The Daily Beast Podcast - Melania Is Trying to Ruin Me For Daring to Sue Her

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles break down Donald Trump's latest chaotic moves, starting with his immediate renegotiation of a brand-new Saudi nuclear deal and the astonishing legal escalation in Melania Trump’s lawsuit against Wolff. Coles and Wolff expose the political desperation behind the administration's sudden push for teenage abstinence, alongside Trump's retro attacks on Senator Jon Ossoff and other rising Democrats. They also examine JD Vance's latest book, his sudden spiritual pivot, and consider what the Vice President’s dark fixation on demons reveals about his unbridled ambition. Go to https://ground.news/BEAST for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe for 40% off the Vantage plan for unlimited access to world wide news coverage through my link. #ad  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This was an obvious effort to intimidate me through a GoFundMe page. We raised over $800,000 to fund this lawsuit, scaring the be-jesus out of Melania and her lawyers. The day before yesterday, they have filed four sanctions against me and my lawyers. Now, what this will mean is they will lose in district court. They will appeal to the Second Circuit. They will lose there. And then they will appeal to the Supreme Court. That is Trump law in a nutshell.

Delay, harass, intimidate, exhaust, and avoid testifying at all costs. Michael. Joanna. If, as you watch this episode, the lights flicker on and off, I am not having a private disco in the studio. There's work being done on the electric. So bear with us if you happen to be watching this. The electricity in the Hamptons is very reliable. Exciting morning today.

We are 271 subscriptions away from hitting 700,000. subscribers, Michael. And we started less than a year ago. So this is all very exciting. Yeah, no, impressive. Well, and I just want to remind people, please subscribe to The Daily Beast. We are independent media,

so we appreciate your support. And there are all sorts of tiers of membership that you can avail yourself of. I'm Joanna Coles of the Daily Beast, and you are? Michael Wolf. What am I of? I'm of nothing.

connected to no one, no institution. Free as a bird. You're Michael Wolf. Free as a bird. Free as a bird that flaps its wings around the Hamptons where you live. Lucky you. But you have written four books on Donald Trump. Fire and Fury, of course, was the book that really exposed the beginnings of the madness, I suppose.

And also just to, I guess, to my. own horn here. It was, it was, I think it was the first book to say that this is, that this, that Trump politics was not about politics, but wholly about character, not about process, not about the system, not about institutions, not about anything that we heretofore regarded as the, as the foundation of the U.S. political system. Trump was wholly about himself, his character, his needs, his motivations, and continues to be. So we're going to talk about the landmark nuclear deal with the Saudis, which appears to already be it was signed yesterday, and already Donald Trump is changing the terms on it. We're going to talk about the latest in the Melania case, because there is a development in it.

We're going to talk about Donald Trump's government demanding teenagers practice abstinence instead of getting contraception. And, well, so much more, so much more. And Trump's determination to claim that the Democrats have become communists. But before we do, I thought we could play a clip. Let's see if you recognize. Well, you'll recognize who this is. But let's see if you recognize when it was from. Friends, delegates, and fellow Americans, I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Well, I know where that's from. I was there. Do tell. That's in Cleveland in 2016. Was at the RNC? Yes. which was in Cleveland. I was sitting there. And I was, actually, this was kind of a memorable moment for me

because I was sitting there listening to this, and I was, you know, with all of these people cheering around and I was, I suppose, visibly uncomfortable or confused or certainly not in the game that everyone around me, all of these Trump people, was in this incredible. And you could sense something different was happening. And you didn't know what it was, and it was scary. And I was sitting there not cheering, probably looking rather grim.

And a guy, and I now recognize him to be a MAGA guy in full. although I don't even think that kind of existed as a category yet at that moment. But he was decked out clear, just Mr. Maga. And as I'm sitting there confused, he leaned over. He was like sitting right catty corner to me, and he leaned over and said, what's the matter? Does it make your pussy hurt? And at that moment, I thought, oh,

Oh, my God. This is it. This is where we are. This is where we are. Well, we're now 10 years on from that. And I was going to ask you to do something, which is probably impossible, which is just if you had one word to sum up the last 10 years, what would it be? What's Trump's legacy to do? I know the word.

The word I would pick is breakage. what he has done at every point, whatever existed, is break it. He hasn't certainly made it better. He hasn't solved any. Actually, he has made everything that he gets involved with every bad situation, even worse. And every situation, every kind of whole set of pillars of the things that we kind of took for granted or depended on, he has broken from the relationship with Europe. from the world, the world, the larger world trade relationships, relationship this past week again with Canada that has come up in, obviously, Iran.

He goes into this situation and breaks it. Was bad before? Now it's even worse. Again and again and again. Healthcare breaking it. the Justice Department, broken. Every instance, it is where he has gotten involved, partly because he is just an utter incompetent.

He can't do these things. I mean, he doesn't know how things work. Therefore, if he gets involved, it is not unreasonable that he is going to make whatever the machinery, at hand is he's going to muck it up. He's going to get involved. He's going to throw a wrench into the works, which he has systematically done over certainly the first administration, and now almost two years into the second. There was a time where most of us could agree on the basic facts. Now, one headline says one thing, another says the exact opposite,

and somewhere in between, you're left wondering who to trust. That's why I like ground news. Instead of telling you what to think, it lets you compare how the same story is covered across the political spectrum. Take a recent story I've been following, haven't we all, Donald Trump's plans to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. On ground news, I can instantly compare how different outlets are covering the same story. It tracks which outlets are reporting on what stories, which angles are being emphasized, and just as importantly, which stories might be getting ignored altogether. Ground News features a helpful bias bar

that highlights a publication's political lean, ownership and reliability ratings giving you the context that is so often missing from today's newsfeet. If you're tired of outrage, algorithms and endless confusion, ground news offers a smarter way to stay informed. Go to ground.combeast for a better way to stay informed. That's ground. News forward slash beast. Subscribe for 40% off the Vandage Plan for unlimited access to world news coverage through my link. So yesterday it was announced that America had come to a deal with Saudi Arabia to have American companies go in and help them develop nuclear plants.

This morning, and we're recording this on Thursday morning, it appears that Donald Trump is already changing the terms of the deal by saying it's only going to be valid. And this is after the Saudis signed it yesterday. It's only going to be valid if they sign the Abraham Accords. His shifting ground on deals doesn't seem like new territory. But what are your thoughts on this as we head into the 10th year and first day from that moment where he... Well, you know, I mean, it's interesting because I would say that he had that this was another situation in which he was breaking something. I mean, the structure and the strictures that we've put on these kinds of nuclear deals, he is, he has largely in this deal disregarded and we were creating a situation in which we might be adding another.

nuclear player in this region of the world, the exact thing that we don't need. But then this is also now an example of he is breaking the deal that he broke something, and now he is breaking that again. In record time. Extraordinary. And I can only assume that he got enormous blowback on this, especially blowback from the Israelis. So the Israelis are saying, oh, my God, what have you done? And he's feeling that.

But this is also against the background of this weird relationship, weird and profitable relationship that he has had with the Saudis. And let's remember this, that the first person, the first foreign visitor to the White House in 2017 was MBS, who was then not the, not the, he was, he was warring with another one of his relatives for that position. And he made a deal, made a deal with the, with the, with the, with the White House, they supported him. Effectively, the White House supported a mini coup, which put MBS in power. Now, part of the background on this, curiously, is that MBS was being advised in his,

in his understanding and navigation of the Trump and the Trump White House by Jeffrey Epstein. So a whole other subtext goes on there. But then, of course, we also know that also the Saudis, I should add, that was the first foreign trip to Riyadh. The entire administration in 2017 packed up and went to Riyadh and was celebrated in this fantastic way. And of course, Jared Kushner, a pivotal person in the First White House and the president's son-in-law, and once again, a pivotal person in navigating all of the issues of the Middle East, actually, a broad array of all issues involving the United States and its foreign policy at this point, left the First White House, started an investment fund. with $2 billion from the Saudis. Affinity partners. He also, in this second administration,

despite the fact that he and Ivanka are riding it out because I think they couldn't cope with the sort of the drama around it all. Well, also because this is much easier to make money when you're outside of the administration and inside. Although not for Donald Trump, because it turns out that Donald Trump is making plenty of money inside the administration, which was something that perhaps Jared and Ivanka

couldn't quite have imagined. Even they couldn't have imagined the level of their father and father-in-law's grift. Had they known that, they might have stayed involved more. But what I find amusing about them sitting in Florida staring out at the ocean, which we addressed last week, as Ivanka told everybody how she started her day

with a 90-minute meditation and all the things she's grateful for and a little prayer, would that we... Can I just... interrupt there because I watched that again because it's so extraordinary and I found a key flaw in it. Go on. What is the flaw? And actually let me give credit, it was my wife, Victoria, who found identified the flaw. She talks about in that breathy princess, Disney princess, voice about dropping her children off at school and then going to the beach and watching the

sunrise. And Victoria said, hey, what time does that school start? And it's totally true. School does not start before sunrise. Right. Unless you're in Florida. Maybe they send their children at five in the morning when it's still dark. And do we think that would be likely?

No. Because teachers don't arrive. So it's that thing. She just made all this up. This makes no sense. It's just blah, blah, blah, blah that comes out of her Disney princess mouth. Her Disney princess mouth. Well, what I love is that she and Jared, by building this luxury resort on an island in Albania,

which has hitherto only really been known for its flamingos, is that they've literally caused the biggest protests against corruption in Albania. since the Second World War. That's how provocative is there. This will be also a resort in Albania financed by the Saudis. So, right, so there you go. So if you're looking for somewhere to go in three years' time, Albania, an island, there used to be flamingos there,

owned by the Trump's. You know, you might want to book early, is all I'm saying. So, Michael, I want an update, please, on Melania. What's happening with Melania, the lawsuit? Just give people a line of background so they know why you are suing the First Lady. In what is really an unprecedented suit? The First Lady and her lawyers or the First Lady and White House lawyers threatened to sue me for a billion dollars for discussing her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

I am not the only person who has received that threat. Almost anybody who brings up the subject receives that threat. And many people have capitulated to that threat and agreed to apologize and retract. I didn't. And what I did on the advice of my First Amendment lawyers who I've been working with for many, many, many years in my career,

is that this was an obvious effort to intimidate me to not say what I had the perfect right to say. So in New York State, there exists laws against that. You can't use the law to intimidate someone to shut down free speech. So we sued under those laws. And as someone in the White House said to me, well, nobody here saw that one coming. And in addition, we raised through a GoFundMe page, we raised over $800,000 to fund this lawsuit, scaring the bejesus out of Malania and her lawyers.

So we have now gone through, I mean, this is a, has been a real adventure for me in Trump law, how these people use the courts to solve their problems, to protect themselves, and to frustrate all of the claims against them. And let's remember this is a background of Donald Trump, who has been in litigation for the better part of 55 years. Right, of his life. And so this case winds through. We sued in state court.

They moved it to federal court. They got before a judge who has ruled against us on some of these issues, which we are now appealing. But as an offshoot, a tributary of this, and this is what's going on now, The Trump, Melania and the White House lawyers have asked for sanctions against me and my lawyers. Now, they went into court to discuss this with the judge overseeing this aspect of the case, and the judge basically said, this is ridiculous. And if you file these sanctions, the likelihood is that I will rule against them. and you provide a reason for my lawyers to sue them for sanctions. So you would think they would have their tail between their legs.

But instead, they actually have gone through. This happened yesterday, the day before yesterday. They have filed for sanctions against me and my lawyers. Now, what this will mean is they will lose in district court. they will appeal to the Second Circuit. They will lose there. And then they will appeal to the Supreme Court. And of course, nobody knows what's going to happen there.

But the larger point is that they will have added months and months and months to the legal calendar and countless expense. So that is Trump law in a nutshell. Delay, harass, intimidate, exhaust, and avoid testimony, testifying at all costs. Well, as your co-host on this podcast, I can, and I wish they'd called me first, I can assure them that any attempts I have made to harass you, intimidate, you, exhaust you, or avoid you have completely failed. and people should hear the conversations we have before we hop on and start recording inside Trump's head. There's a lot of texts that fly back and forth, as we're suggesting, topics for conversation. And the point of this podcast is that we...

Yeah, so if you think we're the Bickersons on air, you should hear us off there. Absolutely, you should hear us. But the point of this particular podcast for anybody new joining us is that we have a conversation. We have the sort of conversation that we would have if the two of us were sitting in the coffee bar round the corner from the Daily Beast offices. And, well, all I can say is that we are all watching. And so many viewers and so many listeners have texted and commented and emailed their support for you in this remarkable case.

It's been extraordinary. I mean, there are tens of thousands, well over 20,000 individual contributors who have put up this substantial sum of money. And I realized from the beginning, as soon as we got into this lawsuit, the main legal challenge would be to outlast them. And we have, that's a resource issue. And right now we have enough resources. I wonder if AI now becomes actually a new arrow in the quiver of people taking on

Trump, because of course, part of this is financial resources for lawyers. But I'm sure there are four people the resources on AI to actually come up with strategies to be. You think AI is going to put lawyers out of business? You know, that's something I wouldn't count on. It's going to put some lawyers out of business. First Amendment lawyers are probably the least likely to be put out of business. But I think it's certainly going to put contract lawyers out of business. Well, let's let's let's Let's look at that. The thesis there would be that lawyers are going because of AI, lawyers are going to make less money. You know, somehow I doubt that. You know what? If you put a contract through AI and ask it to summarize it for you,

it does it incredibly effectively and it saves you an hour of your lawyer's time. I've never seen a circumstance in which lawyers make less money. That's funny. Well, we can ask any. lawyers listening or watching this comment. Is Michael right? Are you making less money? You know who is having less of something, or at least they're being advised to have less of something? That is the nation's teenagers who are being told in a very Nancy Reagan-type echo, they're being told not to have sex. Young men are being told that if they are spontaneously aroused, they should learn methodology to handle it. And the government is overhauling teen pregnancy programs. They're

closing some of them down. Well, let's just understand more dramatically where this comes from. This comes from the Trump administration. This is Donald Trump advising the world's young men and women to follow abstinence over gratification. this is, let me say this again, this is Donald Trump, a man whose entire life, every single aspect of it has been not only about gratification, but let's be very precise about grabbing them by the pussy. That's that, and this would be the second time I've said that word, a word that I would never otherwise say in this podcast. Can you also just my favorite anecdote, and then we'll come back to this teenage pregnancy program and the cutting of them and this new message of abstinence in a second.

But my favorite anecdote when you were at the RNC in 2016 is about Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel, who becomes an incredibly important character in J.D. Vance's life. And we're going to talk about J.D. Vance's book. I should just tell people we're both stuck at the same page. We're both stuck on page 100 of communion, but our pledge to each other is to try and at least get a bit further so we can talk about it in more detail on Saturday. But there was a moment where Peter Thiel is standing on stage. You have two ladies in front of you, and can you remember the conversation that they had?

If you can't, I can. I cannot. Okay, well, Peter Thiel is standing there and you are describing it. You're calling me when you come back from the RNC, and you're like, I'm like, tell me every. single thing about what happened. Give me all the colour. And you say that Peter Thiel gets up and starts talking and one lady

turns to the other and they're kind of classic Republican what it would I mean classic Republican blue rinse ladies who I think are trying to wrestle themselves into supporting Trump. And one of them says to the other, who is this?

And the other woman says he says he's gay and then they just carry on regardless. But But at that moment, Peter Thiel's only use, I think, to the Republicans was the fact that he represented the LGBTQT contingent. Yeah, well, he was actually, he was a Jared person. He was introduced into this, into the Trump world by Jared. He was obviously the only tech guy at that point who was willing to be a trumper, who was.

You know, so Peter Thiel was genuinely the first tech guy in a wave of tech guys who would convert to Trumpism and MAGA-ism. And come out and support him at the inauguration and then sit around his table as the tech gods and then be invited to sit at Windsor Castle with him. But he was, and actually I have discussed Trump. When I interviewed Trump somewhat before the convention, and I had asked him about Peter Thiel, and he memorably responded, who? Of course he memorably responded to. And then I said, you know, the tech guy always said, he said, what a Jared's friends. Yeah, yeah. All right. So let's come back to this idea that Donald Trump is practicing or is asking his followers to practice abstinence. Well, you know, I mean, I think that this probably goes, first thing, this is going to be uncomfortable for Trump.

And he really is not on that scale. I mean, Trump is in his own way a monumental hypocrite, of course. And actually, in his own way, he is not a hypocrite because he regularly undermines these kinds of things. You know, yes, he has to support abortion, but he makes fun of that all of the time of him having to support abortion. And me, he says, me, can you believe it? And then is always trying to dilute that message. So here we have this new policy initiative from the White House abstinence. abstinence, Donald Trump becoming a poster boy

for sexual abstinence, which is just extraordinary. Well, except that now he's post-sex, as you say that people... Yes, well, I think. You think maybe at this point since Donald Trump apparently is no longer having sex, then nobody else can have it.

That is also a possible way to look at this. That's actually what struck me that he might miss having sex and so no one else is allowed to have it. It also struck me that Melania perhaps was behind this and she's trying to, she's trying to influence Baron. And then, of course, you have the Tate brothers who were arrested in Miami this week on behalf of the English authorities

who want them extradited on 56 charges of truly horrible egregious accusations of rape and sexual trafficking and pornography of children. I mean, it's all horrible. And actually... This also, you know, is in juxtaposition to the manosphere, which is basically have more sex, procreate, you know, and of course do whichever you want to do

and keep and make women your... Subjects, I think. Subject women to violence. But let's go to the politics of this. Because one of the things that, I think is going on here is a sense of panic about the right wing, about what's happening there, about the breakup of this dissension in the MAGA ranks, and how that might affect one of the key parts of the Trump base, which is the religious right, the evangelical right. So this is another thing.

I think this is saying we're sending a message to them. We love that. They love this abstinence thing. Send that message. We are still there. We are still on their side. We are still of like minds here. So forget Tucker Carlson and forget Joe Rogan and forget anybody else who's trying to suggest

that there is a. there is a significant fissure in the movement. Go back to the basis, the basis to the religious right, which is all generally about sex. Yeah, and this is particularly frustrating because actually the educational programs that have been going on for the last sort of 30 years have been impactful in terms of the birth rate among girls 15 to 19 dropping. And they've actually dropped, I've got some figures here by 65% during the time the programs have been in effect to 11 births per thousand in 2025 from 34 births per thousand in 2010. So why you would want to reverse that trend by a curriculum that they're referring to is sexual risk avoidance? I do not know because boys.

Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. I just told you why. I mean, let's not pretend that there isn't a clear rationale here, that this is not just, you know, stupid people saying things to other stupid people. This is they have a political problem. I understand they have a political problem, but young men don't want to be financially in hoc to babies that they didn't want. And neither do young women and neither do families. There's two different things here. There's obviously the logic of this is totally ridiculous.

And everybody who is even advocating these positions in the White House, I'm sure, is rolling their eyes. But the reason to do it, I mean, the reason to do it is not, has nothing to do with, with solving the problem of teen pregnancy or of, it doesn't have anything to do with anything except the politics of this. And that's the interesting thing to peel back here. What are they worried about? Why are they doing this? And they are worried about their base, their constituency. Which J.D. Vance is clearly sucking up to in a major way in his new book, though I very much doubt that anybody in the base is actually going to read the book because it's a bit of a slog.

You know, and I want to get back to, let's let's table the J.D. discussion because I think it's good because one of the other interesting things about it is J.D. becomes a Catholic and the evangelical base are not Catholics, but save that. Okay, well, let's do this on Saturday. We'll come to that on Saturday. All right. So Trump also seems to be, I mean, he went after John Ossoff this week, who had two fantastic moments during the hearings, one with Pete Hegseth this week, as he said. he's demanding an extra $35 billion for his war. And last week, as we mentioned, against Jay Clayton,

when he asked Jay Clayton if it was, wasn't it humiliating that he couldn't just say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election? And Jay Clayton, you know, who's got a great reputation as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, was made to look extremely foolish and very sweaty by the very cool John Ossoff. So Trump has gone after Ossoff. We've got a clip here. You're terrible Senator John Ossoff.

He's terrible. And the Democrats in Congress are voting with the communists every single time. They're afraid of the communists. You look at it. Now, I was, I fought ourselves before, as you know, and we won. We had a great success against this guy. He reminds me of Pinky Herman. Do you ever see Pinky Herman?

Who is Pinky Herman? What is he to walk? about, he hasn't even read his own truth social. Last week, after the filleting of Jay Clayton, Trump posted a picture of peewee Herman and John Ossoff, who don't look remotely alike, but he actually posted that, but he obviously doesn't have any idea who peewee Herman is. And so he just pinky Herman. But obviously, John Ossoff, this is such a boost for him. Nothing could be better than having Trump directly target. No, as I know, I've often courted

courted Trump's ire for precisely this reason. But it is this interesting thing. I mean, this is, this goes to the dearth of message on the part of the Republicans and the Trumpers. What are they doing? They're calling people communists. I mean, I mean, I think for a large point, of the electorate, the electorate certainly under the age of 50, you start to say

communists, communists. What, weren't they, weren't they someone in history? I mean, this is, you know, certainly when when I grew up, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s, Reagan, that was a, that was a potent slur. But it's certain, but I don't think it has been since then. Now, clearly the point that he's trying to make is the rise of the left-wing Democrats, their success, at least their success in primaries and the success of Mamdani in New York, and that they are aligned with the socialist, the, you know, Democratic Socialists, they got some claim of being socialist themselves. that's what he's trying to get at. But I didn't even think he gets that.

And to suggest that by linking them to communists, I think this confuses everybody and is, again, one of those instances where Trump exists in decades gone by. Roy Cohn was Joe McCarthy's henchman. And Joe McCarthy, of course, came to power saying there are, you know, X number of communists in the State Department, and that was he had, he demonized the whole generation of American politicians and terrorized the whole generation of American politicians over the possibility that they would be the subject of this, of this accusation and slur. But this was, what are we talking, 80 years ago. So is it 80 years ago?

Well, yeah, oh, I guess almost 80 years ago. And that's where Donald Trump lives. So to suggest that this, he's going to turn this into, you're a communist, into something that's going to resonate in this coming to the 2026 midterm elections, you know, I mean, I can't help thinking that he has misread the room. Well, he may well have misread the room, and maybe it's part of the aging process where as people get older, and of course we know that his father had dementia and his symptoms

of dementia started showing up when he was 80, which is what Donald Trump is now. he's now in his ninth decade, is that you tend to remember the past more clearly than you can remember what happened yesterday. You can't remember what you had for lunch, but you can remember what you had for lunch in the early 60s if you're Donald Trump's age. So it may be that age is just creeping up with him. Well, yeah, I mean, I just, I tend to think it's more from a political point more serious than that, which is to say they don't have a message.

They're, you know, they're, they're, this again, they are. flailing. I mean, this is like abstinence. We got to do something. What do we do? We see these numbers. Everybody sees these numbers, these midterm numbers. Donald Trump is among the least popular presidents in modern history at this point. And what is he going to do? And they're trying to do something, but they have nothing to do. Absinence, communists. I mean, all of this So just grabbing onto anything. It's from another time. And I've seen the people around him how they react because he says they're communists.

And everybody goes, hmm, you know, yeah, well, I like that new noise, Michael. That seems like a new, something that we could harness on the podcast. It is a kind of thing within that the people in the White House also appreciate the fact that he is old. And it's not necessarily dementia, but it is a frame of reference that he can't update. I mean, he is, and I think that's probably for many old people. My children accuse me of this, of having, of living in a cultural moment that has little relevance at this particular time. And then that becomes more glaring against somebody like John Osloff incredibly, I mean, a young up-and-coming man in politics rather than, as just

opposed to Donald Trump, an old and declining man in politics. Yes, as you said last week, John Ossoff has certainly shot up the list of potential Democratic candidates for 2028. And if you haven't watched him grilling both Jay Clayton and Pete Hexeth this week, you really should. I mean, he is so calm. He's so on top of the material. So often you see people in that situation, senators or Congress people checking their notes, they're kind of reading. And his ability to look up and to have full command of the material just felt very,

very, very compelling. I think we should, we should begin to think and begin, because this is now going to start to change very rapidly, the Democrats who are potential contenders. And we should really stay on top of that because it's obviously and it's important, but it's also dramatic, you know, the rise of these people. I think Mark Kelly is also on a, on a fast trajectory up now. But certainly John Ossoff, Mark Kelly, incredibly interesting. Yeah, Mark Kelly, the senator from Arizona married to Gabby Giffords, of course, who was shot in that terrible, who was a congresswoman when she was shot at a regular surgery of hers. So I wanted to, Mitch McConnell is still as far as we know alive. He's in a hospital in D.C. But in an interesting development, I was just curious to get your perspective.

as a writer on this. McConnell's hometown newspaper, the Louisville Courier Journal, one of their columnist Joseph Girt, decided that he would write a pre-obituary on the grounds that after Lindsay Graham died, so many people came out and said things about him. And a lot of it was softened because he just died. And he felt that, oh, no, I'm going to say what I think about Mitch McConnell. So I'm just going to read you a paragraph from his pre-obituary, but then I wanted to talk to you

about the trend of pre-abituries. Is this something we're going to see more of? So this is about Mitch McConnell. First is his cynical and hypocritical manipulation of the US Supreme Court confirmation process that over a four-year period shifted the court from a center-right body to a far-right body that overturned 60 years of case law on civil rights and nearly a century of law that empowered Congress to check a president's power. And then he goes on to say, in the process, McConnell has destroyed the court's credibility with the American people. What do you think of the idea of writing pre-obituaries

so that you're freer to write the more critical stuff? Well, I've never shied away from disparaging the dead. Of course you haven't. But my last book, was it my last book? I think it was my last book. The last book was The Fall. Yes. And that begins with an obituary of Rupert Murdoch, who is, of course, the fall is about Fox News and Rupert Murdoch controls Fox News. And Rupert Murdoch, we should point out, is still alive. Yes, he is still alive at 95, but not for much longer.

Well, you say that, but his mother to live till, what was it, 104? 103. But even that, even if he does go from 95 to 103, well, that is still not much longer. No, there's a lot of damage you can do with Fox News in the next nine years. Well, also, the chances of a 95-year-old living to 103, do I have to point out, are almost non-existent. Is that true? I imagine that Rupert Murdoch has the best healthcare a billionaire can buy. Joanna, how many people live to 103? Well, increasingly more than they did 20 years ago.

Yes, this is not. He won't live. Rupert's dead and, you know, you can clock him in months at this point, not years. Okay, well, we'll see. We'll see. All right. So we have a poem this week from our producers' father. This is from Dan Murray, who's the first.

father of our long-suffering producer Ryan Murray. There once was a jet. Do you think he suffers? Who, Ryan? Yes. Definitely suffers. He suffers every morning when we start flying back and forth with texts about what we are and aren't going to cover.

Do I think he suffers? Yes. He's looking at me now kind of sheepishly. There once was a jet meant to soar, but delays kept extending the chore. Each new target date just arrived fashionably late when the old bird kept flying once more. I love the old Air Force One. I love the weird pale blueness of it. It's so unexpected. It's such a generous, democratic color. And I hate the sort of bogus pomposity with which the new plane has been decorated. Well, and we also note that the new plane is out of commission

now. So again, in terms of Trump breaking things, Air Force One worked well. It protected presidents. And Trump went out, got himself a new plane with a weird provenance. And it doesn't work. Well, with a weird provenance, it was gifted to him from the Qataris. Exactly. But you don't know the provenance in whom. made this plane, what's in this plane, what did they do to this plane, what is their motivation for giving him this plane, remains all an open question? Well, it would be ironic, although one of course never wishes for this, but it would be so deeply ironic was something to go wrong with this plane because Trump's glee over the plane, his determination to keep it. Something has gone wrong with the plane.

They've taken it out of commission. He's not allowed to ride on this plane. And that's a very interesting thing. I mean, that's how bad it is, that Donald Trump is, I mean, he theoretically has the power to overrule the Secret Service, but very theoretical. I mean, the Secret Service has basically come and said, you know, we cannot protect you if you ride on this plane. So what's he going to do? Right. So they took the plane out of commission. They took his toy away from him. Well, I'm sure it'll be back soon. We'll be back on Saturday

talking about J.D. Vance's book if we can actually struggle our way through it. We literally both stopped at page 100 and we were like, oh, this is hard work. But I'm determined to get there. But at the moment, all I can glean from it is the level of J.D. Vance's ambition and determination to make something of himself, which is a very American story. And to be applauded. Well, I'm interested in the in the in the the theological underpinnings of this. So, so so tune in on Saturday to an exciting discussion about. Is there anything less likely to make Christianity and the in and the historical fissures in in Christian consciousness? Do you think I can't think of anything less likely to make people, uh,

tune into a podcast than us talking about J.D. Vance. I was listening to his interview with Joe Rogan, which I mentioned, I think, on Tuesday. And I've just got to the bit where he talks about demons and how he believes that demons are among us. Demons walk among us. I think he might think of you as a demon, Michael. That's because I'm a Jew. Oh, interesting. Interesting.

thing. Do you think he bought his new $9 million house in Virginia with money from the book? Do you think he's feeling emboldened by book sales? Well, that's a lot of money for a book. I don't think that book, this book is going to do that kind of business. But the first book did really a substantial business. Well, and it got made into a movie. So, but did he make more money in his literary life or in his hedge fund life? Well, I think it was a VC life and he was only there for two years because the thing that characterizes J.D. Vance is he doesn't have any sticking power. He does everything for two years. If he gets to the end of his vice presidency,

that will have been the longest commitment in employ in this man's life. Two years as a senator, not very long as a VC, he's just kept moving. Well, that may be the recipe for how you get to the top. Well, let's see if he does get to the top.

Right now, he's swinging his legs from the chair just underneath the top. All right. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast. I hope by the time we come back on Saturday, we've hit 700,000. That would be a real milestone for us. And Michael, why don't you thank the team? Ryan, Heather, John, Neil, Rachel.

Thank you. 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.