The Daily Beast Podcast - How the Epstein Files Backfired on Trump: Wolff

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to unpack why the release of the Epstein files has backfired on Donald Trump, obscuring key facts while amplifying the one question that won’t go away: what Trump knew, and when. Wolff explains how the chaotic document dump fits Trump’s flood-the-zone instincts, while Coles probes how branding, spectacle, and confusion remain his core political defenses. They also examine the risks of sidelining institutions—from Ukraine diplomacy to ICE-as-content—and ask whether Trump’s belief that chaos protects him is finally working against him. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Epstein file turns out to be a funnel of everything undifferentiated. So the file is essentially a garbage can of everything mentioning Jeffrey Epstein. How do we obscure what we don't want to see? Well, then we give you too much. So rather than solve the mystery, it increases the mystery. Michael Wolfe. Joanna Coles, two days before Christmas. Two days before Christmas.

Have you got all your shopping done? You can always do more. Oh, it's a good American attitude towards shopping. I have done almost none. I'm only buying a very few gifts this year, and I went to one store, and I bought them all there. I suddenly thought, why not? So Gigi Hadid, if you're listening,

I bought everything from guest in residence this year. Everybody's getting cashmere. Is that her store? It's her store. I like that store, too. Oh, you do? Yeah, it's good. Cardigan store.

Cardigan store. It's right round the corner from me. So I strolled out on Saturday and I ended up buying everything there. And also they come in very nice yellow boxes, which is cheerful for this time of year. So all your boys are getting cardigans? Well, they do sweaters too. Actually, the youngest son is not getting Kashmir. He is getting, he's getting an enormous pot because he likes to cook. And if he doesn't want it, I've told him, I'll take it back from him. But it's a very nice. nice. I know he doesn't listen to the podcast, so I can say he's getting a very nice lacrease pot. Very nice. Because he collects it. So you did go to another store. I did it online. I did it online. I went to Uncle Jeff, actually. Uncle Jeff, who started wearing cowboy hats. I saw there was a very strange picture of Jeff. Who is Uncle Jeff? Uncle Jeff.

Bezos, Amazon. I went to Amazon. I went to Amazon. And there's a very strange photo of I thought for a moment you were, it was Uncle Jeff Epstein. Oh, no, that's grotesque. We've crossed the line. Although Epstein, Epstein is in the air at the moment. And we'll come on to Epstein. We'll also come on to the Trump battleships. I think we should talk about the ice videos and the memes they're putting out there.

We've got a lot to talk about today. And don't forget Steve Whitkoff, the dumbest man in America, now loosed upon the world. Steve Whitkoff, who was personally. elected to solve the crisis between, or the war, between Ukraine and Russia by who? Who was he personally chosen by? Vladimir Putin. By Vladimir Putin. Who was the former head of which organization? The KGB. You don't have to turn people anymore. I mean, it used to be, remember, in the Cold War, you had to turn your spies. Now you just get an American dummy who will do your bidding?

Well, now they can just handpick them. So I think he's going like, no, no, no. Steve Witzkopf, I like Witzkof. Anyway, we'll be coming on to that very good story in the Wall Street Journal. But before we did that, I wanted to tackle some comments that we got, because we got a lot of comments about two specific things. One is the amount of money that Congress people get paid. We were discussing the role of congressmen and women,

and in particular in the context of Marjorie Taylor Green leaving. And you had said somewhat flippantly, I think, look, they don't earn very much. She can go off and earn more money. Not too flippantly. I mean, I mean, I think that this is from people with law degrees who advanced in their profession, you know, not a large amount of money. I mean, and you could in so many other walks of life, you, the person who is in Congress, make more money. That's a, that's a rate limiting factor in

getting high caliber people to go, to run for Congress. Well, it used to be that people would make their money and then go into government. I, you know, I'm not, I'm not really sure that that's true. Congress people have been historically, you know, people from the, from the community. they're, you know, sometimes they're rich, but sometimes they're everyday folk. That's the, that's the point about Congress, the everyday folk chamber. So are you in favor of paying them much more? I mean, there are a lot of people out there saying we should pay them a minimum of a million dollars, attract the best possible talent. I think that this is this is symptomatic from just a greater problem in the country, which is the discrepancy between people's incomes, between, you know, potential trillionaires and others. I think it's all out of whack. A hundred, I mean, Congress people make a hundred,

$174,000 a year, which should be a perfectly respectable sum of money to make. I just saw a study recently, it seemed to be a reputable study that said, you know, basically, basically you can't, that the line, and I'm trying to think how the line was defined. I mean, I think it was basically you couldn't get into the middle class. This is just the middle class line was at $140,000 a year. So we're in a, I mean, this is a central issue. I mean, this goes to the functional, the affordability issue, the biggest issue of our time. And, I mean, I'm perfectly sympathetic to the fact that $174,000 seems to many, many

people like a, like a, you know, a reasonable sum of money to make. And it should be a reasonable sum of money. But, but then that gets compared to peers who are making, you know, I mean, we don't, millions, beyond, beyond millions. And so, you know, I think that a great many people in Congress feel that they can't stay in Congress, actually. Well, there's a record number of people leaving Congress. I think it's 54. They're saying it's the highest number of people leaving Congress this time round. There was a lot of people left, I want to say, in 2008. And clearly it's becoming so contentious for a lot of people that they don't want to stay and people are getting doxed and their addresses are out there and people are feeling

nervous for their families. So clearly it's feeling less attractive. And then there's another aspect of this which if you have been in Congress, well, that credential then if you just leave Congress allows you to make to take a quantum leap forward in personal income and net worth. Yeah. And I think the other thing that makes it more complicated and you're right to talk about the sort of enormous inequality is just the visibility of people showing off on social media platforms. And I referenced Jeff Bezos earlier, but the pictures of him and Lauren Sanchez going to Aspen today. They're going to a special shop that apparently they go to. They're both wearing grey cowboy hats. Let's just linger on that for a second.

And their sort of flamboyant lifestyle, I think, must be very irritating to a lot of people that work at Amazon and the drivers who have to pee in bottles and the people who are, you know, segueing all over those enormous Amazon warehouses. No, I mean, this is the central issue. This is the issue that defeated Joe Biden. It may well defeat Donald Trump or the Donald Trump's party in 2026. But there is, I mean, there's this other thing, too, which is, you know, that Congress should be the every guy place. But, you know, if you then start to parse this, remember, if you go to Congress,

you have to basically maintain two residences. You're from somewhere else. Then you have to live in Washington too. And then you have families. You have travel. I mean, this is just another aspect of the system that is broken. Right. And then the other comment that people had for us, was somehow equating Joe Biden's decline with Donald Trump's decline, and people felt that we were unfair, that we were both siding it, when in fact Joe Biden wasn't a psychopath, which is what a lot of our viewers believe Donald Trump is. I'm going to push back on that.

You know, I mean, listen, I think, I mean, I think the country would be better off if Joe Biden was better off when Joe Biden was president, would probably, would certainly be better off if he were still president. But this is, we're comparing the wrong things. I mean, it is, if there's a health concern with the president of the United States, whether he's a functional good guy or a functional asshole, doesn't make any difference. It's a health concern. I mean, we have the right. American citizens have the right to believe that they have a president who is fully compisementous. And Joe Biden obviously

had a whole set of handicaps in this regard. And Donald Trump probably does too. And the issue really is not politics. The issue is age. Yep, agree. And we had Dr. John Gartner, the clinical psychologist on the podcast on Sunday, and he was saying that the idea that Donald Trump is taking all these mocha tests repeatedly is very much a sign that doctors are monitoring his dementia. That's what he sees. Well, it may or may not be a sign. I mean, you know, this guy, and I always take somewhat exception to doctors who are diagnosing with. ever having met the patient in question. So, well, and his counterattack to that would be that actually with Donald Trump, you can do that because you have 40 years of a baseline against which to judge.

Well, yeah, I know what he's going to say. He's not going to say, yeah, why am I doing this? That's, that's clearly what, and I have also said, I mean, I think voters in, in a world in which we don't get this information and we're not going to get this information, not least of all because this information would be pretty devastating to a presidency. We all have to become our own, we have to make our own diagnosis. This is part of, now this is part of the democratic process. How do you evaluate a candidate?

Well, you have to have a diagnosis. You have to, you have to make your own diagnosis because you're never going to get an accurate one. So in that regard, I guess it's good to have doctors who are willing to diagnose without ever having met the patient, although it seems a little ethically challenged. But anyway. I think that's a reasonable argument that because you've heard someone speaking and you can track his speech patterns over a long period of time, you can see speech patterns in decline. And that's what he's seeing.

Anyway, we don't have to relitigate it here. If people want to watch it, they can watch it on the Daily Beast podcast. But we do have to get into the release of the Epstein files, the sort of stop-start release of it. It's like, it's sort of the rolling release. The rolling release. And then there's a bit of a snatchback too. Yesterday there was a release and then there was some release.

sudden redactions, then there was a pulling back, then there was a re-release. It's a very juddery train right now. Yeah, you know, and I think it goes to, you know, probably the fallacy of this. You know, we're in this, in this moment when release, it's like that's the thing that's going to answer all questions. Release. I mean, just saying the word seems to say, okay, that'll solve the problem. Release it. Right. When no one knows what it is and even release, what does release means? So you put up a lot of information on a website without context, without barely any catalog of

what the information is. Right. There's no guide. There's no index. It's impossible to search. You don't know what you're looking for. So rather than solve the mystery, it is. increases the mystery. And, you know, I'm, I kind of wonder who to blame this on. I mean,

partly it's, partly it's the Democrats. And, and, and, and I suppose, I suppose in another world, if the Democrats had been in control of either House of Congress, they would have, they would have, they would have, they would have run a more, a more, more, formal and considered investigation. But why is it the Democrats' fault? Well, obviously the Republicans don't want to consider this issue at all. A few Republicans do, but the larger Republican Party clearly does not.

And clearly the White House doesn't want to. And I mean, I'm just thinking that how this came, this idea of the release, release the files, as though that would solve the problem, as though that would answer all questions. And in all, in the other, I mean, Congress has usually, I mean, I actually don't ever remember this being, being in, that there was a, that this was the consensus solution, release everything. In the past, it has been, you run an investigation. let's find out what happens here instead of this idea of releasing the files. And I think this has to do with this whole idea of transparency.

We need complete transparency. But as we're seeing, the problem with transparency is that you don't, you see, by seeing everything or what is theoretically everything, you see, you don't know what you're looking at. Well, and inevitably, there's now all sorts of fakes which are confusing people. I mean, let's discuss the completely implausible fake, which seemed to have fooled a lot of people, which is a video of Jeffrey Epstein supposedly trying to hang himself in his jail cell, as if taken from a camera in his jail cell, which, of course, was never there.

So what you, what you, I mean, what you, I mean, I can't even imagine how this, how that piece of information got into this information. Right. Except that this information, the Epstein file, turns out to be a funnel of everything undifferentiated. Somebody said something related in some way, but without any, without any particular. point, purpose, or or or or acknowledgement that it is true, that

it is true. That just went into the file. So the file is essentially a garbage can of everything mentioning Jeffrey Epstein. But there are also a lot of interesting things in there, like the fact that Donald Trump was on the Epstein plane far more than had been expected.

And as you've always said, there is nothing like the bait of a private plane to get people to come to you. No, and Epstein always used to say that Trump wanted to be on his plane because he didn't want to spend the money on the gas on his plane. Of course. And the pilots and everything that it takes. There's also a fake letter supposedly from Jeffrey.

Although we don't know that it's fake. I mean, everybody, I mean, we're now, We're now, we've now qualified this letter, but we on no basis at all, although it would seem to me that it's fake. This is the letter we're talking about from Larry Nassir, the former American Olympic gymnastics coach. In jail for his own sexual abuse scandal. Yeah, terrible sexual abuse consistent over years. The doctor treating the Olympic team. and abusing them in front of their parents

as their parents sat in the room sometimes. I mean, really peculiar. And a very sort of strange letter that you immediately detected was fake, or at least very unlikely. Yeah, I don't, I mean, as, I mean, from what I know when Epstein was communicating with people outside of the,

outside of jail, those communications passed through his lawyers. I mean, when you communicate with someone, when you write a letter from jail, that's actually, you know, there's, you have no guarantee of, of privacy there. And I think in Jeffrey Epstein's case, everything would have been been scrutinized. So therefore, therefore, you're, you're in jail on a chart, on charges involving, well, trafficking, sexual abuse. And then you're going to write effectively a confession to another sexual. abuser, that seems implausible. And it also seems like it is designed to implicate Trump. I'm confused by the whole thing, actually. And also it says, as you will know by now, I have taken the short route, i.e. the implication Oh, yeah, it's a suicide. It's a suicide letter. It's also a suicide letter. Yeah, to someone. Yeah, to someone. I, I, it is in there.

And apparently, we don't know where this comes from. Apparently, it comes from the prison system. It was, there was a letter that it was marked. This is returned to sender. I don't know. Again, what does this, what does this mean? Does it mean anything? Or the fact that it is a fake, what does that mean?

Right. and, you know, presumably, you would have thought that the DOJ would have a separate file for things that seemed very clearly fakes. Well, you would, but you don't know what they have. I mean, this is not, you know, the, well, we don't, we don't know. We don't know and Congress did not ask for this material to be countered. categorized in any specific way. So if you had an investigation, a formal investigation, then you would have, this is what people do. It's really, it's really an issue of qualifying information. Now, theoretically, Congress could now qualify this information, except that everybody has seen it,

so the waters have already been to say the least muddied. But I don't think we have seen it. I mean, they're releasing thousands of documents. It's impossible to read through them all. No, it's impossible to keep up with this. And is that the point? I mean, that may well be the point on the part of the Justice Department in the White House. How do we obscure what we don't want to see? Well, then we give you too much. I mean, it's actually an old, it's a old trick. Yeah. You flood the zone. And there were certainly reports that when Cash Patel and Dan Bongino came in to run the FBI, they had more than a thousand agents working on the Epstein case, which is also an extraordinary use of the FBI. No. So again, we are at this. Release the files, release the files as though this was going to clear up everything. And now it has the opposite effect.

Right. So what should we be looking for in these files? You know, I know from my own personal window into this. And let's clarify the question, especially when it comes to Donald Trump, what did he know? When did he know it? Did he participate in it? And, you know, one of the things Epstein always said and outlined with great specificity to me that they, he and his best friend Donald Trump broke up over a real estate deal in 2004. Epstein had bid $36 million for a house in Palm Beach.

He took his friend Trump with him to advise, it was a winning bid, he believed. he took his friend Trump with him to advise him on how to move the swimming pool. His friend Trump went around his back and bid $41 million for the House. Epstein believed that his friend Trump did not have the money. That means he was fronting for somebody. Angry about this, he threatened to expose his friend Trump, both legally in a lawsuit and going to. to the press, at which point Epstein believed Donald Trump went to the Palm Beach police

and, as Epstein said, dropped a dime on him, revealing what was going on at Jeffrey Epstein's house. So there is a point of intersection. Is the investigation of the investigation of the the Palm Beach police involved in these Epstein files, we don't know. But here is a very precise question. Was, did the beginning of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation involve a confidential informant whose address was Moralago? Okay, well, that should send various. people who are listening to this, various detectives,

off to find, as Jeffrey Epstein referred to Donald Trump in one of his emails that emerged from the Epstein files, the dog that didn't bark. And also there is specifically in those emails, and matter of fact, it may have been in one of the emails to me that Trump knew about the girls. Yeah, and when was that sent? I think in, I don't know, 2018 or 2019.

And then that was the one. And then he said, and he wanted Maxwell to stop. And then there's been some issue about that. What did he want Maxwell to stop? And did he want Maxwell to stop getting girls? I think that's how a lot. lot of people read it. I read it and I and actually I to the extent it is possible to know I know that that that the reference here was to Maxwell's suit against um against Geoffrey and and

Trump wanted that suit to stop because Maxwell was going to have to testify in the things that might come out related to the girls. So Trump wanted her to stop her defamation suit against Virginia Jewfrey? Yes, remember, they were both suing each other. There were a suit and counter suit. Right, okay. And Trump wanted that, not Epstein wanted that, or they both wanted that? I think that they both wanted that.

Okay, okay. So, I mean, we're going to rely on people, I guess, going through this with a tooth comb, hopefully. and the fakes being weeded out and the real stuff coming to the surface. I noticed today the Harvard... So we're sort of crowdsourcing this investigation. Yeah, it's a very good way of putting it. I noticed today that the Harvard Crimson,

who are clearly spending a lot of time looking for information relating to Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard, and obviously someone who's recently had to step back from all sorts of things, including what must have been a very lucrative, seat on the Open AI board, that he was a backup executor to Jeffrey Epstein's will. There were two people, I think, who worked for Epstein as executives, and then Jess Staley, who at the time was the CEO of Barclays since been forced to give up that role. And Larry Summers was the backup executor, which was interesting.

You know, one of the things and one of the things that would point to Jeffrey Epstein a greater likelihood that Jeffrey Epstein did kill himself is that he changed his will in the days, really,

almost hours, prior to his death. And one of his concerns was to take people out of the line of fire. He didn't want their names in this because he knew

that would that would, the blowback against them would be, would be devastating. And I think this, when he appointed Larry Summers, and I need to check, but it was several years before, before he died. Right. And, you know, and, you know, Summers may not even, I mean, he's a, he was on the third tier, Summers may not even have known. I mean, I mean, you know, you get, you put, when, when, when, when you get, when, when, you know, when, when, when you do your will, you kind of create these eventualities, which you understand will never happen.

This person dies. If this person dies and that person dies and then that person dies, and then that person dies, it's you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was one of those. Anyway, it further implicates Larry Summers, who's had plenty of blowback. So there you go. All right, is there anything more for us to say about the Epstein files right now? Or should we move swiftly on to Vladimir Putin's part? a game of choosing who should be the American diplomat. Given that we haven't had an American ambassador to Russia since June, Vladimir Putin choosing who should do his negotiations for him. No, well, I mean, this is Steve Whitkoff,

the president's friend and golfing buddy. And Steve Whitkoff was a New York real estate guy generally thought, to be far from the brightest bulb in a generally dim field anyway. Or in a Mar-a-Lago chandelier perhaps. Yeah, I mean, so, you know, in his entire credential for now being one of the most pivotal people

involved in questions of world, world, war, and peace is that he's he's Donald Trump's friend. You know, he kind of hung around Trump. I mean, he had no official capacity with Trump other than a kind of security blanket and another theme here, a guy with a plane. So when Trump's plane, and during the campaign, this happened in any number of times when Trump's plane was out of commission, which happened all of the time.

And really, there was nothing that made Donald Trump nastier than when his plane went out of commission. But when it went out of commission, his friend Whitcroft would send his plane

to sub in for the the lack of of Trump's play. And a word from our sponsors. And Michael Wolf and I are back. Where else? Inside Donald Trump's head.

The White House is denying it saying, of course, it's ridiculous and Steve Wickoff is Trump's choice and Trump's choice alone. You mean they're denying that... They're denying that Putin chose Steve Wickoff. They're saying that it was Donald Trump's decision alone, and they're saying the piece is not true. Which they now say, unless there's a little digression here, that it's interesting that the

Wall Street Journal has done this story. Again, yet another quite devastating story in the Wall Street Journal against the interests of Donald Trump. Yeah, following on from another devastating piece in the Wall Street, journal which laid out the entire or as far as we know the entire level of Trump grift and just how much money he's been making him and his family which is worth another episode but I wanted to read something from well just to put a fine point on on that how much money because it is billions yeah it's billions of dollars I mean let's not it's billions it's not like you know

We've collected, you know, everybody was kind of appalled that, you know, that Bill Clinton after the presidency was able to earn 20 million dollars. This is billions. Yeah. No, no, it's billions through a variety of all sorts of deals. And, of course, the latest deal now being discussed is the Gaza deal to develop the Gaza Strip with all sorts of things. But I'm sure that they want to develop along the border of UK and Russia. Perhaps they'll put in a series of hotels and condos there. we could get a time share. And Steve Whitcroft, by the way, has also personally made an enormous

amount of money in his family. I think his son is the point person here. And of course, we know that the Trump administration pour scorn on what they call the history professors that used to run the diplomatic service and have no interest in that. And then I was just going to read a little bit from the Wall Street Journal. It's hard to pinpoint a moment in history. when businessmen have had such direct sway over matters of war and peace. Since the end of World War II, Washington's relationship with Moscow was its most carefully calibrated, helmed by spy agencies who knew their rival intimately. Seasoned diplomats rehearsed rigid protocols to prevent misunderstandings

between two nuclear powers poised like scorpions in a jar. And now, of course, that we know that Wickhoff has, declined offers of briefings. He doesn't like to go in with anybody else. Putin specifically requested that Wittkoff would go and see him on his own without anybody else around. And then the diplomatic agencies, the State Department, the Marco Rubio runs, have found it very difficult to debrief him because he can't quite tell them exactly what was said. No, and the first in the first reach out to Wittkoff, which came through. the Saudis that came through MBS, the Saudi crown prince, was Putin would like to speak to you alone.

Alone. How terrifying. I can't imagine more frightening words. No, no CIA, no anyone else, alone. So. Possibly the eight most frighten. words in the English language, Putin would like to see you alone. Terrifying. Is that eight words? I think it's eight words.

Yeah, I mean, so we're at a point. We can we can mark this point. If this all comes a cropper, um, uh, uh, Russia takes over Ukraine. Russia then in, um, uh, continues its and increases its incursions into Europe, threatening Europe. Well, there you go. Steve Whitkoff. Steve Whitkoff, but maybe we can buy a cheap condo on the border, Michael, and then we could do the podcast from there. I mean, people in New York who know Whitkoff, I mean, it's really, I mean, these are, this is some serious eye rolling.

Well, Steve says, as we know, he and Jared have said about themselves before after their peace deal in the Middle East, that they're kind of deal guys, and they don't think like traditional diplomats. They try and put themselves in the shoes of the other person they're negotiating with, as if nobody had ever thought about that before. But they're deal guys,

so let's see what kind of deal they come up with. Well, the Wall Street Journal had a phrase. I'm a kind of a, you know, I go back some ways. So I'm kind of a 60s guy, and make love not war was a foundational principle of my generation. And the Wall Street Journal

updated that. Make money not war. Right. Make grift not war. Well, President Bonespurs' friend is on top of it and he's going to create world peace, which leads us to

President Bonespurs' new toys in the Department of Defense slash war. What am I referring to? Well, he has he has requisitioned a whole new class of battleships. And this is now called the Trump class. Of course, the Trump class, which would be the biggest class,

the best class. So what is, I mean, what does it mean that Trump's slaps his name on everything. And remember, of course, he has done this for his entire career. Right. The foundation, I mean, I can tell you what it means. This is easy. The foundation of his career is slapping his name on everything. This is the fundamental insight. He may never have had any other insight but this. You know, buildings, real estate guys, didn't put their names on buildings. Um, um, uh, I don't know.

They just never occurred to them. Or they thought, we're real estate guys. Why do we, why should our names go on buildings? Trump said, no, I'm going to create. These buildings are brands. This is my brand. This is what I'm going to create. I'm going to put my name on these buildings and not small.

I'm going to put it as big as it can possibly be. I'm going to put my name. on everything that I can put my name on. And now we're at this point in his presidency where that's exactly what he is doing to everything. I mean, it's the Trump Kennedy Center. It's the Trump Institute of World Peace, the Trump battleship.

And yet, will the Trump battleship go the way of Trump stakes, Trump University, Trump water? yeah well um i mean a lot of people yes i mean a lot of people are noting that these is that this is already a um that that outfitting these battleships and requisitioning the battleships in the way that he has requisitioned this is um you know is is fighting uh yesterday's war well fighting yesterday's war and also slapping it with the cursing of Donald Trump, that the things that he puts his name on for the most part don't work.

Well, it's also a funny thing because what you have, and if I were Donald Trump, this might have seems like a likely, something that you would consider the ignominy of having your name removed. Yes, because, I mean, a next, you know, A Democratic, I mean, at some point a Democrat is going to be the President of the United States. And presumably, you know, a highly popular move would be to take down Donald Trump's name. Well, and also, I mean, God bless her. There is a Congresswoman from Ohio who's sued saying, who's sued saying this is illegal.

It needs the permission of Congress to. rename a memorial like this. So now this is going to get caught up in the legal process. Joyce Beattie from Ohio, Congresswoman from the third district there, has filed saying this is illegal. It needs Congress's permission. You need Congress's permission to change the name of the Kennedy Center. So God bless her. Joyce, you're doing God's work. And that will turn into a whole to do. But let's go inside Trump's head here and think of it. What is he thinking about? other than obviously that this has always worked for him. But on the other hand, putting your name up there means someone can remove your name.

And that's not going to feel very good. And it's going to be a signal that you have lost, the thing that Trump most does not want to want it to be said about him. why would he that he's a loser they've taken his name away now so why would he why would he set himself up like this well and why does he keep on doing it what is he trying to well the answer well the answer must be that he believes that's not going to that he is going to that this that this ensures his permanent not his transience. Right, because he feels transient.

Well, it doesn't, or not, I'm saying he may have, he may have a plan for permanence. This is what he's setting this up for, and maybe it is. Maybe it is just the notion of brand that you convince people that this is what,

this is the name, this is what it's called, people forget. They just kind of suddenly were, the Trump Kennedy Center is rolling off the tongue. So this is a way to, just another way to ensure one's permanence, one's legacy. Legacy for him is not anything that you do or anything that you accomplish. Legacy is the name Trump. Now, it seems to us reason of logical that a Democrat will come along and, puff, you know, wipe this away. You know, but he's been doing this for a long time. Maybe he's got a better idea about what people get used to. It was interesting that the font of Donald Trump going above the Kennedy Center, it's slightly smaller. It's a slightly different font.

and it felt like whoever had been called in to add his name was either being very quietly passive, aggressive, or indeed having a joke at the president's expense. Yeah, well, he'll clean that up. I mean, he'll see that, and he'll order it, he'll order his name bigger than Kennedy's name. Well, the Kennedy family, of course, have come out and said this is outrageous. Kerry Kennedy has vowed,

Robert Kennedy's sister has vowed to personally take his name off the side of the building the moment he is out of office. She said she will get the ladder, get up there and do it herself. Then RFK Jr. will run for president. And if he becomes the president, then it will be the Kennedy Trump Kennedy Center. Yes, exactly. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness, Michael Wolfe.

What else is the first to discuss? You know, another, a story curiously in the Washington Post about these ICE videos. Now, this is funny because I would have, I mean, this story is that the Trump White House in ICE are staging these videos, are looking for opportunities to close. create these videos and then pushing them out on social media and these videos to make no mistake are ICE arresting, arresting whoever it arrests. We don't even know who they are. They don't know who they are. They don't know if they're arresting citizens. They don't know if they're arresting perfectly law-abiding people. They're just arresting. Well, and there's a trove of

emails which says they don't know who they're arresting. They're just underage. enormous pressure to arrest as many people as they can, make lively videos of them and flood the zone with these videos. Now, this is kind of curious because in what world do these guys think this makes them look good? And these videos are, by the way, competing with man on the street videos, iPhone videos, showing basically the same thing. So we have a flood across social media of people in extremists suffering, of guys in masks,

guys in black in masks, acting as a, as a paramilitary force, an internal police force, whatever however you'd however you'd like to characterize it but you can't characterize it

in a way that it's going to make people feel good it would seem to me and let's take a commercial break and Michael and I are back inside Trump's head well it's interesting because they've really created these videos largely for social media for reels

and most importantly for TikTok which we know now is going to go to Donald Trump's close friend Larry Ellison, second richest man in the world, with, I think, a small helping for Rupert Murdoch. But they're set to music, they're chopped up as if they are some kind of rap video. In fact, they've been using rap music,

and some of the artists have come forward and said, oh, you can't use my songs for that. They did it to Sabrina Carpenter. She was outraged that they would use her songs to do this. But the whole thing is presented as if it's entertainment. So these are people who are being arrested. We have no idea if they've done anything illegal or not. We don't know if they're here illegally or not.

We just know that they're largely Hispanic. They are treated as if this is entertainment. And it's unbelievably cruel. And as you say, it's actually up against the videos that real people who see this going on, film on their cameras and also upload to TikTok. And then the one thing I would add is there has been. been incredible pressure from the White House for the Department of Homeland Security to be pumping out these videos every day. So they're increasing the number of influences who can create this

content and pump it out there. At one point, they were pumping out a video every half an hour. So what's in Trump's head about this? How does he think this is good for him? I mean, let's think of this in media terms. people get inured to it or he believes that that the greater American

populace that has issues with immigration is going to cheer this on or or or what? I can't really even think beyond that.

I guess he's thinking or perhaps he's thinking one doesn't want to claim one knows. That's our job. Okay. Then I think he thinks it makes it look like ICE is very busy, that they're doing a lot of work. We know they're recruiting hugely for ICE, and if you get through the training, you get a $10,000 bonus. And I think he's making it look like it's, he thinks it looks like it's fun.

And I think if you're a sociopath, you do think it's fun. So it's like it's a. Like a video game. Yeah, no, no, I get it. So it's a bet that Americans are, um, will, will, will regard this with a,

with a certain degree of, of, um, equanimity and cheerfulness. That seems to me a wrongheaded bet, but, uh, you know, um, well, I was looking at the numbers on the White House TikTok, uh, account and how many were watching. these videos and one of them in particular which is captioned are that deportation feeling.

I think that one had 45 million views actually. So. That's a lot of views. That is a lot of views. That is a lot of views. I was hoping that they wouldn't have that many. But we don't know how many people were just looking at it thinking I can't believe they're putting this out. We don't know that. Yeah, no.

I mean, I think it's one of those other things. and we have, you know, essentially the politics of the last 10 years has been a bet, which a lot of people like me, like us have lost, that the American people will see through that or won't tolerate that, or will say, hey, wait a minute to that. And they don't. but they almost do. You know, I mean, remember, this is an incredibly divided country. And so, I mean, I'm always amazed, continue to be amazed,

that these guys are, make these kind of, these kind of, kind of existential bets. Yeah, we can do this and it's going to fly. I mean, because it never exactly flies. So I refuse to believe that we're quite as divided as everybody said. I think there are the people on the margins, and then most people are actually somewhere in the middle and consider themselves independent slash moderate. And what are those people going to think about these videos?

I think they're going to be horrified at the idea of videos of mothers and children in particular being pushed to the floor. There's one particular video, which I should find. So why would they, why would they, why would the White House make this bet then? I mean, this seems obvious to me and to us. But I'm trying to see, they see, and have often seen something else.

True. I think what we're seeing in the polling, in as much as it can be trusted, is that the Hispanic vote or Hispanic communities are feeling less confident in Trump than they did when they voted for him. that would seem utterly intuitive to me. But what I'm trying not to discount is what the Trump White House sees,

because A, I have discounted it many times and I have been wrong, and many, many people in the United States have discounted it, and they have been wrong. And I can't imagine that we would be wrong on this. These are people being ripped from their homes, ripped from their cars, ripped from their jobs. We don't know who they are. We don't know if they deserve in any way to be ripped out of their lives by men, again, in masks and in black. That certainly seems like an error that anyone would think that this would,

that people would cheer this on. Well, the off-year election cycle suggests that, you know, in November we saw very confident votes in Virginia and in New Jersey for Democrats. So let's see. But I was going to ask you, what do you think the significance is of this story being in the Washington Post? I mean, we've got Jeff Bezos in his gray hat,

living it up in Aspen. The Washington Post also had the story about Pete Hegseth saying that he was, that he had demanded that Admiral Bradley, who was in charge of the Venezuelan operation, make sure that he kill any survivors from one of the boat blast. So two big stories coming out of the Washington Post, which it appeared had been somewhat neutralized.

Well, you know how these things, God knows we've worked for enough publications. with semi-distracted or absentee owners. And it usually works that they are semi-distracted in absentee, and they're not very, really all that interested in content. They're interested at all, but they're interested in the proximity that it gives them to power and the White House, right? Yeah, no, no, that is true.

So they're concentrating on that rather than then, you know, I'm sure Jeff Bezos at best glances at the paper. So, but then they do notice it. At some point, Trump calls them up or somebody calls them up and says, what the fuck here, you know? And then they get rattled and then they make the phone call. But it's a balance. It goes back and forth like that until they get very mad and then they fire somebody

and make a change. And then that's a different kind of moment. Well, we know he got Jeff Bezos got involved enough to drop the endorsement that the paper was going to make of the Democratic candidate. So they changed their op-ed pages, right? The editor, David Shipley left. Right. No, they do get involved and they do weigh in. But the paper proceeds along as it would. This is a large, a large institution.

it does what it does. It reacts in a certain way and continues to react that way until someone slaps them. And so, and they may, they may well shortly get slapped again. Or Jeff Bezos may be thinking,

um, um, Jesus, this Donald Trump is in trouble here. Let's, let's, let's, uh,

let's hedge our bets. Or he may be thinking, well, I've paid his wife four million $40 million for the Melania documentary. That should keep him off my back. 70% of the back end and she gets 100% of the $10 million. You're obsessed by that deal.

You're obsessed by that deal. You always say that whenever we mention Melania and if you haven't watched the trailer people, you really must. It's delicious. It's delicious. It does appear that she didn't watch the election victory. I'm assuming that's what she's referring to when he says to her. it opens with a phone call of Donald Trump saying to Melania, did you see it? Did you watch it?

And she's like, no, Mr. Oh, she goes, hello, Mr. President. And then he goes, did you watch it? Did you see it? Did he see it on television? She goes, no, I will watch it on the news. And so maybe Jeff Bezos thinks that the $40 million for the documentary is enough. Or maybe he thinks Donald Trump is going south. And so he's hedging his bets. Yes, well, I think a lot of people are probably thinking that they were overzealous in their support of Donald Trump at the beginning of his presidency and are now beginning to feel a little anxious.

No, that's a good subject that we should come back to because all of these guys, all of these business guys, what happens to them if this really does go south? Well, what a chilling note to end on for the holidays, Michael. That's an optimistic. I would consider that an optimistic note. So we have a special treat for viewers and listeners on Thursday. We've done a special on Donald Trump's relationship with television and how television basically created his presidency and how his essential operating system is television. And I will say it's one of the most fun conversations I think I've had with you.

Not just created the presidency, but created him. Created him. Rebirthed him as a success. successful character at a time in his life when he was fading. I would even go further further. He just does not exist as a human being outside of television. Well, it's one of the best conversations I think I've had with you. And we touch on all the characters that influenced it.

Jeff Zucker, Mark Burnett, and of course, Roger Ailes, who founded Fox News. and then Sean Hannity, who turns into the president's most important advisor. Yes, so you could have a Merry Christmas with Donald Trump and television. Yeah, Merry Christmas. So instead of watching television, you can watch YouTube, and Michael's very thoughtful explanation of it and my continual machine gun lip questions. Anyway, have a very happy holiday between now and there. Michael, what are you doing for Christmas Eve?

I imagine you skipping through the village of Amagansett with little lanterns and your children singing carols at the top of their voice. Yes, and actually there is a Presbyterian church just a few doors down from our house. And I'm quite familiar with Presbyterian churches. And this is a kind of classic one in which about 12 people show up. and they're all over some impressive age threshold. And we go. We like it. Fun.

All right. Well, have a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And I will see you back for whatever has happened between now and then on Saturday. Fantastic. All right. Happy holidays. And don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast. you could give a beast-tier membership of the Daily Beast to a friend for holiday.

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