The Daily Beast Podcast - How Trump’s War Exposes His Lost Grip on Reality

Episode Date: March 8, 2026

INCOGNI Deal: To get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan, go to https://incogni.com/beast Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles dive back inside Donald Trump’s head as the Iran war enters its second week—and the president’s rhetoric grows stranger by the hour. From Trump’s bizarre Truth Social posts declaring Iran the “loser of the Middle East” to his cinematic demand for “unconditional surrender,” the pair unpack why Trump seems to be narrating the war as if he’s the hero in his own movie rather than a commander in chief navigating a global crisis. They also reveal the frantic reassurance Trump is reportedly seeking from journalists, the fear and aggression driving his language, and why allies around the world are struggling to interpret what any of it actually means. Meanwhile, chaos spreads closer to home: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is abruptly fired after a staggering $200 million self-promotional ad campaign blows up in her face, raising questions about who might be the next domino in Trump’s cabinet. And with bad economic news, rising oil prices from the war, and brutal polling ahead of the midterms, Wolff argues Trump may be approaching a rare political inflection point—one that could determine whether the second Trump era tightens its grip or begins to crack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's not just un-presidential, it's incoherent, it's the language of an ignoramus. He doesn't know what he's talking about. It's just, it comes out of his mouth and on, either out of his mouth or onto the page, in a rush of self-justification, of need, of fear, of aggression. We don't know what's going on, but we can't acknowledge that we don't know what's going on. can't, the world is spinning out of control because Donald Trump, because it's run by, by an ignoramus who lives in his own movie. Michael, we are one week in.

Joanna. You mean we're one week into the war in Iran? We are many more weeks into whatever this, whatever we call this. What do we call this? The Trump era, the second Trump era. the era where we have all been sucked like some enormous vacuum tube inside Trump's head, which is where we go three times a week. And I thought I might start by reading Donald J. Trump's Truth Social post this morning,

which he fired off at 6-11. And as you're always pointing out, he is the only person on Truth Social. So it's surprising how little response it gets on truth social, but of course it gets picked up by the media and spread everywhere else. But it just gives you a clue as to who is writing his script. Obviously he's writing his script, but it gives you a clue as to what kind of movie he thinks he's in. Let me, before you do that,

because I think that's a point that we should keep coming back to this truth social thing, because this too is a bit of grift. Nobody else is on this, but his. and he uses the power of the presidency to maintain the value of truth social. So these posts which no one reads, because no one is on truth social, yet establish its multi-billion dollar value. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So here's this post that he fired off at 6-11 this morning. Iran, which is being beat to hell, has a problem. apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. I mean, what is he in? Is he in a Western movie where people are shooting at each other, which is being beat to hell? I mean, what kind of language is that, especially for the president? And then he says, it is the first time that Iran has ever lost in thousands of years to surrounding Middle Eastern countries. And they have said, thank you, President Trump. I have said, you're well,

Iran is no longer the bully of the Middle East. They are instead the loser of the Middle East. I mean, this is literally like a child. You remember in those exercises in history or geography, and they would say, imagine you are the president of a country, you're at war, how are you going to communicate with people? Let's all write an essay expressing that. I never had that assignment.

Well, we have that assignment in history in England. Probably because of Churchill. No, I think it was because of the royal family. So we were always being asked to imagine letters written from King Charles I, the first, before he was about to be executed, that kind of thing. But I think that this is what you see. There are first thing. There are two things.

He must have woken up with some paroxysm of doubt and concern and probably a sense that his heroic role has been, that no one is quite appreciating it. But also this is to convince himself. That is what is going on there. And he seized on this, kind of there was a strange reach out from the Iranians to their, to their,

to the neighboring Arab states and saying, you know, we're bombing you. And actually, they didn't say, they didn't really apologize and they didn't really say we're going to stop. I mean, their actual rationale was very clear. It's unfortunate that we have to bomb you, but because you are a staging ground to bomb us, we are going to continue to bomb you. So he is reinterpreting this as again his victory. Well, and there was the billionaire in Dubai who came out and said, what are you doing? Why did to Trump? Challenging Trump.

And we've now seen, you know, the Spanish leader has challenged Trump. Britain wouldn't let him use UK air bases. So this sense in which Trump, this is not, you know, he didn't bother to build an accent. of allies, he went in, obviously, under pressure from Israel. But this idea that they have said, thank you, Mr. President, I have said, you're welcome, as if it's some kind of ordinary transaction. It's just, it's... Well, he keeps having to ramp up the rhetorical language here.

So yesterday we got to this, which echoed around the world, this call for unconditional surrender. with virtually everybody pausing and blinking and saying, well, what does that possibly mean? And, of course, in a world where you're going to be defeated at the gas pumps before they run out of bombs, there is no unconditional surrender. In fact, unconditional surrender, has there been an unconditional surrender since Germany and Japan in the Second World War? So he very much is in a war movie. It's a war movie. He's the hero of this movie.

He's kind of echoing language from war movies. Which is, I think, probably where all his references come from, because we know he hasn't read a book on war. He's not someone who's sitting down and reading the histories. He's not studying the histories. He won't take the information from advisors. Maybe he's watched the movies. To say the least. Yes. I mean, he has what, and just let me, this is one of my favorite Trump moments. I'm sitting with Trump, and I'm asking him the question that all, and this is while he was campaigning in 2016, that all presidential aspirants are asked at some point. What's your favorite book? And when I asked this, I could see it in his face. Okay, you got me.

A look of panic. Well, not so much panic. It was like, okay, you got me. And usually the answer to that, the default answer to that is the Bible. And I'm sure that didn't cross his mind because, as he ever even looked at a Bible. A Trump Bible. He may have looked at a Trump Bible to check that the paper was cheap enough and the drawings were good. Yes. The illustration. Someone did, but I'm sure not him. But at that point, there was a few beats and then he said it came. from somewhere in him. He said, all quiet on the Western Front. Really? Yes. And I'm sure that that was a, you know, that was a, on his high school reading list, which he probably didn't read, but he remembered the title.

But it is interesting that that was a war book. And he, and, you know, he is in that generation, which frankly, alas, I am not too far from, of having grown up in the, um, in the. aftermath of the Second World War, of having all culture basically shaped by that. So here we are back to that, unconditional surrender. And which the world, I mean, one of the interesting things is the world has to react to that. I mean, there is no mechanism for not taking him seriously, except everybody, of course, knows that this does not mean anything other than the scramble to interpret it, which no one seems successful to have successfully done. What does this mean? Unconditional

surrender. I mean, the mullahs are going to line up and hand him their swords or their whatever they, whatever the appropriate metaphor would be here. No, and that's not related to reality. It's only related to the language that he, that he uses. Here's an uncomfortable truth. Your home address, phone number and personal details are almost certainly online right now, being bought and sold by data brokers you've never heard of. Stop companies from fleecing your data now with incogni. Incogni automatically hunts down your personal info and removes it from hundreds of data brokers. They can't profit off you if they can't find you. What I love is how dogged incogni is. Their fully automated defensive system

continuously removes your info from people's search sites, online directories and giant databases housing your precious details. And if your personal info does pop up somewhere new, you can flag it using the custom removal feature and a real privacy expert takes care of it for you. Let's stop the endless spam calls, scrub your data now and give yourself some peace of mind. Act now to get an exclusive 60% off with an annual incogny plan. Just go to incogny.com forward slash beast or click the link in the episode description box. Yeah, and I think related to the way that he's trying to play the movie out for other people, even though we can see it's not going quite as he says it is.

I just wanted to read you one other line from his truth social. Today, Iran will be hit very hard under serious consideration. I really want to do it in his voice actually, which is, which I can't really do. But again, to your point about the language and taking it seriously, you want to read it in his voice because in his voice, it has a different sort of timbre and a different kind of meaning. And when you read it in an ordinary voice, it sounds, well, it sounds odd. Anyway, today Iran will be hit very hard under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death because of Iran's bad behavior. are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.

Because of Iran's bad behavior. Again, language that just seems unremittingly, voraciously unpresidential. Well, I don't, it's not just it's unpresidential. It's incoherent. And I mean, it's the language of an ignoramus. So I think we're so far from being removed from presidential. I mean, he doesn't know what he's talking about. It's just it comes out of his mouth and on either out of his mouth or onto the page in a rush of self-justification, of need, of fear, of aggression.

You know, nothing is actually really related to meaning. It's all related to what he is feeling. So, I mean, that's a big dichotomy there. Well, and you say, oh, he's doing this sort of as a self-soothing mechanism, that he woke up in a paroxysm of anxiety about this. And another tell for that is that he's been calling journalists to talk about the war. So he called, I think, Jonathan Carl from ABC three times, including one 20-minute call in the middle of the afternoon, where really he wanted Jonathan to tell him how impressive the war was.

He called Dana Bash from CNN to discuss it. Just this sense of needing reassurance from people that he's doing the right thing. And not having any panel of advisors around him to give him that. Yeah, you know, I mean, the other thing is, which is, oh, and this is not just in this instance, but in so many instances, that nobody else, I mean, he doesn't have the language to express what the policies and the strategies that he wants carried out because he has no policies and he has no strategies. But equally, the rest of the world does not have the language to characterize this strangeness, this lack of meaning functionally. So everybody is caught in a vacuum. I mean, every news outlet today or yesterday and today is analyzing the nature of

unconditional surrender, even though everyone knows unconditional surrender uttered by Donald Trump is meaningless. Right. So the gap here between him, his inability to express any plans and actual, any real, a meaningful point of view, and everybody else's inability to characterize that lack of ability to meaningfully express himself has gotten sort of everybody, it creates this sort of paralysis. We don't know what's going on, but we can't acknowledge that we don't know what's going on. We can't, the world is spinning out of control because Donald Trump, because it's run by

an ignoramus who lives in his own movie, but we can't really say that. Well, and he's supported by people who are trying to live in that movie with him, although I will say every now and then you catch sight of Dan Cain, who's running the military operations. His face, I thought, at the press conference he gave with Pete Hegzeth earlier this week had sort of crumpled in on itself. Hegzeth himself, you know, with his arms flapping because they don't quite close against his side. I mean, seem to be delivering a sort of high school gym coach, rah-rah speech before you take on a team that you think might be a bit more complicated to beat than you planned for. And now you've got Trump saying that he doesn't have the yips, a strange expression. An expression that he uses all the time. And apparently, I've had to, I've had to try to interpret this.

It's a golf expression. Oh, it's a golf expression, right? because I was like, what on earth does this mean? But what he doesn't have, apparently, is the yips about boots on the ground, which suggests he's mulling the idea of sending American troops to Iran, something he vowed not to do,

something that we know will be very bad with his MAGA base because he promised America first, no forever wars. He's not going to do that. This is just him. This is just more posturing on his part. But the Yips, I remember there was a... What does the yips mean?

During his trial in New York, there was a moment in which he dressed down Todd Blanche, the number two in the Justice Department, then his personal lawyer, by saying, you know, when you go out there, you got the yips. You can't have the yips. I don't want you to have the yips out there. He must have repeated the word yips 20 times in the course of 90 seconds. I'm just looking it up now, the yips. It's a strange sporting condition

where an athlete suddenly loses the ability to perform a routine skill. Exactly. Something Donald Trump is very familiar with, I suspect. He relates it to the pot when you're on the green and you're far enough from the hole to have to pay attention,

to have to focus, and then you get nervous and you miss the put. Well, of course he brings us. in a golfing expression for sending in American troops. So the other thing that wasn't going well for him, as we know, was Minneapolis. I mean, nobody's talking about it anymore, except that it has ended up claiming the scalp of Christy Noem,

the Secretary for Homeland Security this week, who on Thursday was fired as she was just about to go out and speak to a police conference. You know, but it's, no, she did go out and speak, speak. I mean, that was the funny thing that he fired her without enough warning. So, actually, she was speaking. I think she may not have known that she was fired as she spoke. I think she got the call she was fired just before she went out on stage, and she went out on stage anyway, because the show must go on for Christina.

The show must go on. You know, but the interesting thing is that she was not hoisted for Minneapolis. I know, you're right. I knew you were going to say that. Which would have been interesting because that would have been a way to, an interesting way for him to have communicated, yeah, okay, that's a problem. And somebody has to take responsibility for that. But he didn't do that because, again, he doesn't want someone to take responsibility. He doesn't want any acknowledgement that anything has actually happened that shouldn't have happened.

Anything under his watch is in error. That never happens. So he fired her instead really because, I mean, I think the consensus is because she blamed him for $200 million, a $200 million ad spend, which glorified Christy Noem instead of, I assume, Donald Trump. Yes, I mean this is Christy Noem riding on a horse with a cowboy hat on across the, well, across the prairies of South Dakota where she was once governor. I think it was cumulative, right? So there's been many, many grumblings about her. Obviously, there was the two terrible deaths, the shootings in Minneapolis of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good. there's been the language and the determination to put herself central.

So her filming videos of herself against prisoners, against, well, you know, with the Coast Guard, constantly cost dressing for the agencies that she's in charge of. There was the affair with Corey Lewandowski, which was Washington's biggest open secret. We had a story in The Daily Beast of course. he's taking the trash out from her apartment. I'd like to go to that for a minute too because I think that that's that's that's

one of those media moments that's indicative of a lot about the Trump administration of these things that everyone knows. I mean, these glaring, stupefying things that are going on. And yet they are kind of cast, we, the media, not me, but the media, casts them in a and in, always in a somewhat ambiguous light when they're not ambiguous at all. Well, I think you have to do that for legal reasons because...

You don't have to do that for legal reasons. That's totally ridiculous. Well, Christynomes denied that she's having an affair with Corey Landowski. It doesn't matter. Everybody knew she's having an affair. And it is now open season on this. But it took a damn long time. for this to come out and for everyone to be willing to say this in a in a declaratory way.

Well, what's interesting about it is it's an unusual situation. They're both married. They're both still married. They're both denied they were having an affair. Brian, spelled with a Y, B-R-Y-O-N-N-N-N-N-R-E-R-E's husband. Mr. Nome. Mr. Nome. Mr. Nome to you.

Unfortunate name, Mr. Nome, is sitting behind her at the committee, at the Judiciary Oversight Committee hearing, exits the room when there is a scene, which I have never seen before, actually, where a female congresswoman, how do I pronounce her name, Kamlaga Dover from California, asks Christina. another woman, did you have sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski? I have never seen that before. A woman, Congresswoman, asking a woman's secretary, did she have sex with an employee? I mean, that's a new glass ceiling. Smashed. Thanks, Christy. But let's not complicate that with the

employee because it's actually much more egregious. I mean, first thing, Corey Lewandowski is not an employee. He's a he's a consultant to her. But more to the point, He's a significant power player in the Trump orbit, one of the most significant power players. So you have, I mean, the truth is she probably has that job because of Corey Lewandowski. Well, don't we think that he lobbied for her to have that job? Well, that's why I'm saying. She has that job because of him, because he got, he is managing her. You know, he's not the employee, actually, in some way.

she's the employee or the client or whatever. But clearly there is a host of conflicts of interest within the Trump orbit contained within this relationship. And the fact that this has been couched in such a, you know, only in terms of rumors which are then discounted formally discounted seems like just another, well, certainly another way to bury the lead, but also another point of, I might say, irresponsible discretion on the part of the media. Interesting. Well, Mr. Nome was sitting behind his wife during the hearings. He slips out for the moment where she's asked about sex. So who knows if he got a tithe, tip off that that question was coming and just didn't want to be there for that.

But some of his relatives talked to the New York Post and said that the reason he stayed with her, they acknowledged the affair. The reason that he stayed with her is because he realized 20 years ago, and I can barely say this with a straight face, that he had a calling from God to support Christy in whatever she chose to do, which is why he supported her as she became governor and then supported to her in this somewhat loose lifestyle, shall we say, with Corey Lewandowski. Anyway, who knows if he'll continue supporting her? Perhaps he will. He's a believer in marriage. Who knows if Corey Lewandowski will continue to support her? Well, he may move on to to pastures new. And he has moved on through many, many women in the Trump orbit.

Yes, he has. And he may think that Christy has now outlived her useful. now that she no longer has a cabinet position, though she does have some sort of trumped-up new job. Can you remember what it is about the Supreme Shield? I never heard something about a shield. It's a shield for the Western Hemisphere. And they're having their first meeting today in Florida. It's really a grouping of the Latin American countries. So, of course, Uruguay, Paraguay are there.

You know, Ecuador's there. They've all turned up to support presidential. Trump and this new initiative, which is also giving a job to Christy Kohn. But of course, the two biggest economies aren't there, Brazil and Mexico. So echoes of the Board of Peace, where smaller countries turn up and the bigger countries decide that this is yet again a vain, glorious moment for Donald Trump. The Board of Peace, which we will never meet again. Yeah, he's collected $5 billion for the entry fees for the founding members.

We will never hear from it again. And they've all been bombed since the... they came. That's the most extraordinary thing. They come, they pay their dues. And then this week's surprise, they get bombed by Iran. That was not part of the border peace. So the larger question that I'd like to keep in mind is, is Christy known the first domino? In other words, in other words, he has, nobody has been fired, were, you know, more than a year into this administration. The last time around, it was a revolving door almost from the second week.

But this, everybody has held in place. Every ninkum poop, it doesn't matter what they do, however foolish they look, however they have displayed their incompetence, doesn't matter. He's overlooked it and seems happy to overlook it, not irritated at all by his, by his, I'm trying to advocate to call this the moronocracy. And he's presided over it in a very kind of genial way. But now this first one goes. And in my experience, when he starts to do something, he continues to do something. So who would be, who would you expect to be the next domino if indeed your theory is right?

Pam Bondi, probably, I think. You know, you know, the Epstein thing is totally mishandled the Epstein files. But again, he doesn't do this. He never fire, he's not going to fire someone for the, for the error that they have made. He'll fire them for something, something else. But I think there's, and I think, you know, I think RFK Jr. is on thin ice here. I mean, I think that they've, that they've really tested this internally and found out that the Vax, the anti-Vax stuff just doesn't play. It's going to kill them.

And so he's been, they're starting to push out the most extreme of the anti-vaxxers who RFK has hired. And he's been told, concentrate on food. Food is your message. No more anti-vax. Whenever I see RFK Jr., there's always standing behind him Dr. Mehmet Oz, he of the wonderful line that the problem with people in Pennsylvania was they just didn't eat enough crudatee. I mean, it's such a great line. He could have just said vegetables, but now he insisted on saying crudeatee, because those are the vegetables that Dr. Oz eats and you know they're beautifully sliced and served. Anyway, with his magnificent head of hair, and I suspect a little bit of GLP1 use, I think he could easily replace RFK Jr. He's good on television. He's an actual doctor.

If you had a heart problem at one point, you would have wanted him to operate on you. And he's hanging around, even though he knows a lot of what RFK Jr. is saying is nonsense. So that would be my prediction if they get rid of him. What about Tulsi Gabbard? We have predicted for some time now that Tulsi Gammon might be the first to go. She's done what you have to do. Put her head down. We hardly hear from her anymore.

You know, in the first half of the first year, she was out there to make up very clearly to make a name for herself. And now, Tulsi Who? Tulsi Who? Except that she did pop up in Fulton County, organizing. the raid in Georgia on the election? Of course, he centered down there. What's his favorite topic? Of all topics.

Literally of all topics. He won 2020. The election's going to be cheated in November. And also the coming midterms. You know, that is of all the crises before him, this is the biggest crises, the midterm elections. And the only hope he has of prevailing. and it is a fast-fading hope is to put his thumb on the scale.

Right. And he addressed Republicans on Tuesday saying that they really needed to win the midterms because he was confident he would be impeached. And then Mike Pence giving an interview to Caitlin Collins this week said that he thought that Trump would be impeached too. So he probably doesn't want to be impeached three times because that would be a record that might stick in his head. But why not?

Why not? Why not? Not only why not, but it would be the Democrats have made this mistake so many times. Let them make it again. Yeah, well, we'll see. I mean, that's the only thing. That's what we have to look forward. We can address this down the line.

But what we have to look forward to in the midterms is the Democrats winning and fucking up again. Deep breath. I'm taking a very deep breath. So Marjorie Taylor-Greve. is looking beyond the midterms to 2028 and she has put her thumb on the scale for the candidate. She wants, who is? You know, someone I've, whose career and political aspirations, I have been a, had a front of a front seat watching, which is Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson, who has really made it clear that he is against this war. he thinks it's a terrible mistake. Trump has said that that's because Tucker doesn't really understand the war. He's not bright enough to understand the war. But they appear to be at loggerheads over this one. You know, and I think that they will continue to be. I mean, also Tucker has moved very much to the right, and I would say to the anti-Semitic right,

in blaming all of the world's problems on Israel. I mean, he's been, I mean, he's become, I would say, the leading, the leading isolationist voice and the leading anti-Israel voice. Well, I think she said it, I got the sense that Marjorie Taylor Green would like to be his vice president. Well, I think Marjorie Taylor Green would like a job probably of any kind. Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, she's, I mean, suddenly, Marjorie Taylor Green has become for many Democrats and liberals, they have an amount of sympathy for her, but which is crazy, because she's crazy, toxic. You know, I mean, she may have broken with Trump, but frankly, I think she makes Trump look much better than he deserves to look.

Well, she makes him look slightly more normal. But the Tucker thing, I think the Tucker thing is a variable that we should keep our eye on, that everybody should keep their eye on. I mean, he has wanted to, you know, before 2024, I mean, I sat with him, I mean, often in disgust his political ambitions. And they were clearly there. I mean, clearly he was in the 2024 race configuring where his opportunity might be. And if it had been a DeSantis thing, he might actually have stepped in. I mean, he detested DeSantis. And only because, you know, in that shift that suddenly Trump, who looked,

week going after the, after the 2022 midterm, suddenly bounced back to life and then and then Tucker realized that that wasn't going to happen. But very much, this is very much on his mind. Right. That's incredibly interesting to think about as the MAGA base splits over the war. And also as prices go up at the pumps, as we've talked about. And we've talked about. And we had a jobs report this week that showed America had lost 92,000 jobs and unemployment is now hovering around 4%. And that was unexpected. I mean, everybody went, you know, there, we were actually supposed to add. The expectation was that jobs would be, would have been added. So this is, this is more, more bad news. And I think we are at this in a broader sense, at what we should start to,

at least begin to think maybe could be an inflection point. And I hesitate here because I cannot tell you how many inflection points against Donald Trump I have thought we had arrived at. So, but eventually the broken clock is going to be right. And I think this could be one of those things. I can't think, actually, at this point, of anything that is going well for Donald Trump. I mean, the polls are terrible, terrible. I mean, a real indication that not only could they lose, not only will they lose the House, but they could lose the Senate. Right. And he's not looking well.

We've discussed before that nasty rash he's got on the back of the neck, which really does look unpleasant and is clearly rubbing against his shirt collar, his swollen legs, his chronic venous insufficiency, which leads to the cancels. I wonder if a rash has ever taken down a political figure. Very possibly. I mean, it's deeply unsightly. I mean, as we know, he doesn't care that he looks odd because he knows that it's how people remember him.

And his hair also, someone different is doing his hair at the moment because at one point he stopped coloring it. This is the stuff I obsessed by about. He stopped colouring it and it went sort of almost translucent. It went a sort of very light shade of grey. Then it went a slight shade of purple, which suggests that he was using some kind of navy shampoo on it, which those of us with blonde hair or silver hair do.

And now I noticed there was the golden tint back to it. So I'm not quite sure who's paying attention to his hair. It may be a collection of people. Melania used to do it? It isn't a collection of people. I mean, he's he's traditionally very protective about that. Sometimes a person will be admitted into his cosmetic circle. But, but, but, but that person has to be highly trusted. This is not a committee thing because you're not a lot of talk about it, really. His appearance is his appearance. And, um, in matter of fact, the only record I know of him talking about his appearance to anyone is a conversation he had with Stormy Daniels.

Can you remind us of the conversation? No, it was great. He actually seemed kind of both self-aware and unself-conscious about it, which is to say, he said, you know, I look this way because, because, you know, I always had good hair. And then I started to get older and, you know, I wanted to keep it. And then it started to look, you know, maybe maybe a little funny, but then people remembered me for it. And that was how I stuck out in the crowd. Well, our beast contributor and very good columnist, Nelskevel, and I swapped daily photos of his hair and discuss which shampoo we think he's using and we spend a lot of time analyzing the colour.

Well, when I say a lot of time, let's keep this in the space. But it's definitely gone from translucent to faintly purple to grey to orange over the last few weeks. So something's going on there. Nasty rash. And I'm concerned that they tried to apply makeup to a rash, which you really shouldn't do when it's flaking and when there's an open saw on it like that. Because that could lead to impotigo, which could definitely bring him down. A neck of Impetigo is not what you want if you're a wartime president.

Dr. Coles. Dr. Coles is in the house. And then the other thing that I think people are not paying nearly enough attention to, and it's super boring, but actually it's incredibly important for small and large businesses alike, is the tariffs, the tariffs which have put a lot of small businesses basically out of business. And larger businesses are trying to figure out, do we, file for a refund? Is this going to take three years? Is there any point? Will it just take up legal fees? This is a real issue for people. And as we know, the Supreme Court knocked back Donald

Trump's decision to apply tariffs when and where he wanted. But they didn't sort out the tariffs that have already been paid. No, well, there'll be a lot. I mean, I mean, Donald Trump, I mean, Trump has basically said I'm not giving the money back. So that's going to mean litigation for. for years to come. But I do think, I mean, I don't think it is boring, and I think it is one of those those kind of seminal things that many people or many people have internalized and understand that this was a catastrophe.

It was a catastrophe that didn't have to happen. Again, it was one of those things that has no meaning. What does he mean? You know, there's an unconditional surrender in this somewhere, too. We're going to tariff nations we don't like back into the Stone Age. And then the day later, we're going to reverse all of that. So I think that this is the tariff policy, of course, across the first year of this administration, culminating in the Supreme Court's rejection of it is going to be one of those things that he's going into the midterm with.

And the word tariff is not going to rebound to his credit. No, it's not. And it's a real thing that real businesses across the country are having to deal with big and small. Your friend Barack Obama, who you chided for not saying enough about this, received an enormous cheer when he stood up to speak at the memorial for Jesse Jackson. And in fact, once he got into the pulpit. A pretty easy audience. No, very easy audience. And, of course, he was sitting between the Clintons and the Bidens. Though, again, without Michelle, so he looked weirdly, weirdly lonely.

And it's odd to me how much. Do you want to talk about that marriage? No. Well, let's talk about that marriage. What do you know about that marriage? I know nothing about that marriage except that increasingly you see them not together. Okay. Well, interestingly, she wasn't at the memorial service for Jesse Jackson. Obama gets up to speak and everybody starts chanting four more years, four more years. And he silences them by saying, actually, I believe in the Constitution. So that's not going to happen. more roars, more cheers. And then I was going to read out a little bit of what he said because you're just reminded of a president

who's slightly more eloquent than the current president. And he says, every day you wake up to things you just didn't think were possible. Each day we're told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other and that some Americans count more than others and that some don't even count at all. Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated.

and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength. We see science and expertise denigrated, while ignorance, dishonesty and cruelty and corruption are reaping untold rewards. He had to wait for someone to die to say this. Come on, come on, man. You know, I mean, you remain the titular head of the Democratic Party, whether you want to be or not.

you are you are the only voice what are you doing with it going to funerals you know yeah great um but you know there's every day out here we're out here every day or three to three times a week we are we are out here every day we are out here every day well and that was your point world where is he and that i mean it's i i find this find this incredibly cowardly irrespective too late. Well, it was the point you made about Tom Tillis, too, who's retiring, which is why he was after, which is why he was able in the hearing to go after Christy Noem, frankly, as effectively as he did. Yeah, I just, you know, now was the time. Come on. I mean... Well, maybe they're saving it all for the midterms. Well, the midterms are now.

Midterms are now. Fair. Fair. And I did think John Cain. Kennedy from Louisiana. I think on Thursday I said he was from Tennessee and I was wrong. Your boyfriend. My boyfriend, because I love his voice, led Christine Home very skillfully to drink a poison that she didn't realize she was drinking when he said did the president approve this $220 million ad campaign and she was forced to say yes. And that was the moment that her fate was sealed. Mr. Kennedy, I salute you. Such an incredible boob. I mean, you just, I mean, she stumbles through everything she says. She really has no, no rationalization for what she's doing or what she's done. She has no reason for being, in effect, except a $200 million advertising campaign, which she is the star of. It really is a breathtaking amount of money.

I mean, if it was a $200 million, you know, $20 million campaign, that would still feel a lot. But a quarter of a billion dollars on an ad campaign, which is basically her riding on a horse, looking fabulous. And then someone leaked some behind the scenes pictures where she's bending down from the horse and having her makeup touched up and everything. A quarter of a billion dollars on an ad campaign largely for herself. No wonder she's lost her job.

It's an astonishing sum. Again, just to remind people, a quarter of a billion dollars. I mean, remember, Carmelah Harris got in trouble for spending $1.3 billion for her entire presidential campaign. And this is a quarter of a billion dollars. And of course, we know that Trump hates it. He hates it when anyone makes money of him. Well, she got it, but just to point out, she got in trouble for spending that money and losing.

Well, that's true. That's true, but my point is about the scale of the advertising campaign that Christy Noem, who was already in the job, I mean, to spend a fifth of what Carmel is my point. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, and I know the, you know, I know that the rationalization for this, the Cory Lewandowski, rationalization is that this is the way you were going to keep immigrants out of the country and to create this kind of publicly inhospitable environment, which really it was. It was, you know, Christy Nome threatening immigrants. Well, Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana knew what was going on, called her on it, and she got fired the next day.

So, progress of a sort. And is it the first domino? Who knows? We'll be back on Tuesday to discuss. In fact, we should discuss on Tuesday. Laurie Chavez de Hermere. I think that's how you pronounce her name. We would have to, yes, we would have to practice.

We'd have to practice. Lori Chavez de Romer, who's the Secretary of Labor, who's also caught up in her own torrid machinations at the Labor Department and I think she was the first to unfur an enormous portrait of Trump on the outside of the building but it may not yet save her. You didn't mention her in the dominoes that might fall

but she might also be a domino. I couldn't pronounce the name. Well, I haven't got the name down right either. I'm sure we'll hear from lots of people who somewhat depressingly, our commentators, have been saying that your books, which are higgledy-pigoldy are because you read them, whereas my books are gimmick books

and not real books. And actually, that's not true. They are real books. And I would just like to point out... If you have to say it, I don't know. I'm just pointing out that these books, actually, this is my book, Love Rules, which was out in English, then I've got the Japanese version,

then I've got the Polish version, and then I think I've got another language in there. That's what those books are. So I'm just pointing that out. They are actually real books. Real books, what I have written myself, Governor. sort of. Yes, yes, I have.

And then the other books are books that I've read or did. A ghost writer, perhaps? I did have a very good ghost writer called Liz Welch, who was fantastic. Liz, if you're listening, big, thank you. Very, very good. Very good, very helpful ghost writer. Fantastic. Nevertheless.

And what else are we doing on Tuesday? Oh, because the Labor Secretary has a romantic issue, right? Well, she has, I'm not sure if romance is the right word, but she's developed close relations with a member of her body team, whatever they're called, bodyguards. It's a kind of interesting thing that across the Trump orbit, you have these kinds of issues which go largely unremarked on. I mean, should we go to RFK Jr. and his torrid cyber affair? Well, we could do, though. That's had a lot of attention. But it's interesting that the two weeks.

It has a lot of attention, but no effect. Everybody gets away with it. Until they don't, until they don't get away with it. I mean, Christyne Ames not gotten away with it because ultimately Corey was her puppet master and he pulled the strings too hard. Yeah, but she's not faulted for having an affair with, which represents a complicated conflict of interest. That's not what she did here.

She's not being hoisted for that at all. No, it is what she did, but she's not being hoisted for it. Yeah, and what's interesting is that, you know, in the era of times up, there was this great dream that when women finally got to these places in government and finally had cabinet positions, they would be more risk-averse than men, they would be more responsible that they would not do things like this. And it turns out that... Kind or gentler.

Yeah, they'd be kinder, gentle. gentler, they'd be best, in fact, just to pinch the First Lady's statement, they would be best in these roles. And it turns out that actually equality is a bit more complicated than we realized. Or that politics is more complicated. Politics makes horrifying people. Men or women? Well, and we know where politics is very complicated at the moment, and that is in the UK, which is where you're about to go. I am and I will be on Tuesday. I will speak to you from London. Will you be speaking from

the posh hotel you always stay at? I will be speaking from the posh hotel. I stay at. Well, I hope that you get a chance to talk to some politicians while you're there and get the view from across the pond. You can count on it. Okay, it sounds like someone's come in to pull you away. I'm expecting a shepherd's crook to come around your neck and pull you out of them. I have to go like this. Okay. All right. Well, before we do, would you like to remind people to join the Bee Beast tier of Daily Beast membership?

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