The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump-Putin Meet Was Way Worse Than We Knew: Wolff

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

What really happened when Donald Trump met Vladimir Putin behind closed doors? In this episode of 'Inside Trump’s Head', cohosts Joanna Coles and Trump biographer Michael Wolff unravel Trump’s odd displays of loyalty to Putin and the secretive negotiations over Ukraine that alarmed U.S. allies. They examine Trump’s fixation on flattery, his pursuit of a Nobel Peace Prize, and the way Putin’s KGB-honed tactics played against Trump’s insecurities. From the bizarre secrecy surrounding their one-on-one sessions to the global risks of Trump’s concessions, this is a revealing look at how the Trump–Putin relationship reshaped world politics and exposed the vulnerabilities inside Trump’s head. And Wolff drops an extraordinary new revelation about a meeting Jeffrey Epstein had with Vladimir Putin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Over the last few months, Trump biographer Michael Wolfe and I have been spalunking through the minefield inside. Can I change this? Yes. Chronicle. Chronicle. Okay, Trump, Chronicle. I'm not really a biographer. Okay. Over the last few months, Trump chronicler, Michael Wolfe and I have been spalunking through the minefield. Do you want to say spulunking? I like spulunking. It's a technical cave term.

It's a show-off word. Maybe it's a British word, but another reason. reason you shouldn't use it. I would just go navigating. Over the last few months, Trump chronicler, Michael Wolfe and I haven't been spulunking through the minefield inside Donald Trump's head. We've been navigating it. And you've responded in your thousands flooding us with comments, with questions, with theories, with conspiracy theories. So now it's official. Twice a week, we're going inside Donald Trump's head. Oh, Michael will be our unflinching guide as we map the darkness, the chaos, the electric jolts of ego and paranoia and illuminate why Trump does what he does. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

And if you're already on the Daily Beast feed, stay put. The episodes drop twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursday nights. And trust me, it's only going to get crazier. And also today, something I've been promising for a while, we're actually going to dive in. into your comments. We're going to read some. We're going to argue about some. And many of you have written in asking what you think, we think, or Michael specifically thinks, about Trump's mental health. We're also going to discuss Jeffrey Epstein, his trip to Russia. So somebody in the White House told me that interest in Epstein was down 89%. They were pleased with that. Now, what that means,

I have no idea. 89%. How? How? How? How? Like what? What? So much to get into. Where do we begin? The number two at the FBI, Dan Bongino, has had his job chopped in half and must now share it with Andrew Bailey, the AG, from Missouri. That's a warning shot across the bows from Pam Bondi, his boss. James Comer, chair of the Oversight Committee, has demanded DOJ files on Epstein and looks like receiving some of them on Friday. then nobody quite knows what files and what's going to be in them. And you can bet your rapidly devaluing dollar will be following that story too.

And then, of course, Putin, Putin, what does he have on Donald Trump? But most of all, we want to reassure you the quest for peace in Europe may have succeeded in pushing Jeffrey Epstein off the front pages, but it hasn't pushed Jeffrey Epstein off our radar. Michael Wolfe, what is your? What is happening, Michael? We went into this peace negotiation and we've come out of it in which everything is far worse than when we went into it. Okay.

Just, yeah, keep going. I mean, you know, essentially what war in Ukraine has now come to be about is is strategizing how to deal with. with this capricious and volatile asshole who has put himself right in the middle of it. Right. I mean, that's what's got, everybody, I don't think there's any other concern except how do we try to play Donald Trump,

who can be played. Everybody knows he can be played. Well, and he's being played by Putin, right? The problem is that he doesn't necessarily stay played for very long. So you have to play him. Then he's unplayed by somebody else. Then you have to play him back again. But everybody is trying to triangulate Trump.

And where they end up, I mean, we've were, they've ended up in a clearly much more confused situation than when they went into this. I mean, Putin is more implacable. than he has ever been because he sees, well, I can, I can, this Trump, you just say something to him, and he, you know, falls down on his, on his knees and thanks you. And the Europeans, I mean, we've gotten to this, to this place now where essentially Trump has, Trump has authorized Putin to take a big chunk. of Ukraine. Possibly the Ukrainians would agree. They may not have any other alternative to agree to this, but there would be no way that they would agree to this unless they have security guarantees. And which Trump said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, security guarantees, sure.

With no idea, clearly what they are, right? No idea. And the whole idea of security guarantees is pretty impossible to achieve? What does that mean? Are you going to put 10,000 soldiers, NATO soldiers, which Putin won't accept, U.S. soldiers, which Trump is never going to do because the United States would never accept? So what are those security guarantees with which it will be necessary to make a peace agreement? So therefore, we are no further than when we began. And actually, I would say we're, we're were in a much lesser position than when this all began. Okay, so he's made things worse, and they're pretty bad as it is,

and we're recording this on Tuesday morning. Overnight there was severe Russian bombing of Ukraine. And as you said, Steve Wittkoff came out mumbling about sort of Article 5 with, I think, not any sense of what it actually required. the MAGA base does not want American troops in Europe securing the front? No, they just want us out. So, I mean, Trump is trying to, in his addled moments, you know, understanding that he has the MAGA requirements,

he has the European requirements, and he has the Putin requirements. And weirdly, he is trying to, in some way, bow to them all. And he's got his own requirement, which is he wants a Nobel Peace Prize. And then the Nobel Peace Prize, always the Nobel Peace Prize. But the more thing, the other requirement, the other thing that he has succeeded at, which he always seems to succeed at, is putting himself right at the center of this. It's now about Donald Trump. So much to ask you, not least about Donald Trump's health. But first of all, let's go back to Friday to the scene of the original crime.

the meeting with Putin in Anchorage in Alaska, which Donald Trump seemed to think might be in Russia because twice last week he said, oh, I'm going to Russia to meet Putin. And then on the way, I just want to remind people on the way there when he's talking to Brett Baer in Air Force One, he says, well, I'm a deal guy. If it doesn't work out, I'll come back to the United States. So goodness knows where he thinks he was. Well, geography has always been a hurdle for Donald Trump. Well, I mean, not to know that Alaska is actually a state seems worrying when it's your job to be the president. However, I digress. What are you hearing from what happened on Friday? I have heard some. I've had some interesting insights into this. And let me just frame my sourcing here because, I mean, I don't.

you pick up in this, you can pick up details and perspectives without obviously knowing what happens. So I am hearing not from the principles, it would be the principles, one of the principles, talking to someone else who then is speaking to people who speak to me. So this is twice removed or, so given that. Except that context. But so as this is related to me, they went into the meeting and Trump started to talk and talk and talk and talk. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, who's in the meeting?

So it's Donald Trump, it's Vladimir Putin, and there's an interpreter. Yeah, well, it's Marco Rubio and Steve Whitkoff. Right. There are two people with Putin and then interpreters. So that's the meeting. So Trump begins to talk. I mean, just launches in. Putin is impassive.

This is described. Just expressionless impassive. Just letting him go on. And he goes on. And what is he talking about? Is he doing this leave? Yes. You have no idea what he's talking about.

It's a combination of flattery. It's a combination of things that he's just pulled out of somewhere, observations. Yeah, it's both inconsequential and incoherent. So at which point either Whitkoff or Rubio interrupts him to actually try to lay out an agenda. he then proceeds to talk over them. So, again, we're nowhere in this meeting. We're probably now, you know, 20 minutes in, nothing is clear about what anyone is doing there,

except that Putin is totally impassive. So he's just letting it play out. No, and the interesting thing is to think about how the translator is translating what Donald Trump says. Just imagine that. Right. Can you imagine that job? Yeah, no.

They're probably worried it doesn't make sense. And they're like, oh my goodness, am I translating this properly? Completely, completely. So then at one point, Putin does clear his throat to speak. And he launches into a history lesson, of course. Russia, you know, was this, you know. You know, these history letters, you're back in the 17th century. century, and then he works his way up again, all to show why they should conquer Ukraine.

Trump, not to be outdone, as this is related to me, goes into his own history lesson. And this is a history of the Cold War, and as this is described to me, in Trump's history of the Cold War, it would appear that the U.S. and USSR are on the same side. It's just unfathomable. At which point, at some point then, Whitkoff or Rubio bring up and interject some purpose, the ceasefire, at which point Putin says no. No ceasefire. And Trump seems to accept this and seems to agree with this.

Yes, yes. Let's just move on to the peace. And then there is at this ceasefire that he's agreed with the European leaders and with Zelensky that he is going to organize. Right. And then at some point Putin begins to outline why they need this territory. And again, weaving back into the history of this and to. all of the bad things that have been done against Russia. They're all about their security, the Russian people, all of this,

these fundamental wounds that Russia has carried that have to be rectified. And Trump seems to agree with this. It's beyond parody. It's beyond South Park. What can South Park do with this? Yeah, well, we'll see. Yeah, we will see. We will see. And this goes, and then with Wittkoff and Rubio, I mean, basically, basically helpless.

I mean, they can't do. And they sit there with their occasionally trying to interject. But you can't really interject because Trump is just talks all the time. And this is then to actually, of course, to Putin's advantage. because rather than any discussion of the details of the actual details of what might happen here, what territory, this, what are you going to give for that, what are the tradeoffs, I mean, that level of detail Trump is not interested in, probably not capable of following the logical sequences that would be necessary there. and what's more, what is important to him is to keep talking, to have people listen to him.

So put the problems aside, I just want to keep talking. So very stressful for Marco Rubio and possibly stressful for Steve Whitkoff, though we know he has zero training in diplomacy and he's a real estate. Yeah, I mean, Whitkoff, I'm sure, is totally, I mean, he's bought into this. I know Donald Trump. I know what he is. And you're not going to change the guy. So I've long ago accepted that.

Okay, Michael, it's definitely time for some ads. And we're back talking about what else Donald Trump. But it's one thing to buy into him. It's another to buy into Vladimir Putin's version of history and Donald Trump's version of history that the USSR and the USA were on the same side. Well, I mean, I think one of the things that you that you become used to when you're around Donald Trump and listening to Donald Trump is kind of turning it off. I mean, it doesn't have, it is what it is, does it have real meaning?

Doesn't have real meaning. It's just what Trump needs to do. So to what extent is this getting worse? I mean, we've written a lot about Trump appearing to get more and more confused. we mentioned the fact that he thought he was going to Russia. He kept saying, oh, I'm going to come back to the U.S. if it doesn't work out. At the meeting with the European leaders, he looked around the table for the Finnish leader, who was literally sitting right opposite him. We could see him reading his notes, very basic notes that he was reading out loud, in the way that Joe Biden used to

get mocked for. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that there's, I mean, obviously the question comes up all the time. Is he losing a step? Has he lost a step? And my question would be, how can you tell? He has always been essentially like this. I mean, it is always running at a level of free association or incoherence or, you know, the scattershot nature of someone who, who just has to fill all the silences. But to what extent, but I think there is an element in which, okay, let me think about this.

Okay, so let's think about it in terms of the physical symptoms that he's displaying. There are some changes there. His hair has gone from that sort of weird golden color to a sort of almost a purple rinse. It's like a lavender color that sort of hovers above his head a bit like a bruise. and he's got cancals, which we wrote about in The Daily Beast on Sunday,

and then when they issued the official photograph of Trump, when the White House issued it with him sitting next to Zelensky and with the European leaders, they had strategically, I think, placed a model of Air Force One on the coffee table, so you couldn't actually see his cancels, which were spilling over his oxfords. No, I mean, and remember he is. he is almost 80 years old.

Yeah, he's 79. We had a birthday parade for him. Remember the birthday parade? Yes. Well, yes and no. It seems like years ago. Yes, I mean, these are realities. I mean, he's an older man in a very demanding job.

I mean, all of the challenges that Joe Biden faced, he faces. There's not a different one. they're the same, functionally the same age having to endure the same difficult schedules. I mean, of course, is Donald Trump, who is, you know, a kind of a lazy guy. So when we are literally not seeing him talking, he's, you know, taking it easy. I mean, I'm assuming he's either talking or he's watching television. And the reason I met... Or playing golf.

I mean, he's... Right, or playing golf. playing golf. And the only reason I mention the cancals is not to poke fun at swollen legs, which I'm sure are very painful, but it's indicative of circulation issues. It's actually a symptom of, you know, the body under strain, the heart not pumping properly. I mean, he can't make me, the man weighs, you know, almost 300 pounds. It's a, it's a, this is a, I mean, the amazing thing is that this hasn't taken its toll sooner. Right. So, and, and clearly he still feels, which Joe Biden certainly did not, full of energy, even if it's energy that produces this constant incoherence, it is still,

there's still a motor that's going there like crazy. So I don't, we don't know. And literally, going back, it is very hard to tell this. I mean, if you, if you, saw in without knowing any background here, without ever seeing this before, if you then zoomed in on this guy, Donald Trump, in the way he

talks, in the way he walks and in all and the way his logic breaks down, you would say, oh my God, this is an emergency. Well, it's an emergency for

America and the world. I also noticed his neck has changed. His whole head, because he's got this large head, as we can see from our of our portrait here, it's sort of come forward, the neck has gotten thicker, and he actually looks like he's shrunk. I mean, he's still towered above Putin. You know the way he sits there? Yeah. And his back is kind of rounded up in his head. Steve Bannon once described that to me as Trump sitting down. He looks, he says he looks like a giant shrimp. He does look like a dry. I have often thought he looked a dry and shrimp.

That's the perfect description. Just again, you could always count on Steve Bannon. That's a very good, yeah. Steve, great description. And it comes back to this and it's important. What does Putin have on Donald Trump? I mean, the strange thing about this, and it's been strange now for nearly 10 years,

is he just folds. in the face of Putin. Putin, even when he set this up, and there seemed to be a clear change, I mean, and he was going to, if he didn't get it, he was going to leave, and there would be consequences. I mean, he almost mounted this kind of, okay,

this is, you know, I can see it, I understand it, and, you know, we're going to deal with Vladimir Putin. Instead, he shows up. And Putin is his best friend again. I'm sorry, I can't get the humid of the giant shrimp out of my head. A giant shrimp sitting there negotiating with all the leaders from Europe. You've come over and been revoltingly sycophantic.

My favorite moment was when Emmanuel Macron winks at Zelensky. And you can see that all in on this, this tragic dance they have to perform for Trump. But let's go back to your point. What does Putin have on Donald Trump? And the thing that you mentioned at the end of our last Daily Beast podcast, which is that Jeffrey Epstein told you he had a secret trip to see Putin. At one point, yes, yes. Epstein outlined to me, he actually did not really tell me what he said to Putin, but he outlined the ways he had to get, the secret ways he had to go to get to, to get to Mosul.

gal to accomplish this, this secret trade. Did you, did you believe him when he told you this? Joanna, I think, I think it may be time for some ads. We're back. Because it's quite a claim that you've been to see the president of Russia. Yeah, you know, let's, the jury is out on that. I mean, because it is quite a claim. So did he really do this? You know, I mean, Well, I must say Epstein, in the kinds of things that Epstein has told me, they have largely, they have largely proven to be true. So I have no reason to doubt this, except that it's a kind of a monumental claim. And I admit, I didn't exactly pursue this. I should have said, what did you talk? Tell me, you know.

And in his gloss, I mean, he went to talk to Putin, according to Epstein, having to do with money. And when did he go? This was during the first administration. So it would have probably been in 2017, so the first Trump's first Trump. So the first year of the first Trump White House. But the interest, so he was there to talk to Putin about. about money, about Putin's personal money, I assume. Of which he has a lot?

Yes, of which he has a lot. And I think it's a complicated situation which would probably benefit from Jeffrey Epstein's skills. Because a significant amount of this money, of Putin money is dubious and probably outside of the traditional banking system. Okay. And outside of Russia. Russia, I was going to say. So, but, but it is worth wondering what Jeffrey Epstein said to Vladimir Putin about Donald Trump.

And the one thing about Jeffrey Epstein, I mean, the whole discussion about whether he was an intelligence agent. In my, in my experience, he was more of a, of a, of a, of a great gossip than he was an intelligence agent. He certainly didn't, he didn't seem to keep, he didn't seem to keep secrets. He seemed to share them widely. So I'm sure if Putin was interested in Donald Trump, as I assume he was keenly interested, Jeffrey Epstein would have been, would have been able to supply him with very interesting information. Oh, we can't ask him. We can't ask him more. I can't believe you didn't press him on it more. In hindsight, I can't believe it either. Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. So I only did he trafficked girls. He trafficked in information.

About the life of a journalist is that you spend a lot of time regretting the questions you did not ask. Yes. So I'm trying to imagine, Jeffriette. Epstein and Vladimir Putin. First of all, what did Epstein say about how he got there? There was a series of, I mean, he took his plane to Stockholm, as I remember, but I have to check this. And then there were two other flights. He had to give up his, leave his plane and take other planes so that he would not, I assume, Russian. planes that he would not. So flight tracker wouldn't have him. Exactly. Exactly. And did you get the sense that he'd suggested the visit or he'd been called to Moscow? You know, I had the sense that he had been called, but it would be very like Epstein to have worked, worked the background channels so that he

was called. And what do you think Putin told Epstein? You know, I mean, it's my impression that Putin is a, plays things close to his vest. So I don't, I don't know. And, but Epstein does not play things close to his vest. I mean, he's a, you know, I mean, he's, he's trading. I mean, part of what Epstein did was trade information. And that's kind of, I think, why this whole idea of Epstein as an intelligence agent has gotten currency.

But again, in my experience, he was always trying to learn things and then always trading that information to anybody who could give him an advantage. So I guess that he's kind of an intelligence agent, but also, as I say, as a, as a, as a, international gossip. There's another thing which I think is important in this, what does Putin have on Trump? And everybody has speculated that. I've spent a lot of time with Steve Bannon speculating on what that might be. But having given this some thought, I think the more interesting thing is that Donald Trump doesn't know what Putin has on him, but suspects that he probably does. A, because there's so much to have on Donald Trump, and also because Donald Trump has spent so long in kind of international money-begging circles. And Putin, who has so much money and so much money in so many different aspects of where money is, that they were bound to, they were bound to,

to intersect at so many points. And Putin was bound to hear about what Trump was doing and what Trump wanted. So Trump is in the position now of thinking, well, look, I probably does know things about, you know, things that I would rather not be known. So is it possible that Putin has either invested in a Trump business or he's invested in a Trump super PAC? Yeah, well. I mean, by a nefarious way. Well, it's all possible, but it doesn't even have to be that clear.

And if you're Putin, I would play it that way. You know, I would, it's better that Donald Trump doesn't know what he has than that Donald Trump knows what he has. So instead of Putin getting into the beast and saying to Trump, if you don't give me this much of Ukraine, then I'm going to reveal the whatever, it's much better to play this without showing your hand just for Trump to know that Putin probably knows, but not sure exactly what it is that he knows, but it could be serious. And also all Trump does is talk and all Putin does is sit quietly with a slight smile on his face,

which for Donald Trump must be incredibly unnerving. I don't, I don't. Or maybe he doesn't even notice it. I don't know. He just doesn't notice. He just, you know, he just talks into a vacuum. And he doesn't talk to any one person, even if it's Vladimir Putin. It's interchangeable.

He could speak to, you know, he could speak to Putin in the back seat of the beast. But he could be speaking to the driver too. So do you have any idea or have your sources speculated as to what the conversation was? between Putin and Trump in the back of the beast? No, don't know. And I suspect it was not a conversation. He got in, I mean, I can play this, I've seen this. He got in and Trump just started to go.

And he was probably describing the inside of the car, right? He was probably giving off all sorts of secrets, and Putin probably had some sort of tech gadget that was measuring the car and, you know, blunting the signal or whatever. Very interesting. All right, now we're getting. getting to some comments. I feel like we've addressed some of the comments about mental health.

One person, Drea B, 3322, didn't Bill Barr's father hire Epstein? Yes. Donald Barr, right? Yes, at the Dalton School. Donald Barr was the headmaster when Jeffrey Epstein was hired in, I believe, two or three, yes. Okay, good question. Very good question. Oh, so, Al-a-a-oh, okay, I'm not going to do that one. Okay, so K-13-ish asks, how does the U.S. recover from the stain of Trumpism, will we ever? Well, well, I know. I mean, I don't, I mean, I mean, yes and no. I mean, yes, I think that we will recover. I think it will, we will, we will, that, the history will turn, but it's there. It's like McCarthyism. It's like the war in Vietnam. It's like, you know, this is not going to be, I think that this is going to be remembered as a period that has a significant transformative effect on this country.

Okay, final question. Love this. What does Melania know? And that's from LLN. 19. 1757? LLN, 1957, good question. I mean, I think she knows an enormous amount. Okay, and here's a good question. This is from Rowan Dowland, I think is how it's pronounced, 1391. Is there a single public record of Trump expressing sympathy for Epstein's victims? Just one. The media should ask Trump why.

Not that I'm familiar with. Okay, Michael, that was, there's so much in there. Who knows what Putin has on Donald Trump? Epstein went there. We think to help Putin with his money. Okay, mind blown. I think we should come back on Thursday and talk specifically about why does Donald Trump talk so much. We had John Bolton on the Daily Beast podcast on Monday.

He also observed the same thing. Everyone, you cannot spend the moment. with Donald Trump, without that being the primary takeaway, he doesn't ever, ever, ever shut up. Share this podcast with your friends inside Trump's head. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already a subscriber to the Daily Beast podcast, this will surface in your feed on YouTube.

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