The Daily Beast Podcast - How Melania Trump Destroys Her Friends

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

“I begged her to just come out and say that I was her friend, I was loyal. Nope, nothing,” says Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, author of Melania and Me.   Stephanie Winston Wolkoff considered Melania Trump a friend—more than a friend, really. Wolkoff even followed Melania to Washington, helping produce the 2017 inauguration and advise the incoming First Lady. But when the stories started coming out about the insane overspending during the Inauguration, Wolkoff says Melania threw her to the wolves—allowing Wolkoff to take the blame in the press and kicking her out of the White House. “I begged her to just come out and say that I was her friend, I was loyal. Nope, nothing. So the betrayal, the pain of that was like—I gave up my whole life for this woman. No one else would help Melania. I mean, she was alone,” Wolkoff tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “I should've known better. She is just like her husband.” So Wolkoff began taping her calls with Melania—calls which formed some of the bedrock for her book, Melania and Me. Improbably, Wolkoff and the First Lady kept talking, even after Wolkoff was cast out.  When Melania wore that instantly-infamous “I Don’t Care” jacket on a trip to a center for migrant kids, Wolkoff called.  Their mutual friend, the fashion designer Herve Pierre, was being attacked online for the fiasco because he had made dresses for Melania in the past. But this jacket was a $39 item from Zara. Wolkoff asked the First Lady: Would she clear things up? Say something in public? Melania admits that Pierre “had nothing to do with that jacket.” But she declines to make any kind of statement on his behalf. Instead, Melania laughs, “I'm driving liberals crazy, that's for sure. And you know… they deserve it.” Wolkoff was horrified. “When I sent [Pierre] the photograph [of the jacket], he immediately wrote me back saying, ‘Is this Photoshop? ‘And I wanted so desperately to say yes,” Wolkoff tells Jong-Fast. “He was devastated.”  “There's so much callousness,” Wolkoff continues. “Even in just trying to get [Pierre] paid for collaborating with her and making her first dress, it was like pulling teeth. There is no empathy or remorse for the fact that here's someone who was blamed because he's known as her ‘stylist.’”      Moments like these—and the casual dismissal over the Inaugural—made Wolkoff feel better about recording conversations with a woman to whom she had once been so closely connected.  “Taping a friend is, it's unacceptable. It really is. But Melania was no longer my friend when I pressed record. Because when I pressed record on the conversations I had with her, it was only after she, Donald, and the PIC [Presidential Inauguration Committee] [tried] to make me the scapegoat and to falsely accuse me for the overspending of $107 million of the inaugural funds,” she tells Jong-Fast. “First and foremost, I taped to protect myself because I needed to be protected once I knew I was going to be under investigation.” Jong-Fast answers, “I don't think anyone ever regrets taping a Trump.” This is part two of a two-part talk with Wolkoff. In part one, Wolkoff took us inside the war between Ivanka and Melania Trump. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit, and editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, best-selling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respective bunkers. Hello, Molly John Fast. Hi, Rick Wilson.

How are you today? I'm this fine pre-holiday taping of the New Eponormal podcast. That's right. We're going to survive the holiday, hopefully. They're soon to be award-winning New Evermoremore podcast, as I like to call. That's right. Are there even awards for podcasts? There will be now.

If there are, we're definitely not getting anything. I feel like that is. unlikely at best. Yeah, exactly. A remote possibility, but a possibility I entertain. I'm pretty sure the only award we're getting is if Merriam-Webster ends up making Fuckery the word of the year, we might get an award for helping popularize it by saying it 3,000 times an episode.

I'm going to strongly advocate for fuckery being the word of the year, since it is a word that I have used this year more times than I could have ever possibly imagined. That's certainly true, yes. We have Tim Miller here. He can tolerate us. And so we've asked him to join us. He's also quite funny and smart. One of the few people who can.

That's right. And he is an editor. Are you an editor at large or an editor? I'm a writer at large. I'm not much for editing. I also have an award-winning podcast guest. Oh, wow. That I didn't get acknowledged as that.

I've received several awards for my podcast guesting. I love that. One of our favorite guests, Tim Miller. I'll see you at Con. That's supporting podder. Are you no longer a Republican? Did you change your party affiliation? I did.

I did. I left the party. After I wrote kind of a thing, you know, it was called Goodbye to All That. You know, Robert Graves, old poet wrote it. I didn't actually know that. I was, I'm an unschooled, an unschooled elder millennial,

and I was referencing Joan Didion. But, but yeah, Bill Crystal informed me that my reference was actually to Robert Graves, not to the medium post making fun of people leaving New York, which is what I thought it was a reference to. Close enough. Bill Christo. Such a life. I have left, and I think that it was

the only obvious choice at this point. But, you know, it's hard. It's hard all those years, you know, cheering at Republican conventions and buying elephant lamps and stuff. You know, you get wrapped up in such things, but it's obvious. What are you going to do with your merchandise now?

What am I going to do? merchandise. I don't know. I have like, you know, my Reagan Bush tea and stuff. Charlie Sykes keeps it all of this stuff is like a hall of shame in his office to remind him with his bad choices. I don't really want to go that far. So I think it'll be in a bottom drawer. And hopefully I can I can burn it before my daughter gets old enough to judge me harshly. So Cindy Powell has been seen in the White House two times. Would that be? Special counsel, Sidney Powell. She who will release both...

Right. Is she the Cracken? No, no. She is the releaser of the Cracken. She is the Cracken Keeper, if you will. Cracken Wrangler. Can someone explain to me, is the Cracken sushi?

It could be once I'm done with it. Oh. Justice's always like, God damn it. There's her doing that shit again. Can you appoint an acting special counsel? because I think that's what she might be. Well, no, Trump wanted to, but Bill Barr, it was too crazy.

Imagine being too crazy for Bill Barr. Right. Hey, boss, this one's over the edge, boss. I mean, he's laughing Roger Stone was fine, but this one's over the fucking edge. Did me a break. What do we think's going on with this? Is this just theater? Like, what is actually happening?

What do you guys think? Well, look, I think it is active sedition. deserves to be met with the full force of law. However, being in clown world, as we are now, nothing will happen. Right. Nothing will happen from Trump trying this, and nothing will happen to hold anyone who does it to account. Because, again, clown world. But I do think this is, you know, a continuation of the grift, the performative Trumpism,

the, the, this is part of driving another round of pre-Christmas email fundraising requests. Your triple match donation will help us fight back. against Antifa's attempt to steal the election. Here's a question for you, though, that sort of really smart people I've been reading, not writing, not myself, obviously, have been saying that this is not so much a problem for this election,

but for the next Republican down the pike. Look, I guess my take is, I think something can be both extremely serious and clownish at the same time. That's what we're dealing with here. And so, you know, look, does this mean the next Republican is going to follow this exact playbook and try to, like, declare martial law? I don't know, but it certainly isn't doing anything to help the Republican Party move back to the land of rationality and reality.

You know, if you're convincing a plurality of your voters that, you know, the election was stolen and that, you know, dead Hugo Chavez, you know, rigged the machines and, you know, the deep fate of Bill Barr and the Lincoln Project and do a normal pod. like prevented this from happening. And, you know, here's one way I'd put it. If you are, you know, right now at the upper levels of the military, like, you have to at least be having the conversations of like, what is our plan if you really ask us to do this? Like, what are we going to do? And so even though I feel fully confident and all the listeners can be fully confident that there's, it's not going to be martial law that Joe Biden will, after he fumigates

the White House, will be in there, you know, at some time after January, 20 if I don't know how long the fumigation will take. But, you know, the fact that those conversations have to be happening, I mean, that's unprecedented. You know, the fact that there are many parts of the Republican base that want that to happen, that's deeply concerning. The fact of a guy that was the first national security advisor and thank fucking God that he lied to the FBI, thank God Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. It was the biggest break we caught the last four years because that insane person is calling for martial law

And he could have been in there if things had turned out differently. So, you know, I think it's both. Like, it's serious and it's a grift and it's a clown show. It's true. It can be all things. At least we'll plunge into the final darkness with a smile on our faces, laughing our asses off. But I do think that's a really good point, that it can be terrible and scary.

And also, you know, the motivations behind it can be, you know, Horrified. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a valuable. That's a valuable point. I think there was good bad in the times over the weekend by, I'm blanking on her name, but a woman that worked in the Department of Justice

works for Protect Democracy now. That basically was like, this is so incompetent and clownish what's happening with Powell and Giuliani that what it really reveals is, like, looking back with retrospect, all of the people that stayed in this administration and thought they were being the adults

and thought they were helping keep the training The tracks, like, actually, actually, no. Had everybody laughed and left and allowed Sidney Powell to be the one in charge of all the other norm-busting stuff, you know, maybe some of this, maybe he wouldn't have, you know, been as successful in clawing, you know, some of the ground that he clawed. I wrote a piece in the late summer, I think, of 2017. And I just said, if you're still in this White House and you think that you're steering the ship or you think that you're saving America or you think, you were the single person who's going to make the difference and save this country when he goes off the rails, get the hell out. You're not. And so I'm very satisfied with the fact that

no one ever steered the ship. There was no one who saved the day. For the country, it probably would have the Lewandowski theorem. That was my client. Which is like, if you're, if you were replaced by Corey Lewandowski, that would be no material difference on the lives of Americans, then you're not actually doing anything meaningful. But I do think it's a good, you know, that piece had a really good point, which was the people who thought they were doing good and keeping Trump from ruining the world were actually the people who were making his legislation able to pass. And so ultimately, those people were actually doing more damage than the Sydney Pals.

And if a Sydney Pell had had that job, we wouldn't have any of the, lot of the Trumpy stuff we have today. We'd have a lot of misspelled lawsuits. She's amazing, by the way. I mean... Cindy Powell and Lynn Wood together, if they'd been in the White House, just imagine that for five seconds of your

life, those two in the White House. It would have been magical. Running the White House Council would have been amazing. And it's something just to think about the fact that she's been in there, what, two or three times in the last week? And I'm just trying to envision in my mind's eye Donald Trump listening to her, talk about Hugo Chavez.

and Serbia and the smart medical machines and nodding to himself going, maybe I should. Maybe I should do an executive order where I can't get all the machines to see if the Serbians are in there. Like, I mean, that is just the image I can't quite shake. But you know he is totally, he is totally buying all of it because. He's entertaining. Right.

There is no conspiracy theory too crazy for Donald Trump. doesn't exist. No, he fully buys into every, you know, random thing that comes down the, down the pike at it. So speaking of crazy things that people buy it to it, who do it. We unfortunately have members of Congress of the Senate who buy it to this. It's Marjorie Taylor Greed and Tommy Tuberville. And then, of course, you know, industrious people like Mike Lindell, who are calling for martial law and saying they're not going to vote for the election to be certified. What happens here and what does this mean? What does it mean? What does it mean? that Mike Lindell believes anything.

Okay, okay, I best stop bringing that into it. I actually really quick before we get to Congress, can I talk about Mike Lindell for a second? Because you're listening. Yes, please. Yes. The last few weeks I've written a couple articles about Newsmax and crazy YouTube conservative news sites.

I've been down this rabbit hole. And I didn't realize this until after the election, but Mike Lindell is like single-handedly sponsoring and funding this thing called right-side, broadcasting news. And like he has this whole, like, it has like a million of people. Oh, yeah.

And like, and like, so it's like kind of this new, quote unquote news where they're like, and here's the latest on the smartmatic loading machines. And then, and then like, dinner's first like every 15 minutes. It's like,

put smartmatic, text smartmatic to 2-2-2 to get your free smart pillow. And I was putting a free mark-pill. I'm like, what? Like, he just has,

like, periodically Mike Lindell just shows up on the screen from time to time. He's building like a under-the-radar fake news empire. So, I mean, I guess it's important that like that million people like think that martial law might be a possibility. That's a little concerning. But I'm excited because the lawsuit, it seems like the only thing that's really working at this point are these lawsuits from the voting machine companies. Yeah. But they're about to come down on the more.

like a billion tons of legal pain onto OAN and others. I just want to see the money honey being deposed. And who, as a famous journalist, Maria Marta Roe? Apparently our friend, Sean Spicer, not Sean himself,

but his colleagues at Newsmax just aired a note clarifying their coverage as well. And the Lou Dobbs video where he's like, you know, everything I've been saying for the last three months is bullshit. I mean, that is kind of amazing. I don't know if it works, but it certainly is some,

it's certainly no worthy, if nothing else. So, but the pressing thing that I should have just prefaced with this. Poor Jesse. Mike Lindell. No more Michael. I have three more thoughts about Mike Lindell. Have yourself a Lindell little Christmas. Has anyone used to this?

With your soft pillow. I would be lying if I would say I did. I didn't look through the website at getting you guys Christmas. skiffs from there. Oh my God, Jesse. No. No. But do we think there's anything

people should be fearing about this contesting of the election on the Senate and congressional form? We should be thinking about how corrosive this is down the line. Because nothing that breaks up norms and standards and laws accrues to the good in the end. You know, these things always become a negative kind of precedent. will say, oh, well, you know, remember, you know, now that our circumstances are just as bad as those were, we're going to need to go ahead and suspend. I'm going to go ahead and suspend martial law. That'd be great. Why don't we talk about this for a second?

Tim wrote this really, really great article on the bulwark about the new Red Dog Democrats, and he's not referring to people who drink the bad white trash beer of the 90s that was out that I consumed as an underager. As an underager in the Denver suburbs, I consumed my carbohydrates. Bruce, obviously. I don't even know what you're talking about. Hence the reference. But yeah, and look, the article I wrote today was basically, I think that there is that voters already know this, for the most part,

like the listeners to this probably already recognize this happened. A lot of actual voters who don't, like, you know, sniff their own farts about politics, like just change teams without really thinking about it. But the old Washington political class, like, is really, I think, still stuck in this notion that like the lot of the former never Trumpers and

you know the McCain crowd you know Megan McCain sent that tweet about how she and SeraPano are the only ones who are still Republicans out of all the people who are involved in her dad's campaign but which she accidentally hit on was an insight which which I wrote about which is the fact that

a lot of these folks have just changed teams like they are now what I would call what I'm terming red dog Democrats and so it doesn't mean that they agree with the Democrats on everything they still prefer, you know, smaller government. Some of them are pro-life. There are going to be other areas of minor disagreement.

But the disagreements are very niche. And they're more akin to what we used to call blue dog Democrats, which were culturally conservative, Southern Democrats or Rockefeller Republicans, than they are like people who are in a new party. And I think it would benefit both the Democrats and the never-Trumpers to think about it this way strategically because it might help. In a lot of these congressional districts, frankly, former Republican red dog Democrats should run because they might have a better chance to win than some of the liberals. And I use this example of David Jolly, who we all like, who was flirting with running as an independent in Florida. But the problem is that despite the fact that he used to be a Republican, he's a red dog Democrat now. Like they agree on democracy is good. Immigrants are good.

on the key issues of the time, they agree. And so maybe, you know, in certain states, somebody like him should run as a Democrat rather than running as an independent and splitting the vote. And so, you know, I think that sort of change in mindset, you know, hopefully I think will help the Democrats grow and build their coalition because that it really was, you know, if anything, I'm kind of late to this. That was the 2018 coalition. That's how Democrats won house seats in Oklahoma City and Orange County.

at Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah, look, those 41, I wrote about that in my latest book. Those 41 seats were not in woke districts with woke people. They were with centrist Democrats. You know, I joke about this all the time. If you wanted to give me 50 Connor Lambs, I went 35, 40 seats for you. You give me 50 AOCs, and I can't. Right.

I mean, I also think, though, fundamentally, all politics is local. If you have someone who is, like, popular in their state and knows people, and has a message that's crafted for the area. You know, I don't think these people get elected because of policy. I think they get elected because, and we've talked about this before, you've said this is like your mantra that people don't get elected because of policy. They get elected because, you know, they have the right message for their area. Absolutely.

And I think that that is part of what I'm arguing. There are a lot of these areas suburban, Houston, suburban Dallas, where the Democrats, I think, could win more seats if there is kind of an embrace. And if the people, you know, who are. are, you know, maybe consider themselves never. Trumpers or independents now think of themselves more as just being one wing of the Democratic Party. And I think that the policy, I totally agree. It doesn't matter as much in the elections, but it does matter in Congress.

I think a lot of liberals are worried that, like, oh, we're going to invite these people in, and they're going to push us to the right. And it's like the reality is particularly, even if the Democrats win both seats in Georgia, anything that could get through Joe Manchin and John and John Pester, the never to the Red Dog Democrats, before, you know, on pretty much every issue across the board, maybe one or two disagreements. So, so, like, on both on policy and on the politics, like that, it makes sense. So can we talk about this idea that Mitt Romney could get a few Republicans and possibly Democrats together to make a caucus where they would actually have the most control of anyone

in the Senate? You know, I had a, this is like West Wing, you know, fantasy, not reality, but I always, I was joking. Like, why doesn't, you know, Chuck Schumer, like, offer Lisa Murkowski the, like, Senate if she, if she gathered Mitt and, you know, Susan together, whoever it would be and, like, offer them, offer one of them the chance to be Senate majority leader. I mean, at least then Biden could get his nominees through. And, you know, the left isn't obviously going to like a lot of what they do. But, you know, it's better than Mitch McConnell being Senate a majority leader and, like, getting into a three-week fight over near attendance tweets, you know, I. Because that's coming down the pike.

Yeah. If Mitch keeps the leadership, Democrats can't do anything. And he will train wreck everything. Exactly. So I think that part of my article is hoping to cede the ground for some of that so people can start to think about it that way. I mean, I do think that Mitt, you know, being Republican nominee and, you know, some of this stuff is pretty deeply ingrained.

And maybe I'll take kind of a new wave of people to more think about themselves as, you know, a wing of the Democratic Party, but I think so. We were talking about this guy, Denver Riggleman, who is in Virginia Fire. And he's like, maybe I should run as a, well, why doesn't he run as a Democrat? Why doesn't he just switch sides and run as a conservative Democrat in that Central Virginia district and beat that crazy asshole, like, who, like, says COVID is a hoax, who's now in the caucus, who's like, they're not even in the top 10 most crazy Republicans, so we don't even talk about them.

Right, that's a high standard these days. Maybe that makes more sense than the Mitt thing, but I mean, I think that Mitch should Again, I think it's a West Wing fantasy, but why not? Why not take a shot at it if you're Schumer? I don't get why there isn't more creative thinking in the Senate. Because Mitch McConnell does not encourage creative thinking. Right. But that's why you have to crush Mitch McConnell.

And if you have to make a bad, you know, a Sophie's choice because of it, why not? I think that Murkowski, Romney, Collins, one or two others, including Molly's favorite, Ben Sass, could exercise power in ways they don't understand that they can. could exercise it. And because it's so hard for people to think outside of the normal, you know, these are the political rules of Washington. This is how we do things. We don't do things any other way. I think they could have tremendous power. The number of people who recognize the power they've got when it's handed to them is, is de minimis, sadly. Yeah. What power does, I mean, you know, Mitt have besides complaining. I, you know, look,

I love Mitt, and I think he's, I'm happy that he's been speaking out when nobody else has, but I think you're exactly right, Rick. And it's just like, where is the the thing that how to leverage that power? I mean, if you're Collins, I guess she just got reelected. So, you know, she doesn't, she's going to go back to just kind of, you know, doing all different Collins too. I'm so, I'm so very upset with this hand wringing.

Yeah, wringing her hands, very severely wringing her hands. But Murkowski, I don't know, Murkowski. Why not? Like, I don't know. I mean, she's already been through this once before. She had to run as a write-in, right? Why couldn't she think about this a little differently? Sarah Palin's already doing those crazy-ass, like, Instagram videos about how she's, like,

spying on her from her house or whatever, threatening crime carrier. I don't know. Why not cut a deal with Chuck Schumer, where you're the Senate majority leader and then they'll let you run out of post as a Democrat in Alaska or something. Again, this is like crazy fantasy talk. It's never going to happen. But why not at least, like, talk about it? You know, I mean, that seems better than the alternative.

I don't get why there's no, there's never any talk about doing things even the slightest bit differently in the Senate or in the House. So news broke on Friday that Jared Kushner has this splendid shell company that got a bunch of the campaign dollars. Can you guys explain to us what's happening? I would love to hear an explanation of what the hell you think is going on with the fuckery. Well, look, I think the shell company thing with Jared, the Trump family is. shall we say, not unknown to be fully committed to skimming a taste off of everything that comes their way. So if anyone thinks that Jared, I probably said this on the podcast a dozen times over the last year, that Brad Parskow's utility in large measure was that he was a obedient

conduit for whatever Jared wanted, whatever they wanted the Trump families take to be. and he did that. I mean, some of the stuff that was public from that were, you know, Kimberly Dancing Queen Guilfoyle at Lorily, Trump and others, you know, getting their contracts paid through Brad's various LLC structures. But, you know, look, it is not illegal to pay through an LLC to run campaign operations. It is unprecedented at the scale towards the Trump campaign operated to do something that doesn't show a lot of outputs on the other side. Yeah, I mean, I think that Rick's point about a taste is exactly right. And I think that's what's happening here.

I think the original Business Inside article, I kind of made it seem like they might have stolen 500 million or something. We don't know, right? We don't know. But I think what happened was they created this company so you don't know, it allows them to protect a lot of things. you don't know what vendors they're using you know there may be people that wanted to work with the campaign that didn't want the trump stink on it that they you know shuffled through there uh you know

you get 10% for you know don junior and kim gilfoy off the top of buys you know i just it allows for a lot of that sort of stuff and like i think basically that's what was happening it was that they were like the more we can hide how much we're spending um you know the more the family can get a little peace and you know we can maybe do some other stuff that that we wouldn't want seeing the light of day. And I think, you know, doesn't that seem like a big deal? Yeah, it's a big deal. I don't, I don't understand why it wasn't a bigger deal during the campaign, like why campaign finance reporters weren't more kind of attuned to this, to sort of the missing disclosures. But, yeah, I guess I'd say similar to earlier where it said it's serious and clownish. I would say this is

a big deal, but like, we don't know how, you know, not necessarily criminal. It's not really criminal. Maybe it's just, you know, they're just cheating their supporters, which, uh, you know, they're wanted to do. I mean, you know, Steve Bannon is going to go to jail for lying to his supporters about a fake wall that he was creating. Well, he's not a Chinese yacht. So, you know. But while he's out, he's going to shop Marshall Law on his podcast. Yeah, exactly. Bannon will go down screaming. Okay. He will go to the last second trying to, you know, continue his ongoing, I will make Nationalist populism a thing, even though you tell me it's not going to be a thing. It's going to be a thing. He will never stop that particular line.

of, uh, and I'll never stop taking people's money from it. And like that's the problem. You think that's also what's happening in this. You know, look, and they're just, they are, they are minting money from red-hatted mega supporters who seriously think you might still win, who seriously think that Steve Bannon is building a wall outside the government state infrastructure, who still, you know, think all of this nonsense that is, that never was going to happen. You know, that, that, that point is, is really perfect, Tim, because, the divergence between reality and Trumpian world fantasy is so gigantic and getting so much bigger every single day. It boggles the mind how these people are still clicking the donation button from these emails that say, we need your contribution today or Biden will win. I mean, how many of them can really believe that this is the case? Unfortunately, what we've learned is the answer is a lot.

A lot of them, a lot of them believe that. Did you see the article? Was it in the piece? There was this great article about how the foreign gambling sites were just banking cash on Trump quarters. The guy said, I figured if he said it was double or triple a Super Bowl. Like that level of, you know, the biggest gambling day of the year, they were getting double or triple that after the election from Trumpers who still thought he, you would win? I mean, I mean, that is like sad and funny and alarming. All of the emotions. But there's going to be a horrible moment when these people realize that Trump is not going to be

president after January 20th and something terrible is going to happen, right? I mean. Is there? Or are they just going to kind of pretend like he's like Mar-a-Lago president and just continue moving on in an old universe as it's the years go on? I don't know the answer to that question. Won't there be a moment when they realize? I mean, I don't know. I think that moment is going to be on January 20th, and when they see that there's no sudden appearance of Bill Barr wearing some sort of superhero outfit to sweep Joe Biden off the stage and replace him with Donald Trump, I just don't see it. I mean, I just do not see it. Stephanie Winston Walkoff is the author of Melani and me, the rise and fall of my friendship with the First Lady. And today, we're going to continue our conversation with her that started in our last episode. which we encourage you to listen to too.

Today we're going to play some tapes from Stephanie's book that show more color of her relationship with Melania Trump. Stephanie has actually, besides writing this book, she has managed to be the grand jury witness for a number of different cases against the Trump administration's potential mishandling of the pick, which is the political inauguration committee. Let's listen to another one of the clips that you provided, which is shortly after reports come out that things have gone wrong with the inauguration, you start to be unjustly blamed for some of it. And so you start talking to Malani about that. So let's listen to this clip.

And so everyone now wants to point the finger at me. It's going to continue to do it to make sure that I am kept down. And the reality is no one's standing up for me. Not one person. Not one person. You need to put out the state. It's not about me. The numbers will come out, but it doesn't. Okay. And now, if you put it out now, everything comes fresh again. That's the problem. You heat it up everything. It's been a Maggie Haberman said that every headline is that I took $26 million. And so every headline with that misleading headline makes it seem as if I received that money. So my name...

That's why I was surprised that the lawyer at least didn't say Stephanie Winslowell-Cov did it. everything legally. Melania, everything will come out and the truth will prevail. I'm not worried about that. Eventually it will come out. But now I've,

for the last year and a half, what I've done, I've now been fired. I've now been... Fired? You were fired. Seriously. No,

Melania, it was the decision of you, the president, and the White House to literally, yes, fire me. It's not fired. So what is it?

I am, I no longer have any association. whatsoever. It's not like you're fired. Don't be so dramatic because you were not fired. This came to that, it's politics, and we cannot do anything about it. They will go after everybody and anything. And if you stay here, they will even go maybe further down.

Do you understand what I mean? Yeah. Because you see how nasty it is. So she clearly mocks you for the idea that you're fired. Can you tell us the story behind that and why it came to this? Yeah, it's, you know, it's interesting hearing that in one clip because it just hits such a deep chord of betrayal. It really, it's, and I, you know, and I did believe writing this book would, anyway, I'll get into that later. But I just feel, I'm sorry, I just for a moment hearing talking to you guys.

Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. So what ended up happening was when I was working in the White House, the form 990, which is the thorough elections committee form that needed to be handed in and explained how the $107 million that was raised by the presidential inauguration committee was sent, which is obviously led to many investigations that are ongoing right now. And there was an internal correspondence that was floating around between the east wing, the west wing, the pick, and all the, you know, Melania and Grisham and Hope and everything. Everyone else involved in the White House. And the narrative that they wanted to have addressed to the public was something that, again, basically the 69, actually there's 67 questions for this. And they weren't true. And I just couldn't follow a false narrative.

And I wouldn't give misleading information. So what do they want you to do? Unfortunately, I still have a non-disclosure agreement, my NDA with the pick, which has muzzled me from speaking out. And, you know, I say it constricts my ability to defend myself against all the defamatory falsehoods. But that's why hearing Melania, for the first time, sharing this tape with anyone, is almost such a relief because she and they are all aware that I was going and did take the fall for everyone. Because I would not, you know, say how and what they wanted me to. So they released their own press release, which was given to Maggie Haberman of the New York Times,

and Maggie never called me. And New York Times is a longstanding beacon of good reporting, but it didn't get this story right. And it was with such authority, right? It portrayed me as like the leading cover girl of such sensationalized headlines that in a way like that I myself would have called irresponsible and unacceptable.

But I wanted to write the wrong that was written about me, And that, I think, is one of the reasons why sharing this story with you today is so important. Because, look, I can't turn back the clock and undo everything that happened. But I can voice the truth here. And I can say that the Trumps, as much as they want to say, they didn't know, nobody knew. They all knew that I was the only person who was calling out all of the misdealings and misappropriations throughout. So, you know, here's a thing. I also regard to Melania as a really close friend.

The fact that she was complicit in letting me take the fall and be, you know, knowing I was innocent, and in fact knew, she in fact knew who was responsible, right? So to hear her say to me, you know, that you've done nothing wrong and that this came to that because of politics, well, basically there's better for me to suffer than for her and the president. Right. Okay, right. So people, she's going to cover herself and them. But to tell me not to be so dramatic about the devastating.

station that was just caused to my life, my career and reputation, which I'd spent decades building, was destroyed overnight. So not only did I become the target of hate, I became the target of several government investigations, which, you know, they've left me in the whole over, you know, it's left me in the whole millions of dollars. And so, I don't know, the immortality of this administration and the fact that I was not willing to play, you know, by their rules, again, I became the hit girl. Let's play one last clip that you provided us that sticks with this subject. I've been, I've been crucified. That's it.

And I'll do my best to uncrucrucify myself at some point. Well, you need to put, you need to do it with, I know it will take time, but you need to, you know, put out with, you know, regarding the money. Because that's all what they're going after. Yep. and it needs to be you know put it out where and when because the peak has the papers so you're there are things that have been written about that i know are directly linked to certain people because only i would know because i dealt with those people on those budget issues and i'm the one being thrown under the bus by everyone i mean these people are not good people but They are all protecting one another.

Yeah. So I think one of the most interesting things that you say there is that, like, those people are all protecting one another. Is there like a stronghold of like honor among these thieves or are they all just backstabbing one another constantly? I think there's a core group that will always stand together. Most people, most people are dispensable to them. But there is a core group. And I think that, you know, again, not many people get to see that. or understand it. And so for me, I think letting people hear her and decide for themselves,

like she very well knew all of the inner dealings and inner workings of the planning of the inauguration, the finances of the inauguration. And I'm sure I shouldn't even be saying this because there's an ongoing investigation. But the reality is, I wrote it in Malanya and me in my book, and the truth is the truth. Right. So I can't, you know, there's a certain point. I just can't, sit back anymore and allow them to keep the charade up and attack my character.

They've sort of done this to everybody, right? But I didn't think she had a choice. At the time, at the time, because we were so close and she knew everything that was going on, and I knew everything was going on,

and what most people don't know, again, I did write about it in mind to me, but I hired a lawyer in January when I was asked to follow this narrative, and I wouldn't. So I was in the White House. I already had my lawyer while I was still working in the White House. And she knew that it was upon her advice. You know what I'm saying? So she was my, I believe she was watching out for me and she was until it came to the point where the White House counsel told her, you know,

there is a possible investigation into the presidential inauguration committee and you are not allowed to say anything on Stephanie's behalf. Nothing. So when I begged her to just come out and say that I was her friend. I was loyal. I was anything. Nope, nothing. So the betrayal and the pain of that was like, I gave up my whole life for this woman and the country, because I really did feel it was a civic duty because no one else would help Melania. I mean, she was alone. And to see that it was like, no big deal. Like, I should have known better. She is just like her husband. Yeah. So with that, we have another thing that goes down that. subject, which is, you know, we constantly see some people on who are a little too online thinking

that Melania is some hostage in the White House and all this ridiculous stuff. So you provided us with a cliff that I think shows how ridiculous those hypotheses are. Yesterday, okay, yesterday I wore that pink dress from Prue and a shoulder. Uh-huh. I love that dress. Okay. Now they say, oh, wait a moment. I guess she was wearing that dress because she didn't say anything about gay parade on Sunday.

She wore it Monday to give the knot because they're gay couple, right? Yeah. I wrote the story. I didn't see it. I didn't see it. I didn't. And they wrote the story. And you said like, you know, and they, they, they, you read it.

And it's like, what? Excuse me? It's like, wow. I. People are really like, crazy and obsessed. So. You hear that and obviously, but there's just this callousness that you keep hearing these clips that just, I guess you were talking about how the Trump's, you know, they're not supposed to show this emotion, but this even comes down to like that she's just absolutely lacks empathy between that and that immigrant clip that you've circulated before, that she just does not seem to have sympathy for anybody. There is no empathy. There is no sympathy.

And you nailed it. I mean, you really just nailed it, Jesse, because I actually think I was trying to. to find the right word for it, but it's this, it is. It's a callousness because it's the same thing that she would say to me, you know, get over it. What's the big deal? What do you care? It's like, I can't believe people. You know, it was very, it's a very revealing clip. And again, Melania does what Melania does because Melania wants to do what Melania wants to do and for no other reason. Just to get back to like the trip with the border and the kids and that and that jacket, she just doesn't care or about which part? About like,

you know, the damage that the husband does. Listen, Melania knew who she was married, right? It's not like they both didn't understand who one another were. And that is a marriage of, is it transactional, you know, it's been called, it's been, you know, listen, it's two dynamic decades for Melania.

She, you know, trial and married, and now she's the first lady, and that's amazing to be an immigrant, to come to this country and to, be the first lady. I mean, I was like the first day I was standing in Michelle Obama's office. There's Melania's them, but it was Michelle, it had been Michelle Obama's.

I was FaceTime Milan. And I was like, oh my God, I'm standing where Michelle stood. You know, it was so exciting. But for her, she was in New York and I was like, oh, no, you know, it's a, it's the mindset. It's such a different mindset. And I don't think I can actually explain it. So why don't we go more down that road, though, is because you provided us one last clip that really is incredible to that point. So let's listen to that real fast. That you're aware of it.

No, we talked about it. He had nothing to do with that jacket. I know, but nothing to do with that jacket. But the world, but I'm just telling you what he said to me. And he, and he was taking screenshots of his Instagram because he felt so, or whatever, his Facebook, whatever they, you know, people write him on. Oh, yeah, yeah, but that's, it's expected. Of course. That's bad stuff anyway. So, because, you know, because he's helping me and he's, but he's, but he's, It's not like that he's dressing me all the time. You know, so it's not like, yeah, he's helping me with that tree,

but it's not like I'm buying myself stuff if I have time for a few or five minutes and I see something. I get it myself. He's not like all the time that he's only one for everything. So what prompted you to want to buy that check? I'm driving liberals crazy, that's for sure. And that's, you know, that's what, and they deserve it. Everybody's like, oh, my God, this is.

The worst, this is the verse. After. I'm not there. They are. So, one of the weird features of this family is just how much they love to own the libs and be cruel to what they see is their enemy. And people have long thought that she's not part of that. But that clip, she wants to own the lips.

She wants to drive the lips crazy. The beginning of that clip is Irvay, is Irvay complaining about getting, online bullied? Yeah, so here's the thing with Airve who, Erbe Pierre. He was, he worked for Carolina Herrera for artistic director. His resume is so impressive. He has his own line. He's a courtier. He's not just a stylist. I mean, he really stepped up to the plate for her and he put everything on the line to do this for her. And, you know, to work for her. And again, he sees it as an honor. There's so much callousness. I can use that word, but now it's going to be a constant for me. Because even in just trying to get him paid for doing, you know, collaborating with her

and making her first dress, it was like pulling teeth. There is no empathy of remorse for the fact that here's someone who was blamed because he's known as her, quote, stylist, that, you know, when she got on the plane, when she wore that I don't care jacket onto the airplane, people just assumed immediately that Erbe had everything to do with it because he helps dress her. I wanted her to know that I had spoken with him. Again, she was like, yeah, I know he's in Paris. I was like, no, no, no. He is in such despair.

And I know that he would never call her on his own, nor would he ever call on his or anyone else and let them know how he's feeling because he's very, very respectful that way, but to the point where it hurts the individual. And I get it. I understand his mindset. But I know that I could talk to her that way

because I love Irve. And he's a really incredible human. being and it wasn't fair for him to be attacked on social media because that's what his legacy was going to become was that jacket. And so I was hoping that her office or she would actually put something out and I followed up with this regarding the fact that he had nothing to do with it. Not just like, oh, no big deal. And he knows, no, no, no, like actually put something out that concretely speaks to that so he can wash away anyone's belief that he had anything to do with it. And yes, he was being attacked on social media, on his Facebook, on his Instagram.

And in fact, when I sent him the photograph, he immediately rolled me back saying, is this Photoshop? And I wanted so desperately to say yes, but I was like, Arvay, seriously, like, this is what just happened. And he was devastated. And so that moment of seeing her reaction to that, as well as her reaction, as you say, to the liberals, like Melania's jacket wasn't for her just by design, right? That's her mantra. It extends responsibilities as first lady.

Like, I don't care. Now, I had many different feelings as to what could have been said about her jacket. I expressed them to her. But, you know, again, despite the attempts of public image of concern and care, the main thing is I don't care. And Melania knows and supports Donald and his viewpoints. and she is the first to say if you hit him he'll hit you back harder

he's the brass knuckles aggressive guy and she elects to Graham Barrett she turns a blind eye and the truth is she's actually encouraging him to go for it be aggressive right she is his biggest chairleader

and the one person who is not shaking in their boots is Melania everything we see with Trump world is like for whatever reason a person gets involved with them you know it always ends with them

being totally destroyed. Yeah. And here's the thing too about them, because they're so powerful and they have the machinations of the White House machine, whatever, the propaganda machine behind them at the White House with this messaging, until I was wrongly and publicly shamed the way I was, I think it's really hard to understand how seismic it feels. Like, my core self was demolished. And honestly, what a fool I was thinking I could make a difference in the middle of Trump world. Like, you can't, no matter how close I felt I could get my proximity to power, even with Melania, that we could make a positive difference in this world and work on social emotional learning with children, no matter how close you are, no matter what intention you have, you can't do a thing with the Trumps.

And I had to learn that the hard way. Amazing. I would love to say that throughout all of this, and for me advocating and speaking up so much as I have been doing, almost every day, like, this is my civic duty to share the story and to tell the truth because of what I witnessed firsthand working with the Trumps and their cohorts. And their lack of honesty and loyalty and, you know, they have a history and character of graph. Like, we know that. We all know that. But they are not decent or ethical. And that's what we need. And so, you know, I made a life-changing mistake. I did. And I, you know, I realized it too late. But

people really do need to look at the Trump's moral character and the character of those who are warning them about them, you know, that are still following them and still believing in them. Yeah, which is a large group. Which is a large group of people that do not see that they are not hardworking. They are not decent. They are not respectful. And they need to be held accountable because these people are giving their, you know, every dime they have. And, you know, We have over 300,000 people dead.

They are not taking any responsibility for that. And also, he's raised over $200 million. Yeah. It's just not okay for the rest of the country to not understand. And I do. It's my moral obligation to share this because I have protected them for way too long. So people get very kind of like, well, why did you tape her? So explain to us what your motivation was.

Taping a friend is, it's unacceptable. It really is. But Melania was no longer my friend when I pressed record. Because when I pressed record on the conversations I had with her, it was only after she, Donald, and the Pick used the New York Times to make me the scapegoat and to falsely accuse me for the unaccounted and overspending of the $107 million of the inaugural funds. You knew you were getting framed. Oh, I knew it. And she and I spoke about it. And I knew they were going to. to tie, you know, Melania's senior advisor, a friend gets $26 million to the following week that I was severed, you know, implying I was fired, neither of which were true. But she, as you've heard, she was very well aware, but she couldn't come out and say anything. And nor would she. When I wrote Melania and me, I knew every word of it would be subject to potential scrutiny. So I made sure my every, like, I made sure it was not only accurate, but fully provable. And I have said that so many times. Yet,

Melania, even without naming me in her, you know, official website, Twitter, she said that I made salacious claims, that I clung to her, that I hardly knew her, trying to distort her character. Again, that's why today was so great speaking with you and sharing this with you and sharing it with everyone that listens to it because the art of distraction, which is what they do, is they want to get off the set of the trail. And it's like, we're going to tell you all these things so you don't listen to this. But without these tapes, who would believe anything that I'm saying? So I'm not proud to say that I taped someone. And I never had any intention of using these tapes. And first and foremost, I taped to protect myself. Because I needed to be protected once I knew

I was going to be under investigation. Right. No, I mean, I don't think anyone ever regrets taping a Trump. You know, it's true. Right. Because they, yeah, we have so many, it's funny because it's like we've had so many,

I mean, we've just seen person after person and spit out by this family. Right. And that's exactly what they do. It's, you know, piranhas. So I'm glad that it's there for protection. It's there for proof. and it's there for practicality.

I mean, it works because it's provable. Before we get into things, we have a fun little treat. There are so many insane things happening in the world right now, and two episodes a week just aren't enough to cover it all. So, the new abnormal is going to release a limited run series of bonus interviews over the next few weeks for Beast Inside members only. We'll release a new one each Sunday. But listen carefully.

Only Beast Inside members will have access to these. So head over to the new abnormal. Dot the Daily Beast.com to become a beast inside member now. That's new abnormal. dot the daily beast.com. Tim Miller, since you are a special, fancy guest, you get to do a fuck that guy,

get to being the operative word. So tell us who is your fuck that guy. I'm so excited. And I bet this is not his first nomination for Fuck That Guy on the podcast, but it's worth revisiting. And I've got to fuck that guy, Ron Johnson. Oh, yes.

Well deserved. Yeah. And after much consideration, There's so many bad senators. I've decided at the end of 2020, Ron Johnson is the worst of the senators. I know it's a competitive category. There are a lot of potential nominees, but this guy- Marsha Blackburn says hi.

Exactly. This guy sat over a committee where he spread Russian disinformation, where he ran cover for Donald Trump's bullying of the Ukrainians into fabricating lies about Joe Biden. He knowingly did it. And then I'm sure you saw the Bullwark article where he had a phone conversation with one of our, RVATs, where he told him that he knew that the election was already over, but that he needed to

keep the Trump supporters happy. He said, meanwhile, that the Bernie and AOC voters don't love this country like the Trump people do that go to the rallies and shout about bailing people and immigrants and sending people back to Africa. They're the ones that really love this country, according to Ron Johnson. And now, last week, amidst this pandemic, where there's so many people struggling, so many people that need money, Ron Johnson refines his fiscal conservatism. and he just made $1,200 and that people need to go find a job. I mean, are you serious?

Fuck that guy. Fuck him so hard. And if he tries to break his promise to not run for another term and to term limit himself in 2022, I hope the people of Wisconsin fuck that guy really hard to. Yeah. Merry Christmas, Ron. 2020, man.

So my fuck that guy is Tucker Swanson. McNeer. Carlson. Fish Dick. Fish stick air of frozen fortunes. Founder of the Gateway Pundit, just kidding, the Daily Caller. He was on television just asking questions about the vaccine, right? Just asking questions, not spreading disinformation, but he was also spreading disinformation. And then the next day, we find out that Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox, Tucker's boss,

got his coronavirus vaccine because he doesn't want to die. But that is Tucker Carlson, you know, again, I think he's trying to like win back the viewers he lost to Newsmax by being a bigger lunatic than Newsmax or OAN. But it's really disgusting to watch. Can I just have two quick things on Tucker half? Did you see Tucker McNeil Swanson Carlson, Carlson, the seventh outside the TPPUSA rally? Take a picture with Benny Plagoras Johnson. Johnson. But again, this is during this pandemic, they held a Mar-a-Lago event, like a maskless Mar-a-Lago mass gathering, and Tucker's out there chumming it up with all these like little

mega-youths and screeling and encouraging them. And here's the thing that why that really bugs me and why the vaccine thing bugs me is that Tucker knew, Tucker knew about the threat of this virus. And he was actually ahead of a lot of people, though. He didn't just casually know. He was talking about it on the show in late January and early February before I think it sort of had caught on in popular knowledge about how serious this was going to be because he saw it as a way to bang the anti-China drum. And he started talking about how people weren't taking this seriously enough. And he actually flew to Mar-a-Lago to have a meeting with Donald Trump to warn him about how serious it would be. And now here he is doing the hoax shit, the anti-vexie.

scene shit. I mean, he, ugh, it's so gross. It is so gross. I mean, look, you and I both know this guy. He is a nihilist. He doesn't believe any of this crap. He loves the show. He loves the performance. He wants to keep making $15 million a year. And God bless, you know, who wouldn't

be a capitalist. But the falsity of it and the way that he's willing to take all these people down with him is just astounding. It is amazing. So Rick Wilson, who is your fuck-that guy? My fuck-that guy today is the returning favorite. It's Donald John Trump.

45th president, but not 46th president. Who is this fellow? The fact that this president right now is letting the clown circus of people trying to encourage the overturning of the election, the imposition of martial law, the seizure of ballot boxes,

the arrest of political enemies, etc., etc., all for the purposes of running an ongoing con, targeting MAGA voters, is, I mean, we know there's never been a bottom for the sky. We know there's never like, there's never a moment where, where some better angel of his nature says, hey, you know what?

Why don't I not be a scummy dickhead today? Why don't I do the right thing for the country and toward other people? We know that moment's never going to have. But there is a degree to which his mendacity and his repacity has just reached the final point. and this idea of declaring martial law and encouraging this million militia march and all this other shit, these people that are playing along with him,

they know better, and he ought to know better, but he doesn't have any motivation to change because he's never been held to any account for four years, five years now, and no one's ever had the balls to stand up in the White House

and go, what the fuck are you doing? Cut the shit out. So here we are. We're going to end the year 2020 with the president trying to stoke the idea that he's going to declare martial

law and overthrow the election. And it's not going to work at the end. Well, 3,000 people a day are dying from the coronavirus, that he's not even trying to pretend to take seriously anymore. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's not going to work in the end. It is one more excuse for him not to do his goddamn job,

but that still doesn't make it not horrifying and deserving of my very last fuck that guy of the year 2020. On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking with smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. We're just

getting started and don't want you to miss an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly JongFest and he's the Rick Wilson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. more great listens, check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.