The MeidasTouch Podcast - Michael Wolff on Trump’s Secret Connections

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas interviews author Michael Wolff about his new book “All or Nothing” and the secrets he knows about Trump and Trump’s darker connections. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Let's talk about someone who Donald Trump attacks over and over again, probably almost more than anyone. It's a reporter and author by the name of Michael Wolff. And I'm sure you've seen Donald Trump attack him like this.

So-called author Michael Wolff's new book is a total fake job. Just like the other junk he wrote, he called me many times trying to set up a meeting, but I never called him back because I didn't want to give him credibility of an interview, blah, blah, blah. There's so many other posts like this. And Michael Wolff's out with the new book called All or Nothing, How Trump Recaptured America.

And frankly, because of posts like that, he's kind of persona non grata when it comes to corporate media. And normally you do a book tour, you talk about your book. Michael Wolff wrote about it in The Hollywood Reporter. Michael Wolff, Trump scared the news networks into banning my book. It's a guest column in The Hollywood Reporter. And does it shock you that the corporate media oligarchs who went and kissed the ring at Mar-a-Lago would not want someone like Michael Wolff on their network? They used to have him on the network all the time to talk about his reporting. I think there may be another reason as well that Trump attacks Wolf more than anybody. What can it be? I thought for a second they were going to release those Epstein files. Remember all of those MAGA influencers? They went outside and they were holding their binders up saying that they had

those Epstein files. And it turned out it was just like Epstein's phone list, by the way, which has Trump's name on it, which was released many years ago in connection with the various cases involving Epstein. But if y'all remember, Wolf's got a lot of tapes of Epstein talking about Donald Trump. Like you may recall this one that we in the Daily Beast reported, but almost no one else was reporting before the election. Seems like a big deal to me. But you remember this? Let's play it. I think we have a snippet from one of the conversations that I recorded with Epstein. And I think this was in a restaurant in 2017. His people fight each other. Right. And then have outsiders. He sort of poisons the well outside. He will tell 10 people Bannon's a scumbag and Priest is not doing a good job and Kelly has a big mouth. What do you think? Jamie Dimon says that you're a problem

and I shouldn't keep you and i spoke to call icon and call things i need a new spokesperson that so kelly even though i hired kelly ann's husband kelly ann is just too much of a wild one let's bring on michael wolf since we now have a platform bigger than corporate media platform and they don't want to have him on. Let's have him on. The author of All or Nothing, How Trump Recaptured America. First, Mr. Wolff, my question for you is, how have you uncovered that you're pretty much banned from being on corporate media? You know, so this book came out, and this is my fourth book. And all of the other books, you know, they come out,

and everybody invites you on to talk about Donald Trump because it's Donald Trump, and Donald Trump gets ratings. And my books, and I sell a lot of books, so therefore it seems unnatural for television. And then, so this book came out, or we began planning for it and it was crickets out there. Everybody was going, well, no, I know, you know, we'll, we'll get back to you. And MSNBC, which of course would book this, want me on to talk about this book, because what else do they talk about besides Donald Trump and, and, and disliking Donald Trump. And they had booked me for that first publication week, which was, I guess, two, three weeks ago. And, but then just

as the, as the, as the White House started to attack me, excerpts began to, leaks began to appear about the book. And then the White House attacked me. And they canceled everything. And it was like, well, it's now with our standards committee or some strange thing, which I've never heard of. And, you know, clearly, and then actually somebody from the White House called up to threaten me and said, you know, it's a new climate. And then cited the ABC settlement, this ongoing negotiations with CBS to settle over the way they edited the Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes. And then actually MSNBC, the people there, were fairly straightforward in saying, well, you know, it's a new climate. So I thought it was time for someone to acknowledge that things had changed in this new Trump world order. And that included,

you know, the media running incredibly scared. What's the shock to you? I mean, you spent your whole career as a reporter. You write these books. You read a lot of books that before I even got into quitting my law practice and doing this full time, I read your books. I read Fire and Fury. Just this idea that you would be told that the climate has shifted where you can talk about

your book. And I know the exhaustive process. I mean, you go through hours and hours of interviews and fact checks, and they're being told because you're writing a book critical, you can't go on the networks. And then Trump's people are saying it's a different climate, which you perceived, I think, rightfully so, as a threat. Well, I mean, I might say that nothing about television ever surprises me. But I think at this moment in time is a very precarious moment. Virtually, Trump is out there threatening anybody he perceives as an enemy. And the media companies are very vulnerable here. They all have, I mean, we're suddenly in this media environment where everybody is looking at some consolidation play, and they're all going to need

regulatory approval from the FCC. And Trump is holding this over their heads. I mean, very clearly and very, you know, this is not even a soft suggestion. It's an outright threat. We can block your business future. Now, all of these media companies, I mean, there are the news channels and news divisions, which I'm talking to, but those are owned by these very large companies, Comcast, Warner Brothers Discovery, Disney, who have many, where the stakes are much higher than just their news division. Yeah. Well, you're going to be stuck with me right now for this interview, Michael. So let me ask you one question and we get more viewers than a lot of them. So, and I think all of them. So let me start here.

I want to go talk about your book in a moment. But I did show that clip of the Epstein tapes. And I think it's in the news a lot because Trump's putting it in the news. His regime people are saying, we've got the files. We're going to release the files. And then they release nothing. They give binders to influencers who then say these are the Epstein files. We're going to release the files. And then they release nothing. They give binders to influencers who then say, these are the Epstein files. And then they blamed it on like FBI in

New York and said, that's the reason why. And then I think they're just hoping that everybody like just forgets about it. Just can you remind us and let us know the amount of one, why do you have the audio recordings like that? How many do you have? And just remind the audience of like a general flavor of what they are so people know what it is that I even showed them. And Epstein, who I knew through some New York connections, asked me if I would be interested in writing a book about him. And I was like, well, you know, I don't know. I said, I don't know. And I probably wasn't. But he was, there was something about Epstein,

you might even call it his charm. I mean, there is a reason so many people were around him, so many well-regarded, powerful people were around him. And it was partly his expansiveness. And he said to me, well, you decide if you want to write a book about me, but you can come to my house at this dining room table where people came from morning till evening, incredibly famous people, and sat around and just discussed the state of the world, really. And while he fed them and his cooks brought out all kinds of food, I mean, a really kind of incredibly peculiar scene to witness, in which I witnessed over and over again, and ran the tape recorder. And he sat for many, many hours of discussion with me. I mean, certainly 80, 90, probably 100 hours I have of

Epstein on tape. And one of the discussions, because this was occurring, Trump became the president in 2017. I began writing about Trump. And so we spent a lot of time talking about Donald Trump and Epstein's relationship with Trump, which went on for a good certainly 15 years, and was incredibly close. They were each other's closest friend for a very long time. is one of those people who truly knew Donald Trump, knew many secrets about Donald Trump, and was threatening to Donald Trump. So, and actually, so at this moment in the White House, you know, the whole MAGA people think, oh, Epstein, and this is a conspiracy and the, you know, pedophilias, all Democrats are pedophiles. But at the same time, Trump is totally freaked out about the Epstein thing. And, you know, I mean, they were very close friends. There's a moment in my last book where I talk about Trump talking to his people about what Ghislaine Maxwell

might have on him and what she might say, and should he pardon her? How many hours would you say is about audio? You said there's like maybe 80, 100 hours total, but of that, what do you think would be of Trump-related conversations? You know, I can't, I mean, Trump weaved in and out of all conversations, and remember, and also there's a lot in these tapes of Steve Bannon, who was very, became very friendly with Epstein. So it's Bannon and Epstein also talking about Trump, which was their kind of bond. I mean, they're both kind of incredulous about the character of Donald Trump and that this character became the president of the United States.

Are you planning on ever releasing? I saw the snippets on Daily Beast, the other portions that haven't been released. Yeah, you know, this is a funny thing because I have really tried to find venues for this material for quite a number of years now. And everybody kind of gets excited about it because it's kind of riveting stuff. And then everybody goes, oh, but, you know, it's Epstein. We can't do Epstein because he's Epstein. And project after project kind of meets its untimely end. Well, we'll chat afterwards and I'll make a pitch to you. But let's talk about the book All or Nothing right now.

Tell us what's in this book. Tell us why people should get it and why this is kind of the evolution of your books, whether it was Fire and Fury? Where does this fit in more? Sure. I mean, this is the campaign. I mean, I started writing this book in 2022. So it really is the campaign, the Trump campaign from the beginning right till the, till, till, till the election. And, you know, and I think it's, it's interesting again, because this is just another window into who this guy is. This is, this is the character of Donald Trump. I mean, you know, and I often point out, I'm not a political reporter. I'm, I'm a writer. I'm interested in character. I'm interested in getting the guy on the page.

So to be able to see him through this campaign, really day by day, day after day, to be talking on a constant basis to the people around him, I mean, I think offers just this, this, this vivid window into, into A, how this happened, how he comes back from total disgrace after January 6th to winning the presidency again. And also the, the, just the, just the peculiarness of this guy. You know, it's a kind of story in which he veers between this kind of mania and this depressive rage. So this is Donald Trump raw. You know, there's something too, though, about your legacy as a writer of these types of biographies that I think scares him. It's peculiar and particularly focused on you. And I think it's because,

and this is a compliment to you, that you're one of the kind of remaining old school biographers kind of out there. And in his own mind, he respects your work in a sense, and he knows your process. So when you're giving that lens, his fragile ego can't accept it. I don't know if there's parts of that, but it's something unique about you

that pisses him off. There's lots of people- Well, you know, yeah. I mean, I think it's because, again, I'm not a political reporter. I don't, you know, most other reporters, people covering Donald Trump are seeing him in a political context. That's not really the way I see him or the way I want to see him. I want to see the guy as real as possible, as personally as possible. You know, when I wrote my biography of Rupert Murdoch, he called me up, he was enraged by it. And he called me up yelling. And I said, Rupert, just please tell me what's wrong with this. And he kind of sputtered and he says, it's just so personal. And I said, well, Rupert, it is a biography. And I think that's part of what happens with Trump.

It's very difficult for these guys to see themselves in a, you know, through someone else's eyes and seeing them with some degree of the emperor with no clothes. And then finally, I don't want to ruin the book for everybody, so they should all get it here. Flash the book one more time, Salty, so people can see it. All or Nothing by Michael Wolff, How Trump Recaptured America. And thanks to your team for sending it my way. And I'd recommend everybody to read it. But what do you make right now? Obviously, you're observing, I think, the way the rest of the world is, this manic Trump of tariffs, no tariffs, tariffs, no tariffs, him sitting in front of these world leaders in the Oval Office talking about annexing this country, annexing that country. How does your research on him maybe inform people on this moment that they're seeing right now? Are you seeing

something different right now in his pathology, or is this consistent with who you've covered? Completely consistent. I mean, Donald Trump, I don't think has changed the way he operates or what he wants or how he sees things in decades. And these first weeks of the new administration, which are actually rather like the first weeks of the first administration, all goes back to what does he want? And he wants headlines, headlines, headlines, headlines. He doesn't care about policy. He doesn't care about a legislative agenda. He cares about dominating the news cycle every day. So you can read the New York Times today, and literally every story is a Trump-related story. That's what he wants. And there's some method to this madness, which is to say that if he gets airtime or headlines, nobody else does. Therefore, he is the only thing that matters.

He's the only person on the stage. And that's how he has run his political life. That's how he ran his real estate life. That's how he ran his entertainment business life. And it doesn't matter if he contradicts the headlines the next day, tariffs on, tariffs off, because it just gives him another headline. You know, as I like to say now, we are all somewhat trapped as kind of non-consensual participants in this dystopian reality show that he's created. You going to do any more books? What are you thinking? What's the next one?

After every book, I say i i certainly hope not and i swear off any possibility so and that's that's where i am today in this moment so we will see well you've written a lot of books after swearing it off so we'll come back in a year and we'll check in on you michael wolf thanks for everything and everybody check out the book all or nothing how trump recaptured amer appreciate you, Michael, for coming on. Thanks so much. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.