Biographer: Foreign dictators play Trump 'like A fiddle' exploiting weakness

REUTERS/Evan Vucci

What happened

Biographer Michael Wolff told The Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles that foreign leaders can exploit President Donald Trump through flattery because Trump refuses detailed briefings and enters high-stakes meetings without mastering the issues. Wolff’s “like a fiddle” assessment is his interpretation: he said foreign counterparts see a president from whom they can extract concessions, even calling Trump a “buffoon.”

AlterNet connected that criticism to Trump’s recent summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. According to the outlet, the meeting produced a two-month extension of an existing trade deal and lower tariffs on roughly $30 billion in goods. The White House also claimed Chinese commitments involving two fentanyl precursor chemicals, American agricultural products, Boeing aircraft and access for U.S. beef facilities.

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The report said the summit produced no movement on Taiwan, artificial intelligence or Iran. It described Trump’s public activities with Xi as emphasizing construction, the military and a National Archives visit, while the administration faced a much broader diplomatic agenda.

The power is presidential

The central fact is not that aides struggle to hold Trump’s attention. It is that Trump possesses the institutional authority to set tariffs, direct foreign policy and speak for the United States while, according to Wolff, refusing the preparation needed to exercise that power competently.

That distinction matters. Staff members can compress briefing books into two points, but they cannot make the president absorb them. Foreign leaders can flatter him, but they did not give him this authority. Voters elected Trump, and the political apparatus surrounding him continues to convert his preferences into state action.

Ignorance is a choice

AlterNet’s framing sometimes drifts toward incapacity: staff must “untangle” problems and somehow make a difficult workload comprehensible. Wolff’s account is sharper. He alleges refusal—Trump “adamantly” does not do the work—not mere difficulty processing information.

If that account is accurate, treating the problem as an eccentric learning style misdirects responsibility. A president who declines preparation before consequential negotiations is making a governing decision. The predictable consequence is that policy becomes vulnerable to vanity, improvisation and whatever fragments advisers can place before him.

The aides are enablers, not safeguards

The White House staff described here has adapted the presidency to Trump rather than requiring Trump to meet the presidency’s demands. Reducing complex negotiations to one or two points may be operationally necessary, but it also normalizes the underlying refusal.

Wolff identifies the rationalization: Trump was elected twice, so insiders conclude that he “must know what he’s doing.” Electoral victory proves political effectiveness, not policy competence. Using the vote as an alibi allows officials to avoid confronting the risk they are managing—and helps conceal how much governing authority is being exercised through accommodation.

The scoreboard is incomplete

The announced trade extension, tariff reductions and claimed Chinese commitments are tangible outcomes. They do not, by themselves, establish Wolff’s broader contention that Xi manipulated Trump or that the United States “gave away the store.” AlterNet supplies no negotiating baseline, enforcement terms or evidence showing what China extracted in exchange.

That evidentiary gap weakens the article. The absence of movement on Taiwan, AI and Iran may show limited results, but it does not prove exploitation. A serious indictment of presidential vulnerability requires more than a biographer’s assessment paired with an inconclusive summit ledger.

Government by managed vanity

The larger pattern is an executive branch reorganized around one officeholder’s aversion to information. Subordinates simplify, foreign governments study his preferences, and public presentation competes with policy substance. The spectacle is not separate from governance; it shapes the conditions under which governing decisions are made.

The systemic failure is therefore larger than an allegedly inattentive president. It includes officials who accommodate the behavior, allies who excuse it as political instinct and coverage that personalizes an institutional breakdown as a colorful contest between a vain leader and clever foreigners. When enormous public power is filtered through flattery and abbreviated briefings, the consequences belong first to the people wielding and enabling that power—not to those skilled enough to notice the weakness.

Thanks to Alter Net

Source: Biographer: Foreign dictators play Trump ‘like A fiddle’ exploiting weakness

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