. Our printer still doesn't work. So I'm going to show it to you on my iPad. Yes. But... He is...

I mean, I think top of his list, top of the things that that plagues him is being seen as stupid. For one reason, because he is stupid. And we should... I should say that the point of going through these fears is to understand why he is as he is, because actually he's a man that's been created through his fears. And all of his things, you know, of declaring himself a genius. Stable genius, of a very stable genius.

And he declared himself a stable, he said that after my book, Fire and Fury came out, obviously kind of suggesting that he was, less than a genius, much, much, much, much less than a genius. And as a matter of fact, there was a moment. I was trying to think, at which point this was that Steve Bannon and I were talking about what Putin might have on Trump. And Bannon went through all the things dismissing them. you know, the pee tapes, if that came out, that really wouldn't bother him because Trump would just say that that's not me. Even if you saw Trump in the picture peeing on the mattress,

he would just say, now, it's not me. And or whether there was financial stuff. Financial stuff doesn't bother him. All of those kinds of things. But then Bannon got to the point, he said, what I think Trump has on him are his college transcripts. And his college transcripts, which would be from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and in fact, during the campaign, during the 2016 campaign, there was a fear that those transcripts were going to come out. And then they came down very hard on the University of Pennsylvania and basically said, you know, we will we will take every action against you. if those transcripts are not buried. So always that kind of thing to be revealed as a person, as a dummy, because he is a dummy, because he doesn't, I mean, he has throughout his school years, we're always a complete

catastrophe. I mean, his, you know, and I think that he probably does have some learning disability, which I think is very, um, um, um, um, um, um, You know, uncomfortable for him. I mean, he is, that is one of the roots of his major insecurities. If you've ever landed in another country and immediately started desperately searching for airport Wi-Fi or realized you now have to figure out how to get a local SIM, there's a much easier way. It's called Saly, the E-Sim solution from the security pros behind Nord. VPN. You can get affordable data in more than 200 destinations and setting it up is incredibly simple. You download the Saley app. Pick a plan, install the ESIM and it activates when you arrive. There are plans for pretty much every kind of traveller from a few gigabytes to unlimited data. Saly goes beyond just getting you online. It can block malicious sites, trackers and annoying ads. And you can track your remaining data right for.

from your phone. You can also earn Saley credits when you buy a plan or refer a friend, which you can put towards future travel. Download Saly in the app store or by scanning the QR code now on screen. Use Code Beast at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase. That's 15%. The details are in the podcast episode description box. Why hasn't Fordham, his first university, released the transcripts? Do you think anybody's asked Fordham? Because he went to Fordham first and then he transferred into the undergraduate program at Wharton, right? I think because he's Donald Trump.

He threatens you. It's he'd tie up anybody in litigation. I'm sure that he has already gone and secured these transcripts at both Fordham and and the University of Pennsylvania. Okay. I mean, you know, he doesn't, we haven't seen his tax returns either. I mean, he's pretty good at this. It's incredible how we haven't seen his tax returns.

We haven't seen his high school transcripts. We haven't seen either of his college transcripts. They have been so successful in locking that stuff down. And you know if they were good, he would have floated them out there immediately. Well, you know that they're not good. Right, right. Well, can you also tell the anecdote of the guy that when, when you, When you were at the beginning of writing Fire and Fury and you're wrestling trying to understand, as many people have done, what actually is going on inside Donald Trump's head?

And someone says to you, oh, you don't get it. Tell that story. Okay. So one of the one of the Trump people, a guy by the name was Sam Nunberg. And Sam Nunberg was really one of Trump's first political. hires. Sam used to work for Roger Stone, and that's how he came into the Trump orbit. And he became really Trump's first political operative. And then they ultimately, in 2016 or maybe late 2015, had a falling out and Sam got fired. But for many years, Sam remained the go-to person. people in Trump world who are trying to understand what is going on with this guy would call Sam because he was regarded as having as being the guy really inside Trump's head. And when I was first getting into this, first trying to understand, and when I started to

report on Trump, trying to start to write Fire and Fury, I was in the White House. And I had no preconceptions. I actually thought, well, Trump could be a very interesting president, you know, disrupt or rule breaker. I mean, that turned out to have very bad consequences, but it could have had actually positive consequences. Who knew how this was going to go? But in those first months in the White House where everybody was confused about what Trump was doing and what kind of guy he was and what was the goal here. And I went to Sam Nunberg and I sat down with him and um and i and i said just i and i was trying to work this out out loud was he good was it bad was this did he know it was um i you you just couldn't tell and then sam looked at me like

i i was i mean like he was incredulous and he said to me he said you don't get it and i said what and then he said sam said he's an idiot And it suddenly came clear. You don't think someone's been elected to president in the United States. I mean, they can be many things, but you don't think that they're an idiot, someone who knows nothing about nothing. And that really is Trump. Okay. So number two, the thing that he's afraid of, it is completely counterintuitive.

again for a president of the United States? Information. And that was also from a Steve Bannon perception, that he said that Trump was an information phobe. And this is related to being stupid in that he can't process this when people give him information. And in the early days in the White House, and again, the people in the first administration, Trump had no political context. Contacts.

There were only really two politicians that he personally knew, Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey. So he arrives in Washington and everybody who fills the White House, they don't know who he is either. Everybody is kind of getting to know each other on the job. And that's totally unusual, remember, because most people run for people. president and over a long period of time. They have long political careers, and they're surrounded by people who have worked for them for a long period of time. I mean, even Steve Bannon, who was

essentially the number two in the White House, had only really known Trump since the previous August. So everybody's in the White House, and they're trying to figure out this guy. And I remember one of the things, and everybody's asking everybody else. And then one of the observations, they would say, but, you know, he doesn't read. I mean, this is so, so difficult to get him information. You would put it into, you know, you would try to give it in a format, bullet points, or one paragraph, but all of this, he would just, he would do this gesture, just kind of wave it away. So you couldn't put something in front of him. And then they would say, you know, so that's a problem.

They said, but then that's compounded by the fact that he doesn't listen. So there is just no way you could get any information to him. Because there's lots of speculation that he can't read, that he... A lot of discussion. Was he actually illiterate? Was he semi-literate? Or it could be dyslexic. Was he dyslexic?

One of those things, but there was obviously a dysfunction when it came to words on the page. Right. And yet he does seem to be able to read from a teleprompter. Even that. Remember, often those speeches, he always deviates from the teleprompter. Right. And that, again, it's very uncomfortable for him. I mean, in a sense, in a sense, he understands he's better.

He is more Trump when he's off the tele... When he's off script, when he's gone off script. But that's partly because he has learned to do that. So this is all a kind of way of compensating for the things that other people do rather naturally and rather, you know, and that keeps them out of trouble. And he's... I mean, in a sense, he invites... that he's come to invite that trouble as a way of compensating.

Right. So these are his coping mechanisms, which in a normal or in a person who's not president of the United States wouldn't necessarily matter. I mean, it's incredibly high. I think it's something like 23% of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 have dyslexia and compensate by like Ari Emanuel does, making. 300 calls a day and then having an incredible memory as opposed to having things written down everywhere.

Yeah. But that's not what we don't think that's Trump's issue. I mean, I think that can be part of it too. But I think, you know, there's gradations of this. And I mean, one of the things Jeffrey Epstein used to point out that Trump and remember the myth of Donald Trump is as the greatest businessman. America, he couldn't read a balance sheet. Right.

Because on top of everything else, he's enumerate. This is one of the reasons numbers, you know, the numbers become, you know, there are 60,000 people at a rally or 40,000 people at a rally. And that becomes for Trump hundreds of thousands because the numbers don't mean anything. I mean, he can't envision them. He can't conceptualize them. they're, they're just, it's just a random expression of a lot of people. If a genie gave me three wishes, I would use all my wishes to wish for my cats. This one is waffles to live forever.

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when you head to smalls.com slash head. That's 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash head. So we've established that he's terrified of being seen as stupid. He is terrified of information. He can't absorb it. Anything that's written down. There's a terror and you can see when you give him something, when you hand him something

of something written in front of them. I mean, something happens in his face. He doesn't want to see it. Right. He panics. Push it away. Yeah. I feel a bit like that when I happen.

to look at my bank accounts. Just panic. Panic. Get it away from here. Get it away from here. Okay. So what's the third thing that you think is important in his fears, which you would think would disqualify him to be president? He doesn't want to have a conversation. He can't have a conversation. He's afraid of having a conversation. He's afraid of having a conversation. I mean, he's afraid of having a conversation because he can't actually think in the, he can't respond in the moment. If you say something to him, he will, he can't, he can't address it in a conversation, which is I say something and then you say something related to that. He can't do that. So he'll talk over you or, or talk parallel to you, or not let you

talk at all. So there is no discussion. I mean, let's, let's, and think about this. You know, when your answers come out of the sharing of information, of, of having, of parsing things with someone else who might know something, of everything being, being additive, of people thinking out loud and having their thinking clarified against, what someone else is saying. So this doesn't happen with Trump, can't happen with Trump. He doesn't let it happen. It's all, I mean, that's why it's all broadcast for him. I'm talking. I'm going to continue to talk. I'm not going to give anyone the opportunity to get a word in edgewise. Why? Well, partly because I'm the dominant person. I don't want to listen. Why should I listen to anyone else?

But that is also compensation for the fact that I can't. I can't absorb what someone else is saying. So he must be terrified of being found out the whole time that he can't really read, he can't absorb information, he can't have a regular conversation because he can't really understand what you're saying. You know, I don't know. I mean, a normal person, that would be true. And at some level that's true.

But he is so successful at these things that that's become. Everybody else is a weakling because they're reading stuff or talking to people or getting good grades. And he has somehow superseded all of that, transcended the need for these things. Okay. So, fourth. Fourth is being excluded. I mean, here is a guy, and I used to see this in New York. that he would always be everywhere.

So, you know, fear of missing out was top of mind for Donald Trump. He had to be, he didn't exist unless he existed in every situation. So if there, and this is partly a status thing, that any party, any gathering of people that he felt he should, rightly attend, he had to be there and he would force his way in. Right. Gate crashing. Yes. He was.

But where was he trying to get? What would his ideal invite be that he wasn't receiving or that he was terrified he wasn't receiving? I mean, we've all experienced the fear of missing out. Yeah, but just think in New York, all of, I mean, he's out every night. Right. Every night. And so you would be over the years, you can begin to see that there's no, why there's no

there's no there's no inner being there because he's out, it's all external. And the fear, the constant of having to overcome rejection. I mean, any possibility of rejection. I mean, remember Jeffrey Epstein told the story of one night they showed up at, at a restaurant, this would be in the 80s, a restaurant called Mortimer's, which was the, you know, the, the restaurant of that time. And he was turned away and ended, and it, and it just threw him into, you know, panic. And it was an existential moment. Humiliation, right?

Humiliation. So social humiliation, just terrified. But also, it's not just social humiliation. it's this understanding. I mean, he's a social climber. I mean, let's understand. It isn't everybody in New York a social climber? No, you're a social climber. I'm not a social climber. I've seen you socially climb, Michael. Well, I've seen him. Sometimes you're forced into this position of having to do us, but I have always hated it and I hope most often rejected it. But there are many people in New York a whole layer of people who live just to do this.

That is their justification in life that they can social climb. And Donald Trump is the ultimate expression of that. I mean, his relationship... Well, he social climbed his way to the presidency, so that's not bad. Yeah, but even that, you know, I mean, that's... Well, it's compensatory, is what you're saying. Yeah, well, I think that, I mean, social climbing to the presidency for Donald Trump makes that seem like it was somehow logical when, in fact, it was completely illogical. But he has gone on.

And, you know, Donald Trump has been kind of cast out so many times. So he's always clawing his way back. Well, it's also his rage, I think, isn't it? That what he's done is he's being galvanized by the rage of exclusion. Yeah. And I mean, he's just cockroach like, too, you know, that he comes back. You know, there are those moments, you know, there was that moment in New York, sort of the late 90s moment when when he had just become a joke. I mean, the bankruptcies, the Atlantic City, a joke.

And then he clawed his way back into through reality television. Right. And even that was not something. You know, they went to many people, you know, on that, on the apprentice, you know, he was not the first choice. He was down the list. And he got himself in there. And then, of course, made a, you know, just a completely unexpected success. of that. Okay, so he's afraid of information, of conversation, of being excluded.

And being alone, but even here, this is a different kind of thing. I think most people are afraid of being alone and they get a mate. You know, they get a, they get a husband or a wife or and then they're afraid of being trapped or. And they're afraid of being trapped or, But he doesn't, his idea of not being alone is just surrounded by people who just listen to him. So the Oval Office, let me get, this is, this is, I've never seen anything, I've never imagined anything could be like this. I mean, the Oval Office, we all have an idea of the Oval Office, which is not an inaccurate idea. It's the President of the United States. you get to go in the Oval Office at moments of, of, in which the president is using the full weight of his office to, to impress you or to, yeah, I mean, to, I, it's, it's really a thing. I am, I want you to know that I am the president. I speak in the name of this office.

And so when I was in the White House in those first six or seven months, you would sort of peek into the Oval Office and it would be filled with people. It was like people waiting for a bus. I mean, just rows of chairs. He would be sitting behind the desk going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You would about God knows what. And people would be sitting there. And where did you sit? Did you sit at the side with your little.

notebook out sort of writing down, were you taping things? Where were you used so that you were observing but not being over-observed yourself? Yeah, sometimes you would just try not to be not to be noticed. I mean, my whole thing was for, for, I tried to avoid people asking, what's that guy doing here? And which, which no one did because everybody is assumed that if you're there, you were... Right, you've got a reason to be there. You're supposed to be there. And you could have said that for anyone else sitting in the room.

And there would always be 20 people in the room, 25 people in the room. What are they doing here? Who are they? And they were just the audience. And Trump would, you know, the interns, Trump would say, come on, come on, sit down. And then he would go blah, blah, blah, and it would go on forever. And so that's his idea.

The idea of not being alone is not to connect with someone. Right. Just to essentially have an audience. To have an audience. So the audience is the whole thing. So the presidency is his ultimate, it's the ultimate kind of. Well, it's a pulpit to the ultimate audience. Well, it just, yeah, and it's just the ultimate buffer to his loneliness is having this vast audience.

So when I first asked him, why do you want to be president? And this was in the spring of 2016. And he said, to be the most famous man in the world, that's really about, in a sense, about not being alone. In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $26 an hour. Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for indifference. demand fields like software development and information technology. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. And yet at the same time, you say another of his fears is not wanting human contact.

I know, I mean, this is a crazy guy. I mean. But Marlon Maple said they had the best sex ever. And what am I to make of that? Well, I'm just wondering if it's, what kind of contact? he has. I mean, I don't know what kind of sex Marla Maples likes. Fair, fair answer. And also, we think in fact, that he said that to page six or whatever, right? We have no idea if Marla Maple said that. And in fact, for someone who is having the best sex of her life, she left him,

or they split up pretty quickly. And Melania clearly doesn't want to hold his hands. She may be similar that she may not want any human contact either. But the point is that he doesn't like shaking hands, right? Despite the fact that they say his hands are so bruised because he shakes so many hands. But your point is he's a germophobe, but he doesn't want to touch. No, no. I mean, always up until, I mean, I think he's had to learn how to shake hands or have to become willing to do that. But long ago, and I remember him in New York when you would run into him at, you know, at night at some event. And actually, when you went to any event in New York for a period and then 1990s, there would be Donald Trump.

Right. But when you saw... And then I would say, and then you just kind of instinctively put out your hand, and he never, never took your hand. What did you, what did you, you just withdrew it? Yeah. Did he pat you on the arm? Did he grab your shoulder?

Did he give you a hug? No. Oh, no, no. No. It was always that kind of, there was always standoff. And he's always, you know, that big overcoat, very, I mean, a very armored guy. Okay, so it doesn't like human contact and frightened, you say, of being mocked, fearful of being mocked? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because he actually has a kind of a sense of humor.

So he's very good at, well, I'll put it this way, he's very good at mocking other people. And that can be very funny. So when you're with him, he'll say things about other people and you'll think, oh, this guy is kind of great until you realize the kind of cruelty there and also that he's going to say terrible things about you as soon as you leave the room. But he is also cannot, you can't say things about him. I mean, that's why, you know, this venom to the press is really about. it mocking him. It's not really about a political issue that the press is opposing him. It's about being mocked. You know, and you can go back to that, to that, you know, famous 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, when, which some people say is the, you know, is a motivation for his

presidential ambitions because Obama from the stage mocked him. Well, they actually showed a mocked-up version of the White House with Trump on the top of it, didn't they? I mean, the most sort of weirdly prescient mockery you could have imagined. Yeah, no, I mean, this is a thing. He is incredibly thin-skinned. I mean, he'd obviously actually been thinking of running for president way before then. I mean, Ivana, in her memoir, talks about telling the Czechoslovakian police when she was being debriefed that she'd married Donald Trump, that he had political ambitions. But it certainly feels like the Obama mockery triggered.

I actually think that's part of the thing. I think that's bullshit. I don't think. I think saying president is like me saying, and anyone's saying they're going to be president. I mean, this is just part of the performance of me, me, me. I'm going to put my name on a building. But the idea of him becoming president was, I don't think ever actually in his mind until the moment he became president. It was a performative up until that point.

It was, I'm going to, you know, this is a way to get more famous. And then suddenly he's president. I mean, this is one of the, you know, that historic, a turn in history, a breach in history that I think years and years from now people will go back to. This is something that should not have happened. Right. Well, for sure. Okay. Another point that you say is related to his older brother who died of alcohol.

Well, I think it's related to. I don't think it's related to just his older brother. I think his father was an alcoholic and I think his mother was an alcoholic. I think the whole everybody in the family was an alcoholic. So, and that is a thing. That's kind of a major thing. I cannot have a drink. It's not just, I don't drink.

I can't have a drink. Right. So, push that away from me. Right. And Susie Wiles famously said in an interview something which you say Donald Trump says about himself, which is that he's got an alcoholic's. personality. He says this all the time. I mean, that, and that, that becomes a kind of weird excuse,

well, I have an alcoholic's personality, but I don't drink, therefore I can't be blamed for anything here. And then I've, you know, I've also been around him trying to get a drink. And? It's very hard. Apart from the Diet Coke. Yeah. I mean, I've been at, you know, had dinner at Moralago with Trump and Melania, and, and they say, would you like a drink? Yeah. I, well, And then it never comes. Does Melania drink? Can't tell, I don't know.

Should have observed that. Yeah, that would be interesting to know if she. She doesn't look as if she drinks particularly, but who knows? This idea of him not being forgotten, of not being included. And one of the first things. So I kind of got to know Donald Trump, the extent that one can know Donald Trump. when I was at New York Magazine and I wrote the media columns. So somehow he connected me, media, and would call me up.

And it was all about me. Most people when they call you said, oh, you wrote this about me and that was wrong and, you know, blah, blah. He would call up and say, why didn't you write about me? Right, because he wants to be the center of attention. Right. So you wrote this article, which, as I recall, in many instances, had nothing to do with Donald Trump. You should have called me.

I could have told you whatever. And then you would say, yeah, yeah, I'll call you again the next time. And then you would get a call from someone else in his office and says, and they would say, Mr. Trump says you want to interview him. And you would say no. I would say, no. You know, I said sometime I'll, oh yeah, and then they would say, yeah, I wish you would. So it's always that kind of thing.

And then famously, of course, he invented his own PR person who was him. John Barron. Yes. Right. And in the White House, they joke about that when there's a leak. and everybody says, where did that come from? They say probably John Barron. John Barron, i.e., the president himself.

So is his, do you think his biggest fear is just not having attention? Like, what's going to happen to him? We know when he lost the 2020 election. He went back to Mara Lago. He regrouped. What happens when he leaves the White House knowing he can't come back? Well, you know, he's never going to leave. I mean, he's never going to leave in that way.

I mean, what is going to go to Mara Lago and set up his own administration essentially. This is completely clear to me. I mean, a Democrat will win. He will not let a Republican win in 2028. He will return to Mara Lago with billions of dollars that he's extorted from corporate America with which to set up a alternative White House. I mean, so there will be, and we will have the feeling often that there are two presidents or two competing, two competing centers of attention in the United States.

But is his fear that he will at some point not be the most famous person in the room, not be the most powerful person in the room? No, because he's good at this. He will continue to do this. He will do this. You know, he knows how to do this. Nobody else knows how to do this like he does. Why is he Donald Trump now? Because every day there's new conflict. Every day there's there's new drama. Every day Trump is at the center of some other story.

Now, he will have a Democratic president to compete with, but, you know, competing with normal people. Let's assume the next Democratic president is at least a semi-normal person, a person who sees their job as essentially and ultimately an administrative and bureaucratic function and trying to maintain some idea of respectability and some idea of what the presidency traditionally represents. And they will then be, encounter to that will be this guy who's making a commotion every day, issuing statements, issuing insults, and who is much more interesting. Much more interesting. Or at least much more eye-catching. You can't take your eyes off of him. He's the train wreck that everybody stops to rub a neck at when you're going along the highway. And he recognizes that attention is dominance.

So he's afraid of losing attention? He would, I think he would, he would die without it. Yes. I mean, he's afraid also of not being a winner. So he can never be a loser because that he would not exist then. And to be a winner is to be the dominant, the dominant personality, the dominant voice. I mean, the person who, you know, and he will, he will create a situation that the Republican party is, remains beholden to him. So is he just circling back to the first thing that I assumed

he was afraid of death. Is he afraid of death because he will cease to, well, he'll cease to be, obviously. I mean, is he actually afraid of death? No, I don't think he, I don't think I just won't be around. I think, you know, to be afraid of death, you have to have some level of self-awareness. And he gave that up a long time ago. As I said, he's an empty person inside. It's all external. It's all exterior. So does he think about death? Does he think about tomorrow? Does he think about anything other than what he's thinking about right at this moment? Does he think about anything other than his,

then the attention he is getting at this very moment? No. He's not as other presidents. He's not as other presidents. He's not like other people. Right. Right. I mean, there is something so phenomenally broken here.

And that's a whole other discussion, how this happened, the alcoholic parents, the, you know, the cruelty. I'm sure all of that. I was just watching the Lizzie Borden show on Netflix. You know, I actually had to stop watching it because it's a terrible, you know, it's just obviously she was going to kill her parents. But I think when I was watching it, I thought Donald Trump probably had his son, just a terrible, terrible, you know, when he grew up, it was probably terrible, a terrible, horrible father, horrible mother. And anyway, here he is now, horrible Donald Trump. Well, I found that one of our most interesting conversations to get to his fears.

Well, we'll be back on Tuesday with more inside Trump's head. What are your thoughts on that conversation? What are you afraid of? Possibly Donald Trump remaining in power. What are you afraid of? I'm afraid of everything. You name it. I'm afraid of it.

That's not true. It is true. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast, wherever you get your podcast. And a big shout out to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Pissaro, and Neil Rosenhaus. See you on Tuesday.

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