'He is deranged': Author interviews Trump after Jan. 6 and concludes he's too dumb to plot insurrection

Author Michael Wolff interviewed Donald Trump following the events of Jan. 6 and concluded that the former president was too "deranged" to understand that he was inciting violence at the time.

Wolff spoke to Der Spiegel about his new book, "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency," which chronicles Trump's role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Wolff said that the former president agreed to sit with him for an interview even though he has written two books that were critical of him.

"Trump told his people that guy – me – gets big ratings, so let's see him. For Trump the goal is almost entirely the media attention. Good, bad, indifferent, doesn't matter," Wolff explained. "It's all about hearing the sound of his own voice. The people he talks to are ultimately interchangeable."

Wolff told the magazine that "not one single person" in Trump's orbit -- including his family -- believed that he won the 2020 election.

The author said he concluded that Trump never purposely attempted a coup on Jan. 6.

"There is no logic to this. There was no plan," Wolff said. "He is deranged. The guy can't get from the beginning of the sentence to the end of a sentence. Everybody knows there was no election fraud, except Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. It's like they're on some other planet."

"Jan. 6 is still confusing to him," he added. "He asks, who were these people? He calls them 'the great unwashed.' He doesn't really acknowledge Jan. 6 as it related to him. He only wanted Vice President Mike Pence to reject the election results in Congress, so he could continue to be president."

Read Wolff's entire interview with Der Spiegelhere.