Trump apparently couldn't recognize his old friends while on holiday vacation at Mar-a-Lago

President Trump and family at Mar-a-Lago.

(Image credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

published 4 January 2018

Michael Wolff's forthcoming book on the Trump White House has riveted political observers with its juicy revelations about the administration. But in a column published at The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday, Wolff reveals even more details about the inner workings of President Trump's team — including how staff members were "painfully aware" that the commander in chief's mental faculties were deteriorating.

"It used to be inside of 30 minutes he'd repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories," Wolff writes, explaining how aides became accustomed to certain ticks from Trump. But eventually, Wolff says, the repetitions occurred "within 10 minutes. Indeed, many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions — he just couldn't stop saying something."

In fact, Trump's mental lapses have become so dire, in Wolff's telling, that he "failed to recognize a succession of old friends" while on holiday vacation last month at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. "My indelible impression of talking to [Trump's staff] and observing them through much of the first year of his presidency," Wolff concludes, "is that they all — 100 percent — came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job."