Donald Trump is furious over a report that quotes multiple sources within his circle giving a cruel and miserable account of his post-presidency life.
The sources claimed to New York Magazine's Olivia Nuzzi that the 76-year-old former president's world has gotten 'so small' and that he barely leaves Mar-a-Lago these days.
The quotes from Trump world paint the former president as an isolated figure who didn't want to run for the White House again – but had to keep to his word to 'prove the haters wrong.'
'It seems like a joke,' an ex–Trump loyalist and former White House official said. 'It feels like he's going through the motions because he said he would.'
Trump announced his third bid for office last month but since then has kept a very low profile. He has not traveled outside of Florida, according to the sources, and has held none of his trademark rallies since his long-anticipated announcement.
His campaign claims that the former president plans to start laying more of a groundwork for his policy proposals for 2024 as well as building out his campaign team and ramping up his media interviews.
'The Fake & Corrupt News is only getting worse!' Trump lamented in a Monday Truth Social post about the report and brought into question the credibility of Nuzzi. 'As an example, I agreed to do a short telephone interview for a once very good, but now on its 'last legs' and failing, New York Magazine.'
'The reporter was a shaky & unattractive wack job, known as 'tough' but dumb as a rock, who actually wrote a decent story about me a long time ago. Her name, Olivia Nuzzi,' he wrote. 'Anyway, the story was Fake News, her 'anonymous sources' don't exist (true with many writers), and I'm happily fighting hard for our GREAT USA!'
A few hours after the post from Trump, Nuzzi responded with a subtweet that had no text and simply included two images of the ex-president staring at the sun during a solar eclipse.
Sources claim in some brutal quotes that Trump mostly keeps to himself, staying within the walls of his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida besides leaving to play golf at his club in Doral.
'He just goes, plays golf, comes back, and f***s off,' one adviser told Nuzzi. 'He has retreated to the golf course and to Mar-a-Lago.'
'His world has gotten much smaller,' they added. 'His world is so, so small.'
Another adviser told Nuzzi of his recent controversial meetings at Mar-a-Lago: 'He doesn't have anything else to do. What else can he do? Why did he see Kanye? He wants to be relevant and wants the limelight. He's thirsty.'
Trump pushed back on the criticism presented to him from Nuzzi, claiming he has 'always been relevant.'
'Like, I've been relevant from a very young age,' the former president added. 'I've been in the mix, to be honest.'
Since announcing his candidacy for a third time, Trump has barely set foot outside the perimeter of Mar-a-Lago – and for at least 28 days has not left the state of Florida at all.
But Trump rejected the idea that he doesn't leave his home.
'Sometimes I don't even stay at Mar-a-Lago,' he told Nuzzi, adding when pressed on the matter that he is 'outside of Mar-a-Lago quite a bit.'
'I'm always largely outside of Mar-a-Lago at meetings and various other things and events,' he said. 'I'm down in Miami. I go to Miami, I go to different places in Florida.'
Trump, Nuzzi notes, is referencing his trip to his golf course at Trump National Doral Miami.
Sources claim that Trump thrives when he's on the defensive and wielding off attack lines against him.
'That's the Trump you want: You want him defensive, you want him belligerent,' said a member of Trump's 2024 campaign staff.
Nuzzi noted, however, that her discussion with Trump was not indicative of that figure. She claimed: 'He sounded old all of a sudden. Tired. There was a heaviness to him. A hollowness, too. He will turn 77 in June.'
Trump's apparent slow-down comes as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was just reelected in the 2022 elections, has emerged as a potential favorite for the GOP nomination in the 2024 presidential election.
But the former president insisted he isn't worried about DeSantis – or any other challenger, for that matter.
'I don't think anybody can beat me in a primary,' Trump insisted.
When asked why he is running again, Trump said he wants to 'put my cards on the table.'
An adviser put it bluntly, claiming that the 'magic is gone' when it comes to Trump and the MAGA movement as a massively popular subset of the Republican Party.
'It's not there,' they told Nuzzi. 'In this business, you can have it and have it so hot and it can go overnight and it's gone and you can't get it back. I think we're just seeing it's gone. The magic is gone.'
Specifically, the adviser said that it's proof that the movement is fading when the headliners and VIPs of events – and specifically Trump's 2024 campaign announcement – are 'D-list MAGA' figures.
'When Seb Gorka and Raheem Kassam and Kash Patel and Devin Nunes are your stars, that's the D-list. It was D-list MAGA. When Brick Man — that freak, Brick Man — is in the VIP seating, we've got a problem.'
The adviser was referencing a man who wears a suit with a brick wall pattern to every Trump rally as a throw-back to the former president's 2016 campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico to stop illegal immigration.
'If you're looking for an indication of how bad things are going,' the adviser added, 'it's Brick Man not just being there but being in the VIP section.'
'Don Jr.'s not there!' they added of the 64-minute announcement speech.