According to author Michael Wolff, President Donald Trump let slip what’s actually gnawing at him during a Monday press scrum aboard Air Force One — and it’s not just routine political BS.
On camera with reporters, Trump exploded with defiant denials about his connection to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein as the ongoing release of Epstein files continues to make headlines. Those files include thousands of mentions of Trump, his properties, and his world, yet the president has repeatedly tried to wave them off with precisely the kind of bluster that to Wolff signals genuine anxiety.
“I have nothing to hide. I’ve been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump barked before accusing Wolff — whom he’s publicly feuded with — of conspiring with Epstein against him.
That rant, Wolff said this week on The Daily Beast podcast he co-hosts, tells a different story.
Wolff argues Trump’s quick escalation to personal attacks and conspiracy framing reveals deeper nerves over what the Epstein documents might truly disclose — especially as Wolff’s own legal entanglements with the Trumps heat up. In particular, Wolff is suing First Lady Melania Trump after she threatened him with a $1 billion defamation suit over his comments linking the Trumps to Epstein.
“This lawsuit is a problem for them,” Wolff said. “They screwed up to get themselves in a position where I could pursue them.”
During the Air Force One exchange, Trump doubled down, painting Wolff as part of a broader conspiracy and claiming Wolff was “totally exonerated” from any Epstein tie — even though the New York Times-reported tranche of files contains more than 38,000 references to Trump and related terms.
Wolff insists that Trump’s fixation on his podcast and the lawsuit isn’t random noise; it’s a psychological tell. “He’s kind of focused in on that, and when he focuses in on things, actually, he has an antenna for what is true,” Wolff said — interpreting Trump’s repetitive denials as evidence that the Epstein files are striking a nerve.
In other words? Wolff says Trump’s performance doesn’t read like genuine confidence so much as thinly veiled dread.
And the podcast’s content suggests a broader theory: as new pieces of the Epstein archive emerge, Trump — far from shrugging it off — appears to be using personal attacks and denial as his strategy of choice. Wolff doesn’t just frame this as politics; he frames it as a man badly rattled by what could surface next.
Watch the video below:
