In a recent interview with CNN anchor Kaitlin Collins, Donald Trump biographer Ramin Setoodeh claimed that the former president still believes he holds some influence over America’s foreign policy.
Knewz.com has learned that Setoodeh, who came into contact with the United States Republican front-runner after he left office in 2020, also noted that Trump was gloomy, except for when he spoke about his role as a host for The Apprentice.
Speaking on CNN’s The Source (via Mediaite), Setoodeh told Collins that the former president seemed to think he “still had some foreign policy powers.”
Posturing as an authoritative source of insights on the former president, thanks to his latest biography Apprentice in Wonderland, Setoodeh recalled “one day where he [Trump] told me he needed to go upstairs to deal with Afghanistan even though he clearly didn’t.”
“He told you that he– while you were interviewing him at Trump Tower, he told you he needed to go upstairs to deal with Afghanistan?” Collins asked, making sure that she heard right.
“With the quote, the Afghanistan, is how he referred to it,” Setoodeh confirmed.
As a nod to Trump’s attempts at holding onto post-White House relevance, many of the documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate were top secret and related to national security, per Associated Press.
The indictment for this infraction accused the former president of showing off a Pentagon “plan of attack” along with a top-secret map.
Setoodeh also noted that after interviewing Trump six times, his curiosity about the former president’s cognitive abilities was piqued.
He told Collins: “He [Trump] goes from one story to the next. He struggles with the chronology of events. He seems very upset that he wasn’t respected by certain celebrities in the White House.”
“And then he would go to the story of The Apprentice,” the U.S. TV show hosted by Trump for 14 seasons.
Setoodeh further noted that it was generally difficult to interview Trump and looked to Collins for affirmation.
“I mean, it’s a remarkable experience,” said Collins (via Mediaite)—who herself, had more than one run-in with the former president.
A most recent was on May 10, 2023, when the Town Hall event she hosted concluded with Trump calling her a “nasty person,” via CNN.
Prior to that, Collins clashed with the president at a press conference during his White House tenure in 2019.
There, she badgered him about his infamous threat to build a concrete wall between the U.S. and Mexico, per Politico.
Collins's sharp questions came just a year after the Trump administration banned her from a Rose Garden press conference for asking about his lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his affiliation with Russian Vladimir Putin.
Setoodeh is not the first to question Trump’s cognitive abilities.
A recent article by Knewz.com cited geriatrician, Dr. Landsverk, who compared him to the gaff-prone Joe Biden.
She noted that while Biden's errors were severe, he recovered quickly. On the other hand, Trump strayed from his topics and rambled on for extended periods.
