The Daily Beast Podcast - How Mitch's Wife Blew Up Mystery With Bombshell

Episode Date: August 1, 2026

Joanna Coles and Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty break down another extraordinary week in politics, from Donald Trump's unsettling appearance at Lindsey Graham's funeral to the growing mystery surrounding Mitch McConnell's health and the unanswered questions surrounding the photos released by his office. They explain why the silence from Republican leaders has only fueled speculation, what McConnell's absence could mean for the balance of power in the Senate, and why Trump has every incentive to avoid the story. Plus, they look at Vivek Ramaswamy's surprising political troubles in Ohio, the domestic abuse allegations engulfing Rep. Max Miller, and the political battles that could reshape the 2026 midterms. Presented in partnership with PMI U.S., US Businesses of Philip Morris International. Share your prediction for America's future with #America250 or fill out our form for a chance to be featured on the podcast. By posting with #America250, you agree that The Daily Beast may include your comment in PMI U.S.-sponsored segments on The Daily Beast Podcast and to other potential PMI U.S. uses. https://beast.pub/america250 #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I was going to call it hot Mitch Summer. It might be cold Mitch Summer. We don't know. We have asked, and asked, asked what is going on in Mitch McClellan. And we don't have satisfactory answers. We have been given the whole public, his voters, his constituents,

the people who he serves have been given two photographs. The whole thing that we've been talking about now for more than 40 days of McConnell, where is the evidence? Where is the truth? They put out a picture. They stripped it of its metadata. Now, when we,

take pictures normally, it records where it was, what time it was, what the exposure was, which, you know, all these, all these details, we don't have any of that. We have asked his office, we get no response. The lack of information is the key thing here, Joanna. Hello, I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Friday podcast and we are catching up on Mitch McConnell's health. Did Donald Trump actually know who was in the coffin at Lindsay Graham's funeral because he seemed to forget, not once, but at least twice. And what did Barack Hussein Obama actually say to Anthony Fauci about Don Trump Jr.? It's all here.

And who's here to explain it with us, Hugh Dockedy, the executive editor of The Daily Beast. No one knows more about what's going on than Hugh. Before we get into it, I just want to remind you, we are independent media. reason we can bring you these stories and the angles that we do, and we'll be going deep into what an earth is going on in Max Miller's divorce case. He's the Republican congressman and son-in-law of Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno. I'm going to remind you to subscribe. Just smash the subscription button if you haven't done already and join the Daily Beast community. It's really fun in here. and you can become a Bee Beast member, you can become a friend of the Beast, but we rely on your

support. Okay, as I said, no one knows more than Hugh Docherty. Let's get into it. Hugh, what a week. Lindsay Graham's funeral, we've had BB Netton Yahoo and Vladimir Zelensky in town. Trump falling asleep at his close friend, Lindsay Graham's funeral, Mark Arubio, looking very anxious about him falling asleep. Trump appearing during his eulogy to forget who eulogy he was giving, leaning down and going, that person, that person. Then we have the Darlene Graham of it all, NEPO candidate. We've also got Mitch McConnell that we're really going to get into, and I'm very excited about that. We've got Obama's real thoughts on Donald Trump emerging in Anthony Fauci's diary. I mean, what a week, Hugh, what a week. It's an amazing week, Joanna. These are

So I'll just say that the Daily Beast Newsroom, those stories have been popping. This has been a week where our readers, our viewers, our listeners, thank you to all of you. Thank you to everybody who subscribes. We have been covering Mitch McConnell in incredible depth. We have been covering Donald Trump. And I should say, just as we are talking, Joanna, it is Friday morning or early Friday afternoon. And the president is at Camp David where he's taking his cabinet on tour. And he's putting a ball in an unreal week.

An unreal week. And of course, more bombing in Iran. And he's been bombing Iran. And he's been bombing Iran. I cannot think on this summer Friday of anywhere, I suspect, Donald Trump would less like to be than Camp David. It's just not his thing. And I was looking at the list of things that they get to do there. The leisure activities are tennis. I don't think I've ever seen.

There is one famous picture of Donald Trump. playing tennis in the 90s. It is not flattering. Fishing. Never seen him fish. Nope. And if he did fish, you know he'd be going like this. It was this big. It was this big. Very big fish. Very big fish. Fishing tennis, probably a meditation room, I would think, at this stage. Don't think he's going to be in there.

There is some golf practice, but I bet the golf at Camp David probably not as good as some of the golf courses he actually owns. At least in his own view, yes. course in his own view. Who else? And I think you missed a chapel, Joanna. I miss the chapel where I'm assuming that J.D. Vance and Pete Hexeth, the two most religious, I think, members of the cabinet there, I can't speak for Linda McMahon. I'm sure they're spending a lot of time thinking, what am I doing here? How do I get out of this? Pete Hegseth, the war, you are going to be blamed for the war that they cannot get out of. And the good news is at least they're all in America, because if they were in Africa,

they would be in the wrong country. I'm sure everybody by now has seen that humiliating presentation by the State Department labeling the wrong countries in Africa. Absolutely incredible. And luckily, Joanna, we can see right now the weird, bad labeling of this map. It seems that they got something wrong on the AI. It seems to be AI generated. They gave up in Cameroon.

They just were like, oh, we don't even know where that. is, we have re-labelled this map for them. And for those of you watching on YouTube, you probably knew where they were. The State Department didn't know where they were. That's what they're paid to do. I have spent a lot of time, actually, in Africa. And I couldn't identify every single country because there are a lot of them. But I'm not representing America for the State Department. And if I were, I would have learned the map off my heart. The fact that nobody knew, nobody bothered to check, this is the Department of State. It is a And they took this map on tour. They went to Brazil. I mean, we know they went to Brazil. I don't know. Do they know they know they were in Brazil? Probably not. They may have thought they were in Argentina. They could well have thought they were in Argentina. Does Donald Trump think he's at Camp David? Where does he think he is? Because he didn't know who was in the coffin at Lindsay Graham's funeral. He didn't know. He just kept saying that person, that person. I'll just say this is. Who does that at a funeral? Donald J. Trump. Donald J. Trump. But who is he again? Just remind us, oh, the president of.

of the free world. Well, the leader of the free world, the president of the United States. You've just promoted him. I have just promoted him. But he is, you know, incredibly important, as we know, from the price of Brent Crude. Yes. Anyway, where do we begin, Hugh? Do we begin with Elaine Chow?

Well, I think this week, I was going to call it hot Mitch Summer. But it might be cold Mitch Summer. We don't know. Could be lobster roll Mitch Summer because the first time we got the picture of him he was wearing a red gingham shirt which to me streaks Maine and lobster rolls Yes another thing that you can't imagine Trump having any engagement in at all Absolutely not So yeah this week has been we've just an incredible series of developments on the Mitch McConnell mystery Where is Mitch McConnell what is going on and what is the involvement of his wife Elaine Chow?

And these stories, I'll just say, these are stories that we have been following in huge depth on The Daily Beast. And I just want to give a big shout out. I said already, thank you for subscribing. The elite media have ignored this, Joanna. The sort of the Washington dinner party circuit don't want to talk about Mitch McConnell not being present. Where is Mitch McConnell? If you were to leave this to the people that write these sort of elite insidery things, you would never find out. Thank you to our subscribers because you have been able to help us keep reporting on this scandal.

And it is a scandal. But let's talk about the mystery. And I think it's the mystery of Elaine Chow that is... Well, it's the mystery of a particular photo, isn't it? Well, there are two elements. One, there is a photo which doesn't appear to have a timestamp and has led to all sorts of conspiracies. And we can talk about that in a second. Also, interestingly this week, Elaine Chow accepted an award.

She was, of course, Donald Trump's Transportation Secretary. She received an award for her work through the airline industry. Yes, it's the – I'm looking down so I get this right. The Donald D. Engen Trophy for Aviation Excellence. She received it at a luncheon in D.C. on Wednesday. And this – this is – I mean, her – Her husband's in hospital. You know, I think anybody who's been in this situation of having an elderly relative

needing hospital care, or in this case, according to his statements, his office's statements, rehabilitation care, obviously life has to go on. Obviously, you know, you can't say give everything up. Anyway, she made this appearance and it raised a lot of eyebrows. Well, it raised a lot of eyebrows because she singly failed to mention her husband once in her speech. He didn't even say thank you to all the well-wishers who've reached out to me and Mitch. We really appreciate it. He's working hard on his rehab.

He'll be back soon. I mean, we're told by his team. And as you've pointed out, his chief of staff is a senior member, obviously, of his team. He earns $226,000. And they've told us, they've reassured us that Mitch is working on affairs of state. Yet we have no evidence that he can speak. No, absolutely no evidence. We have nothing from his wife, despite her appearing in public.

And we have nothing from his office. We have, we ask, we constantly ask for updates. We also have no word from Scott Jennings, the MAGA CNN provocateur, who newly bearded. Newly bearded. Has, of course, said that he spent 20 minutes talking to Mitch McConnell. And that was way back, almost at the very start of this. at the start of July, he was in fact challenged on CNN. We have the clip, and it's pretty remarkable.

Can I ask you because you actually were invoked the other night on the show about your former boss, Senator Mitch McConnell. Have you spoken to him recently on the phone? No, I haven't spoken to him. I haven't talked to him early on, and I'm in touch with his office, but I haven't spoken to him recently. Should we want to FaceTime him? No?

Okay. I thought the language there that Scott Jennings used was interesting. He said, I talked to him. Yes. I talked to him. Yes. Which is what you're encouraged to do when people are in a state, you know, a potentially sort of comatosed state.

Now, we're not saying that about Mitch McConnell. We just want answers. He's a working member of the Senate. His team have reassured us that he's busy on affairs of state, but he wasn't able to take the vote. for Todd Blanche. So what is Mitch McConnell state? We're not the only people asking.

No. Governor Andy Bashir of Kentucky, a Democratic governor in a red, in a, well, Republican state, which is a red state, also asking questions saying, what are his constituents supposed to think? So we have asked and asked and asked

what is going on Mitch McConnell. And, you know, let's just be honest about this. We don't have satisfactory answers. So can we talk? about the photo. So, and that's exactly, that's what we have, we have been given the whole public, his voters, his constituents, the people who he serves have been given two photographs. One, the first one, as you say, with the sort of gingham shirt shouting Maine, although he's, of course, from Kentucky. And then the second proof of life, that was the first proof of life

photo on July the 12th. The second one was released on July the 27th on Monday. And his office said that it was taken on July the 26th. And as you can see, it shows him not in lobster outfit, but in a very, very normal Oxford button, blue Oxford button down. With, again, Elaine Chao at his side. And a significant detail of all this, which I know, Joanna, you have been absolutely on top of. Well, is that Elaine Chao is wearing the same?

same outfit in that photo as the day she went to visit him two weeks earlier when she was spotted coming out with a big blue or a dark blue trench coat, which was odd because Washington is so hot at this time of year. And the same outfit that she was wearing in the second proof of life photo, which came out this Monday. Yes. So a lot of people speculating that is it possible that Monday's photo was actually taken a couple of weeks ago because isn't it unusual for her to be wearing the same outfit? Now, I as regular observers of the podcast will know those who see it on a video platform, I constantly wear the same t-shirts and blazers and things. But it's an odd coincidence given the context of this story where we are very clearly

not getting enough information. So one of the things, and I hesitate to talk about female clothing because this is not my area of expertise. Do not follow me for female fashion tips. Go to Joanna. But people noticed that it appeared in this proof-of-life photo. She was wearing a blouse, I believe, is the term. A blouse. Which costs $15 at Chikos.

And that seems off-brand. And the reason that I say it seems off-brand is, in fact, a family friend Jeffrey Yang, who is a very well-connected. He's a cultural commentator on Asian-American culture particularly. He was at Harvard with two of Elaine Chao's younger sisters. He knows this, the Chow family very well, and described her as the most put-together woman he has ever known, and that she would never normally wear this sort of outfit. And yet, she wore it twice.

She wore it twice. It's possible that she grabbed clothes, you know, from round the corner, perhaps as a Chico's near the hospital, she was in a hurry. But it's, if it's true that it is a Chico's shirt, that seems an odd choice for Lane Chow, because when we saw her picking up her award for airline excellence, she was in a much more glamorous stuff. And she's always looking very put together. Not that there's anything wrong with a Chico's shirt, but she's the daughter of a billionaire. She was a cabinet minister. Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chow have plenty of money. It's an odd choice and it's an odd choice for her to be wearing it twice

and to be in the photos wearing it's a perfectly nice shirt. It's got little kind of apricot flowers on it. But it's odd. And certainly the conspiracy theorists out there are saying, we don't think that Monday's photo was taken on Monday or Sunday. Right. And here's the whole thing that we've been talking about now for more than 40 days of McConnell. Where is the evidence?

Where is the truth? So they put out a picture. They said it was taken on Sunday the 26th. There's no metadata on the picture. There's no knowledge of who took it. There's no knowledge of exactly where it was. It appears to be in the same room. Here's to be in the same room.

The light sort of, there's a kind of thing on the wall right behind them. But we are, because of this lack of transparency, they didn't ask the associated press or Reuters to send, you know, to cut, they didn't invite a neutral, respected news photographers to come and take this picture. And that person obviously would be, you know, would clearly be a reliable source of information. Instead, they put out a picture. They stripped it of its metadata. Now, when we take pictures normally on our, you know, we all take them on this. it records where it was, what time it was, what the exposure was, which, you know, all these, all these details, we don't have any of that. That's immediately people saying that's suspicious. We have asked his office, we get no response. And, you know, the lack of information is the key thing here, Joanna. Well, and also- Because we can't know what the truth is. Right. And let's also remind people why the clock is ticking on this. Why is this particularly significant? So we are at, we're discussing this today in July 31st. On August, Monday, August the 3rd, a deadline comes into effect under laws which were passed by Republicans in Kentucky, which would prevent a special election being declared to replace a senator who was resigning at that point or who advocated office by dying. So this is the law as it appears to stand in Kentucky, and I'll explain that in a second, but on August the 3rd, if Mitch McConnell were to no longer be Senator, for whatever reason on August the 3rd, his seat would remain empty until the new election that takes, you know, the general election in November, where there is a whole slate of candidates running there. There's a whole slate, there's a Democratic and Republican candidate running in Kentucky to take his seat because he has a whole slate of candidates running there's a Democratic and Republican candidate running in Kentucky to take his seat because he has.

had already said he was retiring. He did not run for re-election. But August the 3rd is the crucial date. The Republicans in that state believe that in August 3rd, if he resigns or if it were to be announced that he had died, that seat would just be empty. And that's, it's probably, it's not the best outcome for Republicans to have an empty Senate seat, but it's a better outcome than having an election for one which would be, you know, a whole media spectacle. It would be money. It would be a problem. On top of that, it's also potentially a constitutional crisis because Andy Bashir, the governor who has not heard from Mitch McConnell's staff, never mind Mitch McConnell since June the 14th, he says that he does not recognize this law and that he probably has the power to appoint a senator temporarily. And he's a Democrat. So who do you think he would appoint? And of course, that would change the the mathematics that underlie the Senate. It wouldn't give the Democrats a majority, but, you know, in this...

But it would slim the majority down. Democrats need four votes to win the Senate. And, of course, with John Cornyn and Tom Tillis feeling somewhat freer because they're both leaving because they were primaried by Trump candidates and both, well, Tom Tillis was retiring and John Corning got primaried, they're feeling more resilient against on Trump, I think, and they're the two holdouts, of course, for Todd Blanche being appointed. Yes. And there could be more to come on this. So the Mitch McConnell situation, let's just review some of this. We, you know, he's a senator. We, I think, it's reasonable for taxpayers

to expect a degree of transparency about these things. We don't really know what condition he has. We know that his office have put out statements, which are attributed to him. We don't know if he said that because there's no video, as we've said, over and over, and as Scott Jennings was very awkwardly challenged to provide on CNN on Thursday night, there's no evidence from, there's no statement from a doctor that offers any definitive statement about what is wrong and what is happening. Then on top of that, there have been sightings of Elaine Chow in which her hair is different. people are looking at what is emerging in public and trying to work out what's happening,

the basic responsibility it would seem here for the Senate or the Republicans in the Senate would surely be to come clean and say, this is what's happening with Mitch McConnell. Here is his doctor to speak. And if I were a Republican senator, I would want to know. I mean, again, we go back to the fact that would this pass in your office,

those of you out there who are working, would you be able to do this? Just send in a photo to your office say, hey, I'm not doing so well right now. But here's a picture of me in hospital. I'm working hard at my rehab. I'll see you when I see you. But I won't be around for the next few votes. I mean, no one else in any office, I think in the entire country, could get away with pulling Mitch McConnell. And McConnell is now heading towards 40, 40, 40, for zero missed votes in the Senate.

And it's worth pointing out, there haven't been that many meaningful votes in the Senate while he's been out of office or out of action, which is nothing to do with him. That's to do with the complete dysfunction of the Republican Party in the Senate. But the basic job of a senator is to vote. So let me just ask you one thing and then we can move on. But why hasn't Donald Trump said more about this? Why hasn't he said, hey, Mitch, I hope you're doing well. Send us a video. We want to know you're okay.

Well, this is absolutely a key question about Trump. First of all, we know Trump hates Mitch McConnell. He called him the old crow. Elaine Chow, he also hates because she resigned very publicly on January the 6th saying, I'm not into this. And it was very, very personal to Trump. Now, they did not rebuild any sort of relationship. They hate each other.

However, Donald Trump needs the Senate and he needs something from Mitch McConnell. If it's not his vote, it's that he needs Mitch McConnell to not vote against him. So Mitch being out is not the end of the world for Trump because the alternative of this possible messy special election, that's a nightmare. Do you think if Mitch McConnell were back in the Senate, he would be voting against appointing or confirming Todd Blanche as Attorney General? It's highly likely. It's highly likely. We know that he voted against RFK Jr. He voiced public doubts about many people before, you know, and many of the aspects of how the Trump administration was behaving. He's an institutionalist. His personal animus was clearly on show. it's highly likely that as a retiring senator with deep personal dislike of Trump and he was particularly

Mitch McConnell was particularly incensed about January the 6th because it was an attack on the institution that he had made now we can all debate and his colleagues and his colleagues and his colleagues and his colleagues and we can all debate the rights and wrongs of how he ran the Senate

there's possibly one for you know another day but yeah he was so angry about January 6th This slush fund of January 6th payouts, there's no way he'd have supported that. So I think he's kind of got a bit of, you know, Trump's kind of got a bit of a benefit here that there's not another voice publicly opposing Todd Blanche. However, it's not, you know, he doesn't want the mess. He doesn't want the public scandal, frankly, about an old man failing in public. Hello, who else has got health questions?

Who else are people going like, are you sure you're all? there, Donald Trump. So staying silent on Mitch McConnell is so obviously tactical. It's so obviously important to him that he doesn't really want to raise this. He doesn't want to raise age. And he doesn't want to raise death. Look at his reaction to Lindsay Graham and the funeral. That was not the reaction of somebody that is an empath who wants to understand what

people's pain is. That was somebody that doesn't want to deal with death. Well, he also looked like he was exhausted, and we know he spends half the night up hosting, but the fact that he kept falling asleep and dozing off. And of course, his staff said, oh, no, he was just very moved. He was just sitting there thinking deeply about Lindsay Graham, which absolutely obviously wasn't. He was doing that thing where you jerk your head up when you know.

You could see Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State behind him, sort of looking anxious about it. You could see J.D. Vance staring at the coffin looking sort of, I think a little tortured about the whole environment. But Trump seemed to forget who was in the coffin. I mean, he literally said during his eulogy, which it was clear he hadn't read before he got up there because he got up there and he said Lindsay was beloved by everybody. And then he went, wait a minute.

No, he wasn't. Which was funny. And a moment I suggested to Michael Wolfe, it's actually why people like Trump, because he has that moment where you know he's been handed something to read, it's been written. by his advisers and he's like, what is this? I'm not going to do this. He said that, in fact, at the White House correspondence last week when he was bombing. He was like, who wrote this? Who wrote this? And we should find out who did write it because I wonder if they're still employed. But the fact that he had to look down at the coffin and say, that person, that person,

when he was groping for the name, Lindsay Graham. Now, we've all forgotten people's names. I do it all the time at this point. But that was particularly unfortunate. Well, we've all forget people's names. You know, it's part of human experience. I'll just point out, when you are delivering a eulogy to somebody that you described as one of your closest friends, and quite honestly, whose name is going to be on the front of the paper. On the service order. Hard to forget.

Kind of hard to forget. Unless there are questions over your health. Right. And also, and you're an 80-year-old man. He's in his 90th decade. We know he's throwing back. aspirin and he's got chronic venous insufficiency, which means his circulation is poor. And he's probably pre-diabetic, I would think.

I'm not a doctor, Joanna. I do not play one on television. I'm very happy to play armchair doctor with Donald Trump because he's the president. And I don't feel that we get the truth out of his many visits to hospital. And this kind of goes to the Mitch McConnell situation. We never got adequate explanations for what was happening to Mitch McConnell in public. We all remember when he froze. We remember that there being falls. A terrible moment. A terrible moment. You know, the tragedy of aging happening in public is that what should be something that people are able to deal with with their loved ones present is happening in front of all of us. And these are people who do not want to surrender the reins of power. And I think it's impossible that Trump does not see the parallels when he knows. when he sees about whatever he sees about the Mitch McConnell situation.

But the other parallel is, tell us the truth here. We ask the White House about the vein, about the marks on Donald Trump's hands, about his ankles, about his falling asleep, about his soaring, about the strange walk that has been observed. With his right leg sort of swinging around. And, you know, we get responses like we asked about the walk. he walked to Marine One and he was weaving. And the response that came from Stephen Chung was that was an effing perfect walk, are you blind? Now, that's not transparency that makes people believe that Donald Trump is in good shape.

And that's basically the Mitch McConnell response. Right. And because Donald Trump insists on doing so many press conferences, he says, oh, well, that's transparency. Joe Biden did none of these, which is largely true. But the problem with that level of performing in front of the camera the whole time is you're very, very exposed and people can see that the president doesn't appear to be, well, he appears to be an 80-year-old man who doesn't really look after his health apart from throwing back a handful of aspirin every day. Supersized. Supersized. Supersized because he wants thin blood. Good for him. All right. So let's move on to a character we haven't thought about for a bit. But in fact, he had a tough week too. I'm talking about Vivek Ramoswami. Remember him, the tech guy, who is now running for governor of Ohio.

Yes. Where he grew up. He is, yeah, exactly. He's a native of Ohio. He's running to be the Republican governor of his home state. And those who remember Vivek Ramoswamy will remember that he is, I think, a voluble character is one way to put it. fast talking, frequent public appearances, and of course he bombed out of the Republican primary, you know, long ago. He tried, he thought he saw Lane to be MAGA after MAGA Trump. And of course,

that might work at some point in the future, but there was a problem with being MAGA after Trump when Trump was saying, no, no, I'm still here. Right. He then got into, I was going to say, a business with Elon Musk but unfortunately the business was Doge and the business was destroying the government but he fell out with Elon Musk before they even got near the levers of power

and... Well, probably quite a good career move to leave Elon Musk in... I mean it was pretty much sea and the two of them were supposed to be running it together and then it was a matter of weeks before Ramaswami realized I can't possibly do this and I'm sure Elon thought

I don't want him hanging around, I've got my chainsaw I've got my hair extensions. I'm just going to go for it. Yes. And of course he had big balls, his 19-year-old. He had big balls. With his little army of guys who all wanted to sleep in the office. Yes.

And, you know, whatever else you say about Vivek Ramoswamy, he's 40, which is basically double the age of the Doge crew, right? He is a billionaire, mostly thanks to one farmer holding that he has. And he's gone back to his native Cincinnati. He's running for governor. And the reason we're talking about him is because it has very publicly gone really wrong. To an extent that people are saying this deep, what we thought was deep red Trump country, Ohio could have a democratic governor once people go to the polls in November. So he's the Republican candidate.

There's a very strong democratic candidate and the polls turn out to be much close than anybody expected. This was assumed to be a walk-in for him. He thought he was going to walk this. Amy Acton, who is running as the Democrat, she was the state's top medical officer during COVID. Now, I just said it was the red state, Trump country. So she was the top medical officer to a Republican governor. So this is not the Democratic Socialists of America here.

This is somebody who is from the very center of the Democratic Party. she had a big profile in the media and Ohio is unusual it's not a huge state as we know but has three expensive media markets Columbus Cincinnati and Cleveland which means if you have been on the TV a lot beforehand in the state of Ohio

you actually get a head start and she has that she has a weak Republican candidate let's just be honest about this facing her up because Vivek has not been on screen much on not been much on local television in Ohio. He has, however, been a fixture on Fox News in the past. And the polls, the latest polling, put the two of them neck and neck in the New York Times

and Siena, 47 to 47, 3% undecided. And another one, which I think was taken just towards the end of June by Fox News, end of June and beginning of July she was one point ahead now Trump won Ohio by 54 to 43 so this was

you know absolutely Trump country however also J.D. Vance's country because he lived there at one point and of course he was the senator from Ohio so it's actually kind of intriguing Vivek Ramoswamy and

J.D. Vans are almost the same age J.D. is 41 Vaveca's 40. They are from basically, Vavec is from Cincinnati and J.D. is from Middletown which is a kind of, it's part of the Cincinnati metro area.

And do you know what I said? I believe a couple of editions of the podcast ago. I described it as a Cincinnati suburb. It is not, I meant to say, exorb, but even that, it's far enough out from Cincinnati that it's part of the greater Cincinnati metro area and, you know, they support Cincinnati sports teams

and things like that. But it's not part of Cincinnati, so sorry to those who were in the comments. You're absolutely right. I was wrong on that. I do apologize. But we have two guys from the same place, very similar careers at Yale Law School at the same time, went into tech and sort of investing at the same time. And one is the vice president and the other might be governor, might not. But is a billionaire. But is a billionaire. Which Eddie Vance would have liked to have been at one point. Absolutely. However, what we see. saw this week in Ohio and we can play the tape because it's quite a phenomenon. That you're successful and can actually create wealth and create success instead of villainising.

A lot of booing going on that. And that was a right wing crowd. That was a right wing crowd. That was a special conference of young right wingers in Xavier University and particularly hurtfully, I think, to Vivek. That was in his hometown of Cincinnati, and he's from actually a privileged background. He went to the prep school attached to Xavier, and that's Cincinnati's most prestigious boys' school. So I imagine being booed on your home turf by your own people is really not what you want. What specifically was there beef with him? He, as you rightly said, he's a billionaire.

he said, my generation's going to be fine. And that didn't go down well with a crowd of young right-wingers who felt that they were being talked down to and patronised by somebody who was boasting that he'd already made it. And they, you know, quite understandably have not made it. And do you want somebody saying, I'm all right, Jack, to use a very old-fashioned British and petty expression? You don't.

Well, he also said, do you want to be winners or whiners? Yes. Which sounded very Margaret Thatcher, actually. It did a bit, right? Exactly the kind of thing she would have said. So all these phrases just get recirculated, don't they? And it's hard to know what's going to happen in this Ohio race. This is not what we thought was going to happen in Ohio.

We also have polling in Ohio, by the way, that the Senate race there, the Democrat, Sherrod Brown, who previously was a senator. Yeah. According to Fox, it's 5345. he's up against John Hustard, who has been a long-time legislator in Ohio, is currently the sitting senator, but there are swirling corruption problems for the Republican Party there. And it looks very likely that there's going to be a Democratic senator back from Ohio,

which is not what anybody thought was going to happen. Right. And it's so exciting at this. Yes. Because this really is sort of that it's gladiatorial. some of the contests going on. And obviously we have the Democratic primary in Michigan next week, which is a huge primary for that party. An enormous amount of money flowing into that state.

And just on the subject of enormous amount of money, John Ossoff is raising bucket loads of money running for re-election to the Senate and Georgia. Well, after two spectacular performances, one with Jake Clayton and one with Pete Heggson. Yes. And the polling there, even Magazon polling, polls for Tony Fabrizio, has got him and 52 points and Mike Collins, his MAGA warrior opponent on 43 points. So, well, Pinky Herman as Donald Trump refers to him, which we have no idea who you're talking about Donald Trump. Who are you talking about? Who is Pinky Herman?

Donald, if you're in the comments, tell us. Donald, if you're in the comments, Stephen Chung, if you're in the comments, tell us who is Pinky Herman? Please tell us. So staying with Ohio, more bad attention for the Republican representative there, Max Miller, who's been accused of abusing his ex-wife, well, they're currently in divorce. Strange, yeah. And she's claimed that he was violent against her. He put a gun to her at one point that he hit her.

Really bad accusations. Yes, and he denies those accusations. and this is incredibly bitter split. I mean, it's jaw-dropping and quite how bitter it is. Let's just step back a minute. Step back a second to explain who we're talking about. Max Miller is a representative. He represents a swath of the west side of Cleveland.

What had once been very democratic territory, had appeared to be safe Trump country. He had a kind of MAGA fairy tale. Let's talk about love in the time of MAGA. He married... Love in the time of Maca. He married Emily Marino, the daughter of Bernie Marino, who is now the senator for Ohio, the senior senator, in fact, from Ohio.

A car salesman in the past in Cleveland became a big MAGA figure, got into crypto, he's worth serious amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, and Max, the young, brusting MAGA figure, he DJed for Donald. Trump, Donald Trump referred to him as the DJ. Well, shouldn't be, isn't that just playing YMCA repeatedly? Yes, it's pretty easy, right? Barzl, he married another young, glamorous maga figure, Emily Marino. They got married at Bedminster, because where else would you go?

Well, that's more than Don Jr. did. That's true. And then this marriage, the child, it went off the rails. As soon as the child was born, this, we'd get into horrific abuse allegations that have gone on now. We at the Daily Beast have reported this since 2024 when it first became a thing. And again, I just want to say, others have ignored this. It's exploded this week because the New York Times reported on it, and I'm very glad they did. We at the Daily Beast have been covering this going back two years.

And I think there's one particular accusation where she says she's changing their baby's diaper. He comes in and pushes her against the wall. Yes. again, Max Miller denies all this. He has sued his estranged wife for defamation. He has alleged that she is mentally ill. And the most bizarre part of this is he and Bernie Marino are part of the same congressional delegation. Bernie Marino has said nothing in public about his daughter, about the allegations of abuse against his former or his estranged son-in-law. And this is Bernie Marino. who delivered an F-bomb to Tony Fauci during this very heated Senate hearing with the former director of the National Institute of the NIH. Who the F do you think you are, he said. Yet people have been relentlessly pointing out.

He's got nothing to say about a man who's accused of putting a gun to his daughter's head and a man who's accused, who denies but who's accused of breaking one of his granddaughter bones. It's absolutely horrendous abuse allegations. There has been significant law enforcement involvement. And Max Miller is now, it appears there has been some very, very little polling, because as we all know now, there's not enough polling out there. But it appears that he might be in a one-point race in this, in his district on the west side of Cleveland. But this is an incredible turn of the weather, I suppose, for the demo. Democrats, that they have, you know, they have a figure that they are going up against who's

accused of... Well, and he was young, he was attractive, he appeared to have all the promise of the kind of Republican Party behind him, and now this is definitely stopping him. Yes, and, you know, this was, I said this was like some sort of fairy tale. He's from a very rich family that developed, redeveloped downtown Cleveland, Bernie Marino made a lot of money with this amazing immigrant story. He came from Columbia. He became a car salesman. He, you know, he was the face of the North Olmsted Automile. He is, these are, you know, these are big names in this area and this soap opera like explosion of allegations.

And yet, Bernie Marino was not saying anything. What do you think Bernie Marino's silence means? Well, I think it means that drawing attention to it is really bad for the Republican cause, full stop. The Republicans don't need this. The Republicans are very good at attacking Democrats when there are allegations against them. We saw that with Graham Platner. But on the back foot, they've been pretty good at, you know, sort of the Teflon. The thing about Trump is, he's Teflon, right? Trump is a felon.

Trump has been adjudicated, who credibly have committed a sexualist. He has endless court cases against him and it's all bounced off. And down the ballot, there has been some degree of similar effect. But when allegations reach a level where people are repulsed just by the allegation, whether it is true or not, and just to repeat, Max Miller very robustly denies these allegations. And having divorce proceedings, which bring out the worst in everybody. This is ugly divorce proceedings in public, are really bad. for anybody and for Bernie Marino, you don't need this. You don't need this, you know, this, this, this, this, uh, this, uh, taint attaching

itself to your party. He doesn't, you know, Bernie Marino clearly wouldn't like his son-in-law to lose an election because there's a degree of personal humiliation. He obviously wouldn't like the Ohio delegation to become more democratic because he is a ultra-maga loyalist. And, you know, what's going to happen? Trump's going to turn around and blame Bernie Marino for this. Let's be honest about it. So, Anthony Fauci was being, as you said, lambasted by Bernie Marino. And it's his diaries that came to surface because when RFK Jr.

went into health and human services, he found Anthony Fauci's diaries on a government server, correct? Yes. This says something about the weird spitefulness of RFK Jr. If you were appointed to run this is the absolutely critical part of the government, HHS, what would be in the top 10 or top 100 things that you do? Check the old emails of a former member of staff.

RFK Jr. finds these diaries. And interestingly, he's a man who's been hoist on his own diary, Petard, by Isabel Vincent, who was given his diaries during his divorce from his late wife Mary, Mary Richardson. So he's a man who knows how powerful diaries can be when used against someone. Yeah, it's hard to know what goes through the mind of RFK Jr, obviously.

Well, it's the brainworm that goes through the mind of RFK Jr. I just think that I'm not sure how much, I'm not sure how much processing is going on at this point. It's a very good question. was it him, was it at the brain one, but either way, somebody, one or the other, instructed the staff to go and check Anthony Fauci's emails, and they found that he had been keeping, they were calling it a diary, because it's a fair description. It's, you know, it's like what he did, what he was doing that day, who spoke to him, you know,

he keeps articles about the spread of COVID. It's fairly obvious, by the way, that Anthony Fauci had probably been doing this. for decades. Probably, I imagine, in a notebook first and then on a computer, and some of it is very, very banal. Some of it is, you know, incredibly detailed about the science of COVID. But there are a whole load of things in it that have come out. And this, you know, I don't imagine for a second that Anthony Fauci expected it to come to light. And the Republicans cherry-picked parts of it to attack him. They also redacted parts, which made clear. his compassion to Katie and Stephen Miller,

who are two of the most outspoken people. They want him jailed. They whip up the mob to go after Anthony Fauci. And yet, they were asking him what to do when Stephen Miller and Katie Miller both got COVID. Well, and he was giving them personal advice. He was acting as their sort of medical advice at one point. She was pregnant, and then they turned around and demand he goes to jail.

And now Katie Miller, as we reported in The Daily Beast, is pretending that that was all a sort of false. You know, she was laying false trails to show how bad Anthony Fouchy was. Yes. Which is kind of weird because the only way that she was leaving that false trail, those breadcrumbs were in his private diary that she didn't know he was keeping. Right. And that wouldn't have come out if he hadn't been doing it on a government server, which she would not have known about.

So she obviously was playing, I don't know, is that 5D chess there? She really was, if you believe her, she was really thinking ahead. Props to her, I guess. honestly, that sounds like post hoc explanation. And not unlike Vivek Ramoswami, another connection, she went to work with Elon Musk and left very quickly. She was in a very bizarre triangle with Stephen Miller and Elon Musk.

Very strange circumstance. Concentric circles. But anyway, Anthony Fauci's diary was used against him, but now it transpires that there's actually comments that he reported in his diary from Barack Obama. Yes. Or Barack Hussein Obama. As Donald Trump would say, as Donald Trump would say,

actually making it very clear something that he doesn't often do, how much he despise Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean, these are an amazing insight because Tony Fauci wrote down how he had received a call on his cell phone from President Obama. And we can see some of that extract on screen. In fact, President Obama wanted to praise him and wanted to support him because of the crazy things that people on the right were saying. And we know that Obama has been incredibly guarded about what he says about Donald Trump. He barely uses his name.

I think he is hyper-conscious of what would be said about him as the first black president going after Trump. We know the racial animus that exists from MAGA. We know all these issues. Well, the thing of calling Michelle a man. Exactly. Which, you know, the vile slur. Right, the fighter did at UFC on the White House. Right.

And was not criticised. He was, oh, that's hilarious. You know, and, you know, we go back to birth. I know, J.D. Vance, who has got the nerve to put out a book claiming that this is his journey back to faith, shrugging when asked by Joe Rogan about. calling, you know, the UFC fighter calling Michelle Obama a man. And, you know, Tony Fauci tells us what President Obama says when he's not in front of those places that are going to become fodder for, you know, the sort of the Facebook MAGA right.

Tony wrote, Tony Fauci said, I told President Obama about the crazy things that the far right Republicans were doing, including the fact that Donald Trump Jr. had on his website the sale of sweatshirts and t-shirts to collect money for his campaign and on the t-shirts and sweatsharts that said ouchy kills puppies. So this was to do with the fact that the NIH had been found to have been doing some animal

testing? Yeah, they'd been doing some research on animals. That's not, I mean, you know, people get very emotional about this issue. Sure, because it's a horrible time to think about, though, clearly necessary in certain drugs of development. You know, that's

it's a huge debate about this. Let's not open that can of worms. But this was opportunistically seized upon just by elements of the right because they felt, you know, this would get people emotional. And one of those people was Donald Trump Jr. Donald Trump Jr. prolific hunter. Just worth reminding people that this is somebody that... Constantly shot with the heads of animals that he's shot in the tail of an elephant. Right. So anyway, apparently it evinced a lot of sympathy for puppies. There we go. And Obama in Foucher he wrote down, Obama said that Donald Trump Jr. is an effing moron.

He used that word in fool. He apologized for using crude language, but then went on to say that Donald Trump was a hopeless idiot who was a pathologic liar. Hopeless idiot and pathological liar. Yeah. There we go. That's what Barack Obama really says and thinks.

But Donald Trump, I suspect that most people I suspect that people who support, who do not support Donald Trump, simply say how refreshingly candid of Obama. And also, Obama, he took the time for 25 minutes to phone Tony Fauci and express his support and offer him practical help and say he would do what he could. The Fauci diaries were supposed to be an expose of how evil and star, you know, sort of star-seeking,

I was trying to avoid using that word, Joanna. But yes, that is the word. Tony felt he'd been a monster. He'd been obsessed by power. This critique has been thrown at him by the Republicans. And here we have a picture of a man who, Barack Obama wanted to take 25 minutes to show support to. I don't think these diaries have backfiled on Republicans, but they certainly will confirm in the minds of people who do not support Donald Trump that. Obama has a lot of things to see that he should probably be seeing on the campaign trail and maybe

saying like that. Right. And actually the diaries show that Tony Fauci himself is completely bemused by the fact that he's become a celebrity. So at the same time as he's saying, oh goodness, went to an A-list party, everybody was there. They all wanted selfies with me. He's saying it's unnerving. I have some issues with Anthony Fauci, but not these issues. These issues to me seem like He was very human. He's writing down his real thoughts in a diary, which very clearly he never expected to be published. And the foolishness and goodness knows, we've all left things on work computers we shouldn't have done, but it's just a reminder. You might have. Well, actually, I'm sure, right. Well, I mean, just the texts and emails one sends under, you know, when you're trying to be funny and it's misread or you're trying to be quick. Right. Who among us would want our texts and emails from six years ago? at the height of COVID when we were all terrified, being read out in an accusatory tone by sweaty and spitting senators raising money for their own funds.

Right. And clearly what you get is a view to Anthony Fauci's interior life as he's processing, having to do press conferences with the president, where the president is saying nonsensical things. And his sudden fame. And if you think about how. Many actors and actresses deal with sudden time. You know, they become drug addicts. They start drinking alcohol. Incredible celebrity is especially very quickly, and especially for someone who's spent his life as a, you know, an unrecognized health bureaucrat,

getting that level of fame, I'm sure, is extremely unsettling. And he appeared to deal with it as well as he could. Yeah, and I think anybody reading these would ask himself the question of, If that was me, what would I have said and done? And yeah, it was crazy. He had celebrities phoning him up. His phone number was widely available because he hadn't been famous. Right.

You know, what would you do and what would you write in your diary? It's a lesson here for everybody. Don't let your diary be made public unless you're Samuel Pepys or Tina Brown. Or Bridget Jones. Or Adrian Mell, the secret diary of Adrian Mell, a classic British book. Very British reference there. A lot of people commented how much they love the diaries of Adrian Mell. And actually someone else wrote in yesterday, after I discussed some of this with Michael Wolfe,

what about Diary of a Wimpy Kid? The best diary ever! Diary of a wimpy kid, I remember. I couldn't wait for those books to come out when my kids were young, and they loved them. Diary of a nobody. Diary for nobody. Yes, diary for nobody. And will we ever see the diaries of Donald J. Trump?

I don't think he keeps them, does he? No. Right. Do we need them because he's just always doing daily press conferences? I think we're going to say, we've got it on truth social. We know what's inside Donald Trump's head. And if you don't, then you should join me and Michael Wolfe three times a week as we dive in there and we'll be back tomorrow. Yes, I cannot wait.

As I've said, he is the man with a torch taking you around the tour of a very strange place. We've been spulunking in Donald Trump's brain. HUEI, it's always good to speak to you. Referring people to the website to follow up on some of these stories. Find us dailybeast.com. We are relentlessly reporting Mitch McConnell, Max Miller, all those scandals, all those mysteries. We're also in Substack now at The Daily Beast. We're on Substack, which he writes every morning, and it's so good.

It's my favourite thing to read. The one person we haven't talked about, though we've talked about her brother, or as Donald Trump refers to him, that person is Darlene Graham. Yes. This has been quite a week for Darlene Graham. She's two days of the week have been understandably funeral ceremonies for the brother who adopted her and helped to bring her up when their parents died when she was just 13.

You know, clearly somebody she was incredibly close to. But of course she is running for the full six-year term for the Senate seat which she inherited from her brother. And actually, that's kind of going off the rails this week. Well, and she's another person that, like Anthony Fauci, suddenly been thrust into the spotlight later in life. She's, I think, 60. Not used to it.

I thought she appeared to carry herself off very, you know, very elegantly at what must have been an extremely difficult situation for her. But the assumption that she should just get his Senate seat is clearly being challenged by the people. people of South Carolina. Challenged big time. Nominations have now, I believe, closed for this seat. And it had seemed she had the endorsement of Donald Trump, all as well.

It's a coronation. It's not a coronation. She has eight Republican opponents. She was going to have, she was going to have 11, but the Republican Party disqualified three of them. So that got it down to a field of nine. there has been vestigial polling and it looks like she's ahead of the field but only because of so many of them

and she's on I think it was 12 or 13%. Now this is really messy among those who are running Mark Sanford the former governor and the former member of Congress better known perhaps for his Appalachian travels. The love gov

the love gov but he was a popular governor when he was there. we have also former mayor of Myrtle Beach who has run both of the House and the Senate so he's got experience on what to do on the campaign trail a serving congressman in fact two serving congressmen

Russell Fry and Ralph Norman an entrepreneur we interestingly have a businessman called Mark Lynch he's from Greenville he actually finished second to Lindsay Graham in the Republican primary and it was much closer than they had you know, Lindsay Graham was surprised to get a primary opponent at all, and he actually ran up some votes. And we have another Duke Buckner who ran against Jim Clyburn. So there's a lot of people in this field. Almost all of them have a lot more experience campaigning than Darlene does. She has put out her first campaign video to try to convince people that she has died in the Wool Maga. And she says that she is, as she puts it, pro-life. because there's been this problem for her

that she donated twice to a state senator who filibustered a draconian abortion ban. So she is... As reported first in the Daily Beast, on the Daily Beast. ...which comes out on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and if you want to know what's going on in D.C., the swamp newsletter is the best way to find out.

So that's the drama for Darlene. I think we might be talking about this in even more depth next week. Can we watch her campaign video? We can. I'm honored to serve South Carolina and grateful for President Trump's endorsement. And I'll work hard every day to earn it. I'm a conservative Republican. And I believe this.

Every life is precious. Men don't belong in women's sports. And only American citizens should vote in our elections. I'm Darlene Graham. I approve this message and I'm ready to serve. So she's going for the full trifecta there. Basically, his Save America bill, only American citizens should vote, which they're. do anyway. So what's the weird? It's so weird that he's chosen that as a thing, that men

don't belong in women's sports. There really aren't very many men in women's sports. Again, one of those issues that very effectively has been used as a wedge issue and it's actually not really an issue. Tiny, tiny numbers. And abortion where we know she actually gave money. In fact, her sole campaign contributions were to lessen the impact of an abortion man. Yes, and I think the thing is that she knows that these opponents, these other eight Republicans, have pretty good goods on her here that she's never really been seen her heard from in public. She didn't vote, I think, in the last prime. There are questions about her voting record.

And there is this donation to a cause which is antithetical to the MAGA base. So my prediction for this, Joanna, is going to run off. That's messy. It's a lot of money. And maybe she'll win. We obviously don't know. But we are going to see a lot soap opera down in South Carolina in the next few weeks. And Democrats are going to the popcorn out.

Also, there may be revisionism around Lindsay Graham to do with the videos that we've seen coming out of a documentary that he was making with a British documentary and Alex Holder, where he is sort of laughing and gleeful when the bombing in Iran starts, which is. You know, coincidental, good luck for the documentarian that the war happens to begin while he's covering the senator. And he goes, oh, Donald Trump is a wonderful wartime president. You know, he and B.B. Netanyahu are like Churchill and Roosevelt being Trump and Bibi Netanyahu being Churchill. And it's hard to think of a less apt comparison.

And particularly now, a war that was supposed to last four or five weeks, which now is in its sixth month. this looks terrible for the revisionist history of Lindsay Graham, who of course this week, because it was his funeral, was lauded by Donald Trump, that person, even though he couldn't remember who he was, and Sean Hannity, who used it as an opportunity to suck up to the president.

Yes, he described heaven as being like Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, but bigger, bigger, a bigger Mar-a-Lago. So, you're right, any revisionism about Lindsay Graham, those are really, those are the issues that this, war is incredibly unpopular with Republicans. And Israel has become a divisive issue among Republicans. So both of those things, that's really not what Darling Graham wants to get caught on. And you can see from this video, she's saying nothing about the war. She's saying nothing about foreign policy. She's saying that she's going to focus on domestic policy, isn't she? But also, I'm sure

that she perhaps thought, as I think Caroline Kennedy thought at one point when someone put her up as a possible Senate candidate for New York. Oh, this is going to be easy. I'm going to walk this. And it turns out that actually people don't want dynastic politics. You know, people didn't want Hillary Clinton, the first woman president, who have been married to a former president. And people are clearly not feeling comfortable at the idea of Darlene Graham simply just sauntering into her brother's seat with the president's endorsement as if this is all hunky-dory. There are other people out there who are hungry to get in and fight for South Carolinians. Yeah, it's going to be a fascinating race.

Obviously, we're going to be covering it on the Daily Beast.com. We will. I imagine we'll be talking about it here next week. It's a beautiful state, South Carolina. I have spent a lot of time there. At one point, I used to spend a lot of time in Charleston, and it's just a beautiful, beautiful state. You may be more qualified to run than Darlene. I don't think I am more qualified to run than Darlene, but

Well, there's eight people here who think they are. Yes, that's very true. They don't need me in that race. There may be other races, Huey. Oh, you had that here first. If you need Joanna to run in your race, get in touch. I'm joking. I'm joking. Hugh, it's always fun.

It's always fun to see you. People have gotten, they've acclimatized to your accent. I think it's fair to say. You didn't have to say once this podcast. I'm Scottish. People have figured it out. Just if you have any doubts, I am Scottish. And I will be back next week and I'll still be Scottish.

We hope to be back next week. God willing, we'll be back next week. And by then we'll have the results of the Michigan Democratic. Yes, we will. Big race. Exciting. Yep. And we'll have more primaries.

A lot of money flowing into it. A lot of money flowing into. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me, Joanna. Many of you last week said how much you enjoyed the conversation with the former CEO of Twitter and the tech investor, Dick Costolo, and his point or question, really, that does AI lead to the end of thinking? Well, today I'm excited to share with you now the conversation I had with Vivek Ranadive. He's the co-owner and the chairman of the Sacramento Kings. And it's for our America

250 series, which we've produced in partnership with PMI, US, the US businesses of Philip Morris International, as part of a year-long initiative to celebrate and accelerate American innovation and reinvention. We're looking ahead to the next 250 years of America reacting directly to your comments. So Vivek and I had a fascinating discussion about the future of sports and technology, and we threw in some lunar economics. Yes, that's right, lunar economics. So let's dive right in. Vivek Rana Diva, it's so nice to see you. Now, you are a hugely successful technologist. You created, you founded the company TIBCO, you own the Sacramento Kings,

you invest in other sports teams. And I know you've had a summer of sport. Every time I try and talk to you, you're at some tournament or other. What are you most excited about? as you look over the next few years in terms of sports and technology? What do you think is going to change? Yeah, so, Joanna, we're entering what I call the emotion economy. And, you know, there was a French sociologist who talked about the collective effervescence

of bringing people together. And as we enter this age of AI, we get more and more disconnected, ironically. And so sports is what brings people together. And it's where people go to celebrate. When I built my arena, I said it was the 21st century cathedral. It was the town square. And so I'm super excited about what sports means to the world. And we just finished the World Cup.

And the whole world came together for that. And it was a spectacular success. So I really see the arena, sports, stadiums as kind of the 21sts. century cathedral or the communal fireplace, and technology plays a huge role in that. So when I started investing in sports teams, the old thing was that the way to have a small fortune is to start with a large fortune in the past. Right. Actually not been the case.

These values have grown 10, 20, 30x since I got involved. But technology for me has always been a key factor. Because when I look at a team, I don't think of it as just a sports team. I think of it as a social network. And if I can use technology to capture, expand, engage that network, then the value is far greater than just as a sports team. And so that's exactly what I've done. I incubated a company called Lava.

And we, even though as a team, we've had our struggles on the court, we're number one in per caps, as in our fans are spending more money, than New York or LA. We're number one in engagement. We're one of the top concert venues in the world. Our arena is always ranked number one. So technology really plays a big role, but not just in the business,

but also on the sports side as well. And so every front office now has PhD, computer scientists, AI experts, every arena, every practice facility has cameras that are picking up data at just astronomical rates. And so teams are looking at many, many gigabytes of data. And then you can use that to decide what combinations of players, where to shoot from, where to defend from. So that's happening. But then with technology, you can also shrink the world.

And so I was the first sports team to experiment with augmented and virtual reality using glasses. And so you've sat with me, Cotside, at a King's game, and I want the boy in Bombay to have the same experience that you and I have sitting Codside. And now that's possible with these glasses. So it shrinks the world. And of course, it also impacts the actual reference. of the game as well. I know you're a tennis fan. I've been with you to the U.S. Open. Now we don't have linespeople anymore. And I was just at Wimbledon. They don't have linespeople there. I was at the French Open a few weeks before that. Now on clay,

it's harder to make Hawkeye work. So they actually do look at where the ball bounces, you know, with eyes over there because it leaves a mark. But in the future, you're going to see innovation on that part of the game as well. So it's really about how do we make the fan experience even better, how do we give them choice and how they want to consume the game, and then how do we keep ensuring that we improve the integrity of the game? And at the end of the day, it shrinks the world, it makes us one, and it brings the whole community together, and that's what technology does. I love the idea of the emotion economy. It's such a great way of thinking. about it and of course the World Cup felt like it brought, well it certainly brought 48 countries

together to celebrate their teams. What do you think about, and I know you and I have discussed this, sort of technology as it impacts the human body, because as you say, you've got cameras tracking every single player as they rehearse, but do you think that there will be new supplements or powders or peptides or whatever the kind of cool thing of the moment is, to actually give the human body a boost? Well, absolutely. I think health 3.0 is really about your not just your lifespan, your health span, longevity, living well, and really being able to do all those things you love to do

into your late years. and in some ways you see this in every field that there's a few people that are elites and I remember when the internet came about I said that everybody will have access to all the information in the world soon that only the elites had back then and in fact my technology was used to create Yahoo Finance

so that every person got stock information so yeah it's true that right now elite athletes have access to, they have personalized chefs and we measure everything, and so they are peak performers. But it's going to get democratized. And so the kinds of tools, whether it's a watch or it's a ring or it's a phone, everyone is going to have access to that level of personalized care so that you can, not only live a longer life, but a better life, a healthier life.

And look, we just all watched the World Cup, and Messi is almost 40 years old and still playing at the highest levels of the game. Everyone's wondering where LeBron James is going to go, and he's like over 40. I was, again, at the French Open, I was at Rimbledon. You know, my good friend, Djokovic, he's 39, and he's still competing at the very highest levels of the game. So we're seeing that people are extending their lifespan, their health span, and this is going to get democratized and be available to everyone. Okay, so that feels like it's a good thing.

Absolutely. I think it trickles down to all of humanity. Okay. So that's positive. That's a positive. We're all going to have a healthier lifespan. So one thing we've talked about is also, and I'm very curious. just to get your perspective on this.

And we had some questions for you about this. It's about the lunar economy and about data centers in space. How can you even put a data center in space? Is the technology there? Is this a real thing? And yet I know there are lots of investments around this technology. Can you just talk us through what you're seeing and what you're excited about in terms of the lunar economy? Yeah.

So we've gone from CPUs to GPS. and now we have these large language models and they basically look at the entire tub of data, all the data on the internet, and they use matrix multiplication probabilities to be able to predict the next word. Now the problem is it requires a massive data center with massive amounts of energy, and that also puts out heat as you need to cool it. So everybody is getting addicted to these. LLMs and everything that you can do with them.

But we just don't have enough data centers to meet the demand. And the first problem with data centers is the old NIMBY problem, not in by backyard. So nobody wants it to be done. They want it, but they don't want it next to their home. And then there's the problem of space because they do require space. There's the problem of energy because they consume a lot of energy. And then that in turn puts out heat, and so there's the problem of cooling. So space offers a solution to all of that.

Okay, Vivek, before we get into space, why can't we just put these data centers outside of towns or in sort of areas where that isn't a big population base and where they may create some jobs? And I mean, you fly across America and you look down and you just see all this vacant space. Why is it not possible to just put data centers there? Do they have to be near centers of population?

No, they don't have to be, but the NIMBY problem exists even in those areas. In fact, one of the companies I invested in users AI to tell you what every city council in the country is doing and thinking. They video every meeting, every interaction, and it's really hard to get the necessary purpose. to put these data centers up. And more and more people are discovering that. And there's kind of a backlash against them right now. So you have that problem. Space is a problem.

So if you put it in space, there's space. That's not a problem. Energy is not as much of a problem because you have the sun's energy, so they can be solar powered. And then cooling is less of a problem because in space, you can radiate the heat out. And so the major problems we face are solved in space. Now, it does create other problems because radiation impacts the lifespan of the chips, of the

GPUs. So now people are inventing new materials to block that radiation. So there's just more innovation coming. And really, this is real. I'm investing in companies that are doing this. And they already have these things up in space with GPUs in them. And in a sense, a satellite is like a data center. You know, it has chips, it has networking, it exchanges information with the ground.

And so it's not as crazy as it sounds. And so this is happening. It's happening soon. And we're going to all be using it. And this is going to sound a very naive question. But if we put data centers up in space, are other countries able to take them out. I mean, how do we claim what bit of space is ours to put a data center in? Yeah, so anytime you do something, there's opportunities and there's threats, and you know,

you have to find ways to address that. And so we're investing a lot in the Renaissance, the American Renaissance. And so the latest thing is you can fight wars with drones. And so there's drones, but then you need systems to orchestrate those drones, and then you need systems to fight against those drones. So it creates a whole economy of its own. And so we're going to need these data centers to be secure. We're also going to need them to communicate. Anytime you do something new, there's opportunities and there's also new challenges. Just like I said, we're going to have to figure out how to deal with radiation. And so all of this is being licensed. right now. And so Elon Musk, I think, has a license for a thousand of these data centers.

One of the companies I invested in has a license for 90,000 of them. So there is some method to the madness. But it does create new challenges for sure. But it also creates new economies. And so you got to secure them. You've got to make sure they can talk to each other, just as I said, with drones. And so anytime you do something new, then it creates a whole new set of challenges. challenges but opportunities as well. So Vivek, there's so much panic about AI and AI DOOMers and, you know, from everything from data centers to AI itself, taking people's jobs. We've seen this over history, the industrial revolution.

We've seen enormous changes. People talk about AI being exponentially faster. how do we find the plus side of AI? How do we find the advantages? Yeah, for sure, when you go from one era to the next, as we went from the agricultural to the industrial, 93% of the jobs from the agricultural era were lost. We don't work on farms anymore.

And as we go from the industrial to the AI era, there will be massive disruption, no doubt. But it also will create massive opportunities. and it'll create massive goodness for the planet. So we're talking about eliminating diseases, we're talking about creating new kinds of materials, we're talking about an incredible education for every person on the planet,

we're talking about getting rid of jobs that humans shouldn't do in the first place. I coined the term physical AI that other people use that term now, but it's really robots and it's AI in the physical world. So those robots are going to need to be serviced and they're going to need to be. be harnessed and there's a lot of work to be done. So there's a huge amount of work to be done.

We're just going to be more productive with what we're doing today. And there will be a period of disruption. But those who can adapt to the new world, the fastest will be the greatest beneficiaries. And you had asked me earlier about the moon and that represents a whole new set of opportunities. The planet is 4 billion years old, the universe is 14 billion years old, and for most of that 4 billion years, we were a species that lived in the water, then we lived on land, and then modern humans came about 100,000 years ago. And now we're going to go from sea to land to interplanetary, and the moon is going to play a huge part in that. because it turns out that the hard part about going into space is actually the first few miles. It's just getting out of Earth's orbit because that's where all the energy gets sucked up. So if we can use the moon as kind of a base camp, then we can use that to go to other places.

Viv, I wanted to ask you a question from a listener and a viewer. Will there be better AI prediction of injuries so that players don't have to, A, get injured? and B, then, sit on the sidelines waiting to recuperate. Yeah, so, Joina, it turns out that the most powerful person in a sports team is not the owner, not the GM, not the coach. Every team will tell you that the most powerful person is the trainer. Because the trainer decides how many minutes each player should play. because we already have data

that tells us everything about that person and it tells us all the injuries that they could be prone to and then the AI tells you how many minutes they should play before they are vulnerable to that kind of injury. So we're already doing that.

Every sports team is already doing that and it's very frustrating for the coach and the GM and even for the owner because we're like, wait, you know, why is this guy only playing 18 minutes. You know, I said, well, the trainer said it's 18 minutes. Okay, I didn't know that. I've often wondered, why are they taking him off?

Why are they taking him off? Or her off, I should say. But you've explained it for me. You talked about the glasses being available to give a kid in Bombay the same court side experience that you have as the owner of a team. What else will technology be able to do to enable the fan base to have more connection with the team? Yeah, so the video gaming industry has done a really good job of engaging people.

And so in our main sports like basketball, we have a lot to learn from them. And so they make it a lot more interactive. So using technology, every fan will have the experience like they're sitting on the court. But they'll also be able to look at the game from any angle. they'll be able to interact. You know, in the future, perhaps, they'll be able to pick up signals if the players are allowed to wear watches

and things that tell you what their heart rate is. And so they can really feel like they're part of the game. And they'll even be able to insert themselves onto the court and see what's going on. So their level of interaction, their presence, their virtual presence, their ability to consume the game in the manner they want to consume it, in the seat they want to consume it or the angle they want to look at it,

and then also to be able to interact with other like-minded people. So we're just going to see a level of interaction, customization, and consumption that is unparalleled. So, Vive, you arrived in America, age 16, to go to MIT from India. are you sometimes, do you sometimes pinch yourself at the very different world that you are in now than when you first arrive, just the speed and the scale of the changes that have taken place? Could you have imagined how fast things would change? Yeah, so Joanna, I'm obviously very, very grateful for what this country has done for me and where I find myself in life. And yes, there's many things, just things like autonomous cars.

I could never have imagined, even as a computer science, electrical engineering type of guy, that that was even possible. I remember when Sergei first gave me a tour of the Waymo facility many years ago, and I was blown away by what they were doing then. Now, the good news is that the next 10 years are going to be even more so. We've reached the point of exponential evolution and a cross-disciplinary world where you're going to connect dots across different disciplines. And what America has given all of us is this is the place that you can dream big. This is the place where you can be outrageous.

And as long as you're willing to be ferocious in the pursuit of outrageous, anything is possible. Ferocious in the pursuit of the outrageous. I love it, Vivek Rano Divei. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Joanna. Thank you again to Vivek for joining me. And next Friday we'll be concluding this special series of talking heads about the future of education with Geoffrey Sondonfeld.

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