Trump still believed he had foreign policy powers after leaving White House, author claims

The author of a new book about Donald Trump’s background in reality television has recounted a disturbing anecdote alleging that the former president still believed he had foreign policy powers long after he had left the White House.

Interviewed by Kaitlan Collins on CNN’s The Source on Tuesday evening, Ramin Setoodeh, the co-editor-in-chief of Variety, was asked to sum up the six interviews he conducted with the Republican at Trump Tower in New York while researching his book Apprentice in Wonderland in the aftermath of Trump’s accrimonious departure from Washington DC.

“He was very deflated, he was conflicted, he was angry about the way in which the press had treated him,” Setoodeh answered.

“He still believed that he won the election and he was happiest when he talked to me about hosting The Apprentice. It was the thing that brought him the most joy. We watched clips of the show together, we watched the theme song and he really lit up. We watched the firing of Omarosa [Manigault Newman].

“And then we would talk about what he did at the White House and he would become gloomy and resentful and unhappy and refer to Afghanistan and Joe Biden but he also seemed to think he still had some foreign policy powers and there was one day where he told me he needed to go upstairs to deal with Afghanistan.”

Stunned, Collins asked Setoodeh to confirm what he had just said and was left briefly speechless before calling the story “remarkable”.

Steven Cheung, Trump’s 2024 communications director, has since told The Independent: “After recognizing the importance of The Apprentice, its significant cultural impact on a global scale, and President Trump’s remarkable role in forever changing the landscape of entertainment, this ‘writer’ has