There's one trick President Donald Trump relies on when the whole world seems to be crumbling around him, but that trick may now be one of his many Achilles heels, according to one expert.
Journalist Michael Wolff, who has written four books about Trump, said during a new episode of "Inside Trump's Head," a podcast he co-hosts with Joana Coles of The Daily Beast, that Trump often relies on his strongman persona to "pull him through" when times get tough. Wolff said Trump learned early on in his reality television days that the strongman persona captivates an audience.
While that trick worked for a time, Wolff said there's evidence that it's not working as well as it has in the past. For instance, public polling shows Trump's approval rating on issues like immgiration have cratered, due in part to the authoritarian way immigration raids have been conducted across the country.
At the same time, no matter how tough and strong Trump tries to look, that persona hasn't changed anything for average Americans, many of whom are still begging the president to lower the cost of living.
"First thing, the largest Achilles heel is the economy," Wolff said. "And then there's Minneapolis. Then there's Greenland, which is, at this point, probably an effort to distract from Minneapolis, which was itself an effort to distract from [Jeffrey] Epstein."
"The logic of this is obvious. He's a fool and he may be a madman in everything that he does is in some profound way counterproductive," he continued. "And yet I just want to warn here ... because all logic would say he is crumbling. Except for the fact that this strong man persona pulls him through."