President Donald Trump’s biographer Michael Wolff says the MAGA figurehead locked horns with White House staff over his bedroom arrangements on at least two occasions in his first administration.
On the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head podcast, the author said Trump installed a lock on his bedroom door in the White House against the wishes of the Secret Service. This came to be such an issue for the agents that it ignited a blowup over security.
A Secret Service stands as President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn to Marine One on April 05, 2019 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“This was a confrontation,” remembered Wolff, adding that the Secret Service “actually took it off, demanded that it be taken off.”
On another occasion, Wolff recounted that Trump blew up after the White House’s domestic staff changed his sheets. “He had a fit,” said Wolff. “What that’s about, I have no idea.”
Wolff went on to explain how the way Trump treats the Oval Office also differs from previous administrations.
“It’s like a bus station, it’s just filled with people, 20 people, 30 people, more. They bring in chairs. Almost anyone can come in and sit down and Trump is behind the desk talking, talking,” Wolff said.
“It’s like a monologue… And sometimes it’s kind of funny, he’s trying to make jokes, or then digressing into, you know, have no idea where. And everybody is sitting there pretending to listen.”
The subject of Trump’s sleeping habits came up as Wolff and Inside Trump’s Head host Joanna Coles theorized what Trump is really like behind closed doors—fresh off his flop meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that he has attempted to paint as a success.
President Donald Trump “had a fit” after White House staff changed his sheets in his first term, Wolff said. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
“I have wondered from time to time, how does Trump go to bed at night?” said Coles. “He doesn’t appear to have any friends. His colleagues around him all hate him, and they hate each other. When he actually goes into his bedroom at night, and he gets into bed, what’s going on in here? Is he still talking? Does he talk himself to sleep?”
“He’s on the phone, too. I mean, I think until the last possible moment. He’s talking, talking to somebody,” said Wolff.
Wolff said what everyone learns about the MAGA figurehead when they finally meet him is that he is a talker—so much that it’s difficult to get a word in edgewise.
“When I say that, I don’t mean that as an exaggeration. I don’t mean that as something we might say about this gasbag or that gasbag. This is not just gasbaggery. This is, there is no breath,” said Wolff.
Wolff continued by telling Coles: “One of the things that when he speaks, what is inside the head comes out of the mouth. So whatever confusion, chaos, churning, past grievances, comes out and it doesn’t stop
“So you will sit with him, and you could sit with him for hours, and you will never, ever, ever have a moment to say anything.”
When asked bluntly if Trump “ever listens,” Wolff said “no.”
The Daily Beast has contacted White House representatives for comment. The White House’s communications director, Steven Cheung, has previously described Wolff as “a sack of s—” and said, “He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
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