These Are the 10 Things that Terrify Trump Most

Inside Trump's Head

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles dissect Donald Trump's psychological profile, arguing that his public persona is driven by deep-seated insecurities rather than traditional presidential fears. They outline ten

Key takeaways

• Michael Wolff reveals Trump's team aggressively pressured the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham to bury his college transcripts to prevent exposure of academic struggles.
• Steve Bannon reportedly identified Trump's college records as the one leverage point that could truly damage him, unlike financial or personal scandals.

Main topics

• Psychological insecurities and fear of being seen as stupid
• Academic records, literacy fears, and information phobia

Notable quotes

"You don't think someone's been elected to president of the United States... you don't think that they're an idiot, someone who knows nothing about nothing."

Conclusion

The episode provides a psychological framework for understanding Trump

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Top of his list, top of the things that plagues him is being seen as stupid. For one reason, because he is stupid. You know, and I think that he probably does have some learning disability. That is one of the roots of his major insecurities. You don't think someone's been elected to president of the United States. I mean, they can be many things, but you don't think that they're an idiot. Someone who knows nothing about nothing. That really is Trump. Speaker 2 (0:31) He's not like other presidents. He's not like other people. Speaker 2 (0:38) Michael, we Speaker 1 (0:39) must Speaker 2 (0:40) remind people we will be at the Terragram Ballroom in LA, October the 20th at, I guess, 7pm Pacific time, obvi. If you would like to come and join us and see Michael completely unplugged, no holds barred, unedited by moi, he will be in full form. And you can buy tickets at beast.pub slash ith live. That's beast.pub slash ith live. Or you can go to Ticketmaster and just tap in inside Trump's head. Are you looking forward to it? Speaker 1 (1:18) I am. Speaker 2 (1:19) Good. I am also looking forward to it. I'm very much looking forward to meeting people. There are some meet and greets, which I'm very excited about because there's nothing more fun than talking to people who've actually listened to us. Pressing the Speaker 1 (1:32) flesh. Pressing the flesh running for president. Speaker 2 (1:35) Oh, Speaker 1 (1:36) you Speaker 2 (1:36) are running for president. Michael wants to run I guess as an independent, right? Speaker 1 (1:41) That's a writer as Speaker 2 (1:43) a writer as a writer the Speaker 1 (1:45) first writer candidate Speaker 2 (1:48) Well, they all go on monetize their writing afterwards right with jr. Moringa whoever who co-wrote Obama's memoir did he write himself? He probably did write himself didn't need two volumes Yeah, Speaker 1 (2:00) no, I think he did probably any person who claims to yes All Speaker 2 (2:04) right. So today we have a special at day, but they still Speaker 1 (2:08) have a lot of people around them Speaker 2 (2:09) What's this? Well Speaker 1 (2:12) the people they say they call out I have no one around me. I write I write But these people have, oh, what's good? Can you get me the thing? And remember what I said about that? Get me that. So it's a different writing experience. Different Speaker 2 (2:26) writing experience. Fair. And don't forget, please subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast. We are going to have, I hope, a conversation I've really been looking forward to having for some time, actually. We're really going to go deep, deep, deep into Trump's head where we go three times a week. to try and explain a president who really rules with no regard for anybody else. Is that fair? Just to remind people why we do this journey every week. Speaker 1 (2:52) No regard to anyone else, no regard to anything that has ever been done before, no regard to what will be done in the future, no regard to literally anything. It is just one man who exists in his own bubble. fantasy world which somehow has become Our world. Speaker 2 (3:17) All our world. All our world. So we were, I mean, obviously Michael and I have endless conversations when we don't have microphones in front of us and we try and pare everything down when we do have actual podcast conversations. So we leave out the dull bits. But one conversation we've been having is about what is Trump actually afraid of? Is there anything he's afraid of? He behaves as if he's not remotely afraid of anything, including... a drubbing at the midterm elections. And so Michael made a list of the 10 things that he thought Donald Trump was actually afraid of. Speaker 1 (3:55) Well, and I made this list counter to the list that you made. Speaker 2 (4:01) And Speaker 1 (4:02) the list that Joanna made was a list of things that most people would be afraid of. Speaker 1 (4:08) Including death. Including Speaker 2 (4:11) looking. I wondered if he looked at Mitch McConnell and thought, oh, that could be me. Speaker 1 (4:16) And the thing that I try to say in this list and things that I try to say all of the time is that Donald Trump is not like you, nor I, nor anyone we know or have ever known. Yeah, you Speaker 2 (4:35) sent me back a text saying stop trying to normalize him. Of course, he's not afraid of any of these things that I'd listed. Instead, you came up with a much more interesting list. And then we thought, well, we should do this as a special episode of the podcast because what he's afraid of. Well, it illuminates so much about him. Okay, so the first thing you say about him is, well, the first thing is... Speaker 1 (5:03) You have to, because our printer doesn't work, so we can't print out... Still doesn't Speaker 2 (5:07) work. Our printer still doesn't work. So I'm going to show it to you on my iPad. Yes. But... Speaker 1 (5:12) He is, I mean, I think top of his list, top of the things that... that plagues him is being seen as stupid. For one reason, because he is stupid. Speaker 2 (5:30) And we should say that the point of going through these fears is to understand why he is as he is, because actually he's a man that's been created through his fears. Speaker 1 (5:41) And all of his things, you know, of declaring himself a genius. Speaker 2 (5:46) A Speaker 1 (5:47) stable genius, Speaker 2 (5:48) a very stable genius. Speaker 1 (5:50) And he declared himself a stable, he said that after my book, Fire and Fury, came out, obviously kind of suggesting that he was less than a genius, much, much, much less than a genius. Speaker 1 (6:09) As a matter of fact, there was a moment I was trying to think at which point this was that Steve Bannon and I were talking about what Putin might have on Trump. And Bannon went through all the things dismissing them, you know, the pee tapes. If that came out, that really wouldn't bother him because Trump would just say, that's not me. Even if you saw Trump in the picture peeing on the mattress, he would just say, no, it's not me. Or whether there was financial stuff. Financial stuff doesn't bother him. All of those kinds of things. But then Bannon got to the point, he said, what I think Trump has on him are his college transcripts. And his college transcripts, which would be from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Speaker 2 (7:08) And Speaker 1 (7:09) in fact, during the campaign, during the 2016 campaign, there was a fear that those transcripts were going to come out. And then they came down very hard on the University of Pennsylvania and basically said, you know, we will take every action against you if those transcripts are not buried. always that kind of thing to be revealed as a person, as a dummy, because he is a dummy, because he doesn't, I mean, he has throughout his school years, we're always a complete catastrophe. I mean, his, you know, and I think that he probably does have some learning disability, which I think is very... Speaker 1 (7:57) You know, uncomfortable for him. I mean, he is he is that is one of the roots of his major insecurities. Speaker 2 (8:08) If you've ever landed in another country and immediately started desperately searching for airport Wi-Fi or realised you now have to figure out how to get a local SIM, there's a much easier way. It's called Saley, the eSIM solution from the security pros behind NordVPN. You can get affordable data in more than 200 destinations. And setting it up is incredibly simple. You download the Saley app. Pick a plan, install the eSIM and it activates when you arrive. There are plans for pretty much every kind of traveller, from a few gigabytes to unlimited data. Saley goes beyond just getting you online. It can block malicious sites, trackers and annoying ads. And you can track your remaining data right from your phone. You can also earn Saley credits when you buy a plan or refer a friend, which you can put towards future travel. Download Saley in the app. store or by scanning the QR code now on screen. Use code BEAST at checkout to get 15 % off your first purchase. That's 15%. The details are in the podcast episode description box. Speaker 2 (9:24) Why hasn't Fordham, his first university, released the transcripts? Do you think anybody's asked Fordham? Because he went to Fordham first and then he transferred into the undergraduate program at Wharton, right? Speaker 1 (9:38) I think because he's Donald Trump. He threatens you. He'd tie up anybody in litigation. I'm sure that he has already gone and secured these transcripts at both Fordham and the University of Pennsylvania. Speaker 2 (9:55) Okay. I Speaker 1 (9:56) mean, you know, he doesn't, we haven't seen his tax returns either. I mean, he's pretty good at Speaker 2 (10:00) this. It's incredible how we haven't seen his tax returns. We haven't seen his high school transcripts. We haven't seen either of his college transcripts. They have been so successful in locking that stuff down. And you know, if they were good, he Speaker 1 (10:15) would have floated them out there immediately. Well, you know that they're not good. Right, right. Well, Speaker 2 (10:19) can you also tell the anecdote of the guy that when you've... When you were at the beginning of writing Fire and Fury and you're wrestling trying to understand, as many people have done, what actually is going on inside Donald Trump's head? And someone says to you, oh, you don't get it. Tell that story. Speaker 1 (10:39) Okay. So one of the Trump people, a guy by the name of Sam Nunberg. And Sam Nunberg was really one of Trump's first political... hires. Sam used to work for Roger Stone, and that's how he came into the Trump orbit. And he became really Trump's first political operative. And then they