President Donald Trump's veteran biographer argues that the president is a man of questionable intelligence who, driven by a deep sense of insecurity and a desire to be the smartest person in the room, has systematically weeded out those with higher I.Q.s from his administration.

"He's filled the administration of the second term with unqualified people, morons of one variety or another, because he can't have people who are clearly smarter than he is," said Michael Wolff, a veteran reporter and author best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's political career, including a series of books about his turbulent first term. His 2018 book "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" was an early, controversial portrait of internal dysfunction in the first administration, and Wolff has drawn criticism over the years from some subjects and rival journalists who have questioned the sourcing and accuracy of his accounts — a consideration readers may weigh alongside his latest claims.

In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff and co-host Joanna Coles discussed why Trump appears to be surrounded by a wide circle of underqualified figures. According to Wolff, the dynamic comes down to appearance and control.

"Trump learned from his first term that even tenuously competent officials might challenge him — or decide they were smarter than he was. (It's a constant source of paranoia for the president.) So, this time around, he's stacked the deck with dummies, and is surrounding himself with people whose main qualification is loyalty. The result is an administration in which almost no one is willing to tell him he's wrong," said Wolff.

"People have a very hard time understanding the full sense of a man who is the president of the United States who is — as he's said about so many other people — as dumb as a brick himself," Wolff added.

Wolff noted that the president also lacks anyone around him who might think independently and have the wherewithal to handle the kind of high-capacity problems that typically confront a presidency.

"He can't have people who's smarter than he is, who — as they did in his first administration — went around saying what an idiot he is," Wolff told Coles.

As a case in point, Wolff pointed to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whom he described as an example of an official who makes even someone of Trump's low caliber feel smart. According to Wolff, Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon "wildly underqualified, and his own insecurity is exactly what makes him the ideal Secretary for Trump." Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army National Guard veteran, was confirmed to the post in January 2025 by a narrow Senate vote, with then-Vice President JD Vance breaking a tie — one of the tightest confirmation margins for a Cabinet-level nominee, reflecting concerns among some senators about his qualifications and management experience.

"Donald Trump's interest in Pete Hegseth is that he is a groveler and a flatterer," said Wolff. "Actually, during the first administration, many people at Fox News were intent upon sucking up to Donald Trump. You only got ratings during that period if you had a relationship with Donald Trump. But Pete Hegseth was looked at within the White House as the most hopelessly shameless person. He was a joke during the first administration, but not to Donald Trump. He told Trump exactly what he wanted to hear, and then shared war stories with him. And that's the moment in which they bonded. That's what catapulted him into this wholly unlikely position of being the Secretary of Defense."