Biographer Michael Wolff, whose earlier books on Trump include the bestselling "Fire and Fury," has recounted an exchange with Steve Bannon — President Donald Trump's former campaign manager and chief White House strategist, now the host of his own streaming show — in which the two men tried to work out why Trump is so easily controlled by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Writing in his latest column, Wolff observed that Trump continues to excuse Putin no matter his behavior, and that the reason remains a puzzle even to Trump's inner circle, Bannon included. Wolff said he and Bannon watched Trump's 2018 news conference with Putin in Helsinki, where Trump held a private meeting with the Kremlin leader and then announced that Putin had told him he had nothing to do with the 2016 election — a statement that stood in contrast to the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that Russia had interfered in the vote.

According to Bannon, Trump looked like "a beaten dog" as he stood next to Putin.

"Bannon often ran through all the scenarios, financial and sexual, that might have put Trump's b—s in Putin's grip, but always concluding that, this being Trump, there was no grift or deviancy that he couldn't wave away," Wolff wrote. "Were the pee tape to have actually surfaced, Trump, with practiced innocence, would merely say: 'I don't know who that is. It isn't me. Look at that, not me at all. Fake news.'"

Bannon even joked to Wolff that Putin might be holding Trump's transcripts from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and threatening to make them public. Wolff called that the "one humiliation" Trump may not be able to handle.

Yet Trump continues to defer to Putin at every opportunity. The latest example is an effort to buy a small amount of diesel fuel from Russia and hand over $4 billion for Putin's ongoing war, despite sanctions on Russia — an effort whose compatibility with those sanctions remains an open question.

Wolff believes part of the explanation is Trump's payback for the Russia investigation during his first term — the special counsel inquiry led by Robert Mueller that shadowed much of Trump's first two years in office. Trump himself was never investigated, but 34 people and three companies were convicted after that probe. Trump and his allies demanded a special counsel to investigate the investigators of the Russia case. The effort produced little: then-Attorney General William Barr handed the assignment to prosecutor John Durham, only one low-level FBI lawyer admitted to a single count of making a false statement, and Durham, as special counsel, could not secure any other convictions for crimes in Mueller's Russia probe.

Even revenge, Wolff argues, is secondary to Trump's real goal: money.

Wolff recalled his conversations with Jeffrey Epstein, the sex trafficker and former friend of Trump's, who died in a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Trump was notorious for bankruptcy filings connected to failed business ventures — he filed six times on behalf of five companies — until he reached a point where few banks were willing to lend him money.

"Here was the advent of the parallel, unbanked economy," Epstein said in a discussion with Wolff, according to the column.

"Donald and I," Wolff recalled Epstein laughing, "certainly understand the opportunity."

"Remember, nobody wanted to deal with Donald. Why would you? My God," Epstein told Wolff.

Wolff explained that "all this sketchy money—and the sketchy money was suddenly rivaling the legit money—needed people who weren't asking questions. Sketchy money needed sketchy partners." On that account, Trump moved to snag a piece of the Putin empire.

So far, Trump has profited between $2 billion and $4 billion in his second term, according to Wolff, who reported that White House officials told him Trump is aiming for $20 billion by the time he leaves office.

"And he'd probably like to put in place deals that, when he returns to Mar-a-Lago, can generate for the Trump family $100 million," Wolff said.

It may explain why his sons created a new crypto bank, World Liberty Financial, launched in 2024.