Trump Bristles When Olivia Nuzzi Confronts Him With Quote From Adviser Calling Him ‘Thirsty’ and Desperate to be ‘Relevant’
New York Magazine‘s Olivia Nuzzi confronted former President Donald Trump with a stinging blind quote from a current adviser who called him “thirsty” and desperate for the limelight.
Nuzzi is out with a new deep-dive Intelligencer profile that includes an interview with Trump and a collection of quotes from figures close to him, covering the time from his much-derided campaign launch, which was followed by a much-condemned anti-Semitic dinner date and a much-derided “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” that turned out to be the launch of a “Digital Trading Card” NFT collection.
The profile paints the vivid picture of a fading and abandoned Trump shambling through life at Mar-a-Lago like an orange Norma Desmond, and Trump is portrayed as characteristically defensive.
It’s tough to gauge in print, but one exchange that seems to exemplify the message of Nuzzi’s piece is when she shops an especially brutal quote to Trump:
“He doesn’t have anything else to do,” one adviser told me. “What else can he do? Why did he see Kanye? He wants to be relevant and wants the limelight. He’s thirsty.”
Trump did not like this. “I think I’ve always been relevant. Like, I’ve been relevant from a very young age. I’ve been in the mix, to be honest,” he said.
Nuzzi also takes pains to point out another theme that ran through their interview, which appears to have been edited rather heavily for brevity. On whether legal jeopardy factored into his decision to launch the campaign:
“That didn’t play into it,” Trump said. He did not like this, either. “I did nothing wrong,” he said. Had his lawyers given him that advice, as some of his advisers told me they had? “No,” he said. “I don’t know how you get indicted if you’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
He repeated that phrase, “I’ve done nothing wrong,” nine times in 30 minutes. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong.
Trump also weighs in on Ron DeSantis, his dinner with Kanye West, and much more in the sprawling piece, whose title alone is kind of a ride: “The Final Campaign – Inside Donald Trump’s sad, lonely, thirsty, broken, basically pretend run for reelection. (Which isn’t to say he can’t win.)”
