Why Trump’s Self-Destruction Is Finally Ending Him: Author

Donald Trump’s narcissistic impulses have set the stage for the “first act” of the president’s “downfall,” says his longtime biographer.

“It is hard to truly express how bad things are for Donald Trump at this point,” author Michael Wolff told the Inside Trump’s Head podcast.

“I think that that is now a pressing question,” Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles. “I mean, in terms of certainly trying to understand Donald Trump and possibly in terms of understanding what may be this turn in history. Why is Donald Trump so self-destructive?”

Wolff, who has written four tell-alls about the president and spent time in the White House during his first term, recounted how Trump returned to office in 2025 with the throttle down and the political calculus largely left behind.

“The story of our podcast, now slightly more than a year old, is that he charged into this second term with more aggression, more venom, more determination than almost any president, certainly in modern memory, doing all sorts of things that were not thought out, in which he didn’t really make a political calculation on what their ultimate effect would be,” Wolff said.

But Trump is now reaping what he sowed, with the priorities he bulldozed through during the first half of his second term “coming back to haunt him,” the author continued.

Amid Trump’s mounting unpopularity, with just 32 percent of Americans approving of his job performance in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, Democrats are poised to retake the House and maybe the Senate, too—a scenario that seemed impossible in January 2025.

Wolff, who said the midterms could usher in “the worst Republican result in recent memory,” argued that Trump’s ego has blocked the kind of political course correction that would have come naturally to “any other politician” months ago.

“‘OK, my numbers are sinking here. Obviously my immigration policies are incredibly unpopular. Having masked men in the streets; that’s not a good look. Shouldn’t I adjust that? The war in Iran, should I have gone into that? I’m a president who got elected on the promise of no more forever wars. Shouldn’t I have thought about that? Shouldn’t I have had an exit strategy?’” Wolff said. “I mean, this is where the self-destructive nature of this comes in.”

Wolff argued that the bankruptcy-prone Trump should have met his downfall long ago, as someone who seemed tailor-made to be felled by their own “arrogance,” “hubris,” “narcissism,” and the “incredible and ridiculous risks they take.”

“But never say never, and it is never too late,” he continued. “And in fact, in this moment, I mean, we may well be seeing... the first act... of his fall.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, has previously told the Daily Beast: “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--t and has been proven to be a fraud.”