Trump official dismisses claims that insiders question president's intelligence
President Donald Trump delivers a speech during the National Republican Congressional Committee annual fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C., on March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
White House Communications Director Steve Cheung lashed out at biographer Michael Wolff after the Daily Beast published accounts of President Donald Trump's closest associates privately questioning the president's intellectual capabilities.
Wolff recounted conversations with Sam Nunberg, Trump's longtime confidant known as the "Trump whisperer," in which Nunberg called Trump "an idiot."
When confronted, Nunberg claimed the comment was made long ago and that Trump "proved me wrong" by winning re-election in 2024. Steve Bannon, a senior Trump adviser featured in Wolff's 2018 book "Fire and Fury," also privately held the identical view.
Bannon attributed Trump's resistance to expert input to school-related trauma, explaining that Trump rejected learning throughout his life after negative academic experiences.
Rather than addressing Wolff's substantive claims, Cheung responded by attacking the biographer as a "fraud" with "Trump Derangement Syndrome" and a "peanut-sized brain."