The Daily Beast Podcast - How The Trump-Musk Bromance Ends: Michael Wolff

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Journalist and author Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee on this week’s episode to offer insight into the jockeying egos on Donald’s Trump “manic” campaign—and that MSG rally. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker calls in from the Harris trail, and Daily Beast Special Correspondent Harry Lambert recaps party animal Jeff Bezos’ social calendar amid much turmoil at his newspaper, The Washington Post. Have a question or comment for us? Send us an email: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, just pop it in to share an excerpt from the newest episode of the Daily Beast podcast, hosted by our chief creative and content officer Joanna Coles and late night legend Samantha Bee. We're now joined by our Beast of the Week, Michael Wolfe. Michael is a fiercely provocative journalist and bestselling author. He's known for his extraordinarily deep dives into the worlds of power and politics. And his books, Fire and Fury, The Siege, Landslide and the Fool didn't just report stories. they triggered firestorms, exposing inner dramas from Trump's White House to the Murdoch Empire. Love him or hate him, Michael Wolfe, captures the essence of powers most polarizing players, and he's always unapologetically bold and unfiltered.

Sometimes I apologize. I've never heard you apologize. I don't think that's true, apart from maybe one of our feuds was over. Sam, to be a friend of Michael is to have feuds with Michael. We've had a couple of feuds, but we're on. speakers right now. That's wonderful, which is good because I want to know what the hell is going on inside the Trump campaign. Yes. What's the feeling over there? Well, I think it literally shifts moment to moment. I mean, it's not that different from the feeling outside of the Trump camp. I mean,

I think that they're euphoric and they think that they're going to win at a given moment and then they plunge into despair and think that they're going to lose. I mean, they are in the same position that everyone else is. They know absolutely nothing, which is really rare for a presidential campaign. I mean, people inside presidential campaigns, even if they're wrong, tend to have a very clear view of what's going on. I mean, it's almost their craft. We know. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. And he is, I think even more than the people around him in this mercurial. moment of, you know, of a kind of manic high to losing it. I mean, and when Donald Trump loses his shit, it's really serious.

So what does that mean? You mean he's yelling at people? Screaming. Yeah, I don't know if he throws, but it's kind of beyond unpleasant for everyone. I think it's some of the, it's as has been described to me, some of the words. worst moments of people's lives. So I am very struck by the absence of Melania and Ivanka on this campaign. Does it make any difference to Donald Trump?

I doubt it. And the question is, does it make any difference to the campaign, to his supporters or to people who may or may not want to vote for him? And it obviously should, because it raises a, I mean, especially Malania raises some big questions. What's going on with this marriage? She has made no, I mean, this campaign has been running for almost two years, and she hasn't made one appearance except for the other day at Madison Square Garden. She appeared for, you know, I'm six days out from the end of the campaign. She finally appears. Speaks very briefly, and then they give this incredibly awkward kiss. People who are

married, kiss each other on the lips, certainly in a public situation. This was the double-cheek busts, defarmed. It's horrible. I was there, by the way. What is the reflection after that rally? How is everybody feeling in that camp after? Well, I think they felt good about the rally. I mean, that's, you know, the New York Times darkness at noon kind of thing is the New York Times. That's not what it feels like in the rally, in the rally, everybody is having this incredibly good time. Is it like a Billy Joel concert? Well, I've never been to a Billy Joel concert. Well, that's the default for Madison's quote.

You know, I'd say it's more like a hockey game. You know, there's a lot of whooping, a lot of cheering, a lot of, you know, being part, but it is a fandom thing. You know, I often try to make the distinction that Trump is not a political phenomenon. It's a fan phenomenon. You know, the merchandise, there's so much merchandise. It's more like maybe Grateful Dead concert.

Right. I mean, every... He's a franchise. He's a franchise. It's an entertainment franchise. It's all very predictable. And these, and long, you know, a lot of people got into there at noon.

They didn't get out of there until 9.30 at night. And that's about what value for money, that this is a day out for people? Yeah, I don't know. Well, it's not. It's too much value, apparently, because by the end, which is weird, by the time he speaks, you know,

there are lots of empty seats because, you know, people are, you know, brought to their knees. And so, but they listen, they sit through this whole succession of morons who get up there and say these moronic things, which are now billed as, you know, dark and racist, which they all are, but the overriding feeling is that they're just moronic. And, but these are the same morons that speak at all of these events. So it has a kind of family feel. So, which I think, you know, I think we're a member of this tribe. Right, it's tribal. It's tribal.

Right, which is how he's changed politics, actually. Yeah, it's the moron tribe. I mean, I shouldn't be laughing because it's actually catastrophic for America. Right. But it is, you put it very succinctly. I'm so curious about why they still sit with you. You've written someone. Can you talk about the area?

You seem to have the most incredible access. And what did they gain from giving you so much access to their lives and their world? Top level answer, I have no idea. But if I were to give it, you know, look for some granular explanation here. I think it probably goes to the divided sense of people in the Trump camp. You know, a lot of the people in the Trump camp are perfectly normal, political. professionals. So who would that be?

Chris Lece Vita or Susie Wiles? I may not say who it is, but there are a lot of them. In another Republican campaign, they would be not noteworthy. They would just be doing their jobs. But they've been caught like the rest of the Republican Party in this Trump vortex. They have nowhere else to go. There is no other career. And this is their career.

They can't just suddenly become, you know, investment bankers. And so here they are, and it's a divided self. You know, they are there and their job is to make this guy win. But at the same time, you know, they're clear-eyed. It's Donald Trump. So meaning what, that they don't want him to win or they do want him to win because it's their job? You know, I mean, I think that they probably do want him to win because it's their job, that they have one job, make the guy win. And I'm particularly talking about the people who are not necessarily ideologues in here. They're political professionals. But at this, at the same time, they're not, they're, they're, they're, they're really under no illusion that Donald Trump is a normal

figure. Now, there's ways to rationalize this, you know, if he gets elected, well, that's, that's, that's democracy. And there is something inexplicable even to them about Donald Trump. I mean, how, how does he do it? How does he manage? I mean, doing almost everything that would have defeated, ordinarily defeated anyone else, and yet he prevails. So that's a kind of magic. And this campaign has been so extraordinary. And I remember you telling me that you were covering the Stormy Daniels trial. You were in there every day. Many, that would have felled many a candidate. He came out somehow victorious. He then had the attempted two attempted assassination attempts, which we don't even talk about anymore. And now we've got his last rally. But it's just the most

extraordinarily energetic and exhausting campaign. No, and I think people feel, especially the people close to them, they feel that they are secondary to or a part of this phenomenon so that they have, they lack a certain amount of free will here. Whose counsel does he seek? No, nobody. He's just completely nothing. No.

What about Elon Musk? I want to talk to you about Elon Musk and his role. role, you know, were Trump to win, what's Elon's role? And also RFK Jr. He was at the rally on Sunday, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he's hustling like mad to be head to. Yeah. No, I actually, you know, I'm, I mean, we'll deal with Elon, but RFK Jr.

And so RFK Jr. and Tucker were, had prominent roles there. and I texted one of the Trump people during this that I just saw that that that 2028 would be RFK Jr. and Tucker Carlson running for the Republican nomination. Oh, and a child just one up my spine. Yeah. What did the person respond back? Bingo. Wow.

Oh. Well, there won't be any of us left by then because no one of our vaccines will have been wiped out. by another time to make. Can you, do you know what, what is the secret with Mike Johnson? Do you have an insight into that? You mean the secret? Why, how does someone so talentless seem to prevail here? Well, he intimated that he and Mike Johnson had a secret.

No, I'm sure that there's no secret. There's no secret. Okay. Elon Musk. I can't explain that. In other words, what is, what does he want out of this? Well, doesn't he? You want government contract.

Maybe. But, you know, I think that there's probably an easier and cheaper way to get them. I think I can safely say that this will shortly end in tears. Go on. I mean, well, I don't. Because it ends in tears with everybody. Yeah. And especially these two guys, you know, who are both, both fancy themselves kings of the world.

You know, and, you know, and Elon is not going to bow down to Donald Trump. and Donald Trump is not going to bow down to Elon Musk, and this is a game ultimately of dominance and submission. With Steve Bannon just being released from prison, do you expect, is that making waves within the campaign? Has he been accepted back into the fold yet? No, no. I mean, he hasn't, but he has a, I mean, Trump is not that interested in Steve Bannon. He hasn't been interested in Steve Bannon for a long time. But Steve Bannon has carved himself a place in this MAGA, a place of real MAGA influence. So that matters.

He can set things in motion that then ripples or waves that will wash up at Donald Trump's feet and then he has to react to them. So there was some concern that he was, you know, that, I mean, they're afraid or attentive to this whole fascism dictator line. And so they were afraid that Steve would immediately come out out of prison and talk some good old-fashioned fascism stuff. Oh, my goodness. So what do you, I wanted to ask you about Rupert Murdoch's influence on all this. And you make the point in your, in Fire and Fury,

that Murdoch wanted to be a president, maker, but the irony was the president he made was Donald Trump, who he despises. What is he thinking in all this? What is Fox's role at this point, given that Twitter or X, as it's now called, has sort of taken over? Rupert, especially after January 6th, washed his hands of Trump, thought he was finished and he wanted no part of him and was mad about the Dominion lawsuit, which he blamed on on Trump. And Rupert determined that he was, you know, he was going to make Ron DeSantis the nominee.

And just to remind people, the Dominion lawsuit, in fact, Fox ended up paying nearly a billion dollars after Fox anchors had wrongly slandered the Dominion voting machine. Right. And blamed the conspiracy. They adopted the Trump camp's line

on the stolen election. Right, the big line. The historically, yes. And that was, I mean, although you would rightly blame, as the settlement suggests that it was Fox's fault, Rupert then continued to believe it was Trump's fault. He would never be in this situation. Were it not for Trump insisting on this, you know, ridiculous case?

So he wanted DeSantis? So it was there. It was a very clear program. They would support Ron DeSantis, and they would keep Donald Trump off the air. And that clearly didn't work. So Rupert came back. You know, in the end, Rupert is about who's in power.

And if he has to suck the bitter pill, he will. And he has. Who do you think would work for Trump should he achieve a second term? Because he had, you know, talented people went to work for him in the first term. But he had obviously no loyalty. He throws everybody under the bus. What? No, it's almost impossible to understand. And I think it has to do with the nature of power

and the nature of the certain hubris that people who are attracted to power feel. Because you will know this certainty is if you go to work for Donald Trump, it will end badly. Actually, you may very well be indicted. But I think that there will be probably no shortage of people. I saw John Paulson today kind of groveling to, you know, in his bid to become the Secretary of the Treasury. Obviously, Elon Musk is in there. What do these people? Why would these people possibly need this? And why would anyone?

It is going to end badly for all concerned. So you have a podcast which you're also dropping today, the same day as ours, which talks about Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Yes. What can you tell us about it? Fire and Fury. the podcast available, where, whatever they say. Give us a hint.

Give us a hint of the story. I know it's made a lot of news. You know, this is a, I mean, I haven't, I've never been able to understand why the Epstein Trump relationship has, why Trump has so easily kind of flick this away when there is a big body of evidence and a long timeline that they, that they were, I mean, good friends, nightlife friends. you know, that this was that they had a relationship whose main subject was women and women in a way that would be entirely disqualifying to anyone actually doing virtually anything. Well, young women.

No less running for president. You know, I mean, in this young women, all kinds of, all kinds of women. But it was, you know, it was I can do anything with women at any time. And we did this podcast just because it came out this, you know, you know, former model, Stacey Williams, a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, came out and described she was, she was one of Epstein's girlfriends. And when he introduced her to Donald Trump, Donald Trump immediately started to mall her. And I thought, okay, let's just, you know, I mean, I know a lot about this relationship.

Epstein was a, was a very good source for me when I was writing Fire and Fuel. So I thought, okay, let's just put it on the table. Wow. Oh, boy, I will be listening. Right. So the minute you finish this podcast, you have to go and download Fire and Fury podcast to find out more about it. There is that very telling photo, which we use all the time in the beast of Donald Trump with Melania and Epstein and Gillesne Maxwell. Yeah, no, no, no.

This was a very, very close relationship. I mean, these are two guys. their interests absolutely coincided. And one ended up in the darkest jail in America and the other brother-in-arms ended up in the White House. It's amazing to me that people can glass that over, that people just look at the photo and it doesn't register. It's like it just doesn't register in their brains at all.

It's extraordinary. Also, I remember you saying to me recently that Donald Trump faces two options, one he's president, the other he goes to jail, and he doesn't actually want either of them. Yeah, I don't, did I say the last? I certainly said the former. I'm not sure. You did say the latter. But I think it's true. Clearly, he doesn't want to go to jail. And I think the presidency is, you know, is equivocal to him. I mean, yes, he wants to be the president because at this point he can't be Donald Trump without being the president. So, yeah, but in terms of what a president's, a president does, the job, what he can accomplish. as president, he's not interested in this. It has felt the whole time like he's been running the campaign, not wanting to be president

at all. I mean, he has never, I mean, one of the things about, you know, when he was in the White House, everybody said that his life in the White House was not really different from his life in Trump Tower. You know, it was the same. He got up late in the morning. I mean, he went to work. He didn't do much, much work.

And the day was basically filled with. with delegations of people who would come in and flatter him, and then he would, in turn, flatter, flatter them. And, you know, and then he would sit in the Oval Office. I mean, I was witness to the scene many times, and it's filled with people, 20 people, 30 people, and he would just be blah, blah, blah, just talk, talk, talk broadcast. And then when he got to Maralago, people would say, well, his life in Maralago was not really that much different from his life in the White House. So it is, it is, There is a thing about, you know, his interest is in being Donald Trump, not in being the president of the United States.

Right. What's your sense when you speak with J.D. Vance? He's just waiting in the wings going, I'm going to do it. I want this so badly. Yeah, no, no, he does. And there's another instance he will be, you know, that will end in tears for him. What about Vladimir Putin and his relationship with Trump? Does it end in tears for Putin?

I mean, now all this information of Elon Musk talking to Putin regularly is coming out. We know that Donald Trump sent him COVID tests when Americans couldn't get COVID tests. Does that end in tears to American tears? I don't know. I mean, Putin is an incredibly curious player and an astute player. And I'm not sure that we understand how astute he is. I would assume he is vastly more astute than Donald Trump. Yeah.

So everyone else will, it will be their tears and not Trump's tears. But with Putin, it could be Trump's tears. Cognitive decline. I mean, if you play back the clips over the last sort of 12 years, you can see that Donald Trump has definitely changed. Whenever I think it's absolutely obvious, his incognitive decline, he pops up and does a rally where regardless of whether or not he's doing his weave or whatever,

he seems remarkably coherent. What's your sense having covered him for as long as you have? I would never say that Donald Trump appears coherent. But he does peer energetic. Energetic, which is extraordinary. I mean, who can speak for 90 minutes, 120 minutes, without, basically without taking a breath? So it almost doesn't matter.

People forget that this makes no sense whatsoever. just because he's going on. So you're like, oh my God. You know, so I don't know. Cognitive decline. I mean, it's Donald Trump. It's just like an old farm tractor that just keeps running with less use. Less use.

The blades are all dull, but it's still chugging through the fields. You know, and there is the other thing. It's not only cognitive decline. And the man is 78 years old where, you know, let's face it. But, you know, he's now been. the president in effect for eight years or treated like the president. So nobody contradicts him. Nobody interrupts. Nobody. It's just broadcast. It's just uninterrupted. There's no filter. There's no need to have a filter. There's no sense that he has to cater to anyone.

When was the last time somebody really said no to him and it took? That may never have been a circumstance ever in his life. Everybody needs that. What's your actual hunch of what's going to happen? I have no actual. I do not know. Will you vote on the day or are you an early bird voter? I don't vote. You don't vote.

You've seen too much. I've seen too much. Want to hear more? Subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast wherever you're listening to this to catch a new episode every Thursday.