The Daily Beast Podcast - How Trump is Turning Kirk Tragedy into Power Grab

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Star columnist David Rothkopf joins the Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles and Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty to discuss Trump’s week of cascading crises. From Kash Patel’s reckless tweets and FOX News appearances that have corroded FBI trust, to the internal purges and morale collapse that now haunt the Bureau, the hosts probe how Trump’s allies are weaponizing chaos to tighten their grip on power. They examine the killing of Charlie Kirk and the way Trumpworld is turning Kirk’s memorial into a MAGA rally. At the same time, Utah’s Spencer Cox emerges as an unexpected counter-voice inside the Republican party. And with Trump preparing for a gilded U.K. state visit—shadowed by the specter of Jeffrey Epstein and royal unease—the conversation asks: is this just spectacle, or the architecture of Trumpism’s next power grab? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The reality is that every major study that's been done, whether it's been done by the Anti-Defamation League, which is kind of vaguely pro-Trump these days, or it's been done by the FBI in the past, or it's been done by other, you know, legal specialists, show that most of the violence that's done, political violence in the United States, comes from the far right. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. What an extraordinary week it's been in America. Is this a watershed moment? we're here to discuss. Hugh Doherty, our executive editor who's been monitoring our incredibly busy news coverage over the last few days. And the brilliant David Rothkopp, former member of the Clinton administration and a former editor of Foreign Policy magazine who's well sourced throughout D.C. And who can shed light and always brings a very helpful perspective on really the remarkable events of the last few days. Hughie, what else are we going to be talking about? Something else is going on this week. Something else is going on this week, Joanna.

Donald Trump is leaving the country and he is going to London where he is going to have a state visit with King Charles. A man with more gold than the Oval Office, more properties than the Trump's, but much less power than the president. And he, I'm very curious to know if King Charles will raise the subject

of Donald Trump paving over Jackie Kennedy's Rose Garden. He is known as the plant whisperer because he literally speaks to plants and he cannot be pleased about any lawns being removed. And I just can't imagine what the two of them talk about when they meet each other. Well, we don't have to imagine we will soon find out exactly what happens between them. You mean because Donald Trump will tell us? Because Donald Trump will tell us. Yes.

There are some certainties in life, death, taxes, and that Donald Trump will tell us. Well, that Donald Trump won't stop talking. He will not stop talking. All right. Let's get into it. Normally, Hugh Docherty, our executive editor at The Beast, and I would be joining David Rothkopf in his beautiful book-lined library. But David has had an auto emergency, and he's actually at the shop. but we persuaded him to talk to us regardless. David, thank you.

And I have to say your auto shop looks a lot smarter than mine. Well, you're very kind and you're very kind to distract me from sitting around waiting for my car to be ready. Well, we're excited to talk to you. There's so much going on. Hugh, I will volunteer, has been glued to Fox watching Cash Patel's tour. It's not an apology tour. is it? I think cynics might say, Joanna, that it is a Save My Job Tour. Cash Patel, of course, before he was FBI director, had a distinguished career as, among

other things, a cigar entrepreneur, a children's book author, MAGA children's book author, a podcaster, not as distinguished as anybody that I am broadcasting speaking to here, and also a T-shirt hawker. Right. Didn't he used to sell MAGA merch? MAGA merch, and it was branded cash, K-A-Dolar sign H. Right. Okay.

So now he's head of the FBI. Yes. And that promotion has proved a bit tricky for him. He has been the subject of a whispering campaign inside the MAGA world that Pam Bondi, the attorney general, has lost confidence in him. And that they are preparing for him to be replaced by Andrew Bailey, who is a newly appointed deputy. So he's been on the Fox and Friends sofa this morning and he will be on with Sean Hannity later and it really is an attempt to save his job

is how people are seeing it. And Andrew Bailey was brought in to sort of job share with Dan Bongino, formerly a podcaster, currently number two at the FBI because Dan Bongino, like Cash Patel, have long been supporters of release the Epstein files. Right. And Cash Patel has been,

very damaged inside the MAGA world by the Epstein Fallout. He said, you know, he and Dan Bongino, when they were in private life, were inflaming this situation and they were talking about release the secrets, tell the truth. They then got the opportunity to release the secrets and promptly told MAGA, oh, in fact, we're not releasing any secrets and there aren't any interesting ones anyway, and we'd all like you to move on, but people have not. Is Dan Bonino also part of the whispering campaign? It looks like Dan Bongino and Cash Patel probably come

as a joint deal, but it's Cash Patel who's definitely got his head above the parapet on this one. So he's been doing the rounds of the Fox News sofas? Yes. And he went on Fox and Friends, and it was, by Fox and Friends standards, this is normally a

friendly environment for those who are part of the Trump world. He was asked a fairly direct question by Brian Kilmead. who asked him, why did you post on X that there had been an arrest of a possible suspect? And it turned out that this was completely wrong. This person was entirely innocent. And he said, I was just keeping people up to date.

But that's not really what we expect from the head of the FBI. We don't expect a live blog. We expect accurate facts. And I think didn't NBC report that when he was doing that, he was actually tucking in to. a delicious meal at Rayos, the almost impossible to get a table restaurant. It's only got, I think, eight tables. They're all already subscribed to people.

And to get a seat at Rayos comes with incredible cachet. John F. Kennedy, or John Kennedy, Jr. used to have a table there. Yes, exactly. He posted this on Twitter at 621 Eastern Time. And as soon as the doors opened on this incredibly exclusion, of restaurant, which is basically a private club in Manhattan. He was spotted going in. It's known for, among other things, it's meatballs and it's sauce.

But it's certainly an eyebrow-raising aspect of this that the head of the FBI was not anywhere near the manhunt. He was not at FBI headquarters. He was not at Quantico. He was in New York dining in a very exclusive venue. So, David, you have plenty of sources. not tomato sources, I hasten to add from Raios. Well, you may have Raios tomato sauce because they do actually bottle.

It's delicious, quite expensive, which is rather good. But you have plenty of law enforcement sources, intelligence sources. You are a fixture on the Washington landscape. And I know you talk to lots of people. What are they saying about Kash Patel? Well, no one has really ever thought Cash Patel was up for this job. He has no experience in this area, really, to speak of. He was primarily seen as a provocateur and as a podcaster.

You know, earlier you mentioned that Pam Bondi is losing confidence in him. I'm not 100% sure that she or anybody ever actually had confidence in him. And I think people were waiting for, you know, the first issue to come up where he would reveal himself to be incompetent. As it happens, that's this issue where a friend of his was murdered. And he both managed, you know, this kind of feat of appearing too close to this in a way that actually may have some legal consequences. And also, you know, too out of touch to actually know what was going on. And so, you know, he, he, within the FBI, of course,

course, over the course of the past couple of weeks, as, you know, people have seen, or months, even as people have seen the firings that have gone on because people were involved, for example, in the January 6th investigations, there is a huge amount of resentment among FBI agents towards Cash Patel. And that's, that's only been compounded. There was a, he and Bongino got onto a call, which I think you've reported about at the Beast to say, you've got to find the guy. There's a lot of pressure on us. And it was profanity-laden. And that also alienated more people within the FBI to think that he's not competent because he's not competent.

That's rather depressing conclusion. I mean, can I just having covered many of these types of events, not perhaps as big as Charlie Kirk, but certainly having covered crimes in states across the country, I mean, I have some sympathy for law enforcement because this isn't always very straightforward who's done it. I mean, yes, there was a picture. I mean, Cash Patel seemed absolutely furious

that they hadn't shown him the picture as soon as they had it, and they'd obviously delayed giving it to him. But they did release the photo, which carries its own burden, because often people come up with false leads, right? And they did get the guy. I mean, they may have got him because his family gave him up. But within 30 hours, the alleged killer had been taken into custody.

I think the Cash Patel of this is that there is clearly he has a major problem with his FBI agents that they do not respect or trust him. and we don't really know the full truth of this 12 hours delay in giving him the photo, but he had just tweeted something that was wrong and badly wrong and potentially set back the investigation. So it's conceivable and understandable that FBI agents might not pass him material in case he tweets it. Right. He's also aggressively trying to claim that this was an amazing investigation at his direction. he used the words me, my and I, I believe 15 or 16 separate times in the course of a seven or eight minute interview on Fox.

And he's really trying to own the idea that the arrest was down to his actions. Maga people who are not getting behind this say, well, it was just luck. He got, you know, the father turned in the suspect. and that's not brilliant police work. Well, I suppose if he does get fired, we're all podcasters, so we might get offered the director of the FBI. Joanna, I can think of nobody better, but I actually can, David Rothkoff.

David, I think would you like to be head of the FBI? No, but I will work. When you become the head of the FBI, Joanna, I would be very happy to work for you. Rod help. If that happens, that's all I'm saying. That would, I mean, Cash Patel might be incompetent running it. I'm not saying I would do it any better.

And what do we think of Andrew Bailey, potential replacement? Currently sharing the job with Dan Bongino is the number two. Well, the advantages he brings is that he is absolutely, he's absolutely maga. There's no doubts about his loyalties. He was an attorney general of a very conservative state, Missouri, where he was a very conservative attorney general. And the ability to manage things is clearly, clearly a problem. for Cash Patel and Dan Bonjino.

As for how he is viewed in national security circles, David, I'll defer to you on that. Yeah, David, what are you well about Andrew Bailey? Well, no, I mean, he's seen as a conservative politician. I think he's probably more in tune as a former attorney general with Pam Bondi. And Pam Bondi has, you know, over time really solidified her relationship with Trump by demonstrating, you know, herself to be his lawyer following through, defending him in all things. And I think, you know, Cash Patel got into this because he was sort of, you know, bright light in the MAGA universe, not because he was particularly well suited to this.

Whereas if Pam Bondi got to remake this inner image, a guy like Bailey makes more sense. And I said that, I don't think he's going to be with. extremely well trusted among most FBI agents. These purges have really done a lot of damage and their lack of concern for, you know, the business of the FBI. Sending FBI agents into Washington, D.C., for example, or putting them on to, you know, deal with Trump administration priorities has taken them away from their core jobs. The FBI has been asked not to really try.

track foreign, you know, espionage in ways that it did in the past. Other things that have been extremely important to the FBI and are extremely important to the national security community have gotten shunted aside because their agenda is political. And I don't think putting Bailey in this position is going to diminish skepticism that much. Although, having said that, Cash Patel is a terrible choice. and, you know, Bailey is somewhat more competent. So we're going to go from the bottom of the barrel to a little above the bottom of the barrel. Is there anything in Cash Patel about him claiming that the reason he tweeted out,

and I totally get that he tweeted out the wrong thing, but his argument that we are trying to be transparent, we're trying to tell people what's going on? Well, I think there are two answers. There's many answers to that. There's two answers to that. And one is that sounds like a good idea. It sounds like a helpful idea.

Transparency is a great thing. The other answer is that the FBI are the Premier Law Enforcement Organization, maybe in the world, because you trust them. You trust that what they say is true. and one of the big problems that Pam Bondi and her prosecutors specifically in Washington, D.C. are finding is that they can't get indictments past grand juries on their chosen causes. And the diminution of trust in the FBI is extremely dangerous. And the reason not to be transparent in real time is because you need to be sure it's true and it's right and it's accurate because people need to trust the FBI. And if people stop trusting the FBI, then they can't, you know, it attacks the basis of prosecutions. It's a difficult path to go down for an organisation that spent, David Jewel, have far greater historical context on this than I do. But 50 years ago, it was in a disgraceful position after J. Edgar Hoover and after Nixon.

and it really has called its way back and made itself in organization people trust. Yeah, it certainly has improved its reputation from the days of J. Edgar Hoover. But, you know, having said that, you know, reputations are easily destroyed. And when you have an FBI director who's going out and spreading things that aren't true, you know, he says it's transparency. but it's not transparency of what you're saying is a lie, right? It's not, you know, just giving words doesn't create transparency. You actually have to give perspectives on the truth.

And they've tried to be ahead of this story for political reasons. And that continues to be an issue. You know, I thought it was quite interesting that Governor Cox of Utah yesterday spent a lot of his time on morning shows. saying we don't know what the motive is yet, whereas Patel and these others have been trying to attribute a motive, trying to say that this is political. And, you know, I mean, J.D. Vance took over Charlie Kirk's podcast today, had on Stephen Miller, and they were talking about, you know, the left being behind all of this violence and turning the power of the government against the left. And so, you know, what you really see here is that there is a move from Trump and from Miller and from J.D. Vance and from a lot of these people not to solve the crime, not to be transparent, but actually to use the crime as a justification for their authoritarian power grab. And the real story this week is not mourning Charlie Kirk. is how is this administration going to use the death of Charlie Kirk as an excuse to overreach, to target their enemies, to gain more and more executive powers?

It's a trigger. And, you know, if it's not quite the Reichstag moments, some people are calling it, it's the same exact game where you look for an excuse to grab power. And that's what's going on right now. Well, you mentioned Spencer Cox, Governor Cox of Utah, who I thought was masterful in the way that he took over from Cash Patel at the press conference when they announced that they got him. And of course, he used the phrase, we got him reminiscent of George Bush talking about Saddam Hussein. And he is a moderate Republican. and it's been extraordinary to see him emerge. I mean, he's been a governor that's been very much under the national radar,

extremely critical of Trump in the past. He was a supporter of Marco Rubio when Marco Rubio in 2016 didn't carry on with the race. He then switched his allegiance to Ted Cruz. He said he would never vote for Hillary Clinton, but he also wouldn't vote for Donald Trump. And suddenly he finds himself in the spotlight. And I thought he was very impressive at that press conference. letting Cash Patel do his thing and then leaning, literally leaning on the podium and saying,

okay, social media is not real. Get the grass under your feet. Go out there. Democrats and Republicans have been calling me. They're telling me they're talking about this. We must get together and talk about this. And it felt very reassuring. Okay, Huey, just hold on one second.

We're going to take some messages. We love hearing from our sponsors. We're back talking about what else? the chaos that is contemporary America. Well, this is a really intriguing moment with Spencer Cox coming forward onto the national stage. It is quite possible for the governor of Utah to speak to the people of Utah and nobody else to notice. Right. And we haven't really seen much of him.

He did a kind of media tour in 2003 with Jared Paulus, who's the Democratic governor of Colorado, obviously, their neighbouring states, and their theme was disagree better. So he's coming forward and he's presenting a different version of being a modern Republican, and he has done it in a way that has clearly resonated with people about social media. He, I think, is going to get people talking about presidential candidacies. Whether he's interested in that, we don't know, but it's certainly something that people are going to start talking about. Well, I think he's a sort of riveting figure. I mean, having not known anything about him,

I've frantically been reading up what you. The most exciting thing that I want to know with both of you, although you may have known is he's related to an Osmond. He's related to Merrill Osmond, one of the Osmond brothers, not as a good looking as Donny Osmond. There's only one, John, God. For anyone down here, Johnny Osmond, but his brother-in-law is actually Merrill Osmond's,

some, which I found really intriguing. But he's also fascinating character. Got into Harvard Law School, didn't go to Harvard Law School. It's Utah educated through and through, married to his college sweetheart. They have four kids. It's a very Utah story, anti-abortion, but in fact, banned laws that would have forbidden trans students from taking part in sports on the grounds that there were only four trans students in the state. And he said, you know, most of them are actually struggling to stay alive. There's a 56% suicide rate among this group. And so he sounds like, and he's actually passed various legislations to help LGBTQT groups. So he's a very nuanced Republican governor, I think, of the kind we haven't seen for a long time. Well, well, let's be.

I know that he doesn't agree with me here. You think I've been seduced by Governor Cox, and I'm... I do. I may have been a bit. I think it's the Osmond connection, but you know, I mean, is he more nuanced than Donald Trump? Yes. You know, is he a conservative Republican who, by, you know, sort of any normal Republican standards prior to 10 years ago would have been considered pretty far.

right? Yes. You know, part of the sort of sensitivity on the issues of gay people in Utah has to do with the fact that historically gay people were treated pretty badly by the Mormon church. And there were some real problems that took place at Brigham Young University and these other places across Utah. And they responded to it. And they responded in a constructive way. I believe, you know, he is a genuinely, you know, unlike Trump who talks about religion. and, you know, as if he were reading it off of a cue card. And while holding the Bible upside down. Right. Well, yeah, right, June 1, 2020, when he did that, when he walked across to the church at his daughter's suggestion, it wasn't even his own idea. You know, I think he genuinely believes these things. And who knows?

I think it's quite possible that Trump and Miller and Vance and all these other people go far too far, even for the Republican Party and you get on your way to 28 to people starting to say, well, you know, can we do something a little better than that? Marco Rubio, who I think is trying to position himself to be that has undermined his credibility a great deal by, you know, turning into a poodle for Trump.

And so somebody like this guy might emerge. Now, having said that, you know, you're saying oh, I see him and he's great and he's a great alternative to Trump, you know, if other people in the media agree with you, Trump will put the kibosh on him. You know, they'll bury this guy because they won't want the competition for Trump. And I would note that, you know, a lot of this story in the past week has been in Utah. But in this next week, the funeral is taking place in Arizona. and I think the story is going to shift and it will allow them to change the cast of characters a little bit to suit the president who's actually going to the funeral on Sunday at the Arizona Cardinals NFL football stadium. And, you know, I think what you're going to end up with is the world's first funeral slash mega rally.

Right. And it's going to be pretty hideous. It's, well, the Sunday event has been described as a memorial service. Right. But I don't think we actually right now have precise details of how that is then followed by a private service of, you know, at his church. He was a mainline Protestant, although he had recently been attending Catholic Church with his wife, who is a Catholic. So we think are slightly unclear on that. but we definitely are getting a Trump rally.

Well, I saw Kerry Lake getting very excited that something is going to be happy. She's fantastic, isn't she? She was saying that the reason this guy killed Charlie Kirk was because he was corrupted by college education and that mothers should not send their children to college because they could end up being killers. Well, as a mother, I would say that if I, I would be nervous about having a child go to that rally, actually. I think that it's scary to be big crowds of people right now, especially people who are angry. I think. No doubt.

I think the point you make about crowds and angry is we are seeing the reaction to Charlie Kirk's death is playing out. we will see this a huge event, clearly a huge event with Trump at it. But we're also seeing it play out on social media. The thing that the governor, Spencer Cox, was so vehemently speaking out against. But on social media, there's a whole lot of anger, and it's directed from Charlie Kirk's supporters, from MAGA, towards people who are criticizing Charlie Kirk and saying that they don't want to share in that grief. And I think as a moment of danger, there are certainly, there's certainly going to be a huge security presence at this funeral. But it may well be that the danger here is much, much wider than that. And the danger is on social media.

Danger is on social media. And the danger is that social media is being used to target people who do not agree with the grief over Charlie Kirk. And that would appear to be what used to be called cancel culture and used to be the thing. opposed by the right? And the president of the Oxford Union, who's just about to take up his position, has got into trouble for saying Charlie Kirk, L-O-L, and claiming that in the speed of the moment and the height of the moment, he sort of jumped in and various people have reported him, and now there are calls for him to resign or whatever, and he's saying it's just free speech. When Charles is just debated in Oxford.

Let's try to put this into some perspective, okay? The reality is that every major study that's been done, whether it's been done by the Anti-Defamation League, which is kind of vaguely pro-Trump these days, or it's been done by the FBI in the past, or it's been done by other legal specialists, show that most of the violence that's done, political violence in the United States, comes from the far right. and this, you know, they are trying to use this. In fact, J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller once again tried to perpetuate this notion that the left do the same. The left don't do the same. Most of the people who have gotten fired or called out have not been people making fun of the death of Charlie Kirk. They've been people saying, you know, quoting Charlie Kirk. There's a woman, Karen Adia, who was the.

a writer for the Washington Post who that fired over the weekend, not for saying anything about Charlie Kirk per se, but simply quoting Charlie Kirk saying that black women were not smart enough to be taken seriously in jobs. Okay, and because she quoted him, she was fired. When Matthew Dowd was on MSNBC and said, this was a divisive figure, he got fired for saying that. And so these are not people going up.

oh, ha, ha, this guy is dead, although there's some idiots on the internet saying that just as they're idiots on the internet saying everything. And it's not like the left is behind this sort of wave of violence. And so the question you have to ask is, what are they doing? Why are they spreading this particular narrative? And the answer is to serve themselves politically to shift the blame off of them, but also to justify the president taking special steps. and give, you know, Stephen Miller, apparently, I was listening this morning to something, and Stephen Miller apparently has got a plan that he's working on a sort of post-Charlie Kirk murder plan to enable them to gather more power, more rights, more prerogatives to go and target their

enemies. And so, you know, hear the words, but ask yourself, what are their motives? What are they really trying to achieve? I think the other thing worth adding to that is the factual background to violence, that we should just point out that the most before Charlie Kirk and his tragic death, the most recent tragic deaths were of Melissa and Mark Hartman, who were murdered because she was a democratic lawmaker. And their dog. And their dog. an absolutely chilling example of violence and it's been very clear that the suspect was fuelled by right wing, far right wing views, extremist views that came from the right. And one of the things that is not being encouraged here by JD Vance, by Stephen Miller,

is any honest appreciation of exactly what has been going on in this country. Well, and as we, I think we said last week on Friday, David, This is also about mentally ill young men with access to firearms. You think of Thomas Matthew Crooks, who tried to assassinate Donald Trump last July and who had a list of people that were his targets. And one of them was Joe Biden. And it was just that Trump happened to visit Butler, Pennsylvania, which was near to where Thomas Matthew Crooks lived,

that he was the victim there. America's gun violence problem doesn't have to do with police. political violence. It has to do with primarily young men who have access to guns and who don't have access to mental health care and who have too much access to video games and are too alienated from their society. And if it's not young men, it's older men. But men with guns, with mental problems or with grievances are our issue. And again, it suits people to. say, oh, we have a political violence problem in America, and it's on both sides, when in fact, that is not what motivated the shooting attempt at Trump.

That's not what motivated, you know, it wasn't, you know, what motivated this last one, as far as we can tell. And a lot of the cases that we have seen have been more, you know, sort of deranged people. But a lot of them have also been right wing. You know, the guy who took an automatic weapon and shot up the CDC was motivated over, you know, anti-vax stuff. There have been some anti-Semitic attacks. And although the right tries to say, well, that's, you know, the left is the anti-Semites. No, you know, there's a core racist component to the far right that is well known.

and you know, Trump is the one who praised Nazis marching in Charlottesville. And so, you know, it's hard to sort this out because there's so many people peddling so many narratives. And I think people who are listening to this really need to slow down, try to find the facts, not listen to Cash Patel, and try to understand the motives of the people who are speaking. We will be back as soon as we've heard from our sponsors. And we're back talking to David Rothkopf, who's in D.C. And Hugh Docherty, the executive editor of The Daily Beast, who is with me in New York.

Well, Trump has, well, Trump is setting off for London this week, right, for a state visit where there will be a big white tie dinner for him. And King Charles and Melania, our first lady, who seems to have emerged from a hiding recently. we saw her at the 9-11 Memorial, we'll be meeting Kate Middleton. It's going to be amazing as a spectacle. Donald Trump, of course, met the late Queen Elizabeth, and everybody remembers that he actually managed to walk in front of her, which is something you do not do when the Queen is inspecting her own troops.

You don't walk in front. He and King Charles are not soulmates. There's demographic overlap. They're both boomers. After that, I don't think they've got. a huge amount in common, but he is going to be absolutely in love with the spectacle. He loves the spectacle. And if anybody's got more gold than he does, it is, of course, the British royal family

who've got a gilded, a selection of gilded palaces to welcome him at. And a gold coach for him to ride. Gold coach. Newly re-verbished. Yes. And we will see Melania going, you know, going out with Kate and out with, um, with scouts. Not with Prince Andrew.

And we will not see Prince Andrew in any shape or form. So he and Donald Trump, who of course were photographed together and Mara Lago in the year 2000 with Jeffrey Epstein, don't get to reminisce about their friend. And I wonder if fucking Charles will raise the specter of the concreting over of Jackie Kennedy's Rose Garden. Well, because we know he has a huge garden at high. This is his home, his personal home. And he's a massive supporter of obviously wildlife. It was banging on about climate change before anybody cared. The environment, I should say.

The king is such a dedicated gardener that he speaks to his plants and his trees. More than he does to his gardeners. It was a recent story that 11 out of 12 of his gardeners had felt that he wasn't treating them as well as perhaps he could have done. He is apparently a bad boss. So maybe he and Donald Trump can bond over some aspects of that. Right. No word from the flowers on what they think about, what he talks about with them.

David, I'm sorry if this is all getting very English for you, but we grew up understanding that King Charles, as he is now, certainly Prince Charles then used to talk to plants. There was a document. You know, my mother thought that she was English. And so we were, when I was little, you know, I mean, she grew up in Manhattan, but she aspired to being English.

And so the first, you know, when I was first trip overseas, we were brought to Hampton Court and Windsor and so forth and trained to believe that that was the height of civilization. I've since learned better, but I don't want to get into that here to feel free of a family. Scottish civilization, which is the height of civilization. We'll outnumber you if you do that. Madonna, your mother and Madonna, I remember meeting Madonna. I actually went to Madonna's house on the Upper East. side to interview her for something and she actually greeted me in an English accent. And then she asked me in an English accent if I would like some tea.

It was very surreal. Is Donald Trump going to do this? Is that what's going to happen? Do you think he'll walk in front of Prince Charles? Oh, I think. Or King Charles, King Charles. Almost certainly. He is going to find some way to insert himself into this that is possibly bad manners.

And nobody, obviously people are too polite to mention. The Queen did not say Donald out of my way. She just let him get on with it. But don't you remember the last time President Biden went for a visit with King Charles, who was actually then Prince Charles, I'm sorry to get so confused. The Queen was still around at that point. He was mocked for what felt like leaning on Prince Charles because it wasn't clear he was going to actually make it up some steps.

And so was he leaning on him? Either way, you're not supposed to touch the Royal. rather than give, let them give your hand a squeeze. And we are in debt to Joanna Cole's OBE for that advice. Well, I was actually going to say, given the bruises that Donald Trump has had on his hands, which Carolyn Levitt, his press secretary says, because he's been shaking so many hands,

he should actually get advice on how the royals do it. Because David, just in case, you put your hand out, if you're a humble supplicant or in the crowd. And they take it and they give it a gentle squeeze. But you don't shake it vigorously, leaving the president or the monarch with large unsightly bruises, which then need to be covered up with makeup.

Is there a royal cure for cancels? I do. King Charles has cancels. It'll be very interesting to measure their ankles, and see if there's any difference. Wow. Will it be interesting? Are these people really interesting? These are, I mean...

Fair point, David. You know, I mean, I'm sort of more of a product of the Monty Python upper class twit view of this whole thing. And we have these ridiculous sympathy in here for that. Yeah, and you've got a lot, you know, you've got these ridiculous people. And I think one of the things that we shouldn't lose sight of here with Donald Trump going off to be ridiculous, which. these ridiculous people is the ridiculousness of it all. Because, you know, Donald Trump,

what he's trying to do right now is collect all the possible perks of presidenting that he can't. You know, I'm going to go and be greeted by these people and I'm going to be in a lived in a gilded room and people are going to treat me this way and I'm going to build a ballroom with 900 people and it's good there. And the whole idea of the ballroom is so then 900 people celebrate him. And what could be, you know, where do you learn how to treat ridiculous people ridiculously? But in England, which is a vestige of this kind of idiocy that should long ago have disappeared. But of course, it hasn't because, you know, it's entertaining. But I'd also say there is a fairly serious lesson.

And David, you're absolutely right about the supermarket sweep of press. residential Chotsky's that he's been amassing. But he's also trying to amass power. And gilding the Oval Office is funny and revealing. But what we are definitely seeing is that there is an opportunity presented by the death of Charlie Kirk that Stephen Miller has outlined that he's drawing up a plan. It's of a piece. And yet there is still the spectra of Geoffrey Epstein lingering.

and one thinks of now the incredibly complex logistics of this visit to the UK, which have been wildly disrupted by the resignation of Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to Washington, who was in charge of this trip and in fact was frantically trying to make sure that all went well. And who's now out of his job because of the birthday book in which his four-page letter with photos to Geoffrey Epstein was laid bare for everybody to see. and he said Jeffrey, how. So I'm expecting a bump in logistics.

Well, I think, no, no, but I think you put your finger on what is the real story here, which is the Epstein subtext with Prince Andrew and with Mandelson and with Trump and with the whole royal, you know, all the turmoil in the royal family around Prince Andrews' experience there. So, you know, hopefully that, you know, that'll attract some of the attention here. just going to want a break. You know, he just wants a break from all the miserable stories that he's had to deal with. And, you know, of course, who knows, maybe the actual British government will show up there. But I do want to say one thing before, you know, we've...

Before you collect your car before you... Well, yeah, that probably won't happen any time to him. But I do... We'll be a four-hour live stream. The price, the price of admission to hear Hugh say Chachke, with a Scottish accent, it's worth it? It's always worth it. David, I get that thrill every day. Please go and collect your car.

Thank you very much for giving us perspective and wisdom as always. I always like to remind people you served in the Clinton administration. You were the editor of Foreign Policy Magazine and you bring such wisdom to everything you talk about. And there were lots of wonderful comments about your perspective last week on YouTube, which I'm sure you haven't read, because you are a modest man, but if you go and read them, I think you will feel cheered. You're very kind. I'm not sure what this YouTube you speak of it. All right, David, go and get your car, drive safely, and we will see you soon. See you soon.

So I'm mindful of the fact that King Charles still has cancer and that it's treatable, but it's not curable. And of course, he'll be meeting Donald Trump, who's 79, with his cancals and his chronic venous interruption, which means his own blood pressure is more challenged now as he reaches 80. Are two old white guys hanging out together, both with a lot of power? Two old white guys, indeed, both with, well, certainly the president has a lot of power. The king technically doesn't have a lot of power, thanks to hundreds of years of history. But there will be a completely different perspective on this because we will also see too much younger and incredibly famous women hanging out together.

The state visit will include Princess Kate and the First Lady Melania Trump going to an engagement as they are called in British Royal Paralongs with some young scouts. And that's going to be a split-screen moment of the old and the young gear. And I think show people, it's kind of an interesting moment. is it time for some generational change.

Do we think that, why do we think Camilla's not meeting the First Lady? We don't exactly know. Of course you will meet the First Lady at the White Tide dinner and will formally be there with the King when they welcome them to Buckingham, to Windsor Castle. But that engagement of Melania and Princess Kate, as you say, not feature the Queen. We don't really know much about the Queen's thoughts on Donald Trump or Melania Trump. She isn't a particularly discreet person,

but this one, she has not, clearly has decided not to address that in any shape or form. And this is the second state visit for Donald Trump, which is very unusual, right? Normally the Royal Family only hosts one head of state throughout their. sort of stateship, as it were. And people thought, the great thing the British royal family are amazing at is that they will change any rules if it helps them. If you need to divorce your wife, you set up your own church. Henry the 8th.

Henry the 8th. If you need to get rid of a problematic king, then you invent the idea of abdication and send him off to France with his American wife. Edward the 7th. Edward the 7th. And if you're worried that there might not, if you're worried about the perception that the male firstborn must be king,

then you can change the rules. So if Prince William and Princess Kate had a girl, she would actually have been queen. As it happened, they had a boy. So another rule seems to been torn up here. It used to be you thought, this one head of state from another country, in this case President Trump,

only gets this big official state visit welcome once from the monarch. but rather handily, there have been two monarchs for Donald Trump's presidencies. Oh, so of course the Queen oversaw the first. The King. And I was remembering the moment when Kier Starrma produced with a great flourish when he was sitting to Donald Trump's right, I think, in the White House and the Oval Office, a letter from the King. And Donald Trump read it out loud because he was clearly so proud to receive a letter from the King.

totally starstruck by the royals. He says it's all because of his mother that she loved the royals. She of course was Scottish and obviously followed the royal family from three and a half thousand miles away but yes, he is absolutely starstruck by the royals. They've got way more gold than he does.

They've got way more properties than he does. And they don't have it anymore but they used to have way more power than he does. And I will say they throw a better parade. They throw an excellent parade And he will be taking notes, I think, back When he sees it in action

Well, something we'll look forward to He was starstruck by the royal family I was starstruck by the Osmans They are royalty too In their own way Royalty And they're a big family So there's an Osmond for everyone

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