The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Even Trump Insiders Admit He’s 'An Idiot'

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/dailybeast with promo code dailybeast. #ad Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles dive deep into the most unsettling question at the center of Donald Trump’s presidency: what’s really going on inside his mind. Sparked by a revealing clip and Wolff’s firsthand time in Trump’s White House, the conversation traces a chilling throughline—from early confusion among insiders to the blunt assessment that unlocked everything, reshaping how those closest to power understood his behavior. They unpack Trump’s resistance to information, his aversion to reading, and the coping mechanisms that may have fueled both his rise and his governing style, while exploring how performance, repetition, and instinct can override logic on the world stage. Along the way, they reveal how allies, critics, and even longtime confidants struggled to reconcile the contradictions, and how those very traits may have become his greatest political asset, driving a presidency that defies traditional measures of intelligence and leadership in ways that continue to reverberate far beyond Washington. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now there was a guy who everybody within the kind of greater Trump circle acknowledged was the great Trump whisperer. A guy by the name of Sam Nunberg. I called Sam and I sat down with him and I went, this is this, I don't quite understand this and what is he trying to do? I remember Sam looked at me and he said, you don't get it, do you? He said, he's an idiot. He has so systematically blocked out virtually all information in his, in his life. You know, not only is he unfiltered,

but he's non-sequential. He's inarticulate, often incoherent. It's jaw-dropping. Michael. Joanna. Michael Wolf, Chronicle of Donald Trump. Where are we going? Not only are we going inside Donald Trump's head,

but we are going to reflect on the nature of his brain. I think Donald Trump thinks he has a very big brain. Well, I think he probably has doubts about this because he has to say it so often that he has a big brain. That he's the smartest person in the room. I think it's a point of real sensitivity with him. I think if you say what are Donald Trump's chief insecurities? And I think that there are undoubtedly many, but I would go put this one at the top. he's not smart enough. Yeah, that he is, not only that he is not smart enough, but that everyone

knows he's not smart enough. Oh, so scary. Okay, so we're going to devote an issue to this because the quality of Donald Trump's brain matters enormously because it's a government of one and it's now a world of one. I would say we're going to devote a show. We say, you say issue because we come out Yes, sorry, sorry. We come out of the magazine business. We're in the podcast world now, so it's episode. And it makes me nostalgic. I would rather, I would rather be putting out an issue.

No, no, it's fun putting out episodes. It's fun putting out episodes. And if you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to the Daily Beast because we're independent media, so we really appreciate your support. We're almost at 600,000. I think we've got like 12,000 more to get to. And it would be great. to get there and then our next goal is a million. But starting with Trump's brain, Gavin Newsom

brought out a book recently, which is obviously his calling card for 2028. But I would put this differently. I would say that Trump has raised the issue here. He's put it on the table, on the political table. How smart do you have to be to be the president of the United States? Okay, well, let's listen to the clip which triggered both of us. Gavin Newscombe has admitted that he is a, that he is learning disabilities. Honestly, I'm all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president. I don't want, I think a president should not have learning disabilities, okay? And I know it's highly controversial to say such a horrible thing.

The president of the United States, Gavin Newscombe admitted that he has learning disabilities, dyslexia, everything about him is dumb. So are you positing that actually Donald Trump was talking about himself there? It certainly seems it's a pretty accurate description. Isn't it fascinating? I mean it's kind of like, oh my God, what is he saying? Does he know he's saying this?

I think a president should not have learning disabilities. Okay, and I know it's highly controversial. controversial to say such a horrible thing. I'm all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president. Okay, but let's literally discuss this because it is an issue that actually doesn't get discussed. How smart do you have to be to be the president of the United States? What's the nature of the intelligence you ought to have to be the president of the United States? what would happen to us as a nation if, per chance, a rank dummy, were elected? I mean, these are, I mean, I think that these are kind of overriding questions.

Forget MAGA, forget issues. How, it's a complicated world. Well, and also, let me go on because I think the presidency of the United States is probably the most information-intensive jobs on earth. And it is not just because there's a lot of information, but because so much of that information is consequential in a very significant way. It affects people's lives. It actually keeps them alive or not. And globally, I mean, this is across the world, obviously not just America. So we have Donald Trump. I mean, we have Donald Trump. I mean, Right.

Donald Trump. Now, I can go back to a kind of foundational moment in my relationship with Donald Trump or my relationship or my understanding of Donald Trump. So Donald Trump gets elected in 2016. Shortly there are actually the day after on January 21st, the day after the inauguration, I go into the White House and spend basically the next seven months there. With everyone else, nobody knows Donald Trump. Everybody's working for them.

They don't know him. Everybody's trying to figure him out. And I had really no preconception. Actually, if I had a preconception, it was this could be interesting. This guy is a, you know, he's a disruptor. He's a showman. He's a wild card. He's, you know, this could go in all kinds of ways.

He's a guy who wants to please an audio. I was actually kind of kind of I thought this would be an interesting show, which is why I was there to write about it. But I was also kind of optimistic about this. And as the weeks went on, I was trying to figure this out. It was hard because it didn't. I mean, nothing seemed to make sense. And nothing that he that he was doing, you would have done. That's not the way anyone, any kind of logic you would have, you would have brought to this.

and say it should be done this way. But still, you know, maybe just trying to figure it out. Now, there was a guy who everybody within the kind of greater Trump circle kind of acknowledged was the great Trump whisperer. He just, this is a guy by the name of Sam Nunberg. And to this day, I think one of the guys, you know, I think is the most acute about Donald Trump. And Sam had worked for Trump was really his professional.

political hire and was with him every day and then they had had as with all people they had fallen had a falling out but everybody turned if you didn't know what he was doing or what was going on or try to interpret that people in the White House would call Sam so I called I called Sam and I sat down with him and I went this is this I don't quite understand this and what is he trying trying to do And I remember Sam looked at me and he said, you don't get it, do you? And I was like, tell me. And he said, he's an idiot.

And then it came absolutely clear to me. And nobody allows us. He's been elected the president in the United States, so you don't acknowledge. He must be. I mean, he's... He must be have some kind of cunning intelligence. cunning intelligence. He must, something, yes, he's, he's, he has a mastery over, he must have a mastery

over so many things. Right, that he's, he's speaking on a different frequency to the rest of it. So, but then Sam, this was utterly reduced and as soon as he said it, you recognized it. I mean, this is a man, he just doesn't know it. First thing, he doesn't know anything. He has so systematically blocked out virtually all information in his life. And then if you listen to him, if you spend any time at all listening to him, not only is he unfiltered, but he's non-sequential, he's inarticulate, often incoherent,

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Well, he also repeats himself all the time, right? So that you hear the same phrases. It's as if he has a very limited vocabulary. I mean, people have tested and said it's, it's the vocabulary of a 12-year-old, but it's very limited. Everything is maximalist. Everything is hyperbolic or it's paranoid. There's no nuance. There's no, there's no, gray area. And it's, I think people's resistance to discussing it is because it's too frightening to discuss that the president is, as Sam Numburg told you, an idiot. And also, where do you go with that? I mean, that's, you've, you've just defined a true existential predicament in the history of democratic norms. So what do you do? And I don't know. Well, and can we just say that the first time, perhaps it was less, Trump one, felt less serious because he was surrounded by normal people. What this idiot has managed to do is not only get elected the first time, sit out and resist all efforts to jail him for four years in Mar-a-Lago in his political wilderness,

then win again, again completely unparalleled in American history, given what he went through in those four years when he was in the wilderness, and then come back and this time surround himself by people who are even more idiotic than he is. Well, let's go, I mean, so Newsom is a dyslexic. I mean, we can talk about Trump's version of dyslexia, but I think it's more complicated, and we should speculate on that because he may not be able to read it all. So he may be, there's dyslexia and then there's illiteracy. So these are, this is a complicated.

To be fair to Donald Trump, doesn't he read off a teleprompter from time to time? I know he wanders off it. Yes, he has some, obviously, some reading abilities. But it could be very primitive. But again, in the people around him know you cannot give him written material. If you give him written material, that is a very bad strategy for communicating with your boss. So it is either that he can't read, he can't be bothered to read, or his reading comprehension is pretty limited. Right.

But the other thing is... Because there is that thing that some people have where they read things and there's a gap between what they're reading and the meaning. I mean, it's a proper learning disability. Yeah. And that... All of that may be present here. But the way he has chosen to deal with it, you know, and a lot of people have dyslexia and they have a lot of, and they develop a lot of strategies for dealing with it. The way his strategy is, I had not to read.

Yeah, of course. I mean, and it's, and it's sort of a rich guy strategy. I mean, what is the ultimate response of all rich people? I think this isn't like 100%. I don't have to do what I don't want to do. Interesting. This might also be why he struggled at school. Well, let's go to the school thing because that's really interesting.

I've spent a considerable amount of time with Steve Bannon talking about this. Bannon was captivated by the subject. Did Bannon think he was an idiot too? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, he thought that Trump had some kind of otherworldly instincts. Which may be compensatory for having extreme dyslexia. Right. But in terms of knowing anything, in terms of being able to process information, in terms of following a chain of logic, Bannon would be rolling on the floor now. But he was interesting on this

because he would say it was not only that Trump had problems with school, that he was a lackluster student, but he was so lackluster that he was always rebelling against school. So that his entire life, after school then became resistant to anyone telling him anything, anyone being suggesting that they had more expertise than than he did, anyone putting him in any situation where you had to measure up a test, he would, he would reject and rebel against. So it was not only,

school was not only a bad experience for him but it became the the the it became the experience that made him reject all further learning mm-hmm it's just it's unfathomable that someone and didn't you say that when you went to his house he had two books he had the art of the deal and the Bible wasn't it you that told me no no that was not um maybe that was someone else but But you never see him surrounded by books. I did once go to, go to, I wouldn't say who this was, but this is a man both you and I work for. I know.

Right. So maybe I'm thinking I'm getting confused. And that man had Jack Welch's book and my book. Someone told me they've been to his house and he had two books on his shelf and it was the art of the deal and it was the Bible. The Bible he famously held upside down and couldn't remember what verse or chapter he liked from it. But it's sort of unfathomable that someone can get through the system, and he has six bankruptcies in his wake, too. Because some people are dyslexic, and in fact, I think it's actually, I think I read that there was something like as high as 23% of the CEOs of Fortune 500s had some form of dyslexia, but they create incredibly effective compensatory strategies.

I mean, Ari Emanuel is famously dyslexic. He talks about it. Well, Molly Jong-Fast has a column just the other day about dyslexia, in the New York Times, about dyslexia and about the strategies for dealing with dyslexia. She's apparently a dyslexic, which, by the way, is not a recommendation for the advantage of dyslexia. That's interesting because she has a lot going on visually. She has the stripy hair. She has the big glasses. is that does actually explain something. Yeah, no, no, she actually looks a little like Donald Trump.

She doesn't look like Donald Trump. But when you understand people's coping strategies for something. But it's the same thing to avoid people saying, focusing on what you say, because most of what she says is, you know, completely banal. But she looks like it should be more interesting than it actually is. Compensatory strategy. Interesting. What are Trump's?

I mean, the other thing that I find interesting is that, and we've talked about this before on the podcast, but he has zero executive function. He can't follow an idea. Well, that was that was always that was always Jeffrey Epstein's point about his friend Donald Trump. His friend Donald Trump. And why he was, you know, more than anyone, because they had been such close friends and he understood him so well. more than anyone, Jeffrey Epstein, was shocked and appalled that Donald Trump had become the president of the United States. And would always point out that Donald Trump, who became this theoretically because he was such a great businessman, and Epstein would point out he couldn't read a balance sheet, was enumerate. So not only illiterate, but enumerate.

And we've seen that again and again, obviously numbers have no relationship to, to, numbers to reality of numbers. Right, remember when he said he was going to bring the cost of healthcare down by 600%. No, in the first minutes in the White House, you know, there were, you know, a million people had attended his inauguration when it was, you know, about 60,000. Oh, God. I mean, that was always, he can get to a million faster than anybody else. Right, because it's a number that he knows is a big number that's an impressive number that he's going to draw upon. You know, and there was a moment in the first administration when he was, he became incredibly paranoid about his transcripts, his college transcripts.

Now, and he went to... Why have they never been released? Astonishing discipline. He threatened them. I mean, this was a serious business to threaten the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania about these. these transcripts. And it's also the Wharton School, you know, Wharton is an MBA program, and that's what it's famous for. But there is a undergraduate Wharton business program, which is not a Wharton MBA. And he's always conflating that and mixing that up. And also,

we should remind people he went to Fordham first. He always talks about Pan. He never talks about Fordham. Right. No. I mean, incredibly resistant, resistant student. His father really had to take this in hand and get him into Fordham first and then get him into the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, not the MBA program. I mean, so to some extent, incredible coping mechanisms that get him to be the president. There were also issues. weren't there when he was making the apprentice that he couldn't stick to a script, which I'm very sympathetic to because I have difficulty sticking to a script, but that he would just talk and talk and talk, carry on talking, and they would edit it in reverse. Right, and, you know,

that's another one of the Bannon observations about him, that one of his ways to compensate for his, for not knowing anything is just to keep talking. Therefore, nobody can tell him. him anything and to compensate for not being able to process information and also to compensate before this big problem with authority with teachers in Bannon's interpretation, that if you keep talking, no one can tell you anything. So how does he go from being an idiot to being the president? What are the skills he does possess that he manages to outfirm? Fox everybody else on the primary stage when they're all competing.

Because we know that he's up against smarter people. It turns out that smart here is not particularly useful. Well, I don't think. I think smart is useful. I mean, smart is useful. I mean, that's how do you do the job if you're not smart? And he doesn't, you know, I think on the evidence he hasn't done the job. Smart is required to do this job.

No, but I meant in terms of, you know, he's an idiot. He's on a stage with people who are far smarter. He still wins. Okay, well, let's talk about the stage, which I think is the whole point here. There are many, many, many, maybe all actors who are stupid. And yet they are, those are the people who on a stage you look to who you believe are smart, or you want to identify with. But that's because they're reading other people's words, right?

I mean, the famous story about Kevin Spacey is that Kevin Spacey thinks he's super smart. I have no idea if he's smart or not, because he's played lots of smart roles. I think that that's not true. I think you're always looking, even if an actor has no line, nobody has written the lines. You're looking at them.

You're looking at them because, partly because they're looking at you. I used to live in a building in New York that had two, to a couple who went on to be very famous. Are you going to tell us who they are? No. Why not? Yeah, my guess it's the actor William Hurt and his wife, Mary Beth Hurt,

which were very famous at the time. I was known because they're not so famous now because their career is whatever. I think our view is in our, listeners know who William Hurt is. I mean, come on, it's the great broadcast news. Yes, yes, exactly. So, and anyway, these were, both of these people were nobody then. And nevertheless, you would get on the, you couldn't stop looking at them. You were, I mean, you actually, I began to time my, when I went out just to get a glimpse, glimpse of them.

They're perfectly normal people. But there was something, The way they looked at you, the way they looked. I don't know. It's what an actor does. I mean, it is the requirement. I hold the stage. I hold the attention. And Trump, remember, and 14 years as the star of a top-

Rated reality television show. This is some incredible learning experience for a politician. Mm-hmm. Conviered your passion in a new business with Shopify and bathe records of with the form of with a form of

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is a super- success with Shopify. Empiece your period of a month in Shopify. I used to live in a building with Richard Dreyfus.

He lived in the apartment above us and he used to dress up as the Santa for the lobby Christmas party and the children were going to sit on his knee and he would bounce them up and down and say, have you ever seen a Jewish Santa before? He was good with the one-liners actually. I came away thinking he was pretty smart.

Also in the building was Judy Collins. Also smart. Seemed very smart. It was a good building actually. And Suzanne Vega. in my building was the woman who played who played the in the original peter pan oh uh played um uh played um tinkerbell oh okay i don't know who that was i was going to go for the original peter pal right that's mary martin okay now we're really stretching

Okay, let's get back to inside. To Trump's brain. Because somehow, maybe it's the compensation, maybe it's his performative abilities. But so this moron, let's use that. I mean, I am not exaggerating. This is, I think if you met Donald Trump

just without any preconceptions, without knowing him, if you had to sit down with him and have a drink or a meal, you don't know who he is. You'd say, that guy's kind of a moron. Would you say he was an attention-seeking moron? Because the other thing that's so fascinating about him is this craving, this deep, deep need that everybody sees that he is the center of attention. No, I mean, clearly.

And he'll say anything to get it, and he'll be abusive or offensive. He has no filter. Absolutely. And I think one on one, if you didn't know who he is, you would find that appalling. But on a stage, on a national stage, on a worldwide stage, it takes on a whole different effect. But then there's the other thing that he has literally turned being a moron into an advantage. I mean, he has, I mean, it's an almost an ideological advantage. Well, it hates experts.

He knows more than the generals. Exactly. And the elites, who is he against? Who has he most clearly positioned himself against? And that's the elites, the smarty pantses. The people who wear glasses. The Ivy League, yes. The people who most of the country, or at least a good part of the country,

seem also to be against. So he somehow has come to, He somehow has come to represent the stupids. Right. And of course, almost the first place he went after was Harvard, which represents everything that he finds intimidating. And we did an episode of he applied to Harvard didn't get in. So that sense of rejection and wanting to take it down.

Yeah. And, you know, the truth is most people aren't intelligent, and that's his secret handshake with them. Well, Michael, that's illuminating and alarming and... And there's the other thing, too, is, you know, there's a whole set of politicians who hide behind their intelligence. And that's also off-putting. Barack Obama, in a way, hid behind his intelligence. Well, Trump is not going to do that because he has no intelligence to hide behind.

And also it doesn't stop him. arguably Barack Obama's intelligence stopped him from doing things because he could see around the corner and what might not go right, which is probably why he didn't go into Iran. Trump loves the impulsive decision, the impulsive move. And his way of compensating is you make an impulsive move. It doesn't turn out, but you make another impulsive move. Well, you just keep moving, right? You keep moving, and it's one of the things that I notice viewers and listeners comment on all the time,

especially when they're living abroad, is how did this happen? How did America manage to elect this idiot? This orange idiot, as a lot of people refer to it. Well, I mean, this is going to be the subject that will be debated for 100 years at least. But one of the answers is 14 years as the star of a top-rated reality television show. And yet, Vladimir Zelensky was also the star of a television show, a comedy show, but where he plays the president, and he turns out not to be an idiot. Everybody thought he was going to be an idiot, and then he turns out not to have been an idiot. But he was actually, you may be right, and this may not be worth, it's just the luck of the draw.

But he was a comedian, and it does take. a kind of intelligence to be a funny person. And bravery to be a stand-up comedian. Indeed. My son is a stand-up comedian. Is he? You knew that. I didn't know he was a stand-up comedian.

I thought he was a comedy writer. My daughter. Okay. A lot of comedy going on in the wolf household. And I'm assuming by this, you mean your adult son is the comedian, not your little son, not your five-year-old. or you're four-year-old. All right, so there we have it. Trump's brain. It's full of holes like an old Swiss cheese. Do you think he's actually got dementia? Well, I've known the man for a long time, and he has always been like this.

Right. So he's always had dementia. That does not explain. I mean, it may be getting worse. You know, one of the problems with people with dementia is that it just turns. out to be, I mean, one of the ways that can manifest is what you have, the oddness that you've always had or the weirdness that you've always had is then just sort of magnified. Right. Right. Well, your oddness isn't magnified. Well, not yet. Not yet. Not yet. If you have been, thank you. Let me know. I will let you know. I will let you know. If you have been, thank you for watching. Don't forget sign up for the Daily Beast. Please subscribe. We're independent media, so we appreciate your support. And you can, as you know, as our first lady likes to say, you can be beast tier membership.

So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support. Thanks to our production team, Devin Rodgerino, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passeh, Heather Pissarro, Neil Rosenau. house.