The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump Won't Tell Truth About His Health: Wolff

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Donald Trump’s health is suddenly the biggest mystery in politics. After disappearing for more than three days, whispers about his wobbly legs and his puffy presentation have swept through The President’s inner circle. Hosts Joanna Coles and Michael Wolff pull apart the rumors and ask whether Trump’s latest health scare is just another online chattering class’s obsession or something far more serious. They dig into why the White House is keeping so quiet and how the imagery of Trump’s decline is fueling speculation. Plus, they explore what his health means for his future and the people still betting on his power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Inside Trump's Head. If you haven't visited this podcast before, come with us on a journey to a strange, dark place where Michael has been for the last 10 years. I am a more recent visitor. But today, we're going to be discussing the president's health. And we're going to be discussing what are the Oversight Committee members looking for with their investigation into more Jeffrey Epstein stuff? But before we go there, I just want to make the further point. about what we're doing here, that there's a way of reporting about Donald Trump that you would

have reported about any president in the White House. You look at his actions, you try to judge this in terms of political cause and effect. But I've always found that that lacks the primary dimension for understanding Donald Trump, that really he thinks differently, he begins differently, he behaves differently. His whole response is different from any politician, journalists have ever covered or that Americans have ever elected. And that's what we're here trying to do, to understand that difference, to understand what makes, what motivates Donald Trump. And I come at it from the point of view of character is destiny and that it's no use looking at this man through the lens of policy or actually political reporting as we know it.

This is a different force and it's having a massive impact. You know, I have said all, because people obviously ask me about this. Is he crazy? Is he whatever? And I don't know the answer to that. I don't know how to exactly characterize that. But I can say that he is not like anyone. I have ever met or anyone I know has ever met or I think he may ultimately be

and has to be judged as completely sui generis which which would indicate probably I guess that he is crazy Okay so you're going to get some fancy Latin words as we go on a very strange voyage So strap on your crampons we're going inside Trump's head. Michael, on our emergency podcast, we talked about...

It was an emergency? It was an emergency. Maybe a crisis podcast. Crisis podcast. It was a crisis podcast following what's happening at the CDC. So that was one aspect of health. Today we're going to discuss two things. The president's health, what happened to him over the weekend.

He disappeared for three and a half days. And also, I want to talk to you about what's happening with the oversight committee and them calling various witnesses or people to talk to about Jeffrey Epstein. Up to the minute on Epstein. First, let's talk about Donald Trump's health. Okay, well, I spent a few days trying to figure out what the White House thinks about his health. And what they officially think is they're very resentful about any questions about his health because what you see is what you get. He's out there. He's talking. He's doing his cabinet meeting three hours. So how can you even question this? That's the official position. The unofficial position, and I've just collected a few comments, it's not a subject that anybody, anybody talks about. One comment. Another comment, he's 79. Yet another comment. He's lost a step or two, but he's still Trump.

He kind of wobbles. He kind of wobbles. That's interesting. He's very puffy. He looks like he's wearing a bad Trump mask. Oof. And these are comments coming from people inside the White House who see you all the time. Yes, inside the West Wing.

And then another comment, maybe he's in the West Wing for four. hours a day, tops. So what does that mean? He's sleeping the rest of the time. He's, what is he? I don't know. He's not, he's not at his desk. He's not on the job. He's not in the office. Do you think we all know what not being in the office means. Right. It means you're at home on the sofa watching Fox News and eating bonbons or in his case, McDonald's. Exactly. So do you think, Given what happened with the previous president's health and the fact he was imploding in plain sight and nobody would talk about it, do you think the press have learned from this? When you say that nobody will talk about it in the White House, I'm not seeing the kind of vigorous questioning about his health that I would have expected from the press. Well, I don't know.

I mean, the Internet has gone crazy on his health. But the Internet is not the press. It's not the same as the White House press. Well, that's true. But that's even a broader discussion. Why is the press out of it on so many issues and the internet on top of all of this? So it would lead you to believe that somebody's version of reality is askew. But the other thing is that it is kind of right in front of our face.

I mean, the man is 79 years old. He's, you know, 50 to 70 pounds overweight. He obviously doesn't take care of himself. He's kind of a mess. Now, but conversely, my worry here is that we're all thinking, or that many people are thinking that the Grim Reaper is going to solve our problem. Right. So the only solution, because there's no opposition on the Republican side

or indeed really on the Democrat side, is, as you're. day, the grim reaper. It's for the grim reaper to take care of things. And, you know, and again, you know, you look at this guy. I mean, he is a very old fat man. And, I mean, Steve Bannon used to say, my God, his blood pressure is through the roof. Well, and I would say he's a very fat, old, angry man. And sometimes anger seems to be enough of a life force that it defies everything that medical experts say.

Well, it is, but conversely, anger is that, is that adds that stress that puts you over the top. Send your blood pressure through the, through the roof and, um, and you stroke out. So, um, that's true. I don't. So do you? But to that point. Yeah. I mean, what we have seen again and again and again and again with Trump is that he defies the obvious.

you know, all of these court cases that are going to take him down defies them. The Russia hoax, hoax. Now it's the health hoax. None of this, he manages not only to survive these things to outlast them, but to thrive in some sense because of them. adversity is his food. Yeah, adversity is the lifeblood of him, I think. On the campaign trail, I remember the first mention of this was in January 2024. He goes to the Teamsters headquarters to meet with the Teamsters leadership, which is a kind of a pivotal moment there because, you know, I mean, his campaign for the working man really actually pays off.

But he goes, he has this meeting with. with the Teamsters leadership, comes down, does a news conference. And he's asked about his lobster hands. His lobster hands. Yeah, so they're red, they're puffy, they're weird looking. And he doesn't immediately have a response to this, but then he does have a response. He says, there's nothing wrong with it. Must be AI.

Must be AI. Meaning what? That the photos have all been doctored? Yeah, I assume. I don't know what it means. I'm not sure he even knows what AI is. Right. But it is, I mean, to me it marks that thing. This is the first time January, I think was the end of January, 24, observers start to note this, that there is, that there's swelling. And it turns out there's swelling throughout his, in all of his extremities. And also what's one has to remember is that, he seemed in good health because he was being compared to a translucent Joe Biden,

who at that point was freezing, who was sort of wandering off, who clearly had something not quite right, and everybody, or not everybody, but largely the press was not reporting on it. So by contrast, Donald Trump appeared robust. Yeah, but in contrast to almost anyone, he has that indomitable whatever we want. want to call it. I mean, I don't, you know, it's something, it's something that I've never seen with anyone else. Right. I mean, when you're, when you're with him, you feel, he just takes up all the space. You feel, you feel crowded out. And then the voice, I mean, it just doesn't

stop, as we have, we have talked about before. So what, what is that life force? I'm looking for some, it's some kind of, you know, weird to me, Martian thing. It's something. It's, it's, you know, it's like you look at him and say no one is, no one you know is like this. He is another species. So what he inhabits his own body in such a strange way. I mean, first thing, he gets close to you. He towers over you. And then talks, talks, talks, talks.

But here's what triggered, I think, the internet over the weekend, which was that he stopped talking. So we had the three and a half hour press conference. And then he disappeared for. three days and no one heard from him. And then there were glimpses of, well, first of all, there was a sort of strangely grammatical truth social, which came out. And people went, he's alive, he's alive. And then everybody was like, I think it was written by AI, somebody else, because there were no spelling mistakes, there were no caps, it was a very normal truth social.

And then there were pictures of him looking like he was playing golf in Virginia. You know, there's, I mean, it actually started before that, and the Daily Beast has contributed to this, the focus on these obvious things, you know, the hands, the makeup on the hands. The ankles. The ankles. I mean, it's weird. And then, and then step back to it, because we know, I mean, as sure as the sun rises that he's not going to tell the truth about this, that he's always dissembled. about his personal medical condition. Didn't he send people into his doctor's office

to steal the records at some point? And first time around, that very strange-looking doctor, who since died emerged from a basement as if it was the first time he'd seen the light. He was like a human mole with kind of hair all over the place, looking like actually he'd come out of a drug stupor,

going that presidents in great health, couldn't be better health. No, and then Dr. Ronnie, Now. Ronnie Jackson. Yeah. Who has clearly had his own problems. Well, he was known as the candy man, right? Because he was giving out drugs to people. He was at the White House, I think maybe during the Bush era, certainly during the Obama era, through part of the first of Donald Trump's era, and now is a congressman. No, and then at one point he spread rumors about Mrs. Pence. Who did? Ronnie Jackson. What were the Rumors? Mother Pence. Yes, Mother Pence had consulted him about some, you know, a private condition. For her or for Mike Pence? For her. She wasn't looking for C-Alas or anything. I don't know. I don't know what the underlying condition is, but she certainly did not want it gossiped about and he gossiped about it.

That's not good actually because they are supposed to be private doctors. But he had other problems too. But when they, after the day after the assassination, the Butler assassination attempt, and then they were flying to Cincinnati for the convention, they picked up Dr. Ronnie at Newark Airport. Well, and they gave him a shout out at the RNC. Trump, when he's standing there with that huge, probably unnecessary white bandage on his ear. I mean, who can even remember these crazy details

and everybody was going around with like sanitary pads slapped to their ear and support? Do you remember that moment? I do. I was there. I mean, a whole full of people with weird white things on their ears. No, I mean, the whole thing. I mean, that is, I mean, we've passed over it, but to come back and it's certainly worthy to return to the assassination. The assassination attempt, the ear, the, um, the weirdness. Go, go figure. I know. I'm amazed he hasn't appeared to have suffered from.

And perhaps he has. Who knows? Post-traumatic stress disorder from that. Well, one would if it happened. Oh, God. Please don't say you're a conspiracy theorist about Thomas Matthew Brooks. I am the least conspiracy-minded person. I'm trying to think.

probably not on earth. There probably are more people who are. But, no, but I do think that that patently, obviously, a bullet did not pierce his ear. So do you think, what do you think? What do you think? Did not, are you? It did not get close to his ear or his head. And something, something, some shard, some splinter, some something, something, I, I, I,

obviously did strike him in a minimal sort of way. It's also possible that when he was pulled down by Secret Service behind the podium, he banged his head there. Yeah, exactly. But, I mean, it's not, I mean, everybody knows that kind of bullet, that kind of velocity. It would take half your head off. Everybody knows this. Well, thank goodness it didn't do that because that would have been a terrible moment.

But let us focus. Let's go back to his actual symptoms, swollen legs. cancels, swollen hands, very puffy, and a sort of beginning to curve even more. I mean, I know, and I like to come back to Steve Bannon's description of him as a giant shrimp, but the shrimp is curling in on itself, almost as if it's being grilled. Well, that is what a shrimp, that is the thing. He's always curling. But he's curving more.

He's curving more is my point. It's noticeable. And actually, if you compare, as I was doing last night, because I have clearly nothing better to do, clips of him at the RNC. He speaks markedly different, actually. He had more energy then, and he looks markedly different. Actually, we had said, you had said, that you didn't think the job took the toll on him

in the way that it did other presidents. He was bending the job on the White House to himself. I actually thought last night, what if the job is taking a toll on him? Well, I mean, it's not only the job taking a toll on him, But the years and the, you know, the cruel fact is that every year at the age he's reached is going to be more taxing in a progressive way. So your, the way you, your 79th year is going to be more taxing on you than the year before and the years before. Right.

And you do start to melt in dramatic ways. alas. Did you say melt? Melt. Right. Okay. So were they just? Which is a larger issue, which is worth at least acknowledging that people live so much longer now. And they occupy these central and visible roles at such an older age that we're having to deal with this. I mean, that was obviously part of the Biden issue. You know, the Mueller thing.

Robert Mueller, I was just going to bring him up. Robert Mueller of the Mueller investigation, who's now got Parkinson's. Right. And he's, I mean, they just, his family just the, I mean, he can't talk. I mean, it's advanced Mark Parkinson's. He can't testify before Congress because he literally can't testify. He can't talk. So it's advanced Parkinson's.

The family has said they, that he's had it for four years. And let's, let's assume that that that. that's, they're trying to contain this and it's probably more like six years. Right, he may have had symptoms. And, you know, and a lot of people in analyzing the Mueller investigation, how did this happen, that it didn't, that it didn't score, that it didn't hit? I mean, they had a lot of evidence and yet, and yet it's sort of stopped short at some point. And a lot of people have said, you know, he just didn't seem.

Mueller just didn't seem to be at his best. Michael, what are we going to do now? A word from our sponsors, Joanna. And we love our sponsors. We're getting back to discussing Trump's health. Yeah, the New York Times pointed out that Bill Barr said in his book that Robert Mueller was beginning to tremble. His voice sounded tremulous and he wondered if he was ill.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think, I mean, that's, that, I mean, many people have said, pointed to this. What went wrong in this investigation? Why were they unable to draw very clear conclusions? And then why did they let Bill Barr actually make the conclusions? So, so, and then, so this then became the Russia hoax, possibly because Robert Mueller wasn't up to the job. Right, because he was a man in his late 70s. and actually it's the work of someone who is, who's younger, who's younger and who's just more mentally vigorous. I mean, but I think that there's probably another thing that we have to begin to account for

because people do live much longer and they do have, and they can do make incredibly valuable contributions. But nevertheless, they're going to be more. age-related variables. Well, my point with Joe Biden, the question I always asked people was, would you let this man drive your five-year-old child or grandchild to school? Well, no, but that's ridiculous. He doesn't have to. I mean, you know, you can do that just because you can't drive. Would you let me drive your five-year-old to school? I hope not because I don't know how to drive. You don't have a license. I know. But I think it's about speed of reflex, right?

And even more, the reason I don't have a license is because I would not trust me to drive your five-year-old to school. Well, this isn't a- You don't have a five-year-old, but I have a four-year-old. You have a four-year-old. I would very happily drive your child's school, and it would be fine. This is not age-shaming. It's just reality that people's reflexes slow down as they get older. And what's happening to Donald Trump is you can see his body, you know, that he's been diagnosed with cross. venous insufficiency where literally the veins do not have enough blood to pump through the heart in a way that they are used to.

I'm going to disagree with this. I mean, he has a particular age-related condition which says nothing about his cognitive abilities. Now, we can argue his cognitive abilities, which I have repeatedly over and over again for many, many years. but that's not related to his ankles. I think I actually think that blood flow is totally related to brain. Dr. Coles, thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. But let me go back to the other point, which I think is more central to this and more alarming,

which is that nobody knows what to do about this guy. and we're now counting on the angel of death. And I just feel that the angel of death is not necessarily reliable. And we're abdicating the broader discussion of this is a problem. Right. The health. Donald Trump's health is not the problem. Joe Biden's health might have been the problem.

Donald Trump's health is not the problem. Donald Trump is the problem. Fair. Totally fair. All right. So let's talk about the oversight committee today, opening an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Well, I mean, I think we're there now, I think the question is, does this bring Epstein back? Trump has done everything possible to push this out of the center frame, of keeping it away from him, of distracting everybody from. from one of the biggest stories of the first year of his administration.

Right, the first nine months. And he has done this successfully. I think I mentioned here that someone in the White House had gleefully told me that interest in Epstein was down by 89%. Now, I'm really up in a puzzle where such a figure could have come from. 89% of what? How are they measuring it? Anyway. I wonder if they're measuring it through Google search.

They might be. Yeah, no, possibly. I'm sure it's just, I'm sure it's also possible that Trump has announced. Yes, exactly. You know, it's down by 89%. It's just a number. But anyway, I think clearly it has. This isn't dogging him like it was dogging him even two weeks ago,

three weeks. ago. So can Congress bring this back? I think that that's one question. Then the second question is, can they get anything? Can they force the White House to dislodge more of this information? So they got information last week. Was that a delivery of information? I think it was. A load of files. Right. And they basically said, well, there's nothing in those files. That was just everything that everyone has known. I mean, depositions that have already been released. So can they get something new?

And in some sense, in order for this story to continue to have legs, which is not a reflection on the importance of this story, just whether there will be attention paid to it, they need new information. Well, unswollen legs. Does it have swollen legs or does it have healthy legs? And if we continue that metaphor, is the swollen legs mean that the story slows up or, anyway, I won't go? No, no, I think, but I think, well, we don't know, right?

What we do know is that the president is, we're recording this on Tuesday morning. The president is making an announcement at 2 o'clock from the Oval Office. So obviously doing his best to switch attention from what the Oversight Committee is doing led by James Comer. Yeah. And let's just go back again to the importance of this. I mean, and the reason Trump is so determined to distract or impede or close down this whole discussion. And the importance is that it's. It goes to so much of his pre-political life.

You have almost 15 years, possibly even more, in which he is joined at the hip to Jeffrey Epstein. Someone who much of the country believes to be one of the worst people to have ever existed. So that is, that's, you know, a politically complicated situation. The president of the United States was the BFF, the best buddy of the worst person who has ever existed. And we're going to take a quick break for yet another word from our sponsors. And I'm Joanna Coles. This is Michael Wolfe. And we are inside Trump's head discussing. his health. So he said that he could stand on Fifth Avenue, shoot somebody and nobody'd mind,

but maybe he couldn't, it turns out, have been friends with Jeffrey Epstein, best friends with Jeffrey Epstein for as long as he was and survive it. So if you're inside Trump's head now, what are you, what are you worrying about? What are you, are you worrying about people filled social media saying you were dying? Are you worried? Are you worrying about people filled social media saying you were dying? Are you worried about the fact you have swollen ankles and these big bruises that you're smearing makeup? Well, I mean, if you're sick, if you're feeling your mortality, I think you're worried about that more than anything else, as all of us would be. Is there any possibility that the reason he's running at this second presidency with such

urgency is because he might think he's dying or he might have been diagnosed with something? I've often thought there's a real fatalistic streak to Donald Trump. What's meaning what? Meaning, meaning that that he sees an end or he sees this in binary terms or, you know, the the fact that he would have stood up, he has four criminal cases are against him. And he doesn't negotiate, doesn't plea bargain, doesn't do anything that any normal person would do when his or her freedom is at issue. Instead, he just, he's like a gambler. He just puts the chips on there. I'm going, yes, I will either go to jail for the rest of my life. or I will become the president of the United States.

So there's some sense of fate there that I don't, you know, it's just what is going to happen is going to happen. And I'm not going to try to ameliorate or hedge my bets or anything like that. It's all or nothing. Oh, all or nothing. What a good title for a book. Oh, wait, you wrote that book. I wonder if he's also, I mean, we don't think of him as haunted by anything, but I wonder if he's actually haunted by the fact that he's best friend for 10 years.

And I know we've talked about this before, but it is so remarkable, ended in the worst jail in America killing himself or possibly not killing himself. But it's such, who has a friend who ends up like that? Well, I mean, the contrast is greater the first. friend, the person joined at the hip, your buddy, you are that person. You're both exactly the same. One ends up in the darkest jail with a sheet around his neck, the other in the White House. At the same moment. I mean, that's extraordinary. Now, and if I were, if I were Donald Trump, that would certainly give me pause. I'm not sure it does because I'm not sure that he is in any way, sense, shape,

capable of that kind of self-awareness. Right. I think that actually kind of defines Donald Trump. That defines Donald Trump's what's inside Donald Trump's head. Zero self-awareness. But strange cobwebs and kind of gooey stuff. stuff. Well, he just pushes on. It's just, you know, it's all in the moment. That says that, that, that sense of the, of, of, of, of, of, I respond now to what I need to respond to. And I don't think about the past and I don't think about the future. Okay, well, that's a very good up sum of us, Michael. All we care about is what's going on right now in the White House and in Donald Trump's head. So you can explain it to us. I'm here. I try. Okay, so we have some comments.

A few people have remarked on the fact that Robert Kennedy Jr., RFK Jr., you said that his voice was weird like that because it's a crack pipe voice. And various people said, no, no, he's been diagnosed with a proper medical illness. He says he's been diagnosed with a proper medical illness. What is a proper medical illness? I mean, I've known many, many people in my life and never, never, never. Never one with a proper medical illness, which changes their voice. Someone did send us the most remarkable thing he said about the brain worm, which I wanted to read out. I think I sent it to you because it was just, hold on, let me find it.

Here it is. Now, my doctor, this is RFK speaking. Now, my doctor said it is physiologically impossible, but I know what I know, and there is no doubt in my mind. Before this thing got figured out, I could hear chew it. I could hear chewing sounds and the sounds were coming from inside my head most often late at night when the house was quiet and I was trying to fall asleep

and it was the worm feeding on brain tissue. That's extraordinary but remember I recounted that when we were young I was on the campaign trail with him and had to share on a number of occasions the same bedroom at night and he had these terrible. terrible, terrible, terrible nightmares.

So perhaps the worm was turning even then. All right, well, let's come back on Thursday. First of all, we have to watch the president's announcement. Watch the president's announcement. And also we have to stay on top of what's happening with the Epstein hearing and the oversight committee. Yeah, and let's look forward to, and this is a complicated story. So I think maybe we should come at it piecemeal.

which is the budget, which happens at the end of September. It's September 2nd now. At the end of September, we will get, the government may close down again. And this has gone on, you know, this has been a tension in the first administration, now coming back again, because it goes to a lot of fissures within the Republican Party. So that's going to be interesting. I will see you on Thursday. And you.

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