The Daily Beast Podcast - How Trump Humiliates Natalie by Thirsting at Rival

Episode Date: October 3, 2026

#ad See if your SSN is for sale right now. My sponsor Cloaked will tell you for free in 2 seconds here: https://cloaked.com/dailybeast ✅ Joanna Coles and Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty take on a week of Trump-fueled chaos, from the president fawning over White House aide Margo Martin in front of Natalie Harp to his motorcade roaring through Texas at nearly 100 mph. They reveal why Trump’s rally crowds are shrinking, how his attacks on scandal-plagued Senate candidate Ken Paxton could help Democrat James Talarico, and what his explosive Time Magazine interview exposed about his obsession with the press and his demand for loyalty from Supreme Court justices. Plus, they break down Pete Hegseth’s purge of military leaders, Trump’s faltering war with Iran, the alarming role Grok AI may be playing in his foreign policy decisions, and why his increasingly strange appearance offers a revealing look at an 80-year-old president failing in plain sight. #ad Save 20% Off Honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/DAILYBEAST ! #honeylovepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover coffee plus on espresso.com. This time he's showing off Margo Martin. And of course, Trump travels with the same group of people all the time. So Natalie Hart was there as well. And there he was. He brought her up.

He hugged her. He talked about how beautiful she is. We know that's the language of Trump. There were these pictures earlier in the week of him apparently shouting at Natalie Hart. And then a younger woman, a woman who, we have to say, has regularly been mistaken for Melania was brought up on stage. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. Today we are catching up with the insanity of the week. Trump on the cover of Time Again, the Beast driving a hundred miles an hour when the

weather proved too difficult to take a flight. And Natalie Harp, Natalie Harp being, well, being forced to watch Trump slaver all over Margot Martin, her White House rival. What is going on? Hugh Docherty, the Daily Beast's executive editor knows everything, and he is here to frame it for us. Before he does, please, don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast wherever you get your podcasts. just smash the subscription button and you can like us do and share us with friends. Okay, enough, Hugh Doherty. What a week? You're going 100 miles per hour, Joanna.

I am. Well, you're going 150 miles a hour. The news is going 100 miles per hour. Yeah, the news is circumnavigating the globe like Elon's starships. Oh, right. And not hopefully not ending up like all of his starships. and crashing. Crashing and burning.

Yes. Crashing and burning. All right, Hugh, I was very curious about this Natalie Harp, Margot Martin's story. Natalie Harp is obviously the president's special age. She goes everywhere with him. As Michael Wolfe has pointed out, she is the most important person because she really controls the information in and out to him. We've got a clip here which suggests that she has.

as a rival for Trump's attention. This is a clip well worth watching to all who watch it. There's quite a few things to look out for. Margo, where are you, Margo? Get up here, Margo. Come here, Margo. Come, come, come. I won't make you speak.

She's very shy. Come here. Come here. She's become a sensation in social media. Look at this. Look at this. And I'm not allowed to say she's beautiful. You believe that she is beautiful.

But she's beautiful inside and out. And she's been so loyal. She's been with me right from the beginning, right? So many, so many things in there. So much. I actually feel for Natalie Hart watching that. Tell me what you saw there. Well, first of all, this was a rally in Oklahoma.

Trump went there on Thursday night. And Oklahoma, it's worth saying deep red. And we can talk about that later. but this rally, he uses these rallies to try to show off. I mean, it's kind of like, I don't know, like going around to an elderly relative and they go, I'm going to show you this collection of things. And you're like, okay. And this time he's showing off Margot Martin.

And of course, Trump travels with the same group of people all the time. So Natalie Hart was there as well. And there he was. He brought her up. He hugged her. He talked about how beautiful she is. we know that's the language of Trump. Michael Wolf does a brilliant job in this,

the newest edition actually of Inside Trump's head talking about how you're basically a flunky to Trump. But one of the flip sides of this is he talks about beauty and beautiful. And he talked, he went on to talk about her genetics and say that he subscribes to the racehorse theory because her parents were there. She's from Oklahoma.

She's from Oklahoma, yeah. She was born in Dallas. She was brought up in Oklahoma. She went to Texas Christian University. She's very much from where he was having his rally last night. There's 80 miles between Ada or Ada, I should say, in Oklahoma and Dallas where he had his rally earlier in the evening. So she is, this is a local girl. And in his view, this is a local girl done good. But if you're Natalie Hart, sure. There were these pictures earlier in the week of him apparently shout. at Natalie Hart. And then a younger woman, a woman who, we have to say, has regularly been mistaken for Melania was brought up on stage. Our sponsor, Cloaked, dared me to see how exposed my information, actually, so I put my phone number into their site, and this is not what I expected. It's my actual social security number. Data brokers are making billions selling your information to spammers, scammers, and who knows who else. Every time you sign up for something, you're feeding the machine.

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new uniform that Melania has been wearing to indicate that she's a businesswoman. She's creating her own world outside of the White House. As we know, we know that Melania herself jokes about the fact that people have missed her because she's not in evidence. And yet Margot Martin is in evidence. Natalie Harp is in evidence. She pointed to the photos that we saw this week of Trump shouting, I mean, yelling, looking ferociously angry at Natalie Harp.

And Natalie Harp looking as if she's laughing it off, but also looking pained, I think it's fair to say. And then you have Trump, you know, fawning over Margot Martin, who is very beautiful. I mean, she's got that kind of glass skin that is a whole thing on the internet right now. You know, very pretty, 31, has a fiancé, not yet married. A fiancée is the kind of archetypal American man, I would say.

Oh, this is a cross player. All-American, Ohio State University, a lacrosse player, professional career on a lacrosse, actually, in Canada. Perhaps we shouldn't mention that to Trump, because obviously that's now the enemy. But that was before. I'm sure he calls it Lake America and she posts a lot of pictures

of him on her social media Brock Sorensen, her fiance, he now works even his name, Brock Brock and Margo, it's such an American kind of the valedictorian couple, right? Yes, I'm getting sort of

John Cougarmelanchamp vibes from this. Right, I don't know what that means. Oh, small town girl. Oh, small, oh is that, was that his songs, which I was confused with Uptown Girl by Billy Joel because I love his songs. Oh dear, I've revealed myself to be a secret suburbanite at heart, haven't I? And I play so hard at being an urban girl. There's nothing wrong with Billy Joel. What did we think

about Trump saying, oh, you can't say that people are beautiful because if you do, you'll lose your career. I mean, he's made a career out of surrounding himself with beautiful women. That's been part of his schick. Yeah. This is something we've heard this from him. And now and again, he says it as a sort of weird throat clearing mechanism to then go on. And as you put it, Slavar, I think my word was thirst over... Thirst is a better word, actually. Beautiful woman. And it's intriguing that he uses it because there is nobody less inhibited about talking about beautiful women in a pretty, let's be honest, pretty derogatory way. But he has used this as a sort of device, especially at rallies. He says, well, you can't say this. And of course, part of the appeal of Trump has been to that base that want to, you know, that believe that he is able to say the things that are unsayable. And this is one of those you can't call women beautiful anymore. It's one of those sort of... Yeah, no, no, it's a cry to the culture. It's a sort of the woke, you know, won't allow you to say that someone's good looking.

Yes. Although, as we say, that's never stopped him. So Margot Martin, like Natalie Harp, makes a lot of... of his social posts. We're going to show a social post here, one of the ones that Margot has made, because they're obviously, I mean, it seems that he's trying to pitch them against each other, which is something we know he does with his cabinet. You know, it's J.D. Vance versus Marco Rubio versus Pete Hagez. He's doing it here with Natalie Harp and Margot Martin.

Let's play one of the videos that Margot Martin made of him recently. We are wheels down. President Trump stops to take questions from the press. We are now rolling to McDonald's. Check out this crowd across the street. My first day at McDonald's, I'm looking for a job. He put his apron on and got to work at the fry cooker. Can't forget the salt and a little over the shoulder for good luck. I was rather intrigued because he throws salt over his shoulder, which is something I grew up doing and still do. It's to spite the devil.

The devil is over Trump's left shoulder. Well, the devil's over all our left shoulders. Well, I'm aware of that. But I was just like, Trump doesn't want the devil? I'm intrigued by what's going on here. I think what's going on is it's an old, I actually thought it was a European thing, but I guess. Well, he did. His mother was from Scotland.

Right. So she probably learned it there. If you spill salt, because salt used to be expensive, it's unlucky. And so before the devil can get in and create havoc with your bad luck, you throw a bit of salt over your left shoulder and it's supposed to hit. the devil in the eye. What can I tell you? I still do it. So it's something that Trump and I have in common. But I thought that was a very good video by Margo. She's very good at doing these things. And Trump, I mean, I say this is not CNN. Trump is the star. This is a Trump adoration video. And in fact, her videos have done, you know, very well in quote marks in these terms. They've got

huge social reach. They have in the Trump world, some of the, of those videos that she has made are the videos that people repost and repost and repost. They make other versions of them. They do mashups. Her content that's taken often from when, particularly from when Trump travels, she's with them a lot, but when he travels, she makes these TikTok, Instagram, reels, and these are the things that Trump likes to see defining his travel. It kind of looks, it's glamorous. It's very glamorous. It's very glamorous. It's like a sort of ad for Amex or something. The Black Card Amex. So even Margot Martin couldn't take a video of The Beast whizzing along yesterday at a hundred miles an hour. Trump was bragging that it was the fastest the beast has ever been. I'm sure that the other presidents, the former presidents club, woke up and were just like, oh, God, can you believe that this is what he did in the Beast? Please, again. explain. So as we said, he was in Oklahoma for a rally when he summoned Margot Martin up on

stage. He had been just before that in the Dallas suburbs. He'd gone to the Peterbilt truck factory. He held a rally there, and it's about 85 miles between them. He was supposed to get on Air Force One. There was a weather warning, and Air Force One does not take risks with the weather, thankfully. Can you imagine having to tell that to Trump, too? Because you would think that he'd probably say, I can't feel a storm, I can't feel a storm, let's just go, let's just go. I know the weather better than anyone else. It's a hoax. It's a hoax. Well, yeah, I imagine it went down badly for a minute and then he turned it around his advantage and he said, we are going to go, we're going to drive and we will not be late for the people or we'll be slightly late for

the people of Oklahoma. And he makes this a flex and it's something that it builds the popularity of this rally going base. And this rally. going base, by the way, is getting smaller. Those rallies are not getting bigger. I thought that it didn't look to be very many people at the car factory. And they are now putting him in smaller venues that it's just harder to tell. The Dallas Convention back at the beginning of September, those pictures were absolutely humiliating of him saying, we're full to the rafters and our Serio Wives who was there had pictures. Oh, there's the rafters. There's no people. Right. That entire top layer of the arena was completely empty. It was as a

if they hadn't even opened it. So, yeah, in fact, they had deliberately had not. And so he was at this Peterbilt, fairly small midi rally, couldn't get on the plane, and said, we are going to drive, we're going to go there. And as I say, 80-ish miles, straight shot, it's interstate most of the way, 75-mile-per-hour speed limit. So, you know, it's not an emergency. Let's just be clear about this.

This is, he's going between campaign stops purely for political reasons, purely to get people to vote Republican. The motorcade was clocked at around 100 miles per hour. Wow. We know this because the motorcade includes the pool of reporters and they are in a van. And the van was doing, according to the reporter who was there and you can see this tweet from them on screen, 98 miles per hour. Now, I have to say, I have never been in a 15-seater doing that.

98 miles per hour. It doesn't sound like a great idea to me. The beast is 10 tons of armored steel. It is designed to go that fast to get away from things. It is designed so that it can accelerate away from danger because that's how it's designed. I'm not entirely sure that it's designed to go for 100 miles per hour for mile after mile after mile. I'm sure the Secret Service will say we plan for all eventualities, but I just want to close. climb slightly on the moral high ground here and say that they closed the freeway for him.

They closed the freeway for him. So, although the people were probably inconvenienced. And it's just emphasised this point again, it's not an emergency. There is a speed limit. Laws apply to everybody. And I think, you know, you talked

about the devil and putting salt over your shoulder and old wives' tales. And there are many parables and fables that you can tell people's respect for the law or for other people from the smallest of their actions and demanding to go at 100 miles per hour just because you can just because you want to get to this next rally. I think people might see that as indicative of the sort of La Tate Semois view that Donald Trump has and we are coming up to midterm elections where the fidelity

to the rule of law is going to be absolutely critical. Oh so you think that this might be an omen of what he's planning to do around the election? I think Omen might be a strong word, but it's something that should at least, you know, raise people's eyebrows, if nothing else. And I know that sounds kind of preachy, and I'm not, the Daily Beast is not preachy. We are not, we don't hector, we don't lecture.

I just think it's intriguing that his reaction was to say, go as fast as you can, to hell with the law. If you like the support of a sports bra, but hate wearing one all day, I know exactly what you mean. Most of them feel great for a workout, but after a few hours later, the straps dig in. The band gets uncomfortable and you're ready to struggle to take it off. The Honey Love Cross Flex Activity Bras, completely changed that for me because it's got the support of a sports bra, but it's designed to be comfortable all day. It's wireless, so there's no poking or digging. And it actually gives you the shape and separation instead of the dreaded uniboub. And the hook and I, means you don't have to wrestle it over your head, which is what I hate about sports bras. So treat yourself to the most advanced bras and shapewear on the market. Save 20% of Honeylove at Honeylove.com slash Daily Beast.

That's honeylove.com slash Daily Beast. And after you check out, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them, we sent you, experience the new standard in comfort with Honey Love. So let's come back to the midterms. in a minute. Two points. He's leaving Texas. I'm sure James Tala Rico's team is already on the beast going at 100 miles an hour because they're doing a very good job of making hay with Trump's errors. Now, Trump was there, of course, in Texas where his personal candidate, Ken Paxton, is running against the Democrat James Tallerico. And even the fact that this

race is competitive is interesting because normally it would be, you know, Texas is red for the Senate. So can we talk about what Trump said about Paxton? Because of course, Ken Paxton was caught earlier this week on hot mic saying that the RNC, the mini RNC that we were talking about earlier had in fact been bad for Republicans. His numbers had dropped because of the Trump a-per-palooza. And of course, this is not something that Donald Trump wants to hear at all. So Donald Trump then gets his own back by talking about Paxton. We have the clip. He could be a pain of the ass sometimes.

I'll be honest. Is he here, by the way? Oh, there he is. Good. I didn't even know if he's here. I don't care. I didn't even know he was here. I don't care.

Sorry, Ken. You're no Margo Martin. You're no Margo Martin. Yeah. I mean, Trump has been rude about him before. I mean, I think when they were in Dallas at the Trumpapaloo, he read out of insults. Exactly.

He said he doesn't. speak well, he doesn't look good, he's not a great guy, but he was a good attorney general, also untrue because he got impeached by his own party. Well, so did Donald Trump, and he thinks he's a great president. But, well, not by his own party, not by his own party. Right. Yes, that's true. Even by Donald Trump standards, that's pretty bad. By some members of his own party. Some members of his own party. Bill Cassidy, who then as a quid pro quo had to vote in Robert Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary. And then, of course, he gets primaried by Trump

so he's lost his seat and he's out. So poor old Ken Paxton, you might feel sorry for this guy. I mean, he turns up for this rally with Trump. By the way, he could have gone to a rally held the previous day by one J.D. Vance.

He didn't go to that. So who knows what J.D. Vance would have said about him. But he turns up for this rally and he needs this help. The base has to come out. And that's what Trump goes to do these rallies for. Nobody who's kind of in the middle, who's, you know, sort of independent is persuaded by a Trump rally. But Trump knows that his voters turn

out for him and he's doing this guy a favor, going to Dallas, going to this, you know, this state that you'd never need to go there. This state should be read. And I know people in the comments are probably going to say, well, it's not as red as you think. And that's true. It has... Well, it's got cities. It's got blue cities and it's got Austin. And the margins by which Republican senators have been winning in Texas have been on a slide down. Just in broad terms, they slightly ticked up the last time with Ted Cruz.

Everybody hates Ted Cruz, but Donald Trump was on the ballot. But general terms, really, the Republican Party doesn't think Texas is a danger until Ken Paxton turns up, gets installed. And, oh no, this is a full-on crisis. And Trump... Well, and it's of Trump's making. Trump has made this crisis. John Cornyn, because John Cornyn was critical of him, and he's gone after him. And now he's going after Ken Paxton.

And, you know, if they lose this to James Talleyko, who is clearly an exceptionally strong candidate, this isn't just like any loser could turn up and beat Kent Paxton. And he was on the Texas State Senate. So people know him. He's not like he parachuted in. No. A local guy was a former school teacher there. Now he's a seminarian.

These people both have, you know, people are not in Texas. Both these names were kind of new to us. But these people have a high profile in Texas. Texas has a lot of media markets. It has a very powerful, if you like, state government in the sense that a lot of attention is focused on it, more so than perhaps in some other states. where we are in New York

I think you could get a prize for naming anybody but the governor that's in the state governing apparatus but that's not the case in Texas and Ken Paxton himself made himself a very high profile

Tony General all of that is as to not here because Trump just turns up and insults the guy calls him a pain in the ass he talks as you say about how he doesn't dress well he doesn't speak well

I would say the same if he wasn't here is he here I don't care I mean I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. Ken Paxton, a rod for your own back. Yeah. And as I say, you might feel sorry for Ken Paxton except he's been impeached. His wife left him or divorced him on biblical grounds. He was caught with his mistress in London, on the United Kingdom, not by the way, the Hamlet and Texas, the one in the United Kingdom. On July the 4th, America's 250th birthday, he was in the capital of the country that declared independence from, with his mistress. And, I mean, have I even touched the tip of the scandals? And I haven't mentioned him stealing the pen. All of them, you know, plenty of material for Trump there.

And perhaps more significantly, Trump's lining up to say, well, he lost this himself. He was a stone-called loser. We know what Trump's going to say if James Talleyko is the next senator. I know. I was thinking about Chiquem Paxton today thinking if he loses the seat, what does he go on and do? Because everybody has turned against him. And the pen is such an interest. And we've talked about the pen before, but the pen, you know, just for those who don't know the pen's story,

because to me it's such an insight. It's a small incident, but it's such an insight into someone's character. He's going through, I think at a local courthouse, the x-ray machine, the person in front of him has left his pen in the tray. It's probably fallen out of a jacket pocket. it. And instead of handing the pen in, which is clearly a very expensive pen and turns out to be a gift from this man's wife, Ken Paxton pockets it. And when the guy realizes what's happened a bit later in the day and oh, I can't find my pen and it's a gift from my wife and she'll be furious and it was expensive. And it turns out it was expensive. It was an $1,000 pen. It was a special

birthday. He goes back and goes through the CCTV and there is Ken Paxton taking the pen and and putting it in his own pocket instead of handing in and saying, oh, goodness, someone's left their pen in the tray, which a normal person would do, but Ken Paxton is not normal. And by the way, this is the back, the blue lot, right? Well, and who do you want to live next door? Do you want to live next door to the man who won't return your pen? When you say to him, did you see my wallet?

I think I dropped it when I got that off the car. He's like, I never saw your wallet. I never saw your wallet. Meanwhile, is he busy putting your cards in the ATM and trying to guess what the number So this poor guy who is a very respected lawyer, a very respected local lawyer, Joe Joplin. Oh, he's the guy whose pen it was. He had to contact, he went and asked the sheriff's department, because it was the courthouse, sheriff's department around the courthouse. And they had to go and retrieve the pen. It's shocking. And then Joe Joplin ended up endorsing James Lallarico. Joe Joplin, by the way, a rock-ribbed conservative.

And this is why Trump was at this rally. This is why Trump is lining up the excuses for a defeat here, because there have been conservative after conservative after conservative at a local level willing to get behind James Talleyco. Right. And there have not been high-profile conservatives willing to get behind 10-Paxon. John Cornyn has been silent. And John Cornyn was, I've said rock-ripped.

I don't know what's even more powerful than rock ribs in the conservative front. This guy could not be more conservative. He won't speak up to say, oh, yeah, you should vote for Ken Paxton. He's talking about other people on the ballot. We know that Carol Rove has deserted another Texas Republican candidate for his racism. And Carol, you know, the whole psyche of Texas is it is conservative. That's what we all think about it. That's what we all see it as.

And the conservative movement inside Texas isn't behind Ken Packer, How could you be behind? Right. And keep a straight face, frankly. Very, very difficult. You have to keep everything about your person. Right. Hold on to your bags, ladies.

Yes. Yes. It's an extraordinary change in the climate. And it's all down to Trump. It's all down to Donald Trump. Who, as we referenced earlier on, is on the cover of Time magazine, again. Is it his 58th time on the cover? Certainly it's more than anybody else.

No one's ever seen anything like it. They've never seen anybody on the cover of Time magazine more. He's standing right by his new helipad. Yes. And this is a bit of a jaw-dropping interview, even for Donald Trump. And the editor of Times said that he released the full transcript because Donald Trump attacks the media, says they make things up. So still banning CNN, isn't he from the pool?

Yes. So, well, what struck you in this interview the most? Because there are so many elements of it, not least him attacking the Supreme Court justices that he put in and being furious that they made independent decisions without him. But you read the whole thing very carefully. What struck you the most? The most striking thing to me is Trump's absolute obsession in this interview with his press, with his own image in the media. It's the thing he keeps coming back to and he keeps coming back to. You're right.

He really does not like the three justices that he put on the Supreme Court. He goes after a variety of targets. He talks about the Democrats. He's actually not that interested in the Democrats in this interview. But what he's obsessed about is what's on television. What are people saying about him? And I think the most revealing quote of all is when he says to Sam Jacobs, the editor of time,

their White House correspondents are not one positive question. He drops the F-bomb and he goes on and on about how they are not asking him positive questions. And then he goes after Caitlin Collins, completely unprompted. He's obviously obsessed by Caitlin Collins. He's obsessed by her. Natalie, you have another competitor for his attention. I'm sure he's just watching Caitlin's show every night,

thinking why doesn't she like me? How can I get her to be more like Natalie or Margaret? unhappy, you know. Never smiles. She smiles a lot just not when you're in the room, Mr. President, and not when you're refusing to answer her questions. And I think part of it, and I always caution, I do not, I do not crawl inside Trump's head.

It's already busy with you and Michael. And the devil's over his left shoulder, so it's packed in there. But Caitlin Collins doesn't give him a reaction. And that seems to be quite a powerful, encouragement to him to just keep doing it. He wants a reaction, so he's still goading and he's still goading. And other White House correspondence that he's gone after, Jim Acosta, you'll remember from his first term, there appeared to be some sort of reaction or he felt that he had got

a reaction. I don't think Jim Acosta would say that he, in fact, gave him a reaction, but Trump felt he got a reaction. And clearly with Caitlin Cullin, he doesn't feel he got a reaction. But in this interview, he spent two hours with the time interviewer. he spent 75 minutes sitting with them and the rest of the time, quite a lot of time. He toured them around the White House. He showed off the gold. He showed off this helipad

which we can see on the cover of time and he thinks they're amazing. He told them that he wants the Oval Office landmarked. Now, I think all of us would be like, that seems like a good idea because that would stop you tearing it down. But in fact, he wants the Oval Office landmark so that the gold stays in place.

So his successors are stuck with it. So J.D. Vance regularly measures those curtains. Sorry, J.D. If you get that Oval Office, you're stuck with that gold according to Trump. J.D. Vance might like the gold. He might be into the gold. That's true. He might like the gold. Others may not. I think there's a lot of Democrats who've got, you know, ready to get those drapes measured. New from Nespresso.

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But he really went after Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Comey Barrett. He said they should be loyal to me. He noted that the three Democrat appointees were loyal, stuck together when they made decisions. They were essentially, you know, making a decision as a block. And he feels wounded by this. And he said they're not the people that he appointed. No. And it's fascinating on two parts. The first is his idea that the Democrats. stick together and are loyal. If you ask any Democrat, they will tell you that is the one thing Democrats are not. They are facile. They fight with each other. They have crazy feuds. They can't, you know, they can't get behind a single candidate. And he thinks of the judges solely as politicians that they're the Democratic judges. These are the Republican judges. That's how it should work. Well, and he doesn't seem to have any understanding of what the justices are there to do. And also no understanding that once they're appointed justices actually often go rogue, rogue, i.e. independent, they have their own decisions. And also they're not,

they're not political creatures, they're sort of creatures of historic precedent. They're about the law for the most part. And the number of justices that have gone rogue in the view of the parties that appointed them is actually, it's pretty high. Anthony Kennedy, many of the Republicans felt had gone rogue. Sandra Day O'Connor. Byointed by Ronald Reagan and then famously made her own decisions. You know, others over time have moved and, you know, moved in other directions. But in Trump's world, that's not what happens. He's good, no.

We assume he doesn't know the history of the Supreme Court in any of them, even the most basic shape of form. He doesn't know the history of the country, really, either does he? But what's so clear about him is he's just run like a mafia. And then... It's run, you know, it's about loyalty, which we know in his cabinet. It's loyalty. He expects the scoters to be the same thing. And that's the sort of the fascination with these three appointees that he made all in his first term.

He was advised about who he should put. Getting the Supreme Court justices is the great achievement of his first term. There's no doubt about that. They reshape the country by their votes on the Supreme Court. he, when he ran for election, had to, in the first time round, had to shore up conservative support because they really didn't like this three times married,

admitted adulterer, boasting about his affairs. There was this long-running, there were long-running rumors, which he has always denied that he paid for an abortion, but he had actually been pro-choice in the past. So he had to shore up his reputation among the conservative. So he produced a shortlist of rock-ribbed conservative judges that he would elevate to the Supreme Court if he had the chance.

And that was a really key thing in getting the Republican sort of heavyweights behind him at a crucial time. He might have won anyway. We don't know, but it was always an important thing. And it was very important to Mitch McConnell. And that was Mitch McConnell's deal with the devil. That was Trump was over Mitch's left shoulder. His deal was these judges, These justices, these justices are going to get in.

Neil Gorsuch was the first, then Brett Kavanaugh and then Amy Coney Barrett. And Amy Coney Barrett was rocket shipped through the Senate in very murky circumstances to get the seat. They are creations of the first term. And Trump is kind of wanting to walk away from a lot of his first term issues. You talked to Michael about those serious people who joined his cabinet in the first term. first days of the first term and who left wounded and bittered and sat fired on the toilet. He stuck with those justices. Those justices are more independent than he expected. They give results that he does not want. Well, most, I think most presidents would be,

would say, ooh, I'm not going to try to get that result through. We are not going to win. We are not going to go to the Supreme Court on that issue. We are not going to try to do this. Trump's approach is exactly the opposite. And he, I think, was emboldened by John Roberts, giving him immunity during his... In 2024. Exactly. And I think he feels emboldened that he should command this loyalty. And he also has, in his mind, that the older, the two two older conservatives, Carnes Thomas and Samuel Lolito, are peak Maga-Trump boomers.

You can't get more Trumpy than that pair. and they, sure, they're always voting for the stuff that Trump wants. Now, they know they're going to lose when they cast those votes. So these people are able politicians as well. When Alito and Thomas cast dissenting votes on issues that the rest of the court is going to vote against Trump on, they cast those votes probably knowing how that's going to go. They have an eye on two legacies. One is that they are the heroes of this Trumpy conservative movement, and especially

Carlos Thomas, I think that is a motivating factor. Yeah, really playing it to the gallery. But you also don't want to go down in history as the guy that overturned the Constitution by accident. And when Trump has really gone for it, they know they're going to lose. So when do their votes count? So Trump doesn't see it in this sort of, you know, 360 view of, you know, the differing questions about legacy and about power and basically, but in fact, the ass won't uphold the law.

None of that matters. Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty. It jumps out of this interview as, I think, one of the most unvarnished insights that we've had into Trump. That leads us to a terrific piece in the New York Times by Jody Cantor about John Roberts, the Chief Justice, and how the politicization, Trump's politicization of the Supreme Court has impacted him in a very personal way. And we know that all the Supreme Court justices have had to have an increase in their security because they have become characters in the way that they used

to be these sort of distant characters. You didn't really know necessarily who they were. You certainly weren't following in the same way that people are now. They've all been targeted by various people. They've all had people protesting outside their house. And John Roberts goes up to a small island in Maine that doesn't even have cars on it. You have to get there by boat. And it's confused his neighbors who've long been proud of the fact they have the chief justice summering on their island. And now some of his decisions have made them a proud independent state for the most part. They're one of the states that has an independent senator in Angus King have made them furious. I mean, furious, especially the decision you referred to about

giving the president immunity while making decisions as the president. So John Roberts has been facing water protests where people kayak up and down. It's called kayakivation, which I thought was innovative. And actually we've got some pictures on screen of that right now if you're watching, if you're not on YouTube, we've done a story on this on The Daily Beast. And it's quite something. Yeah, yeah. And also nobody quite knows how to stop. protests on water.

Right. And you see... It's actually unclear if it's legal or not is one of the issues. And who would you ask, well, John Roberts? You would ask John Roberts, whether or not the kayakivations outside his waterside home are in fact legal. And of course, he's got to have his own security there in a boat on the water. You know, people...

There was a columnist in the local paper who said, you know what, if you see John Roberts give him the finger or swear at him or confront him in some way. over some of his decisions. So a less restful summer, not only did he have the shadow docket to deal with, which is all the emergency situations that rise up that the court has to deal with. Trump has created.

Right, the Trump has created. So less peaceful summer than before, less time to write his books or do whatever he does, run around doing speeches. But less time to relax. Among the things that he used to do was they would have communal, you know, community law.

And he would shout, oh, yeas, oh, yeas, oh, yeas. The lobsters have arrived. And sadly, this tradition, the main tradition. Has been suspended because now a lot of his neighbours are not so keen on him. Right. Although he does still go to the cigar club, apparently. It does go to the cigar club. It's fascinating because John Roberts, and I keep using this cliche rock ribbed concept,

Somebody, if you're in the comments, if you've got a better cliche, please give me one. This is not what he expected. This is a bit like the situation in Texas. This is, you know... No, no, I've often thought John Roberts must have dreamed of being the Chief Justice from when he was a little boy. I'm sure he put his father's black shirts on or his mother's black dress and paraded around going, one day, I will be Supreme Court justice. And here he is.

Oh, yes. It's probably practicing them from when he was in debate club. And again, it's just be careful what you wish for. You know, yes, you're the Chief Justice. Donald Trump has been president twice. And just, you know, it's slightly meta. We are talking about this. Obviously, the Daily Beast podcast did not exist in the era of the Rehnquist court or any other courts.

but were these characters so engulfed in this drama, absolutely not. Absolutely not. And they were held in enormous respect even when you didn't agree with them. Yes. I think the idea that the Supreme Court represents something that people would shout shame at is a very new. Now, there are good reasons you might have shouted shame at previous Supreme Court. Red Scott springs to mind. but the idea of protests

and just Well protests outside their home It's very personal And personal And you know To put some of this in geographical context In Maine He lives on an island

And the island Obviously an island by definition Kind of difficult to get to It's at the end of a remote peninsula You know you can't get any more remote And these kayakivists As they are calling themselves Kind of brilliantly

Have to put a lot of effort in to get there And then there's a lot of effort to do that as well, I suppose. It's so intensely personal in a way that we've never seen and that has been unleashed by one man. And not John Roberts, to be clear, Donald Trump. Donald Trump.

I was leaving that hanging there and realizing. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with the coffee plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving

or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover coffee plus on espresso.com. So another thing that happened this week, which I'm going to get into in real detail with Michael Wolf tomorrow on Inside Trump's head,

is Pete Hegseth. Pete Hegseth giving another of his speeches, no beardos, no weirdos, no fatties, no trannies. I mean, this crazy language from a guy who's supposed to be heading, you know, the biggest military in the world. And he comes across as a vindictive, silly little man who's trotting around in his pants, which are too short for him. And I understand that's a style, but not perhaps best displayed by the Department of Defence. And this insistence he's going to cut 20% of the generals because it's too general heavy and that they're going to, you know, dig down further on the warrior class. Colonel Vodka, as Roger Ailes said to Michael Wolfe.

And this is a man who he collects nicknames like other people collect, oh, I don't know. Badges, medals, medals. Yes, no tab peat, because he does not possess the elite training that gives you a tab, like, for example, being a ranger. He didn't get that, and that is, you know, he parades himself, if that's the word, as this strong presence. He was running about, before he did this speech, he ran around the Pentagon with 600 of what he said were America's finest warriors. they were wearing t-shirts saying, this is war. Now, just as a small aside, of course, Donald Trump says illegally, they have said it is not a war with Iran anymore, so it should really have said this isn't war.

But he's running around wanting to project this image of strength. He was doing push-ups. You know, all great, right? He's keeping fit. He then goes and he is marching or walking, I suppose, up and down on stage. He's doing it not from a teleprompter. It's all, you know, this sort of presentation of strength. Well, audience of one for Donald Trump.

Right. It's all for Donald Trump. All for Donald Trump. We don't know if Donald Trump was watching. And an intriguing reason that we don't know if he was watching is because it wasn't shown anywhere. Pete Higgseth did not make a lot. This was not shown live on Fox News, even though Pete Hexeth was the weekend co-anchor

of Fox and Friends. Interesting. Well, I'm sure that Donald Trump is probably planning to fire. Peter Hegeseth after the midterms because of the war. We were promised a four to five week war, which is referred to in the time interview. And of course, we're now in our seventh month of war, which is going nowhere. And we are deploying a third aircraft carrier to the Gulf and 10,000 Marines. And I think, well, I should think the force of 10,000, which includes Marines. So what are we doing? Unclear. Why would we get rid of 20% of the generals? This is a long-held

conservative sort of think tank obsession that there are too many generals and the conservative sort of mind-blob thinks that generals are all woke. Now, I mean, come on. You know, you're just defying common sense there. These guys are not woke. And there's also a sort of mindset, and this was visible in that sort of weirdo military adjacent space that's populated by people with weird Twitter titles, that this would stop another endless war beginning, getting rid of these generals, that if these generals, if there hadn't been so many generals during Iraq and Afghanistan, then there wouldn't have been a forever war. And it's kind of weird because they just started a forever war. Right. So it's very odd. And then there was a moment in the debate between the

Democrat and Republican candidates for California governor, where the gas price came up in an unexpected way. Steve Hilton, who's the Republican candidate and conflict of interest alert, is an old friend of mine. We are both from Britain. Steve Hilton is from Britain. Folks relax. It's not a takeover attempt. This is not, there will be a 250 first birthday for America. We are very confident on that. Well, I think that Steve, possibly. badly briefed by his team for the debate. At one point, turned to his Democratic opponent and Xavier Bissera, former AG of California and said, do you know how much the price of gas is?

And Xavier straight back at him, says yes, it's $2 more a gallon than it was before the war in Iran, which shut Steve down. But gas prices clearly that's how this war is being measured. Right. And actually, of all people, Steve Hilton should know, there's a very old British joke of don't mention the war. Some people in the United States will know it because it was on a faulty towers. John Cleese, brilliant. Brilliant comedy from the early 1970s. But yeah, don't mention the war. And Donald Trump does a pretty good job mostly of not mentioning the war.

When he does, and we saw this in the time interview, he gets pretty triggered. He gets very triggered and he also says that Iran wants a deal is down. desperate for a deal, but he's not ready to give them a deal. We know that's not true. There's no sign. We know that the Iranians are fully cognizant of the fact that there are midterms approaching, and this is doing very badly for Donald Trump. Yeah. And, you know, the Iranians are not operating in some sort of vacuum of information here. These are the people that came up with these really funny AI slop videos. These are people that understand and are well-briefed on what is going on in politics.

Anywhere in the world, American politics is more interesting than your local politics. The Iranians are all over it. Well, they also have access to AI, and we learned that Donald Trump this week, deciding whether or not to go in and kidnap President Maduro from Venezuela, well, where did he get his advice from? Because we know he's fired all the advisors. Oh, Grok AI. So this to me seemed an incredible story.

Yeah. It's an absolutely astonishing leak out of the White House. And it comes courtesy of Time magazine who spent a lot of time in there. So I think we can probably guess that the leak may have come from quite a high level. Do you mean Donald Trump told them this proudly? It's not impossible. It's not impossible. I don't know because they published quite rightly this astonishing transcript of the 75-minute interview.

it's more than six and a half thousand, six thousand eight hundred words. But he also took them around the White House and that bit. There's not a transcript of. It was understood to be kind of off the record. So presumably he talked about other things. What we know is that he met Elon Musk at some point towards the end of last year. And there was this sort of day taunt about after their incredible falling out over the Doge and the Epstein files. Well, Elon Musk saying Trump is in the.

Epstein files. And he is, by the way. And he is, yes. Thousands of times. So Elon comes in and he's showing him GROC. Now GROC, most people have heard of, it's Elon's anti-Woke AI. And you ask GROC a question and it will give you an answer. And it is, you know, all the big, these big tech companies of their own version of it.

And just to remind everybody, AI doesn't actually think. just to be clear, it is a very, very good way of finding out what information has already been published and that it has had access to. Now, it's had access to vast amounts of information, so that's, you know, intriguing to find out what that information says. So apparently, they talk for hours and Trump gets into asking GROC questions. So he asks GROC, what would happen if I got rid of Nicholas Maduro? And GRO, replies something to the effect of, there would be celebrations in the street. A few weeks later, at the start of January, on January the 3rd, this very daring night operation led by special forces goes, and it does that. It goes and it kidnaps Nicholas Maduro, and it takes him out of Venezuela, brings him right here to Manhattan. Actually, two blocks from where we are sitting, Joanna, was where he was perp walk. by the drug enforcement agency. He's now awaiting trial. He's in the federal detention center

in Brooklyn in New York. He denies the charges of drug running, racketeering, drug trafficking, narco-terrorism, you name it. To be clear, he's a very bad guy. Oh, there's no doubt he did most of these things, but he says I was a sovereign president of a sovereign nation. You can't kidnap me and I've got immunity. And how would you feel if I went and kidnapped Donald Trump. So what we now know is that after Maduro was removed, there were, as GROC had predicted, some degree of celebration on the streets in Venezuela.

Not quite the euphoria, as we know, that Trump perhaps was expecting, but Trump saw that, and he then said, well, GROC is ingenious. So GROC basically talked him into going into a war. It's absolutely astonishing. Do we know that he, well, I'm assuming that he went on Grock to ask his advice about whether or not to go into Iran? We do not know. It seems like a very fair question. One thing we don't know, and I would be very intrigued to know, is how exactly does he ask?

Because we know that Trump is not that brilliant. He's got his phone. Is Natalie Hart doing it for him? That's what I want to know. And I think I often come here on a Friday and I say, I think Democrats will want to know. Because... Well, Democrats should be all over this. They should be all over the idea that Donald Trump's chief advisor is GROC AI. Yes. And we know, like, he made Marco Rubio the national security advisor permanently this week.

Marco Rubio is also the Secretary of State. He just lost his job as the archivist. I don't know. He couldn't fit it in. But he doesn't really have a national security apparatus. David Rothkoff, who is steeped in that world, a historian of national security, has pointed out that the size of the apparatus of the advisors around Donald Trump is the smallest it has ever been. And we know that he doesn't listen to them anyway.

Right. We know he doesn't listen. He's an information phob. He doesn't want advice. He thinks he knows better, which is why we are stuck in a sense. seventh month slash forever war with Iran with no visible signs of how we get out. And if I were the Democrats, I would be subpoenaing the logs for Natalie Hart, for Margo Martin, maybe, who knows, right? Whoever it was that was typing this question into Grok for him, what did they ask? Will there be dancing in the street if we invade Iran? Yeah.

What a great question. there will be dancing in the street. Would you like me to give you videos of you dancing in the street? I can ask, yeah, I can ask what kind of dances. Will they be doing your special dance to YMCA? Oh, goodness me, goodness me. Can you give me an AI makeover? Yes, I can, Donald.

Well, his spray tan has also gotten much, much more visible. I mean, there was some very funny memes. Aaron Sorkin has just opened his new movie, also looking weirdly spray town, but people were like, wow. If you're listening, we've got that on screen. It's an incredible colour. Yeah, what is, and when Donald Trump was with all the tech leaders this week, who looked sheepish and bashful standing behind him,

and at one point there's a marvelous moment where he sort of nudges Mark Zuckerberg, who he's been sort of giggling with Donald Trump, at the juxtaposition of the two of the Mark's white, sallow skin, a man who looks like he never goes outside, that he's always, he's got that kind of screen skin, as if he's just sitting in front of a screen all day. You see Donald Trump's sort of orange sunlight next to him. We got this incredible because one of the weird things that's been notable recently in this second term is Donald Trump rarely is seen outside spontaneously with other people. He walks to Marine

1 and we actually we haven't, we'd only begun seeing that. You don't see that anymore because now he's got the helicopter. Well, he's now, we're now getting that back, but he walks to Marine 1 by himself. He goes out when he goes... All with Natalie Har, all with Margot Martian. The distance between them is pretty notable. Right. So we rarely get those sort of shots of him and somebody else's head close by. So on Tuesday, we got these shots. It was extraordinary because you can see that he's painted bright. orange. Now, what is fascinating about this is we saw them inside and then we saw them outside. We saw

pictures from inside and Donald Trump's colour kind of looked okay. So what's that about? Did he put on a whole face of makeup? It was a rushing round before. No, the lights in the White House are balanced for Donald Trump's complexion, for want of a better word. So when he went out side, we got a vision of what it really was. And yeah, he looked like an umpalumpa. And he looked like an umpulumpur. And Michael Wolfe's point about Donald Trump is that he knows he looks strange. He understands the hair is bizarre and that he's changing it. But what he wants more than anything is attention. And if he's going out with these guys who are richer than he is, who are definitely smarter than he is, and they know that amongst themselves, I'm still going to stand out

because I'm oranger, I've got weirder hair, and you're going to notice me, and I will be the centre of attention. Well, also, when they were inside that White House at the lunch, because he looked the right colour, they looked, I'm good to use a Scottish expression that my mother would use, Peely wally.

Oh, I've never heard that expression before. Pele wally. Very, very pale. And in Scotland, there's not a lot of sunshine, so there's a lot of competition to who can be the more pale. Right. But he looked peely wally. his mother would have known that expression.

They look purely while he looked natural. So we know that the whole thing is rigged because we now have evidence. Right. And when you saw them outside, David Sachs' former A.I. Zar looked translucent. Yes.

You could almost see through the man. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's amazing. It's actually, it's one of the few times that we've had this sort of human insight into how Trump sees himself among, as Michael Wolf's rightly saying on inside Trump's head.

He doesn't see them as peers, but he is aware that they are powerful and they're billionaires. And they're richer. They're richer. And he looked ridiculous. And one thing I want to say about The Daily Beast is we have covered how Trump looks a lot because it's fascinating on its own terms, but it is the essential insight into Trump that it gives you. And there was a piece a couple weeks ago by the very respective New York Times journalist Frank Bruney,

who said we shouldn't talk about Trump's appearance because. he does all sorts of other bad things. And I just want to say the thing that I'm very proud of about The Daily Beast is we talk about Trump's appearance because it's so important. It's so important. It's the central, the whole thing about Trump is it's all being about appearance. It's all been about appearance. He judges other people by appearance.

His defense secretary has told no beards, no fatties. They're all obsessed about appearance because it's a television and social media. media cabinet. That's who they're performing for. It's when Trump has his rallies. He has his group of people around and there are far fewer people there. It's all about appearance. And his own appearance also very clearly indicates that this is a man in his ninth decade. He's 80 years old and he's not as fit or as healthy looking as he's what. His skin looks terrible. His hair is weird. It's as if he's also paying less attention. And I think we all know older people who have begun to care less and who turn up and there are stains on their

sweaters or stains on their jackets, they eat less well. And you can see that happening with Donald Trump in plain sight. And, you know, one of the things we should have paid more attention to with the previous president, Joe Biden, was his very appearance. In his appearance, you saw him failing. And then, of course, you saw it catastrophically at the debate. But the eye. The idea, Frank Bruny, that you wouldn't pay attention to someone's appearance is ridiculous, because in their appearance is an entire story. Carine Jean-Pierre, who was Joe Biden's press secretary, in fact, is writing this morning in the New York Times about Trump making the same mistakes that Biden made about disconnection

from the weakness of the economy or the feeling that people have. And she also mentions that the physical failings are you can't get around them. Of course you can't get around them. The cancels, the bruises, the swollenness, the fatigue, him falling asleep at his job. I mean, this is the president of the United States. And you can't make up to that by driving 100 miles per hour and, you know, thirsting over Margot Martin. Those are essential points. But Joanna, we have not talked about another man in his life.

ninth decade who made a strange reappearance to public life this week. A surprising reappearance. And before we tell you who it is, we are going to show you some photos of his leisure wear and you can decide, well, you can decide if he has any taste in sweaters. And if you're listening on the podcast, we are coming to the answer. But these pictures are amazing. So we have to respect our YouTube audience. We have to respect our visual audience who will enjoy these.

as much as we have done. But we are talking, of course, about Hugh. Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich. Some people probably thought, Gingrich, I hadn't heard that name in years. But if you are a particular type of Fox News viewer, you have heard that name a lot,

because he's on there quite a lot. And you might follow his wife on Instagram. Callista. Calista is the United States ambassador to Switzerland, where she posts a lot of pictures and there people have pointed out that she appears to be using the AI for some face tuning well good for her

yes but her husband has a new job 83 and he's got a new job there is hope for us all that you can never stop learning he has been put in charge along with two others who we are going to name of charting the future of warfare for Pete Hexeth Well, he can certainly perhaps give them help on the uniform.

He is wearing an incredible range of sweaters. For those of you who aren't watching on YouTube, he's really gone into colourful sweaters, pattern sweaters. I think, I mean, it's so interesting that. Well, there's definitely not camouflage. He's standing out from the crowd. I mean, it's like the visual equivalent of yodeling is what I would say his sweaters. They're in Switzerland.

And he's just like, oh, la la. or whatever yodeling is. But I mean, those are loud sweaters, dude. Those are loud sweaters. Anyway, he's coming to an army near you, Newt Gingrich, who thought his career in government was over. Not at all. Donald is here to save you.

So Newt is coming in with Elon Musk, and this is about creating a new, modern version of the army, which presumably they must have been doing anyway. Well, yes, I think they were. I think we know they were. There was a whole drone command that Pete Higgsuth actually cancelled. But astonishingly... And now, Newt Gingrich, let's just get this clear.

Let's just remind people. Pete Hegseth coming in, cancelled the drone command, is now running around telling people that the army is behind the times, that actually it's all about, you know, man-free, what is the way of saying it? Autonomous. Autonomous weapons. Hello. That's what drone command was. And that Newt Gingrich will be part of the three men with Elon Musk and... Palmer Lucky. Palmer Lucky is a name that a lot of people don't know. I can just tell you two things about him. First of all, that he's Matt Gates's brother-in-law. So those thanksgivings must be epic.

Oh, Matt Gates, who was up for Attorney General and then never made it. Yes. The one person that didn't make it through. Senate confirmation. Amazing that Pete Hexeth did, that Christy Noem did, that Tulsi Gabbard did. So we know what kind of a person Matt gets is that he didn't get through. And Palmer-Wucky, he's the founder of this company called Andrewill, which is high-tech weapons, autonomy, AI, all these sorts of things on the battlefield. Um, this is... Didn't he also start Oculus? He did. He started Oculus, which is the meta glasses. And he's the sort of hero of the real geeky Silicon Valley guy. He's this huge underground hero or cult figure, I suppose you might say.

If you're in the tech community, you idolize him, I think it's fair to say. And Hexeth has got these three guys together. Let's just, to be clear, none of them have ever served in the military. Well, let's be doubly clear. Newt Gingrich actually got... well, did a bone spurs, right? He managed to avoid going to Vietnam. He is a draft dodger.

He's a draft dodger. And he's 83. So you have to be quite old to be a draft dodger. He got a series of deferments for being a student and then for getting married and having a child. Not to Callista. That's his third wife who he cheated on with Colista. Well, his second wife was dying of cancer. This was the first wife that got him out of Vietnam.

And he admitted it in 1985. He said, yeah, on reflection, I should have gone there. Palmer Lucky, no military service. Elon Musk, we know. Well, no military service. And we also talked about no beardos, no weirdos, no faties. Palmer Lucky's a weirdo. Elon Musk is a weirdo.

Newt Gindrich is, well, we're going to show you the photos. I'm not going to say it out laughing. We don't body shame. And if you're listening, just Google image. Just Google image. But we're going to flash up a photo for those who are watching. And we'll let you judge. Yeah, you can decide.

Meanwhile, I think Pete Higgsoth has basically turned the military into his own personal training. Facility, that's basically all he does. He just goes around looking buff and posting pictures of himself looking buff. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's better than being intoxicated, which he was at his last jobs. We know that because the staff working for him, you know, whistleblue on him. And he promised. Yes, in fact, there's a slight name drop, but I've actually seen Pete Hegseth intoxicated. Oh, yeah, I didn't know that.

Tell us well. Where was this? It was at a wedding. And ultimately in the media, it's a very, you know, people are connected. So by five degrees of separation, Pete Hegseth was on the next table. and it was a Friday night. He was due to do the Fox and Friends weekend the next morning and it was very clear that he was intoxicated.

And he did in fact do the show the next morning. Well, good for him. Sometimes people are better functioning on alcohol. Not often. But we're not. And we are not functioning on alcohol. We're definitely not functioning on alcohol. Well, Huey, it's Friday night.

I think it's possible that we're entitled to a drink after a week like that. if you're watching this at home or listening at home and you feel like pouring yourself a glass of wine or something even harder, I don't blame you. I'm not sure how else we're supposed to cope with this level of drama. That's a Swiss liqueur inspired by Newt Gingrich. I would rather have a clock or chocolate. Cuckoo clocks, yeah, cuckoo clock. Yeah, or cheese. That might be his idea. Maybe that's how he's going to modernise the military by giving them cuckoo clocks because AI can't hack those. AI can't hack those. Yeah, very funny. Hugh, thank you so much. for a very fast turn around so many news stories this week. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Pissaro, and Neil Rosenhouse.

So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support.