The Daily Beast Podcast - Ailing Trump Knows His Reign Is Nearly Over: Wolff

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles as a winter blizzard barrels toward Washington and a political storm gathers inside the White House, where Trump’s second term is no longer defined by dominance but by drift, bad polls, and creeping loss of control. From a Davos appearance that Trump insists was triumphant—but clearly wasn’t—to a rare and dangerous moment of international pushback led by Canada’s Mark Carney and echoed across Europe, Wolff argues the strongman illusion is cracking. The question hanging over it all: Is this just another chaotic chapter—or are we witnessing the first chapter of the end of Trump’s reign? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We have a very good interview with a doctor, a pulmonary specialist who says that the reason he's taking the aspirin dose that he is, is that's a very standard treatment for someone who's had a stroke. We're in the middle of a pivotal campaign, conceivably one of the most important campaigns ever waged. This is potentially in November the end of Donald Trump. Michael. Joanna. I mean, all right, what are you hearing from inside the White House? I know you've been talking to people post-Davos to get the feedback. I am, but I think we ought to start with the weather,

because this is the only thing that anyone is going to be interested in is if this weather, if it produces what they say they are going to do, it is going to produce, not blizzard-like, but a blizzard over much of the country, including me, although not you. No, not me. I've scarped. I've literally done a Ted Cruz. I haven't gone to Cancun. I know Ted Cruz, even Ted Cruz is staying put. I've managed to hop on the last flight out of New York and I'm in Florida for who knows how long. Who knows if I'll ever come back, Michael. I am here at the beach waiting to be snowed in, the beach, the cold beach, not the warm beach. waiting at these snowed in. Yeah. And my children are gone.

There's no reason why I can't leave town for things like this. So the risk of sounding extremely bougie. I'm by the beach. Well, my children are getting ready for snow days. Oh, what fun, though. What fun. There's nothing better than the snow day. And also when it, I know where you are in Amagansett.

And when that snow comes in, it's a beautiful. And B, it's a sort of perfect. in New England, you know, cozy week with drifts, drifts of snow. It is. So we'll see. So at any rate, you're not coming back because you're not going to be able to get back. So I don't have to try to get into the city on Tuesday. Well, let's double check that this isn't just a media invention. Yes, of course.

Because we know that the weather service has been somewhat defunded, so they may have just primitive equipment left at this point. I have been through this before where they say there's going to be 15 inches and then there's only six inches. No, well, it's a media thing. You know, what is the biggest story? Forget Donald Trump. Forget politics. It is always weather.

It's always weather. Yeah, and I guess fires are weather. So this time last year it was the fires in Los Angeles. Now it's the blizzard that's going to, you know, impact. I read yesterday, 270 million people, but there's only 330 million people. but there's only 330 million. And I can tell you, nobody in Florida is worrying about the nor-easter coming in or whatever it is. Anyway, let's hope the White House.

The White House is actually worried about the weather too, because, and for their reason, you know, weather and how a president reacts to natural events is extremely important. if you get this wrong, tonally off, that is, that can, that can be a significant mark against you. And nobody knows, because this is Donald Trump, of course. Nobody knows how he'll react to anything. So when I was on the phone with people yesterday, it was like, yeah, we got a lot of problems. But we also have the weather. So, but I think what that goes to, is after this first year in which it was all, oh my God, we can't seem to do anything wrong.

We just command everything. Everybody moves out of the way for us. Now it's, I mean, it has been a clear reversal about in terms of what's going on. And it wasn't just Davos, I think it began before. Davos, but it is very much on the minds of everyone in the White House. The polls are very bad. The polls are very bad. So we are going into this midterm year and everything is, all of the indicators have reversed themselves. And Davos is, the president apparently is very happy about Davos. I don't see exactly how he can be, but that's his line. And often that happens to him. He gives a speech and isn't that the greatest speech I've ever given? Isn't that the greatest

speech that has ever been given in all time? And then some reality sinks in and he goes into a funk. He's still riding the high. but more and more there is this the sense, and maybe it's the Mark Carney sense, that things have not gone as he had hoped they would, as he had expected they would. He went to Davos as the conquering hero. Nobody could touch him, Mr. Dominant, Mr. Strongman, everybody wanting to know. know what he was going to do, everyone cowering in front of him. And I think he comes out of Davos with the reality markedly changed. I mean, we are now at a moment, and possibly it's a transformational moment of pushback. And I think best articulated and kind of brilliantly articulated by the Canadian

Prime Minister Mark Carney. There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning. We're recording this on Saturday morning, a piece this morning saying that Trump was livid with Mark Carney and Mark Carney reaching out to the middle powers, as he calls them, the European countries, to suggest that they form their own coalition and not be bullied by America in the way that Trump has been doing with, well, were we going to do tariffs, we're not going to do tariffs, just the sort of general volatility that they want to have and obviously Mark Carney's done a deal, trade deal with China.

So that sense now that you can actually maneuver around Donald Trump, which I thought was interesting. Well, I think it's not just maneuvering around him because people have always tried to do that. I mean, that's what we've been sort of the theme of the past year, is either bowing to him or maneuvering around him. and the one thing that has been absent is confronting him. And that's, I think, what is beginning to happen right now. I mean, essentially the Europeans confronted him. We're going to send troops into Greenland. We're going to create a situation in which you cannot do what you say.

You are determined to do that you have the right to do and that you're going to do. I mean, that's over with. That is not going to happen. There is not going, he's, we are not sending troops into Greenland. We are not taking over Greenland. We are not putting tariffs on the European nations who would oppose us in this effort, all over with gone. And, and then Mark Carney comes along and very articulately and very forcefully confronts Donald Trump. And he, or I think we can say this was quite an example of calling his bluff. Just for people who weren't paying as much attention as we were and we were watching it through a magnifying glass, Mark Carney gives his speech on the Tuesday.

Donald Trump then gives his speech on the Wednesday and responds to Mark Carney by saying Canada only lives because of America. And Carney has since clapped back saying Canada doesn't live because of America. It thrives because we are Canadian. And you also saw some pushback from Kea Stama, who's been notably, I think the word fawning is probably appropriate in his approach to Donald Trump to try and get trade agreements done and special treatments for the special relationship that Britain.

Britain says it has with America. And then, of course, Donald Trump made the comments that NATO troops weren't that helpful in Afghanistan. They weren't even on the front lines. They were somehow at the bat. And even Kia Starma was pushed to say, no, they weren't. We lost 500 soldiers supporting you in Afghanistan. So there's definitely pushback on the international stage.

But, you know, I think that that begins, that creates another kind of. of sense in the U.S. among U.S. voters that Trump has been challenged, that Trump is a paper tiger, that Trump is a jerk, a dick. I can see your headline now. Trump is a dick, or the wolf. Yeah. You know, I mean, I mean, this is, you know, I mean, Steve Bannon always said that Trump's vulnerability, key vulnerability, was to get into. a situation in which he would look weak. And that was, as soon as people, Trump's virtue to voters, to his voters, is that no matter what happened, he looked strong, because he never gave, he never apologized, he never

backtracked. But you create another situation, a new paradigm in which he seems helpless. like, you know, what can he do? He cannot take Greenland. He cannot take Canada. He cannot do any of the things that he has huffed and puffed and said he will do.

So I think it's a turn in the road. Well, you know what he can do? Maybe it's wishful thinking. Well, we're always wishful thinking. But you know what he can do? He can do what he always does, which is he resorts to, threatening to sue people. And the latest target is Jamie Diamond, who is the CEO of J.P. Morgan,

who's made it clear that he's not in favor of tariffs and was pretty vocal when Donald Trump came out after Jerome Powell and said they were going to try and indict Jerome Powell, who, of course, is chairman of the Fed, because we know that Trump wants to curtail the Fed's independence. Anyway, Jamie Diamond is... Specifically, he wants lower in trouble. rates. Right. He wants lower interest rates. Anyway, Jamie Diamond's come out against this. He did an interview in The Economist, the handbook of the Davos class. I think a magazine we can confidently say Donald Trump has probably never read, though I'm sure he has some fake covers of himself with the

economist man of the year. Anyway, he is suing J.P. Morgan for $5 billion over the fact that after January the 6th and 2020, they said they couldn't bank him. any longer. They didn't want to bank him. And so he was forced to, I guess they closed his accounts. He was forced to take out his money, which must have been of, well, it must have just been a huge insult to Donald Trump. So now he's getting his own back. And it's sort of odd because I know Jamie Diamond's been in and out of the White House. I know he's been sort of quietly trying to advise Donald Trump probably. No, and there was there was a moment after the election. No, maybe it was slightly before the election in which it seemed like Jamie Diamond had become a trumper. He was

willing, willing to be in the bag, at least however briefly. But I think it's another thing, these lawsuits of which there are more and more and more, they also become a paper tigerish thing. You know, there's only so many times you can sue people for $5 billion or $20 billion. or a trillion dollars. You, again, you know, you look like, you look foolish and you look like a dick. Okay, fine. You're going to sue him again. Donald Trump, with the backing of the United States government in all of these lawyers,

is going to sue somebody again. Yeah, you know, fuck yourself. Well, and we know that in all probability, the suit like the ones that Lindsay Halligan tried to introduce against James Comey, the former head of the FBI, who ran the Russia investigation, and Tish James, who ran various... Yeah, but those are slightly different because those are criminal investigations. Fair? You know, I mean, I would compare this more to, you know, he sued ABC and they settled,

and he sued CBS and they settled. So that was a kind of, that was the capitulation moment. And I think now we're at the point where people aren't going to do that anymore. Well, J.P. Morgan issued a statement saying they were going to fight it back, they were going to fight it and they knew that they were in the right. They may end up settling just because companies do, but it would be thrilling if they didn't and they saw it all the way through. Because you can't believe, you know, imagine the discovery that would be in this case.

if Trump was forced to open his bank accounts for the court to see. And I can't help wondering, isn't there something a judge can do when it's clear that someone is bringing what's essentially vexatious litigation? Can't they just say this is not a serious case? We're going to find you for bringing it. This always happens. And then they appeal and then they look for a judge. They get a Trump judge.

Remember, you know, I mean, Trump is aided in this speech. effort by the fact that he has so extensively remade the judicial system in the United States of America. There are a lot of Trump judges. In my Melania suit, we have in the Southern District of New York a Trump judge. Now, I don't know what that will mean to the outcome here, but it's obviously a factor. Yeah, I mean, Jamie Diamond wasn't on the podium when Donald Trump was inaugurated. He's made a point of saying we're not giving money to the ballroom. Now the East Wing has been demolished. So Donald Trump has clearly decided that he's an enemy of the state probably.

It's kind of extraordinary, CEO of the biggest bank in America. No, it is extraordinary. I mean, again, you know, we are, and I think we have to keep this in perspective. It's, you know, one year down, three years to go. Right. Well, and of course the other irony is that Jamie Diamond would like nothing better than to be president. He just doesn't want a campaign. If you talk to anybody around him and have lots of friends who work there, they're all like, we all wish he could be president. He wishes he could be president.

But nobody knows who he is. Many people wish they could be president. I wish I could be president. Do you wish you could be president? I wish you could be president. I don't think a lot of people do think that, but I think if you've run a big bank like that and they have what quarter of a million employees,

you think that the inevitable next step is to be president. Yeah, but I also think, and I think Jamie Diamond feels that, and more and more people feel that. And actually, the other night when I was in the city, I ran into a titan of income. industry and who said, I just don't know how this goes on for another three years. It can't.

And then this person said, it can't. Just by any logic, it can't go on for another three years. What would happen if it did? And then we stood together for a moment at this cocktail party and, you know, speculated on the end of the world. Oh, the end of the world. Also that he or also we speculated on the things that might end this, including Donald Trump dropping dead, including a sense and I have this an incipient feeling of this of the world waking up and saying, oh Donald Trump, you know, what a what a dickish bully. Well, I think they're probably saying much more than that actually. And then we will be left. with J.D. Vance, who will be very busy modern fathering, I think, with his four children.

Yeah, I mean, J.D. Vance is, you know, I know, as you've said, he's much more normal. Donald Trump is an anomaly. Donald Trump, oh, it's early on Saturday morning. Donald Trump is an anomaly. And also, you know, I hate to say this, but because we've talked a lot about him and his television abilities, I think, there's a high likelihood that Donald Trump dies live on television at one of his press conferences. When he appears to be asleep, Marco Rubio is talking. You can picture it. Marco Rubio is talking.

Donald Trump does that thing where he starts closing his eyes because we have a report in the Daily Beast and the Daily Beast podcast, a very good interview with a doctor, a pulmonary specialist who says that the reason he's taking the aspirin dose that he is is that's a very standard treatment for someone who's had a strong. stroke. And he then looks at all the other symptoms that Donald Trump is displaying to suggest he has a stroke. But you can just saw this, you can see the scene. Marco Rubio is talking. Trump is sitting there. He's doing that drowsiness in the day, which is another symptom of having had a stroke. And then he just slowly, as I'm doing now, just goes off screen. We have three years to go.

Think of all of the things. If all, everything that has happened, in this one year, let's multiply it by three. I mean, where are we? How do we survive that? We've all forgotten that crazy press conference with RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz, where some hapless health care executive had to come in and discuss the price of GLP once going down. And he fainted. You know, that poor person.

You keep laughing over this. I know, I shouldn't laugh about it because he was probably nervous, meeting the president and sort of, or maybe he hadn't eaten, or maybe he's on GLP ones and he just doesn't bother to eat until 8 o'clock in the evening, which is what a lot of my friends on GLP ones now do. But the poor man is carted off to the corner of the room. Its legs are in the air. Donald Trump is looking lost out into the crowd and photographers.

RFK Jr. flees the room. And Dr. Oz keeps talking as if it's all normal. None of it's normal. And you're right. We're only one year in. Okay, and I mean, the other way that the end of the world could happen is that we all just get polio and measles again. I mean, this chair of the committee that advises on vaccines has now said that it's more important for people to have individual choice, individual healthcare choice, over whether or not to have a vaccine than it is for people to be collectively vaccinated.

Of course, and that defies the logic of and the science of vaccines. Well, and actually... Vaccines work at a critical mass. They don't work at a partial delivery. Well, and to use a Gen Z phrase, our lived experience shows that vaccines are one of the great modern accomplishments of science. Well, yeah, I mean, it is, again, one of those things. there is a very small minority of people who are against vaccines, and there is among a vast majority an overwhelming not only approval of vaccines,

but expectations of them. So they're screwing around with something that I think inevitably, I think it's already begun. backfires in a big way. This catches up with them. And the only thing that it is that is in their favor is that there are so many other things catching up with them or so many other things distracting American voters. We do need to do a special episode on RFK Jr. And whether or not the brainworm is back and continuing to munch through what gray matter he has left, given some of the really erratic decisions coming out.

But this one seems really, I mean, Dr. Kirk Milhoun, who's the chair of the committee on immunization practices, you know, just saying vaccinations should be optional. I mean, it's just madness. I don't think it's erratic behavior. I mean, I think RFK Jr. has this is a, this is a particularly, ideological sentiment on his part. He has convinced himself

that A, this is what he believes because this is advantageous to him. This belief is advantageous to him. And his path forward, his political path, and that's what he's interested in, is to be

the MAGA guy, to be the pure MAGA the MAGA, you know, the vaccines. What is the most profound MAGA issue? And it may be vaccines. So that's the space that RFK is going to occupy. He's trying to occupy.

And he's going to run for president. It's just, it's mind-boggling. It's mind-boggling. Do you think Donald Trump is bored? I do think that's, that idea of Donald Trump being bored. and I think that he is, and I know from inside the White House, that it is a concern of everybody's. You know, if you lose Donald Trump's interests, you lose Donald Trump. You know, he is, this is a man that operates on the, always on the edge of his own energy.

What is, what fills him with, what fills any moment? And if there is nothing to fill him, and the thing that he reacts badly to are complicated situations, details, all of actually the work of the presidency. That does not inspire him. And he needs inspiration constantly. And the inspiration is the roar of the crowd, the unfettered roar of the crowd. and if it becomes complicated, like Greenland became suddenly very complicated. Why did he have to get out of that? Because it's too complicated.

He would have to think that through. He would have to sit through meetings. He would have to make decisions about small matters. He would have to make decisions about intractable matters. So that has to be pushed to the side. but the idea of Donald Trump losing interest is top of mind for a lot of people in the White House. You know, again, it's a different thing. He's a different sort of person, a different sort of president, a different sort of politician,

because he's not interested in the basics of politics. He's not interested in policy. He's not interested in bureaucracy. he's not interested particularly in ideology. He's interested in unfettered attention. And if anything gets in the way of that, a complication of having to explain the situation, of having to accept at best, which the presidency is,

a set of partial wins, hardly incremental wins, that's boring for Donald. And I think it's time for a word from our sponsors. And Michael Wolf and I are back inside where else Trump's head. I imagine he's feeling very anticlimactic, though, having come back from Davos, and he's coming back to him, and we need to talk about Minneapolis, which has blown up since he was away. And also Epstein, which is still, as we're always saying, it's always on the back burner.

It may well be the thing that fells him in the end if your lawsuit against the First Lady doesn't. And we have very exciting week ahead because we have the premiere of Malani and the movie. I have a documentary about self. Very exciting. I will be best. Be best documentary. Okay, whatever. But let's talk about Minneapolis. I mean, yesterday, 600 businesses closed their doors to let their staff protest. This thing is not going away. And as you have pointed-

Let's talk about that and see that in the context of complications. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. This has now become a very, very complicated situation, a situation in which, I mean, clearly it's not going to be good for Donald Trump. It just, day by day seems to get worse for Donald Trump, a situation which he cannot threaten his way out of and he can't seem to generate a new headline to get himself out of it. The headlines that are generated are bad headlines. So what do they do with Minneapolis? How does this go away?

As we've said, he doubled down After the death of Renee Nicole Good, he doubled down, sent in another, I think, 3,000 ICE agents. At what point does this become a lost leader for him and he just does what he always does? He chickens out. He pulls a taco, pulls them out, sends them somewhere else. Diverts. Disracts. You know, I think maybe as early as this week. Oh, really? You think he wants to get Minneapolis results.

resolved? Resolved. No. Resolved. That's not a Donald Trump word. I think he wants it to go away. And I think the only way it can go away is he gets the, he gets the, he removes ice from the situation. So, yeah, I mean, is, is there another scenario? Mario, do you have one? I can't find one except retreat. Retreat. Yeah, I mean, the images of the five-year-old boy that they took into custody,

which J.D. Vance said he'd investigated because he, of course, has a five-year-old son, and he'd done a drive-by in and out of Minneapolis on Thursday. It turned out that the boy's mother was actually in the home. So the father was arrested, but the boy's mother was inside the home. And I took the little boy, the five-year-old, into custody. It's unbelievable. I mean, in every level of this, every altercation, every confrontation gets worse and worse. So what do they do?

And the Vance thing is interesting because clearly Trump sent Vance go. You try to solve this problem. And it was not a problem to be solved. Actually, it is a problem that continues to get worse. I mean, markedly worse. The images today of the guy pinned down and the orange pepper spray, who knew it was orange, covering his face at close range.

Extraordinary. And what happens? What happens? I don't know, except that the subject clearly has to be changed. It can only be changed if Trump gets the ICE agents out of there. Well, it's certainly true that he's fobbing off all the difficult things, the details onto his team around him.

Remember when he was asked who's going to run Venezuela and he said they are and, you know, fingered, Pete Higgs-eth and Marco Rubio J.D. Vance is, as you rightly pointed out, he was sent off to clear up the mess of Minneapolis and then he was sent to talk at a national anti-abortion rally, basically, where he leaned very heavily into the pro-life movement

only to be slapped about by the conservative influencer Laura Luma who we haven't heard from for a bit. Laura, always feel free to let us know when you're going to be out there because we love to cover her. And she went after J.D. Vance saying that the president doesn't want this. Abortion is not going to be a winning issue for the Republicans during the midterms. Why are you doing this? And then amazingly, the vice president of the United States, J.D. Vance, shoots back at her saying, actually, the president asked me to come here. That's displaying what you've just said, which is Donald Trump throws things to J.D. Vance. when he wants them sort of fixing away, he can't do it anymore and he has no interest in it. And Trump knows that abortion is a complicated subject for the Republicans and really for

independent voters who will matter during the midterms. Yeah. So again, and this is the theme that we should constantly be coming back to for the next slightly less than 12 months at this point. is that this is where we're in the middle of a pivotal campaign, conceivably one of the most important campaigns ever waged. This is potentially in November the end of Donald Trump. Do you think there needs to be more democratic leadership,

or do you think it doesn't matter, and it's all about just local, it's about local politicians, local people standing? Well, of course there needs to be democratic. leadership. I mean, even the very idea seems a fantasy at this point. Apparently, I mean, we talked about Governor Newsom turning up in Davos. His speech at America House, which is a sort of sponsored house in Davos, got cancelled because I think he was critical of Donald Trump. But then there were reports that he and Donald Trump actually caught up on the sidelines and were actually being quite.

chummy. Well, that's not a good look. It's not a good look for either of them. Anyway, it caught my eye because I thought that was an interesting idea, the two of them catching up. And perhaps they know all this is a game and they're just using each other. Yeah, I mean, I think democratic leadership, I would say probably to the extent it emerges, it emerges after the midterms. I think it's, I mean, I don't think it's determinative for. the midterms. What's determinative is that Donald Trump continues to be Donald Trump and there is a reaction or revulsion in the nation, which there is. Right. And Minneapolis has certainly produced an opportunity for Jacob Fry, the mayor

there who's taken to social media and did a very funny video of him running around a very peaceful looking park in Minneapolis, talking directly to J.D. Vance and saying, next time you come into town, please come and say hello. You know, actually, and then he reeled off a load of good things about Minneapolis. But he's clearly now on the national,

on the national radar in a way he wasn't before. So these crises make opportunities for bright young politicians. Yeah, no. And Minneapolis is, is, as we've discussed before, a kind of ground zero of the Trump backlash. How could it not be? And that's what within the White House and even I think Donald Trump knows this, this is a crisis. What to do about Minneapolis? It's a crisis they created. Now the crisis is how they get out of this. So the polls about

Minneapolis, Epstein, the economy. the East Wing, we still don't know what's happening there. If you feel strongly about the redesign of the East Wing, we are asking people to email the architect, Shalom Baranis, and you can email him at info at S-Baran-S.com. And tell him that we sent you. But the East Wing brings up the subject of, Melania

The movie Melania the movie You know and I think that this has An enormous potential to contribute to the backlash I mean let's We don't know We have not seen this movie

And maybe it's It's an insight And a fascinating A fascinating woman But let's It's apparently very limited. And it's like it just focuses on the 20 days, I think, in the run-up to the election. Curious.

I don't know. Well, they've been pretty... I mean, I'm trying to think how could... Well, I don't know. I guess they could have... I mean, they didn't decide to do this until after the election, but I'm surprised. I assume there's a lot of footage, archival footage, and they just cut that. and that's how they do it.

And yes, possibly. It could be anything. It could be, as I say. What if the snowstorm impacts people going to the movies to see it? Because obviously people will be flocking to movie houses to see it. It's possible that the weather event is actually to do with stopping people going to see it. the Malaya in the U.S. Yeah, no.

I mean, you know that Donald Trump would blame the weather for that. So the, when is, I think the premiere is on the 29th in Washington. Right. At the Trump Kennedy Center. Right. So the weather should, the blizzard should be over by then, unless it just continues. But I think people are going to see this. I have the feeling this movie will have a kind of,

fiddling while Rome burns feel to it. So I don't know. And I think there will be obvious, enormous amount of mockery and Shadenfreude about this. Well, I can't wait for the memes. I mean, Instagram and X and TikTok, wherever else you get your memes,

will be just jam-packed full of memes. And I assume when that happens, then Donald Trump will feel obliged to defend the movie and his wife. So, yeah, this should be a good week. I think, as you would say, he will double down on the movie and say, it's the greatest movie, it's the best movie ever, best documentary. You know that he will. All right, well, Michael, I feel that you're a little energy low this morning and you need some more coffee.

Or maybe hot cocoa for the snow. I do. Well, I think this is all, this Davos thing has been, you know, has kind of squeezed me. It squeezed you. Well, it certainly squeezed Mark Karni. What is left here, except three years? Well, when you put it like that. But what we're seeing is emergence of new world leadership.

and America gave it out. That's the most extraordinary thing that Donald sort of Donald sort of Trump. Donald Trump gave it up. You know. What do you mean Donald Trump gave it up? Well, sort of inadvertently by pretending that he was a strong man

and creating his own peace board, you know, where, you know, fewer than 20 leaders turned up and he was sitting next to the president of Argentina and the president, I think, of Azerbaijan on the other side. side. You realize that this isn't what he wanted. This isn't who he wanted in his peaceboard. Yeah. Here we are. You need a cup of coffee. We have another three years to get through, Michael. You have to keep your energy up because his energy is, well, it's flagging his energy. We can see it's flagging. Yeah, no. I'm tied to him. I go the way of Trump. We're, we are connected.

All right, we're going to come back on Tuesday and we should, well, we should talk about RFK Jr. again. We should talk about what we're going to do for the movie, which we haven't figured out yet. So please, people, if you have good ideas for how to commemorate, how to note the arrival of the Melania movie in our movie theaters, you must let us know. And I do want to see the movie.

It doesn't seem like a profound statement, Joanna, but if you're if you're scuttling in the down alternative I'm smuggling myself into the movies but the point is that they don't get the data that you've gone to see it or the ticket price

someone else gets that yes but remember this is really a streaming project it's not really a theatrical project no but we want to we do want to see the movie we just want to see it without paying any money. And we will see it that on Amazon it will be number one.

Will it be number one? Well, they'll make it number one. And let's take a break for a commercial message. And I'm back with Michael Wolfe and we are inside Trump's head. So we do have more questions for your lawsuit against Melania. Do you want to just quickly explain to people what it is for new new listeners? Yes, I am suing the First Lady. The First Lady, because the First Lady threatened to sue me because of my discussion of her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

She threatened to sue me for a billion dollars. Her lawyers wrote me, we're going to sue you for a billion dollars unless you retract your, what you said, retract. linking the First Lady, Melania Trump, to Jeffrey Epstein, although we have all seen the pictures in which they are obviously linked, actually rather close to arm in arm. That picture you're talking about, and it's Donald Trump, Melania, Jeffrey Epstein, and Gillen Maxwell.

Exactly. Who is being called before the Oversight Committee. We mustn't forget that. Yes. But instead of... her suing me, I sued her in New York State where it is illegal to use libel laws for the express purpose of

intimidating someone into silence. And now she's hired a big fancy law firm and they're going to have to figure out how they deal with your subpoenas to ask her to come and ask lots to come and answer lots of questions. So we have to more questions for you today. Hi, Joanna and Michael. I'm really enjoying the Inside Trump's head podcast. I'm a former BBC journalist recently retired and have more and more questions about Melania Trump's relationship with Putin and her Russian connections. It simply doesn't

fit that a Serbo-Croat speaker speaks Russian and that leads to a million questions. So here are my questions for Melania during her deposition. You apparently have had discussions with Putin who speaks only Russian. Can you speak Russian? I think Putin speaks almost flawless English, doesn't it? No, absolutely not true. Oh, I thought he does speak English? He speaks no English whatsoever. Really?

Really? Oh, okay, okay. I would have thought if you were the head of the KGB, you would learn English. You just wouldn't use it very often with English people or Americans. Why do you think you would learn English? But at any rate, it's not... Well, because you can then understand the rival culture. I don't think that they're very interested in understanding the rival culture.

Okay, they're just interested in understanding other Russians. All right, if not, did you use an official U.S. government translator and were the conversations recorded? Okay, good questions. And, you know, it occurs to me as we're having this discussion, the questions for Melania make for a much more interesting Melania movie than Melania the movie will be. So maybe there is a documentary of your lawsuit against Melania,

and that will be the other Malania document. Why haven't we thought of this before? This is obviously a documentary. This is obviously a documentary. Finding Melania. I mean, it could be a two-party. The first one is finding Melania. She's a Mar-a-Lago.

She had Trump Tower because she's not at the White House. You might be able to serve her. Which becomes a significant part of where we are in this lawsuit right now, which is because they're fighting over jurisdiction. and we are, and obviously they want it to be in Florida where the laws are, where A, the laws are more advantageous for them, and also the judges. Remember, Judge Eileen Cannon.

Or as they say in the White House, future associate justice of the Supreme Court, Eileen Cannon. And we are trying to say, no, actually, Melania lives in New York. Could you perhaps serve her at the premiere of her documentary because you know she's going to be there? They've confirmed she's going to be there. Well, she does have, you might not be surprised to learn,

rather an extreme retinue of guards around her at all time. Can you not serve one of the guards to give to her? I mean, I'm thinking of that moment when Olivia Wilde was, served with papers when she was giving a speech by her ex-husband Jason Sadekis. Do you remember that? She was handed a brown envelope. I do not. Well, that was a moment of high drama.

You're right. She's surrounded by a retinue of guards who may be on the lookout for someone trying to serve her. Well, I think they're on the lookout for many things. Yes. No, I would say that's a. Let's say that would not be a fruitful gambit. Okay. I wish we were invited.

Obviously, we're not. Okay, just a further question from the former BBC journalist. If the conversations were recorded, could you release the transcripts? If not, why are they not available? How long did the conversation with Putin last? All great questions. All great questions. It is a great story.

It would be a great documentary. The Melania, the documentary, will not be a great documentary, but a true documentary about who Melania is. How did she come into this not only relationship with Donald Trump, but step into history in the United States of America is a great story. She's had the most incredible journey, almost of any American immigrant. Here she comes.

She barely speaks English when she arrived. She still speaks with a very, very thick accent. And yet she rose through the modeling industry. Well, no, no. That's actually an interesting thing. She did not rise through the modeling industry. She barely signified within the modeling industry. So like, I mean, like many models,

I mean, the truth is, most models don't succeed. and she is like most models, but she found this other, this kind of workaround. Donald Trump was for her a workaround for how to be a successful model. Well, it's a hell of a journey, but so too is your version of the documentary,

the man who took on the first lady. Perhaps we'll get there. Well, I hope you're taking... Brett Ratner maybe wants a follow-up. He wants a sequel. He wants a sequel. All right. And Michael, I realized after we'd recorded this last week

that I have misidentified the wrong reporter called Katie at the New York Times. It was Katie Robertson who wrote the piece about the Daily Beast's legal issue with Chrysler Savita, which he walked away from. You will remember last week he walked away from it. And strangely, despite the fact there was no retraction, no money, no appointment. and you can still read the article on the Daily Beast website. Chris LaSavita's lawyer, Mark Garagos, said to Katie Robertson, the reporter, it was a total capitulation by the Daily Beast, which she ran as a quote.

I, however, blamed the wrong Katie. I said it was Katie Rogers, who in fact had been in the news because she did part of the interview with Donald Trump, where she asked him that very good question about what would stop you, and he said, happily for all of us, his morality. I did not, however. when I graded Katie

Robert said as a B-minus I had the right one in mind. She's Australian, actually. She is Australian. She is Australian. And she wrote a very nice piece about the Daily Beast last year. So it pained me to point out that I thought her including Mark Garagos' comment was bizarre

because he was just 180% wrong. Completely. It delighted me. Anyway, apologies. to Katie Rogers. All right. We will see everybody on Tuesday and maybe you will just be peering over the top of a mountain of snow.

Joanna, our 90 Second Street Y performance on Tuesday night, no, Wednesday night this week, is now live for everyone. You did not have to come out to the 92nd Street in Lexington Avenue to see us, because all you have to do is join the Daily Beast.

Or if you are already a member, then you have access to the complete, the complete, what is it called? It would be called, it's not a podcast, it's some kind of cast. It's a recording. I think it's a recording. The live cast of our live performance is available here.

for Daily Beast members, and you can just sign up and you can see even more of us. Even more of us, 24-7. And a shout-out to the man that I missed, but who came with a bag of graphic T-shirts for me, which I look forward to plowing through. And I noticed there was a Sex Bistols T-shirt there, which I think I had the original of that very T-shirt 40 years ago, which dates me. But thank you very much. I think his name was Charlie, Charlie Valiant.

Thank you very much. All right, Michael. Doctor's orders, get some cocoa. And if you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to leave a comment for us in YouTube. Please subscribe to The Daily Beast and the Daily Beast podcast. Yvette Johnson, Methinks, Betsy O'Farrell, Mills and Linz, Chelby, Max Cupid, David.

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