DOWNFALL is a new series meant to highlight the fast-ebbing power of the Trump presidency. For the first year of his return to office, he surely appeared to be the most powerful president in modern history. But that may have been an illusion born of our shock and surprise—and his delight in causing shock and surprise. Now age, incompetence, overreaching, and the realities of lame-duck incumbency undermine the strongman’s demands and fearsomeness. And worst of all, he—even he—begins to know it.

Much of this series will be based on the conversations I continue to have with people around Trump—conversations ongoing for ten years and through four books. Here is, in a sense, pages of my notebook, material that will likely inform a future book, real-time vignettes, anecdotes, and observations that might reveal something of how an 80-year-old president, having reached the pinnacle of worldwide power and fame, is seeing it slowly and surely slip from his grasp.

A problem with politics is obviously that it allowed Donald Trump to become president. But it is hard not to conclude too that the problem with politics is politicians. Any politician.

Keir Starmer, the left-leaning technocrat elected as Prime Minister in the U.K. two years ago with a stunning majority—but ever uncertain and timid in the job—is out, resigning in the face of his party’s clear wish that he had never existed.

But similarly, Trump, Starmer’s diametric opposite—the shameless performer, with an absolute command of the stage, and no hesitation or ambivalence at all—has reached the nadir of his popularity. He now faces a midterm ostracism, and his party’s secret hope for his sudden death. Indeed, he has already, once before, in the face of wide discontentment, been tossed from office.

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DOWNFALL is a new series meant to highlight the fast-ebbing power of the Trump presidency. For the first two years of his return to office, he surely appeared to be the most powerful president in modern history. But that may have been an illusion born of our shock and surprise—and his delight in causing shock and surprise. Now age, incompetence, overreaching, and the realities of lame-duck incumbency undermine the strongman’s demands and fearsomeness. And worst of all, he—even he—begins to know it.

Much of this series will be based on the conversations I continue to have with people around Trump—conversations ongoing for ten years and through four books. Here is, in a sense, pages of my notebook, material that will likely inform a future book, real-time vignettes, anecdotes, and observations that might reveal something of how an 80-year-old man, having reached the pinnacle of worldwide power and fame, is seeing it slowly and surely slip from his grasp.

This piece describes a late-night conversation Trump had with a friend. It is, in fact, a reflection of multiple recent calls Trump has had. One caller is specified here in an effort to mask the identity of any one of the callers. But in each instance, the callers reported Trump’s similar emphasis—and, indeed, with Trump, one caller easily stands in for many because he repeats himself so insistently and reliably.

Trump was sitting up in bed and on the phone, cursing his pillows, which had become too soft, and the city of Washington. It was poorly planned, looked terrible, and its upkeep was atrocious. This was a low-level rage. On the one side, there was a world that got in his way, and on the other side, the patently obvious better, more beautiful, more efficient world if it just let him do what he wanted to do.

His polls were tanking; the midterms looking bleak; the Iranians intractable; inflation rising… But, apparently, most of all, at the top of his mind, was that Washington, D.C., needed a total makeover.

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Donald Trump’s end is going to happen. We’re seeing it now. Below the surface of his anger, threats, and bloviation, it’s all coming apart: national fury over the economy, the war, his grift, masked men in the streets, his defacing of Washington, D.C.

And, of course, there are his terrible, ever-sinking poll numbers.

DOWNFALL is a new series on HOWL: Tales of Our Time here on Substack. It will be a regular report on the aggression, incompetence, and self-destructiveness that is sinking Trump. This, of course, does not mean that Trump ceases to be dangerous. The more threatened he is, the more dangerous he becomes.

But also, the more absurd—like a UFC fight on the White House lawn. If you’re a student of Trump absurdity—and who isn’t at this point—DOWNFALL is a running portrait of a kind of logic and behavior never before seen in American politics.

Subscribe on Substack to HOWL and get the regular DOWNFALL reports, with up-to-the-minute coverage of my conversations with the people close to Trump—conversations that I’ve continued to have through the ten years and the four books (FIRE AND FURY, SIEGE, LANDSLIDE, ALL OR NOTHING) I’ve written since Trump took hold of the national stage.

DOWNFALL is, too, a literal death watch, as the 80-year-old, obese, sleepless, unfit man, consuming his mortal fast-food diet and overdose of aspirin, seems to do everything possible to kill himself.

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But DOWNFALL is also about what terrible things he will do as fate closes in on him.

He doesn’t retreat; he doesn’t course correct; he only doubles down.

We are now seeing his kick-off midterm strategy: he can’t win the election—so he will wage an angry, aggressive, possibly violent campaign against the election itself. As always, it is Trump against the system. He believes he wins, or at least gets a draw, because he is louder, more outlandish, more bilious, more frightening than any response the system can offer.

And then there is the grift.

And Melania—that lurking threat.

And his next invasion—Cuba, likely, replete with Trump casinos.

And then there is his putative successor, saddled not only with the Trump legacy, but with Trump himself, who will do anything to remain Donald Trump and undermine anyone who might think they can replace him.

There is the public drama. DOWNFALL is the backstage account.

Along with access to the DOWNFALL newsletter with your paid subscription to HOWL, you also get access to the “Epstein Diaries,” an account of what I learned in my interviews with Epstein; synopses of the three-times-a-week top political podcast, “INSIDE TRUMP’S HEAD,” that I host with ; plus, frequent book recommendations, and access to comments and discussions.

I hope you’ll join me.