The author of an explosive new book on Donald Trump has made fresh claims about the US president’s mental state – and warned Mr Trump would only honour a special relationship with Britain if the country “gives him what he wants”.
In an interview with the Mail On Sunday, US journalist Michael Wolff spoke of the provocative accusations made in his book, Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House, which painted a picture of a dysfunctional presidency.
Describing Mr Trump as a “rich wastrel” who was “bad at school”, Mr Wolff said some White House officials wondered whether the president had learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), or even the early stages of dementia.
He told the paper: “They discuss it at the White House: his apparent inability to read one page or one paragraph. He can’t even follow a PowerPoint.
“Everyone around him says the symptoms have got worse in the year he has been in office – his attention span has lessened, his verbal patterns are more peculiar.”
His comments come after the president unleashed a tirade against his critics on Twitter, dismissing allegations he is unfit to be president and proclaiming himself to be a “very stable genius”.
In his latest online onslaught, Mr Trump accused his critics of trying to make an issue of his “mental stability and intelligence”.
In his interview with the Mail on Sunday, Mr Wolff, 64, warned that Mr Trump “wants to be the centre of attention all the time”, and said his foreign policy was “simple”: “You Brits suck up to him and enlist in whatever geopolitical fantasy he has going, he’ll give you what you want – though only if it doesn’t hurt him. It is not so much vengeance, rather ‘you flatter me and I’ll flatter you’.”
He added: “If the Brits give him what he wants he will value the Brits.”
Suggesting that the president had no idea what Brexit was just two weeks before the 2016 referendum, the political writer also claimed Mr Trump would “try to Trumpalise the Queen and Buckingham Palace” on any future state visit to Britain, and that he saw the Queen “in reality TV show terms”.
Donald Trump has hit out at Michael Wolff’s claims in the book Fire And Fury (John Stillwell/PA)
Mr Wolff’s book has shot to the top of the online bestseller lists in the US, while White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has continued to dismiss many of the claims which have gripped the American public.
Speaking on US television on Friday, she said that Mr Wolff had never interviewed Mr Trump despite having “repeatedly begged to see the president”, describing him as “a guy who made up a lot of stories to try and sell books”.
Mr Wolff, however, insisted that he “absolutely” spoke to the president, adding whether he “realised it was an interview or not, I don’t know, but it was certainly not off the record”.