The Daily Beast Podcast - Diva Trump’s Hair Secrets Exposed: Wolff

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles take on Donald Trump’s increasingly bizarre relationship with Vladimir Putin as Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff head to Moscow, asking what Trump’s Russia fixation is really about and why Putin seems so comfortable dealing directly with Trump’s inner circle. They also dissect Trump’s obsession with the Qatari plane, his plans to leave a permanent physical mark on the White House, and the latest battle over his triumphal arch. Then, Maria Bartiromo’s sudden departure from Fox News opens a revealing discussion about her long relationship with Trump and the network’s transformation under the Murdoch family, before Melania Trump’s conspicuous absence from the GOP’s midterm gathering raises fresh questions about the state of the Trump marriage. Finally, Wolff and Coles turn to the chaos at the Pentagon, where dozens of officials are being subjected to lie-detector tests as Pete Hegseth faces mounting questions about his leadership and the military’s ability to function. #ad Free trial at https://shopify.com/dailybeast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is only equivocally not a wig. He has what are called patches, and they call it the patch kit. And the patch kit is little, you know, small tufts of hair that match whatever color his hair might be at the time. The patches are, you know, they're stuck with some kind of paste. So they're pretty secure. But also, just the fact, if Trump says it's not a wig, which reminded me of remember Nixon saying, I am not a crook, he does a lot of this himself, the hair maintenance. But then he has somebody who's following, and there have been a couple of people over, certainly over the political years, who've carried the patch kit.

They are next to the people who carry the nuclear codes. Michael. Joanna. It's Labor Day weekend, and yet there is no rest for us, Michael, because we have a lot to discuss. Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner have just arrived in Moscow. Moscow, as we call it, actually in the UK, but I actually like Moscow, the American pronunciation. We've got, why is Donald Trump insisting on flying on the Qatari plane, even though he knows it's not secure enough? We have Melania refusing to attend his mini RNC in the run-up to the midterms,

though Natalie Hart looks like she is going to be in full attendance. And we've got work on the triumphal art. Will it begin in the next two weeks or will the courts suspend it? I can't wait to get into it. What is wrong with this, Michael, we would rather nerd out on this stuff than you be picnicking on two-mile hollow beach without the hum of a data center within a hundred miles of you. Two-mile harbor beach. No, it's two-mile hollow beach, not two-mile harbor.

No, it's two-mile hollow. It's two-mile hollow, my friend. I've been going there for 30 years. I thought you went to Connecticut for 30 years. I went to Connecticut for 10 years. I don't think you've been in the United States for 30 years. I have you? I have.

30 years next year, actually. But I did come before then. I came for sneakbeaks of what would turn out to be my life. Well, anyway, in Labor Day, we are just waiting for the people who finance the data centers to leave us in peace here. So we don't have the data centers, but we have the people who pay for the data centers. Well, and you have the people who are getting rich from the data centers. As of Tuesday, yes, they will all go home and instead of

taking 15 minutes for me to get my coffee in the morning. It will take one minute. You could just make your own coffee, Michael. Yes, but then I like to go out and smell the air. That's why we're out here in the Hamptons. That's why you're out there. Okay, so for those of you who are joining this podcast for the first time, it's inside Trump's head with the author Michael Wolf of many, many books, but four books about Donald Trump and too about Rupert Murdoch, who's salient in our thrice weekly conversations where we go inside Trump's head. Michael, do you want to explain our POV?

I will, but in Rupert will be relevant today because we're, I think we should talk about Maria Bartaromo and her swift exit from Fox News. Do you think Scott Jennings is freaking out right now because Maria, having left Fox in, how should we say, inconclusive circumstances is headed straight for the White House Press podium. Is she going to be the new White House Press Secretary? I would say it was that she left in conclusive circumstances. And I'd say, you know, I don't know if I were Maria Bartramo, would I want that job? That is a hard, hard job. So I don't know.

Would she take that job? She's been offered that job before. So would she take it now? I don't know. But I don't think Scott Jennings is going to get that job. I think it will be a woman who gets that job. Okay. Well, we can come on to that shortly.

And we're going to come on to, I know you have all sorts of history and thoughts with Maria, which I'm curious to get into. But I do have a question for you. As a bald man, do you have thoughts on Trump's? Is it a wig? Is it not a wig? Well, I know, no, I mean, I know, I mean, he's, of course, insists it's not a, not a wig. It is only equivocally not a wig because I know that they carry, he has what are called

patches and they call it the patch kit. And the patch kit is little, you know, small tufts of hair that match whatever color his hair might be at the time. And those are applied if needed and if necessary. So the maintenance of this hair is a major enterprise and has been for many years. In my first book in Fire and Fury, I describe Ivanka, who was then, she had a kind of amused perspective on her father. And she described the way that hair came together of having to tease it in certain ways and having to pull it in certain ways and having to fluff it in certain ways. And so you kind of created this confection on top, which is... It does look like one of those spun sugar things that you can put your hand in and pull it out and start eating it.

And it would have no caloric value whatsoever. But he insisted on Wednesday that he'd never worn a wig. It was not a wig. And as proof, he offered a speech he gave, in fact, in support of Bernie Marino, the father-in-law of... Max Miller, the congressman who is being accused of breaking his two-year-old's collarbone and threatening his wife with violence and determinedly still standing for Congress. It all comes together in the hair. But Trump said, no, no, it's, you know, it's not a wig.

And, you know, that was a very, very stormy, windy night. And my hair didn't blow off. Well, his hair didn't blow off because when we got the photos of the film, In fact, he was wearing one of his MAGA hats, which was pulled firmly down and probably velcroed around the back to his head. The patches are, you know, they're stuck with some kind of paste. So they're pretty secure. But also, just the fact, if Trump says it's not a wig, which reminded me of remember Nixon saying, I am not a crook. And, you know, that's probably a pretty good indication if Trump is making a declaratory statement, then the opposite is probably true.

But it is, you know, and would you call it a wig, these little patches? I don't, you know, this is, we're in the nomenclature of hair. I wonder if Natalie Hart trots around with him sort of tending to his hair. Does it go to someone who looks after it, especially, like a hair specialist? I'm sure the original concoction is that, but during the day he can't be followed, like Tom Cruise is rumored to be by a hairdresser. Yeah, no, he doesn't really, it's not really a hairdresser per se. I mean, he does a lot of this himself, the hair maintenance.

But then he has somebody who's following, and there have been a couple of people over, certainly over the political years, who've carried the patch kit. They are next to the people who carry the nuclear codes. Wow, the patch kit and the nuclear codes. Leaves aren't the only things changing this time of year. As the season's shift, maybe you're thinking about making a change of your own and finally starting that business you've had in the back of your mind. It can feel overwhelming to figure out where to begin,

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to hear the of your first sale, head over to Shopify.com slash daily. Daily Beast to start your free trial today. That's Shopify.com slash Daily Beast. So talking about nuclear codes, Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff arrived in Moscow recently, shortly, a couple of hours ago, to carrying a new proposal, not carrying a patch kit. Or maybe it's carrying a patch kit for the moth-eaten efforts at trying to get peace between Russia and Ukraine. And they're having a sort of conference of sorts this weekend. Well, there's a couple of threads that I think come together here. I mean, curiously, Putin said last week he was he was dissing, I think he was dissing the CIA director who had flown.

to Moscow, to issue what seems to be several warnings and to give cautionary advice to the Russians, which is to say, you're not going to win this war. And Putin dismissed that and dismissed the CIA director, but at the same time praised Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff, praised him as though they were his friends. It kind of sound like his colleagues, which is, brings back that other theme, that other Trump theme, which I think has, has been buried by so many other Trump themes, that there is a weird relationship between a clear relationship and a clearly weird relationship between Trump and Putin. Now, you will remember, perhaps in the first, um, although it would be a clear relationship, It is hard to remember. In the first administration, that was a central theme. You know, what was the collusion with Russia? And I, and that was, we left that unresolved, partly because, because Robert Mueller, who was leading that investigation, kind of both punted it and got too old to finish it. And then it was taken over by the Justice Department, which Trump's Justice Department, which whitewashed the whole thing. But nevertheless,

there is an enormous body of evidence about this weird, again, relationship between Trump and Putin. And it continues now to raise, constantly raise questions. Why is Putin not being stopped dead in his tracks, both in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine, As you recall, Trump was going to solve overnight. And now in his increasing, I mean, really, stepping up on a day-by-day basis, his threats against Europe. I mean, threats in a sense that begin to destabilize the world order in ways that we haven't seen, I don't know, in my memory. So John Rackcliffe went to see him, what, three weeks ago, four weeks ago.

It was the first time the head of the CIA had been to Russia since before the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump dismissed the trip as, oh, this is routine, this is routine. CIA directors do this all the time, which is not true. Do you think Putin is trying to drive a wedge between the CIA and Steve Wickev and Jared by shouting them out? Do you think he's trying to get Trump to fire, John Rackcliffe? What's his, or is he just being KGB-ish and devious and disruptive for the hell of it? Yeah, no, I think that he has a, I think he's sending some signal. So what is the signal?

The signal is I want to do, I might do a deal with Donald Trump. And I'll do that through Donald Trump's guys. and, you know, the government and the, I mean, the CIA and, you know, there's a lot of different threads in any government, in different factions in any government. And there is certainly a strong faction in the United States government that says, you know, I mean, Ukraine is the good guys and the Russians are the bad guys. The person who I don't think sees the Russians as the bad guys consistently has not seen them as the bad guys is Donald Trump. And Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff, both men are there representing, let's be very clear on this, representing not principally the

United States government, but principally Donald Trump. So what's the relationship between these two guys? I used to sit around with Steve Bannon and we would speculate what does Putin have on Trump? And I think that that's still, after all these years, is a worthy question. What is that relationship about? I mean, Putin is one of the, you know, if you can, if you can isolate a really despicable figure in the world power structure right now, it would be Vladimir Putin. I don't think there's any, who would argue otherwise, except Donald Trump. Except Donald Trump, yes, of course, who would say he's a great guy, great guy, never but anyone like him, he's a wonderful guy. Is it possible Trump just sees Russia as an enormous economic opportunity for himself?

Well, I think Trump sees everything as an enormous economic opportunity for himself. I think that that is probably at the one of the baselines of understanding the second Trump administration. Where's the VIG coming from? And so, yeah, probably. But I think that there's also something else. I mean, what has propelled this weird hands-off relationship within the context of this weird relationship? I mean, we don't have an answer to this. You know, and this is, I mean, there's obviously been a lot of speculation.

And Steve Bannon is hilarious on the subject of all of the things that Putin might have on him, including his college transcripts, which I was always quite fond of that. his set of D's at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Yeah, interesting. And of course, he was married to two Eastern Europeans, too. Ivana and Malania remains married to Melania, though, who knows how long for. And, of course, Jared and Steve Wiccoff are supposed to be going to the Ukraine tomorrow. Okay, well, we've seen this little film before.

We have. We have. How are they traveling? They're traveling by, what plane do they take? That's a great question. I don't know. Maybe they take one of the spare Air Force ones. Because Donald Trump is going to Dunbeg, Ireland, his golf course next weekend, I believe, and taking the Qatari grift force one, which, as we know, isn't yet fully secure. And I'm really curious as to know, why do you think he is so obsessed by that plane that he's prepared to compromise his safety by flying on it? Well, I have a few questions about that, because at the same time that he's flying in what is

apparently an insecure plane, there is a greater loss. of the White House ever before. You know, I mean, the Secret Service has always asked for greater and greater and greater security around the White House because that's their job. Who gets blamed if there is any kind of breach? It's the Secret Service. How do you avoid that? You just put up more feds.

You dig a moat around the White House. You do all of the extreme things that you might do to. protect the White House. Now, there's always been resistance against that because this is America, this is a democracy, this is the people's house. You know, if you look like you live in a fortified, in a fortress, that is, that, that begins to look like you against the people. Well, that is what is happening now at the White House in this. And this is, of course, part of the overall structure, The overall renovation of virtually everything about the White House, turning it into Donald Trump's White House, the Donald J. Trump White House, is this enhancement of virtually all security features. At the same time, he's taking this plane, this insecure plane to, he's traveling on this on this plane.

So clearly the main issues here are not security. What are they? And again, with Donald Trump, it is always the look. He wants to live in a fortress because he's the king. And he wants to be on a plane that he feels worthy of him. But how is it worthy of him if it's not secure enough? I mean, surely he would want to fly in the world's most fortified plane. Well, you know, and I have another thing because another point about this.

that I was talking to some people. So he has the Qatari plane, and all he does is complain about it. What do you mean? Because all kinds of features are not right. The gold is not the right-colored gold. The seats are not comfortable enough. I mean, Donald Trump is fundamentally in everything he does,

a complainer. Nothing is right because it's not, to his specifications, and he's a needler, and he's a blamer. So that has been. So the plane is better than the plane that comes with the job. But nevertheless, it's not as good as he wants it to be and thinks it should be. Well, that's interesting. So he's looking at a gift horse in the mouth.

I suppose, yes. The gold apparently is very disturbing to him. Because it's what? It's not gold. It's gold-plated. It's the wrong shade of gold. It's never gold. It's only ever the color of gold.

And the color of gold is, he has a particular idea of what the color of gold is, and it often doesn't, and I suppose in this, in this instance, it doesn't match the gold he was, the gold that was painted on the plane. When you said the Donald J. Trump White House, I was surprised that he hasn't already prepared that for the outside of the ballroom, the Donald J. Trump ballroom, sort of written up there. And I dare say that will happen. They just haven't submitted that in the plans. Right. And there is no wall.

There is no wall to put that on yet. But as soon as there will be a wall, there's only steel girders. Right. Right. So, but yeah, without question, and people within the White House, and I kind of charted a kind of change of tone here that in the beginning of this ballroom adventure that was said somewhat sarcastically, now it is not said sarcastically anymore. This is the Donald J. Trump ballroom. And the assumption is it's going ahead. It will be finished. It will be the next president's worry to figure out what to do with it. And it will be forever a physical representation of Donald Trump attached to the people's house. Yeah, no, and this is, and again, this has become fundamental to him. And, you know, and there's a lot of, I mean, I think part of the issue is, is he was, remember, he was thrown out of the White House once.

and, you know, left it in disgrace. Well, it's going to be very hard to get rid of him now because his legacy will be, will overwhelm the White House. So one of the things that he's doing in this thing is just really kind of crowding out the existing White House and that so effectively de facto, it is a white hat, will be a White House, house that he has built.

And he's moving faster than the courts, which looks like he's going to try and do again with the triumphal arch, which is supposed to be starting, though they're supposed to be breaking ground on it in two weeks, although three veterans on Friday brought a case against it, saying that it's disruptive to the idea of Arlington, Arlington Cemetery, obviously, and disrespectful. And so that will now start wending its way through the courts. But if you were abetting that. I would imagine that will have the same problems before the Supreme Court as the recent ballroom suit was.

In the Supreme Court, the conservative members said about the plaintiffs, you don't have standing. It doesn't directly hurt you. And I would imagine that would be true about the veterans. Now, you might be, if you are in Arlington Cemetery, maybe that would give you better standing. And, I mean, it's also possible that the White House ballroom gets built. He names it the Donald J. Trump ballroom. And then whoever comes in after him just takes the name off, repurposes it. And it becomes a useful space for something completely different and the occasional state.

You know, that is true except for the fact that it will look like a Donald J. Trump building. I mean, it is not as though this is just an expansion of the White House. And it will always be there to say Donald Trump. It will always be garish, vulgar. And when you look at it, it will say, it will scream, Donald Trump built me. And it is always part of, you know, Donald Trump, in a way, his long career is a fight about taste with him declaring that his taste is better than good taste. There was a nice piece in New York Magazine, I think, this past week in which someone has and someone has gotten an interview with Donald Trump about with him. precisely about the ballroom.

And he articulates his absolute no-nothing view of taste and architecture and his and his philosophy of why all of, why he is the master of all of these things. Everybody else is wrong about taste, about proportion, about anything that we might otherwise think is is relevant to a fine building. And this is his plan to create a garish monstrosity that we will always associate with Donald Trump. Yes, I think the piece in New York Mag was by a guy called Ben Terrace. And what's funny is, which actually rather a good name for someone who's writing about architecture. But he says that Trump keeps referring to the wrong kinds of columns too. And he's like, these are Doric when in fact they're Corinthian. But it was Donald Trump saying that he knew more about marble,

that it was going to have the best marble floor in the world because only he knows about marble. I mean, this obsession that Trump has about always being the smartest guy in the room. And what a terrible burden that is to feel that you must be that person when you can't possibly be that person? I wouldn't look at it like that. I would say it's the triumph of the dumbest man in the room. I mean, he is always the dumbest man in the room because he knows nothing, doesn't want to know anything, walks out of the room when anyone tells him something. And yet has the confidence.

He's the president of the United States. This somehow worked to keep saying he's the smartest man in the room. Yeah. Yeah, he says at one point in the New York magazine piece when he's talking about marble, he says, I know more about stone than anybody imaginable. And you're like, of course you don't. Of course you don't. Yeah, but it's sort of, well, you're right.

I get that it's the triumph of the dumbest man. But does he not hear somewhere in the back of his head, please God, he hears the mocking voices when he says things like that? I mean, who says something like, I know more than anybody else in the world, I know more than anyone else imaginable, who even thinks of something like that. It's so bizarre. Well, the guy who doesn't know. I mean, that's how you, if it's all compensation and it is all compensation, it's all compensation. It's all compensation. How do you, then what he recognized.

is go to the max here. Don't try to be like everybody else. That's what makes you nervous. And if you then redefine the terms of the smartest person and redefine themselves against you being the smartest person, that's a supreme rhetorical trick. Well, it doesn't seem very smart to take a plane, even if you're taking it to your own golf course,

Dunebeg in Ireland when you know that it's not secure. That said, why does it take Boeing 12 years to come up with a new Air Force One? I mean, Trump ordered two new Air Force Ones in 2017, and they've said they won't be delivered before 2009, at which point he'll be out of office. So I slightly understand his desire to get his little hands, his short-fingered Bulgarian hands, on the freebie from Qatar, which we know he's going to keep after his presidency. He's not going to actually park it in his library for the public to see. I don't know anything about building airplanes, but I do know that at one point, someone said to me, because I was possibly I was vaguely interested at some moment in this,

that building a plane, these kinds of planes at that kind of scale is like building a cathedral. in the 16th century. I don't know if that's true or not, but I remembered it. Well, building a cathedral in the 16th century took 100 years. Exactly. So I'm... So you're saying it's speedy. They've sped it up.

Yeah. I just can't believe they can't figure something out faster than 12 years. Well, both, let me dare say, both you and I know nothing about building an airplane. True, but I do know something about trying to deliver something on time. You and I have both worked on deadlines. Why they can't do it faster than that makes, well, it's really odd. Also odd is the leaving of Fox News by Maria Barteromo. Was she fired?

Was she not fired? Her lawyer saying she absolutely wasn't fired. Everybody's speculating that she was fired because she informed the White House that Fox News had told people in the run up to the midterms not to focus on Trump's claims that election fraud was wide scale. What say you? I hadn't seen that about her lawyer denying this because I don't think that there's any issue here.

She was told to get out of the building. Because her lawyer is saying she still works for Fox. Well, I'm sure she still has a contract and they're still negotiating all that. But as far as I know, she's been taken off the air and that's it. So I would say she's been fired. Defenestrated, I believe.

Defenestrated, which is a Putin thing, really, isn't it? Because defenestration, I think, technically means you're thrown out of the window. Indeed. Well, let's hope Putin wasn't behind that. But I don't really understand the trajectory of Maria. Barteroma, because at one point she was a serious correspondent. She was never a serious correspondent. She was the last thing she was was a serious correspondent.

What she was is a significant figure in making business news a significant part of the news business. And that happened in the 1990s when suddenly, I mean, money was everywhere, the tech was about to explode. CEOs were kind of, kind of the rock stars of the moment. And I mean, she was, and she was hired at CNBC. Mm-hmm. I think she was a producer at CNN. And then, and then she was hired at CNBC in its early years

when Roger Ailes, who would subsequently hire her at Fox, was then, he was the guy who started. up, CNBC, which was then actually called America's Talking, I believe. America's Talking. What a terrible title, America's Talking. But she was, I mean, you say she wasn't a serious correspondent. She was the first correspondent to report from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. She's won a couple of Emmy Awards.

And that is, yeah, well, let's hold. Come on. We can go through the list of people who won Emmy Awards. This is a television award. It's, um, this is just about awarded for being on television. So, um, you know, I, I mean, I, I know, so, I actually spent some time talking. I spent a lot of time talking to Roger Hales about a lot of things. But, um, I remember once he told me, because I asked him about, about Maria, because she's famously stupid. Um, and, um, and I asked her why. Is she famously stupid?

Famously. Famously. Famously, you should talk to her. sometime. It's like, oh, my God. Just look at the vacancy in her eyes. Extraordinary. And at any rate, Roger said, I said, why did you, why, what's the Maria story? Why did you hire her? And he said, because CEOs will want to fuck her. So that's Roger Ailes, in a nutshell, that defines Roger Ailes. Meaning what, not literally that, but meaning that she had sex appeal, that she was attractive, she could talk about money, you say she wasn't smart, but she clearly had a television star power, which is something of enormous value to someone like Roger Ailes or any television network. Yeah, no.

I mean, she wasn't called the money, honey for nothing. And she was more attractive than Lou Dobbs. She was called the money honey for exactly the reason that Roger defined there, which we will not repeat. And that was Roger is a very smart television guy. He knew this. He knew that that would be, that that would have an appeal, both to an audience and to the subject she was writing about. But the problem with Maria Bartaromo is that she then became much more enamored with the subjects that she was writing about than with her journalistic position as. covering these people. So she became, among other things that she became famous for,

she became famous for the very easy interviews. So she became a kind of PR extension of, of, of CEOs. Well, of sort of access journalism. Yes. Efforts to, if you wanted to enhance your your reputation and your profile as a CEO, you got an interview, you agree to an interview with Maria and she would give you softball questions and she would fawn over you and she would make you seem like a star. But if you're a CEO and you accept an invitation like that, how does that help your, how does that help your reputation or your leadership of the company if everybody knows that it's a softball interview and she's just a.

an extension of the PR? You know, I don't think that that matters. It's television. It's, it's, you go on television, you go on CNBC at that, at that time. And if you're a CEO and the one of the leading correspondence on the network treats you as a star, well, that would make you a star. Actually, your question seems an odd one. You know how this works.

You know, this is, you know. Well, except that she becomes the star. She goes from being a reporter to actually being larger than the CEOs themselves. Well, the ecosystem, in that ecosystem, you become a greater star CEO because you've been interviewed by a star journalist. Right. But the transition to that is what interests me. But what was her relationship with Donald Trump and the White House? Because at some point, she became really a sort of informal spokesperson for them.

Yeah. I mean, she's always, I mean, the, so the transition from, remember, she transitions from CNBC to then she goes to Fox business and Fox News. and that's really, in a way, a transition of the CEO. So she would have been incredibly friendly with Donald Trump and conducted many interviews with Donald Trump when he was a business guy. And then so she transitioned then to when Donald Trump is now a political guy. I mean, her politics, I assume her politics are, you know,

business-oriented politics. But it's really about Donald Trump. And then it was so making that transition to Fox News. And she had really kind of her run at CNBC was, you know, coming to, I mean, she was no longer getting the ratings that she had at CNBC. So the offer to go to Fox business and Fox business was just starting up at that point. And Fox News was an attractive one. And within the Fox ecosystem, there's only one ratings king at Fox, and that's Donald Trump. So she clearly understood that and then became close to and friendly with people in the White House.

And she's not the only person at Fox News who has done that. I mean, and I mean, there is. So, and then she kind of runs into, into a difficulty during the post, in the post-2020 election, when Fox, Fox begins to support Trump's ridiculous accusations about, about why he lost the election and conspiracy of, of, of, of the voting machine makers and I mean, all kinds of, of course, and that baloney then would cost Fox almost a billion dollars in a lawsuit against it. These are the delineering machines. Yes. So she took a lot of, she took some of the heat on that. Other people took some of the heat.

And I think that part of her leaving now, and so, in understanding that she leaves now because she supplied some an internal memo to the White House. Now, people at Fox have been supplying internal memos to the White House since 2017. Is this a common thing at Fox News? Completely common. The Fox News and the White House have in so many instances work hand in hand. So I'm sure poor Maria is kind of shock that she is the one who's being called on the carpet for this. And what does this signify? Does this signify that Fox understands that

the Republicans or the presidents got the worst poll ratings ever and that he's likely to lose the House and possibly the Senate in November? No, it doesn't signify that at all. What does it signifies? What is two things that they probably want to to get rid of Maria anyway. And they have found a pretext for that. And the other side of that is a, you know, probably there's a slightly new management turn at Fox News, which is to say that 95-year-old Rupert Murdoch has, you know, is, you know, is, is stepping back. I mean, he often steps back in, but mostly on a day-to-day basis. And his son is,

his son, Lachlan, is running things. And probably, yes. So, so, I mean, I think in that, in that sense, you're, you're, you're, you're right that, that, that there's probably some view that, I mean, let's, let's start to be a little careful about this. Although I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go heavy on that. And I would go heavier on they wanted to get rid of Maria. But was there a particular reason, you think? Was she a ratings downer? Was she, they just had enough of her? Were CEOs saying, I don't want to come on and talk to Maria anymore? What do we, what do we think? I assume it's a ratings thing. It's, oh, a Fox's ratings driven almost at every, at every point. And I would also say, you know, honestly,

she's 60 years old now. And what, Leslie Stahl is 82? This is Fox News. Have you seen the people, the women on Fox News? Well, they all look the same, the women on Fox News. They don't look like they're 60. That's the point. Right.

They don't look like they're 60. So you're saying you think Maria Bartow, Emma, was probably getting too old in the tooth for Fox News. Well, she can go to CBS. She should join CBS. You know, well, that's an interesting thing. Will there be a bleed in that direction? You know, I once, as I say, I was very friendly with Roger Ailes,

who for all his despicableness was an incredibly good source. And we should just remind people Roger Ailes started Fox News. He was a long-term TV exec who Murdoch chose to start Fox News. News. And he said, I remember that he once said, if you come to work for Fox News, you can never go back to the mainstream media. They'll never have you. Not true in the case of David Rhodes.

David Rhodes worked at Fox News and then when his brother Ben Rhodes looked like he was going to become Obama's, one of Obama's close confidants, especially around foreign affairs, David moved from Fox News to become a head of news at CBS? He was not on camera. Oh, okay, not on. So it's about the people on camera. Yes, if you're identified as a Fox News person, then it is really hard to go back to traditional news.

And Roger Ailes may have been proven right, because do you remember the experiment they did with Shepard Smith, who was at Fox Anchor, and went over to CNBC to create a new news, which actually I was quite excited about it because it was 7 o'clock, which seemed like a good time for a quick news download. And it was supposed to be straight down the middle, and it didn't last at all. I don't remember. Nobody watched it. And they went back to reruns of Shark Tank.

Yes. But it's interesting. I mean, the Maria and the Maria Barteromo Donald Trump relationship has been a long one. And they, you know, I think that they have. They kind of genuinely bonded. I mean, I mean, in the sense that they were, she was exactly the kind of interviewer that he liked. And her subject was, was his subject.

I mean, he likes to talk about, about, I mean, he believes that he is, he is a, well, the CEO, he, plays on The Apprentice is the character that he believes he is. And she helped cultivate that. She is actually one of the people responsible for the Donald Trump myth. Well, good luck to her then. Good luck to her, Michael. And Melania has said she's not going to be going to the mini RNC summit that they're hosting next week, actually.

Are you going to be attending? You know, I just, I mean, I found that a kind of a bullshit story because it kind of expressed surprise that she was not attending this when she doesn't attend anything. Well, she attended the main RNC one. I mean, clearly to the great surprise of her husband. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That she attended it only, which and I have detailed this in a way that it's like, come on. She refused to speak at the convention. She hadn't done anything for the entire two years of the campaign.

She refused to speak at the R&C convention, the 2024 R&C convention. Nobody knew that she was going to show up until the last moment when she showed up, and then she refused to sit next to her husband in the VIP box. So I would say that the expectation that she would show up at this non-convention, mini-convention, or whatever they're calling it, is some just profound misunderstanding of what's been going on with her relationship to her husband, with what her past practices. in terms of political campaigning and events. So I don't know what everybody's talking about here.

Of course she wouldn't show up. Of course she wouldn't show up. And I always remember the RNC of when she does show up at his side, he just looked incredulous, incredulous that she was there, which I always savored that moment. But his cabinet are apparently under a three-line whip to attend. Most of them will be there, including our friend Heggers. But I want to go back.

I want to start. I just want to go back because I want to say, why would, I think this was particularly, I saw the Washington Post story. Why would they be treat this as though it were, what's the message here? They know, the Washington Post knows that she isn't going to show up, that if she did show up, that would be the story. The story is not that she doesn't show up. What point are they trying to make?

Or, and why wouldn't they say, well, she's obviously not going to show up because she never shows up. And this is not only not a departure, but just another indication of a broken marriage. Are you asking me why the Washington Post didn't? I had no idea. I've no idea. I mean, why don't they know, they understand what reality is. Why don't they express it? what's the thing? So we're trying to carry favor with the White House. We're trying not to say what we know. We're trying not to, out of some kind of discretion and courtesy, we're trying to avoid the central fact in this story. I'm just, I find it. Well, Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos is Amazon is behind her movie, Melania, and behind her new series, right,

which is coming up soon. So perhaps they'd like her to attend so that she could promote her new show for them. I'm kind of gripped by what is going to be the content of her new show, I must admit. But his cabinet will be attending, but it turns out that a lot of Republican candidates are not going to be going

because it's the furthest thing they want to attend, given the problems they're facing, in the midterms. Where is this convention taking place? Dallas. We should go. We should go and do a podcast from Dallas, actually. Honestly, we should.

Jesus. Do you think they would let us on the floor? I do not. Well, you know, who knows? Who knows? You know what? Inside Trump said they might want to come on a journey with this inside Trump's head. I'm sure, let me put it.

If we paid. if we paid. Well, we should find out how much it is. Someone somewhere is making money from it. I heard that the Kennedy Center, back to that old one, Trump attended only one event at the Kennedy Center, and you could sit beside him. There was a fee to sit beside him.

And that fee, which everybody thought was going to the campaign, Kennedy Center was not, it went to directly to a Trump, the Trump PAC, which is directly to Trump. So the 400 million, it was part of the 400 million sitting on which Republicans hope he's going to distribute to challenge candidates, but in fact he's probably going to keep for the Trump library. Right. And that 400 million, by the way, is distinct from the 800 million, which he has

solicited from a full array of corporate donors. So all of this money... Does the 800 million include money for the ballroom? No. So that's other... So he's got 800 million which has been raised by his Princess of Darkness, Megan O'Rourke. And then he's got 400 million super PAC money.

Yeah, all of the PAC money. So all of this money goes with him when he departs the White House, when he returns to Mar-a-Lago, sets up what will invariably be a competing White House. That's what will – that competing White House will be financed by this money. And then he's made, what, $2 billion from crypto, $2.2 billion last year in the White House. So the boy done good. He's helping himself quite nicely. No, I think we should come back to this in a separate episode because I think it's something that hasn't quite been focused on that the entire point of the second administration has been to make as much money for Donald Trump as he possibly could.

Okay, well, that's a good subject for our Limerick writers. We've got a very good one from Paul Watson 8809. there is a man, this is referring to our last conversation about Pete Heggsler, there is a man called push-up Pete who's purging the fighting elite, replacing real heroes with boot-licking zeros as ethics get tossed to the street. I thought it was rather suitable for the Pentagon under Pete. And of course, headline today that 50 people in the Pentagon have been required to take. lie detector tests to see if they are the ones that have been leaking information that the Pentagon is running out of munitions, that they've been spreading word about Pete Hegseth's

lack of competence. And yeah, go on. Well, I was going to say, so the question is, is this Hager's doing Trump's bidding or is this Hager's panicking because he thinks that Trump is going to fire him? I took it as Hager's panicking. I mean, a former general told, I think it was the times they'd never seen anything like this on this scale. 50 people. And of course, from the Secretary of Forever Wars who put out classified war plans, one of the first things he ended up doing on Signal, leading to Signalgate, with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic on the chain.

I mean, the idea, the irony of it, the irony of it, Michael, this incompetence is just, you know, it's Olympian level incompetence. They should open a new sport specifically for Trumpian cabinet members. But it's so hard to express this. We say Olympian level incompetence. And that doesn't remotely begin to evoke a day-by-day breakdown of the entire management structure of the Pentagon, the United States Defense Department, the Pentagon, the military industrial complex, all breaking down as we sit at the moment of the world at a kind of terrifying tipping point. Yeah, it's one of those moments that future schoolchildren, all being well, will learn about in the history books. I mean, it's literally things are not working. There's no army secretary.

There's no chief of staff to the army secretary. It's a vacuum at the head of the army. It beggars belief. Well, you know, push up Pete and Colonel Vodka. We can just let's just begin to listen. Yeah, Bishop Pete and, well, and I think isn't he called no tab, Pete, because he never had a tab on his arm. We had a piece today in The Beast about it that he's got a new, his nickname within military circles is no tab Pete because he didn't have anything that he could put on his arm to show his service. Poor Pete, he must just be crushed.

I totally read it that he was panicking and flexing and saying, you know, anybody who leaks will be put under a lot. lie detector test, which made me wonder, could you pass a lie detector test? Um, no, I couldn't. I really could not pass a lie detector test. I mean, if the Trump people, and, and of course, you know, that's, that's, I mean, I've, I've, there are variations of this in which I've clearly worried about because, you know, if asked, if put in a position, well, I'm never going to take a lie detector,

so it doesn't make it that, that's not really germane. But people leak to me. Mm-hmm. Meaning that you might be put under pressure to take a lie detector test to see if. Well, I don't think I can be put under pressure, but there is, I mean,

I think that there are a number of people who would be, I mean, I hope they avoid taking a lie detector test. Well, it would be interesting to see the results of the 50 people taking lie detector test. It seems to me a very strange thing to assume that a machine can tell that you're lying or not lying. Well, they can. They're pretty good at it. Well, it's to do with your heart rate, right?

I've always thought that they're the most bizarre things. A lie detector test. Also, people convince themselves they're telling the truth and believe. that they're telling the truth. So can you get that through a lie detector test? I mean, can a sociopath pass one? Do you really want to have a conversation about lie detectors? Well, I'm curious about the fact they're being, you know, wielded as a weapon in the Department of Forever Wars. As they have been for about 70 years. But not at this level, not at this level and with this degree of serious. About a man who's already classified information himself. Actually,

That's not true. I mean, lie detectors are used throughout the security agencies of the U.S. government on a, you know, on a constant and regular basis. I mean, almost, you know, both within, certainly the FBI uses them on their own people often. The national security agency. I mean, this is, this is, this is straightforward. forward the way the government does things. I don't think 50 people being given one because the Secretary of Forever Wars is furious about leaking about his department. I don't think 50 have been given anyone. Well, these are people actually at a fairly high level. I think that's what's particularly notable about it. But then the interesting thing is, is this Donald Trump saying, saying, you know, I want to know

who leak this? Is he storming around and demanding this? Or is Pete Hegsseth worried that he has to find someone to blame? So this is a kind of thing. Well, Trump's already beginning to blame him for leading him into a war that they can't figure out how to get out of. And again, you know, is he going to be fired? Is he running for president? And are those mutually exclusive or two of the same things?

anxiety. Well, something for everybody to contemplate over Labor Day weekend. We'll be back on Tuesday with more questions about what an earth is going on inside Donald Trump's head. Well, Michael, have a very good rest of your Labor Day weekend. Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Pissarro and Neil Rosenhaus. So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.