President Donald Trump’s inner circle is scrambling behind the scenes, according to journalist and Trump biographer Michael Wolff. Wolff, whose name appeared frequently in the recently released Jeffrey Epstein emails, shared his perspective during a podcast on Saturday, describing a level of anxiety among Trump’s insiders that he hasn’t seen before.
Wolff, who has written four books on Trump and has spoken with Epstein numerous times in the past, said the president has been deeply rattled by the renewed attention surrounding Epstein’s connections. When asked how Trump believes he will “ride this one out,” Wolff didn’t hesitate. “This has been enormously frustrating to him for a very long time,” he said.
With the resurfacing of old links and the scrutiny that followed the email release, Wolff suggested that Trump is struggling to regain control. “The fact that this is all coming home to roost, I think, is completely freaking him out,” Wolff said. “He doesn’t know what to do… he has no strategy. He feels cornered.”
Wolff also described a chaotic atmosphere within Trump’s team. Those closest to the president, he said, are trying to understand the political implications but feel shut out of crucial conversations. “His sense of the people at the White House is that they are ‘frantic,’” Wolff explained. He said advisers recognize how damaging the revived Epstein narrative could be, yet Trump is keeping them in the dark. According to Wolff, they are “telling them nothing.”
The uncertainty extends to what Trump’s own staff actually knows about his past with Epstein. Wolff claimed that the political version of Trump’s history has been “cleaned up” for years, leaving his advisers without a clear picture. “The people in the White House genuinely don’t know what happened with Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump,” he said in the weekend video. “They don’t know because that has been whitewashed out of the Donald Trump political narrative.”
Wolff’s comments add to a growing list of voices weighing in on the fallout from the email release. While Trump’s public statements remain focused on campaigning and legal battles, Wolff suggests that, privately, the president and his circle are bracing for impact. Whether the issue fades or becomes a larger political storm remains to be seen, but Wolff believes Trump’s reaction speaks volumes about the pressure he’s under now.