The Daily Beast Podcast - Michael Cohen: I Am Certain That Donald Trump Is Psychotic Right Now

Episode Date: January 8, 2021

Donald Trump is in deep shit. So deep, that he finally admitted to leaving the White House at the end of the month. And his supporters? Well, some would say Wedesnday’s riot in D.C., when his supporters-turned-domestic-terrorists defaced the Capitol, inspired an “oh-fuck” moment. As for what is going through the president’s head right now, co-hosts Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast turned to the man who spent a good deal of time with Trump to find out. Michael Cohen, author of Disloyal and host of the Mea Culpa podcast, came on the latest episode of The New Abnormal to chat about the chaos and what Trump’s next moves are. Needless to say, he did not censor himself in the slightest. “I am certain that Donald Trump is psychotic right now,” he says, adding that he fully believes a coup was the president's goal all along. “Donald Trump would rather burn down the White House, then turn over the keys.” At the least, Trump and his enablers on the Hill encouraged the events that went down and Cohen thinks they should “pay.” Yes, he was someone who encouraged him, but it’s different, he says. “I did work for him. And what did I do? I paid $130,000, you know, to keep quiet. The fact that the president got his pecker pulled by a porn star, seriously? And you want to compare that to the seditious acts of these proud boys, of the Wolverine Watchmen and all these other crazy groups? You can’t compare the two.” Then, James Carville joins and gives an ultimatum to the Biden administration: “If they're not going to look at [Trump’s crimes], I'm going to resign from the Democratic party,” he says. “If it's not an impeachable offense to encourage a mob, to interfere with a constitutionally mandated congressional procedure, then there's nothing impeachable.” Plus, Rick breaks down Wednesday's seditious acts, Josh Hawley gets inducted into the Fuck that Guy Hall of Fame, and he and Molly speculate if anyone actually would vote to keep Ted Cruz in the Senate. And! Look out for a Trump News Network! Coming soon for just $4.99 a month! Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit, and editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, best-selling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respective bunkers. Rick Wilson, yesterday we had a coup. A little bit of a coup, a wee little coup, a petite coup, if you will.

Yes, a coup, a coup of the stupid, and they got in there, they took selfies, they didn't you weren't able to do anything. Well, look, I don't want to minimize it. These people at the orders of Donald Trump and at the encouragement of Donald Trump's sedition caucus inside the Senate and the House attacked the legislative seat of government in this country. They attacked it not for a political outcome, but to try to burn down our political system. And they attacked those buildings, and they attacked the people guarding those buildings. And if they'd been able to find them, they would have attacked the members

of Congress. Yeah. They came in to the Capitol grounds with things like pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails and handcuffs and guns and police batons and and let me tell you something. They weren't automatic weapons. They weren't automatic no they're not automatic. They were semi-automatic. It's a distinction without a difference. You're just trying to rile me up on

the auto-sumato. Someday I've all I'm drunk fast. I will take you the gun range and you will learn what the meaning of rock and roll is when you fire a cyclic weapon. Oh Jesus. All right continue. Y'all, just by the way, there's going to be a special extra, extra beast inside members where Molly Jung Fass will be firing a 50 caliber machine gun wearing an American flag.

The entry level on that is $100,000. That's right I was going to say. I go on. Can't wait until Molly gives away those profits to every town at Michael Bloomberg for all his great work with guns. Oh, Jesus. So yesterday they tried a coup, it didn't work, but it did show us that we're in a lot of trouble. I think that's fair to say. Right, we're in deep shit, and let's be really, really, really direct here.

Our capital has been attacked before. It was the target of an attack, unsuccessful, thank God, on 9-11 with Flight 93, where the members of that flight overcame the hijackers and crashed the plane into a field in Pennsylvania. It has been bombed over the years by Puerto Rican separatists, by various nutcases, by assorted mentally deranged individuals, by anarchists. It was under attack in the Civil War. We were within hours in the Civil War of Washington being sacked at one point. It was attacked in 1814 during the War of 1812 and burned.

it has survived all these things. But in each one of those examples, the attackers were from the outside. In each one of those examples, the attackers were not American citizens who hold the highest office in the land, encouraging their followers to attack our government. And, you know, the word sedition is sadly underused in this country, but everyone's heard it again the last few days because it's true. There's a caucus of seditious, treasonous people who currently, are in office in the U.S. Senate and in the House who conspired with Donald Trump to promote his desire

to overthrow our election. Yesterday they took action in the, I think the first phase of their actions in order to try to sustain and delay the end of Donald Trump's presidency. Right. And they marched, and it was speaker, it started off with the stop the steel rally. Right. If the federal government is not right now pursuing, that motherfucker Roger Stone and Ali Alexander Akbar, whatever the fuck his name is now, and the rest of the organizers

at the stop the steel rally, which pre-printed shirts that said Maga Civil War, January 6th, 2020, if they're not pursuing those people as the lead conspirators in an attempt to overthrow the United States government, I don't know what the fuck they do for a living

because that's what these people did. And they organized this, they planned this, This is not some random occurrence that just happened to bubble up because Donald Trump made one speech. There were logistics. There was planning. There were maps. There were people who had organized themselves into various units in this thing. There were people who designated rally points for the groups to meet at before they went in and charged the building. And more than that, Trump said when he was speaking, let's march up to the Capitol. all, you know, he said for weeks and weeks and weeks that this would be the day. I mean, there were so much encouragement. And then you had Rudy Giuliani saying a similar thing. I mean, and then you had Don Jr. with the expletives. I mean, these people were not coming up with us themselves. I'm so fucking offended. He fucking used expletives, though. That cocksucker. That low-life snake belly dickweed cock sucker, pecker. Oh, God. You know how many expletives you have to, you, you know, he had to use.

for Fox News to just drop the feed during meandering speech? There's nothing like Chris Winter Morning to get you juiced up and ready to rock. The point is I think there was for sure what, you know, this was the work of Donald Trump. Now, what happened next and what we're hearing right now when we're tape this is that Nancy Pelosi has said, you know, either you do the 25th Amendment. Yes, or she's going to move forward with impeachment. Pence has seems to have really abandoned Trump at this point, right? Well, his chief of staff, Mark Short, was banned from the White House last night. What does that mean?

They revoked his hard pass. Wow. Trump is done with Pence. Right. I mean, basically the Senate was so sort of scared, and Congress was so scared by this, that they certified the election in the middle of the night, which is both good for democracy, but also probably a sign of just how bad things are. Don't you think, Rick?

It was a bad sign for democracy that the seat of our legislative branch was invaded by armed terrorists yesterday. It is a bad sign for democracy that the people that organized it and encouraged it were also in the chamber that night. Last night, standing in that chamber pretending like nothing had happened. It is a bad sign for democracy that Kevin McCarthy, that chicken shit dummy. And by the way, Kevin McCarthy is the Louis Gomert of the slow coaches. of Congress. He's not a bright guy. He's an affable guy. He's a friendly guy. He's not a bright guy. But the fact that Kevin McCarthy has not said to his caucus, all right, I'd rather not be minority leader and have you guys embrace this bullshit conspiracy crap. But he's got Matt Gates

and Gomer and Jordan and every other and Bobert and all the other morons that are in the Trump caucus. They're out there right now trying to retcon history and say, well, it was Antifa that snuck in. Those were Maga people. Those were radical leftist Soros supporters. Those were Black Lives Matter people. Those were those filthy communists. He still gets a major role as Speaker to say the words. All right, Matt Gates.

One more fucking word out of you on this. And you're going to be on the Marine Fisheries Committee. So AOC called for Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to both be expelled from the Senate. Do you guys think that should happen as well? Do you think other people should be thrown out as well? Well, listen, the amazing thing is, to expel someone from the Senate, it only takes two-thirds, okay? There are 50 Democrats. You don't think you could get 16 Republicans to expel Ted Cruz from the Senate.

I mean, look, it might be a little tougher with some of the other people, but Ted Cruz, I mean, they'd, if the vote came down to it, especially if it was a secret ballot, shit, it'd be like. 99 to 1. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Against himself. The vote counter is all confused. Like, why is there a ballot from a fat wolverid?

Right. God. Josh Hawley really did just do this as a craven opportunist. Look, Josh Hawley is... From Missouri. Who hasn't ever lived in Missouri? Right. He lives in the great state of Virginia.

Right. Just so y'all are all aware. Josh Hawley... is a very strong exemplar of what I warn about all the time, that the next iteration of Trumpism will not be as crude and japish and moronic as this generation. The next generation of Trumpism will be slick and smart and have good credentials and have a degree from an ivy, and it will look a lot different, but it will be worse and more evil and darker and more dangerous. And that's Josh Hawley.

Yeah. Because even after last night, even after yesterday, That motherfucker still went on the floor of the United States Senate and kept playing the game. He kept playing the game. And I got to tell you, just as a quick aside, when my boys and I at the Lincoln Project start to really get a hate on, my boys and girls in Lincoln Project get a hate on for somebody, as we all may have noticed, it is without boundaries. And Josh Hawley is doing what the Germans did in World War I. They said, well, fuck you. We're going to engage in unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic. We're going to sink everything.

Right. civilians, military, commercial, whatever, we're going to sink at all. You want to play that game? Well, let's fucking play that game, Josh, because he is a very ambitious young man. He wants a lot out of this life, a lot out of this world. But he's going to find that people who give him money now are going to be very heavily targeted. People that support him are going to be very heavily targeted. We're not just going to go with him.

He is now enemy number one, in my personal view, of the future of freedom and the future of this country. in a meaningful way. He is a slick fascist. He is a well-dressed, ivy credentialed fascist, but he is still a motherfucking fascist. And as a member of Antifa, just to admit it right here now, I am a member of Antifa. I am anti-fascist, and I prefer my fascist to be in the format and modality that usually is the end of these conflicts rather than at the beginning. And so that I, since I don't want to get beep today, I will just leave it right there. Did you ever think that there would be a world where Josh Holly is more of a fascist than Tom Cotton? It is difficult to imagine, isn't it?

Right? I mean, I had Tom Cotton on my bingo card as, like, scary fascist more than a Josh Holly. Well, you know, at some point, deep in his, deep in his crusty little soul, Tom Cotton said, fuck, I'm not going to be a part of this bullshit. And you saw a number of the other ones last night doing the same thing. one of my favorite Twitter interactions in my decade on Twitter now was last night I tweeted, oh, Lizzie's trying to get his soul back. Isn't that cute? And the tweet of God replied, I'd never give him his soul back. His soul is in heaven now. It has a husband and two kids and is happy.

So while we're on happy-dos, we've not got to do a celebratory victory, dads, about winning the Senate down in Georgia. And I have to say as a Jew, just for a second, who comes from a family of people who went down to the South to do civil rights. There is something, you know, my grandparents and they were friends with, you know, Adam Goodman, my grandmother had an affair with Adam Goodman's father. Supposedly, I don't know, maybe it's not true. There was a lot of affairs, but they, you know, as a Jew who has really been very connected always with, you know, the quest for civil rights, it's pretty exciting to send a Jew and an African American to the Senate from a southern state that used to be part of the Confederacy.

I mean, it doesn't get much better than that. No, it really doesn't. And there's a degree to which sending the first Jewish American and the first African-American senator from Georgia at the end of this era. Yeah, and the end of Trumpism. At the end of the Trump era is a beautiful sort of moment. Yeah. And while that campaign was as close as it needs to ever get,

because it really was as close as it could. ever get. You were a little nervous. Listen, and I told you for weeks, you kept asking me, what do you think? What do you think? I kept saying, it's fucking close. And I, you know, it's,

it's going to be really close. It's going to be half a point one way or the other. Sure enough, half a point. Luckily, in the right direction. Out of recount. Out of recount. Yeah. And, you know, and it's funny, somebody brought up

Leo Frank, who was a Jewish guy who was lynched. 1913. It's 1913. Okay. In Atlanta. I have to say, you know, it is something that that is underappreciated about the clan, about the equal opportunity of their hate. You know, in the deep south, they hated black people, you know, at a pretty high level. Yeah.

Just after that, Jews and Catholics were right after it. Yeah. They were not fans. I also think we've just come from this terrible period of, for me, what's been one of the worst things about Trumpism has been the Jews who have supported Trump. Right, because it's just so perverse. as someone who grew up, you know, a Jewish liberal, forever and ever and ever, the message was the people who come for African Americans are the same people who will come for Yale.

Right. So to see that was very terrifying. I grew up in Tampa, Florida, of all places, which was a hotbed of the clan in the teens, 20s, and 30s in the Deep South. And there was a book about it one time I read it. And the thing that struck me hardest was there was a year where they killed more Catholic, and Jews, they lynch more Catholics and Jews in one year in this one area than they did African Americans. And I was just like, that is some equal opportunity of hate.

You know, and I noticed yesterday they were putting a cross-up on the South Capitol when they were there for their little wee-ku invasion. And a person, a friend of mine texted me, he said, either they're going to worship there or they're looking forward to burning it this evening. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. It's really scary. So, Rick, now that the Democrats have won this Georgia race, I want to revisit a thought that you expressed that got a lot of listeners up in arms.

Yeah. You had expressed that Joe Manchin may possibly get bribed by Michigan McConnell to go over to the other side. Yeah, he might. And why would Joe Manchin do that when he would just probably get primaried out of office if he was a Republican? He just got reelected. Mitch McConnell would choke the life out of any human being that went up against. a guy he flipped. And people should be wary of that. I don't want to, I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just trying to make sure that everybody keeps in mind that Mitch McConnell is five foot two

Satan. Is he really only five two? I don't know how Paul is. He's not, he's not that, he's not that tall though. I'm five, ten, and he's definitely shorter than me. But don't you think Elaine Chow, like he is done with Donald Trump? If his wife is resigning from the cabinet, it's over. Look, I think it is over. But here's the thing. The minute Trump's out, what does Mitch McConnell have? He's the minority leader right now. What does he want to be the majority leader again? Right. So, no one should

underestimate that Mitch McConnell is not ideological. Mitch McConnell is driven by transactional power politics. Right. And so, if Mitch McConnell was told, hey, you have to go on the steps of the Capitol and hold up a live baby and eat it on television. You know what he

would do? He'd say, I'd like some of that Duke's mayonnaise to go with that live baby. Because he would eat a live baby on television to maintain power. There's nothing he will not do to get that majority leader position back. So people need to understand that if you give Joe Manchin excuses to leave, he will take them. You really think so? I really think so. Always look for the weakest spot on your enemy's deck, okay? That's where you shoot the cannon fire. If Joe Manchin is given the chance to say, well, I couldn't kill off

West Virginia's economy because they were insisting I buy the green, into the Green New Deal or whatever. And look, and I know people are going to hate that. They're going to say, well, we can't let one person hold it's hostage. We can't let one person keep the whole, you know, the wheels of progress from turning. Just be smart about it. Just time your shit properly. Just give people room to maneuver because, and I say this to my progressive friends

with great love, it's 5049. Right. Okay. You don't have 60 votes. You're not going to overcome the filibuster. You're not going to undo the filibuster. It's not going to happen. And so you still have to make deals and do things that make sense.

There is a cohort of Republicans in the Senate that can be very agreeable, that can be smart. There are many of them that are going to be trying to do some penance after the last four years. Right. So take advantage of it and don't alienate them. Be smart about it. So you don't go in and say, we're passing the Green New Deal tomorrow. Fuck you all energy sector jobs. You know, we probably would have won Pennsylvania by 100,000.

and more votes if energy workers and fracking stuff, that message actually was working for Trump. Right. Because people are not sophisticated. They don't dig through it. They just know, fracking means jobs in my area. Americans are terrible at thinking about consequences over time. Yes, we're aware. They have a lot of trouble with that. Really? Tell me more.

Like understanding the expectations, choices, and consequences matrix. So, by the way, can I bring up one other thing that's just delighted me to? today. Please. They have cut Donald Trump's balls off by taking him off Facebook. And Twitter, too. Well, he's suspended for 12 hours. Facebook and Instagram took him off.

Twitter has him. They're deciding. Apparently they had a board meeting today. Yeah, they have a board meeting this afternoon. I can't imagine that let him back. If Facebook isn't letting, you can't be worse than Facebook. Facebook's letting hold it freezing him for two weeks. Until Biden is sworn in.

There's a lot of opportunity here for our social media world to have a moment of sanity and respite. Yeah. The deep breath we're allowed to take by Trump being off Facebook, it immediately is going to take a gigantic amount of wind out of the sales of this hamster wheel of propaganda and incitement, agitation, and violence and bullshit. It's going to immediately draw down some of the venom in that world. Because, look, let's face it, they're not all going on parlor. or gab or rumble or whatever the fuck. What's rumble? It's Dan Bongino's YouTube alternative.

Oh my God. Jesus. And maybe he will because after all, Dan Bonino, crush the Drudge Report, man. He, like, drudge is no longer. Wait. Wait, what? Dan Bonino launched the Bonino report,

which is going to be the Drudge report because Drudge Report just wasn't Trumpy enough for it. Yeah, that's good. The Bonino Report. Yeah, and Matt Drudge rolls over and farts in his sleep and gets more hits than Dan Langeo. Michael Cohen is the former personal attorney to disgraced president Donald J. Trump and the author of The New York Times bestseller, Disloyal, and the host of the podcast, Mia Copa. Well, folks, welcome to the new abnormal.

We've got a very special guest today. It's Michael Cohen, a man who knows Donald Trump more and better than almost anyone on earth. And I'm sorry for that. It's a lot of, it's a heavy burden sometimes, I'm sure, Michael. But Michael, welcome to the podcast. Well, thank you very much, and it's good to be here. Michael, where do you think his head is at right now? After what happened yesterday?

Well, I think right now Donald Trump is terrified and angry all at the same time. My understanding is that he's walking around the White House right now, angry, brooding, basically attacking anyone and everyone for not just this loss, but the current predicament that he's currently in. Right. So it can never be his fault, right? It's got to be somebody else's fault. He didn't do this. Of course. Donald Trump is incapable of error. Don't you know, having you learned that at least in the last four years? For sure. For sure. I mean, just, I want you to think about something. Just watching him, right, clinging to this growing desperation to anyone or anything that will keep him in power, no matter how insane or how dangerous it is. It's really beyond. Certainly it's beyond the

protection of his executive privilege. And he's so scared right now that he's actually attacking his own government. I mean, think about it. You even have now, what's her name, Cho, who's walked away. Everybody seems to be resigning, as if that's going to give them, right, the opportunity to save their soul or to acknowledge some role. wrongdoing or basically save their reputations. Well, let me, let me warn them and the Mick Mulvaney's of the world and all of the other assholes that have jumped ship at the end of the day. Here's the truth and here's the bottom line. Nothing that they can ever do will get them welcome back into any, certainly any blue state, but actually into society that they came from. Because me personally,

I would never want to see somebody like them in my presence. They have behaved. in such a reckless and a damaging way to the democracy of this country that they're going to need to basically stay with themselves and their family. And that's actually my hope for all of them, that the rest of their lives they have to pay for the damage that they've done. Michael, I think, you know, you've experienced like the high of being, like, in that inner orbit and the low of having, you know, having your life destroyed by the things that this guy, you know, compromise you on into doing and the way that you got dragged. down. You've seen it firsthand. You're like no, almost no one else has seen just how destructive and how

he does not have any emotional connection to anybody else and will burn anyone to the ground. How is it these people don't realize that at this point? How is it they cannot understand it? And it baffles me every day. I still ponder it. Like, how about fuck did they not figure this out? Yeah. Look, Donald Trump, as far as I'm concerned, creates a very clear and present danger to this nation. And, I mean, it should really be obvious to everyone that's listening to this podcast. He has no remorse. He has no empathy. There is no depth to the limit to which he will sink in order to hold on to power.

Now, I will tell you what I think in this specific case, I truly think that this was a play by Donald Trump that if he got away with what it was that he was looking to do, that he would actually become an autocrat. He would become the Vladimir Putin of the United States of America. Oh, absolutely. I think that was the goal, for sure. That was the goal. And the fact that he failed and failed so miserably,

now he knows that he's going to be dealing with the various litigations that will be ensuing against him and his family. But he doesn't even care about them. It's about him and his eponymous company. So where does he go next, Michael? Well, hopefully it's to Leavenworth. But where does he go now? You know, on my podcast, Mayor Coppa,

I talk about Mara Lago, and I don't call it Mara Lago anymore, because Donald Trump is going to need to be the ruler or the dictator of some country. And he will try to turn Mara Lago into its own country, which I always term as Magastan. And his MAGA army can show up there, and they could sit there with their flags. They sit there with their t-shirts and their stupid, ugly red Donald Trump hats with the goddamn rope that goes across. I mean, if that's not the fucking ugliest act that you've ever seen, And yet they sold millions of them, which goes to show you that not only that not only to his supporters not think straight, they also have terrible style. How do we get him out of the White House on January 20th? Yeah, that you're not going to have to worry about. One thing that Trump knows is that he's not the president come January 20th.

And he is fully aware that if in fact he's occupying the White House after the inauguration, of Joe Biden that the Washington police, that the Capitol police, that they know how to deal with intruders, that you can rest assured. So I don't believe that he will even be in Washington at that time. I believe he goes right back to Magistand, and he sits there, and he whines and he complains every single day to anyone that will listen to him. And unfortunately, it's more people than you would think about how the election was stolen from him, that he is actually the president. president of this country at the moment, that he is the ultimate and supreme ruler of this country. And anybody who says anything different is no longer invited to come to Magistan for Maralago burgers and

shrimp cocktail. You know, I think that's, Michael, I think you got it, you nailed it right on the head there. This is a guy who will always rewrite every story. He will always rewrite history. He will always claim he won. And it was just ripped off from him. And it was stolen by George Sor. or whatever other imaginary demon he's got in his head that day. You know, this is a giant fundraising operation he's built. This email system that he's got is a giant fundraising scam of the highest order. He's going to keep trying to claim he's going to run for president again.

He's going to keep talking about how he was stripped off. And at some point, he's going to have to make a decision if he's really going to run in 22, or 24, excuse me. And I know he's going to be close to 80 years old at that point. But what do you think the odds are that I have, him to think he's just going to bullshit and raise money off of it. But what do you think the odds are that he finds himself in a position where he runs again in 24? Zero. So I think he's going to be bombarded by so much litigation, whether it's by Tish James, the New York Attorney General, or

Cyrus Vance Jr., the DA here in New York, or any of the other multitude of attorney generals, the DAs throughout this country that have actions against him or will bring actions against him based upon the fraud that he is committed in so many states, whether it's going to be, you know, financial crimes, whether it'll be criminal, you know, so whether it's civil or criminal, I do not know. But he's not going to run in 2024. And I've made this very clear where it's not what's happening here. What's happening here is he's always intended on creating his own news network, TNN, Trump News Network, which is why he's now going so he's going. going so hard against Fox News. The only people that put up with his bullshit and his lies for the

last four years, whether it's a New York Post or whether it's Fox News Channel, they have promoted his misinformation and disinformation campaign because it's suited their bottom line. Well, now he's coming against them and he's looking to take Fox News's audience away and to bring it to Trump News Network for $4.99. sense a month. Now, let me just tell you the mindset of this man. How many times has Donald Trump told you, I have 100 million, I have 100 million followers, 100 million followers. I have the biggest Twitter followers, right? And the truth of the matter is in his mind, he thinks he's bigger than the New York Times. He thinks he's bigger than Fox. He thinks he's bigger than MSNBC and CNN and

everybody combined. What he is accurate about is not that he's bigger because he mistakenly believes that he has 100 million supporters. He may have 100 million followers, but many of those followers just want to say, hey, Donald, your orange-crusted schmuck, all right? Go ahead with yourself. That's really what a lot of people use Twitter for. But what he does have is a good percentage of that number, say 20%.

Right? That's 20 million supporters. And of that 20 million, how many of them are willing to subscribe it $499 a month to Trump News Network? And I think the answer is, by the way, if he gets those 20 million, that's a hundred million a month. And that's a billion to a year that he's going to create some partnership with the likes of Chris Ruddy of Newsmax or O-A-N-N where he'll use their platform. He'll bring on the likes of a Sean Hannity or a Tucker Carlson or, you know, Megan Kelly that all of a sudden, after all the shitty things he's done to her comes to kiss his fat ass. I mean, I don't understand what people are thinking anymore, and I don't understand why they don't see Donald Trump for who he is after so many of us that actually know him have given specifics that Donald Trump is a racist.

Donald Trump is a sexist. He's a misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-Semite. That's just who he is. So if this is the man that you're going to look up to, I think you actually need to put some vizene in your eyes. see the man clearly for who the hell he is, because this is no joke. And I'll tell you, what scares me the most is with less than two weeks left in this terrible Donald Trump reign, Donald seems determined to do as much damage as possible on his way out of office. And I said, and I said it on one of the MSNBC programs, I think maybe with Ari Melburgh, that Donald Trump would rather burn down the White House than turn over the keys, then turn over the keys to Joe Biden. in his mind, Joe Biden is a loser and he's a winner. And the fact that actually Joe Biden is the

winner and he's the loser is something his fragile ego cannot contend with. So what do you think happens now? In terms of what? I think he will do as much damage on the way out as he possibly can. So does Trump go to Mar-a-Lago or does he just stay until January 19th? Well, no, I think he goes to Marilago. When? I'm not exactly sure. I'm not his, you know, social secretary, right, or his, or his travel agent. But he definitely will not be in D.C. on the 20th. That's certainly for sure. But here's the big problem. As the president of Magistan, Donald Trump doesn't need to be in D.C. to blow the dog whistle, right? And to gaslight these supporters that think it's okay to act in the manner that they did yesterday.

smashing windows, knocking down doors, you know, trying to disrupt a capital meeting. I mean, who the hell do they think that they are, that they have the right to do this? And all they, and they're all doing it, right, in order to appease Donald Trump's fragile ego? What? Michael, I mean, like a lot of people who find themselves under extreme stress, Donald Trump is increasingly unable to like, it keeps reminding me of Bernie Mayer. off. You know, when you study it, the guy at the guy at the end of the Ponzi scheme is always desperately flailing, trying to find one last, you know, trance of money, one more scam to pull off. There's a breaking point for everybody, even for Trump. It really feels like we're almost there.

I mean, he seems very much unstable at this point. How much do you think there's a chance that he just absolutely, like, cracks in the next 14 days? Well, I think very much that's a good possibility. I mean, I've often said Donald Trump has become a presidential golem, right? A monster of our own creation. And we are responsible for the creation of this monster, right?

We all are, especially the media because they covered him with such intensity and each and every time he said something more and more fucking abysmal, more and more divisive, more and more racist and sexist and xenophobic, the more

that they covered him. And it's started with the lies about Barack Obama. And it continued, right, all the way to the women that are making allegations against it. It continued to the election fraud. It continued to everything. And they cover it with such intensity, with such intensity that it fuels Donald Trump's own internal fire. And we created a monster, myself included. Do you think that Donald Trump is, is mentally ill and more so than he was before? Because it seems to me, since he's lost the election, he has pretty much not even made this sort of tableau of governing anymore.

I'm not a psychiatrist, but Donald Trump probably could have and should have used one long before I started working for him in 2007. Look, Donald Trump was always an asshole. I got to be very honest with you from even before I started working for him, but he was a different type of an asshole. This is different. What we did at the Trump organization, I mean, the notion that people will even turn around and say,

yeah, but you went to prison, you were a bad guy, you worked for him. I did work for him. And what did I do? I paid $130,000 to keep quiet the fact that the president got his pecker pulled by a porn star, seriously. And you want to compare that to the seditious acts of these proud boys, of the Wolverine Watchmen and all these other crazy groups, right, are out there breaking down, you know, doors and storming the Capitol. I mean, this is,

this is, you can't compare the two. And Donald Trump at the same point in time was a very different guy. He was a microcosm of the real estate industry just in New York. Forget about the country. Right. And yeah, we did, yes, I did shitty things for him. But do you see him getting worse? He is worse. When he left and became president of the United States, he was. He was. He was, was, for the most part, the same Donald Trump. And many of us that were behind him had hoped and prayed that he would act in a way where he would elevate himself to the office of the presidency, instead of debase the office of the presidency to act like he's the president of the Trump organization, if that makes any sense to you. He has become the worst version of himself.

And it is terrifying and should be terrifying because there are. that many people out there that still listen to him. Now, I know he's talked about that he was going to do the million Trump march and all that stuff. And what, 30,000 or 25,000 people showed up? I mean, that's not a million people, though he'll tell you that there were more than a million people that were there. Of course.

He's delusional. The guy is freaking delusional. And he cannot handle. And it goes right back again to his fragile ego. He cannot handle the fact that he lost. He cannot handle what is going to be coming against him now that he has lost the power of the executive office to stop litigation against him. And this is terrifying to him. And Donald Trump is not somebody that has ever in his entire life taken responsibility for his own dirty deeds.

And at the age of 75, 76, whatever he's at now, it's the first time in his life that he's, that he has to take responsibility for his own dirty deeds, and he doesn't have anyone around him that either cares enough about him or is capable of doing that. I mean, don't think, for example, Mark Meadows is capable of anything. Mark Meadows may be the dumbest fucking guy in all of Washington. I mean, let's be serious, right? He's got a group of, he's got a group of sycophants who are basically incapable of managing

their own life. I mean, think about Mark Meadows, for God's sakes. And now he's giving the medal of freedom to guys like Jim Jordan. Really? Right? Now he wants to give three of them to three golfers. I mean, the guy is truly an idiot. He's truly an idiot. He's making a bigger spectacle and a fool of himself each and every day. So you have made the arc of discovery and pain and reformation on the Trump thing more vividly and more painful than almost anybody. You saw this from the very inside and you have suffered greatly for it and you have turned yourself in a very different direction in the world. I have to ask you, how do you think he's going to do when it comes down to the fact he's going to get prosecuted in New York and

elsewhere for bank fraud, tax fraud, and all this stuff? How do you think he's going to, I mean, at some point, you can't live in the fantasy bubble anymore and you get, and you just realize, hey, I'm about to get fucked by the law and it's not going to change. I mean, you, You must have had that moment where you realize like, oh, shit, this is real and I'm and I'm fucked. How do you think he's going to react when he really understands that he's actually done? Well, hence why I'm saying he's walking the White House, brooding and scared and angry. And those are for all the reasons why. He knows that he is going to have to pay the piper for his dirty deeds.

Now, you know, he does have people telling him, you know, Mr. President, you're not going to ever go to prison. It's unconscionable that they would ever think about incarcerating a former president. It creates all sorts of problems for, you know, peaceful transfers of power from one party to another, right? I think he's wrong about it. He is such an anomaly, right, in every aspect of being a president that I think that, God willing, Merrick Garland becomes the attorney general, who is a bipartisan. You know, he's a bipartisan guy. I believe that they have no other choice but to prosecute him, Don Jr., Eric, Alan Weisselberg, the CFO of the Trump organization, Jared Pushner, his entire, I believe that they have no choice but to do it because what will ultimately happen, and this happens all the time. When there's a change of administrations, there are emails that are on the system. There are, you know, documents and recordings in the system that will show. that Donald Trump did not act as a president on behalf of the country, but he was actually

acting on behalf of himself and his company. And Kushner was doing the exact same thing. And that's what we're going to ultimately find out. And they're going to have to prosecute because it's so egregious on so many levels. You know, the idea that Trump somehow thought that the presidency would leave him permanently immune to prosecution, it just makes me smile every day. Because these state charges, these state charges on bank fraud, tax fraud, everything else, they're not going away. You're absolutely right, Michael. They're going to ride him like a pony. Do you think Trump knows it's over now?

No, I don't. I actually think that he's delusional at this point. The anger has really created something in his head where he legitimately believes that the election was stolen from him. he believes that he will be the rightful president, even though it's always tomorrow, tomorrow, right? So January 6th was the date that I show the world that I'm still the president. He is going to continue the same narrative over and over. And I used to believe that that narrative was simply to fleece more and more hundreds of millions of dollars out of these unsuspecting supporters. Right. That's what I thought.

But after listening to that Georgia phone call, I am certain that Donald Trump is psychotic right now, and he is in a place deeper and in more despair than he has ever been. I talk a lot about this in my book, in Disloyal, where I talk about Donald Trump being a narcissistic sociopath. And the fact that when you do something like this to a narcissistic sociopath, someone who believes that they are above everyone else, that there is no possibility that he could ever create a single. single error. Obviously, you've seen in the four plus years that he's been on this trip, that Donald Trump has yet to apologize for anything because Donald Trump cannot make an error. Well, what happens now when you're confronted with your demon, right? That comes back and it's staring you in the mirror and it's your own reflection showing that you are actually a fucking

loser. And that your entire company is going to be dismantled because Donald Trump and his company are synonymous. He believes that as a billionaire, that he is the second coming of Christ. And, you know, when he finally realizes that Joe Biden is being sworn in, this is going to be a really ugly time in America, even after he leaves. So you think he was. So you think he was. just continually try to overthrow the Biden president. I think he's going to be a thorn in president-elect Biden's ass for many years to come. He's going to try to do to Biden what he thinks he did to Obama. And he still, despite the fact that you may say or others may say that Obama didn't care

about anything that Donald Trump said, I'm not 100% certain that that's true. But I don't believe that he was as much on Obama's mind. as Donald Trump would like you to believe, right? So Donald will now, again, play to his supporters, which, you know, are many millions. He will constantly play to them seeking more and more money. You know, the funny thing is, since all of this crazy shit has been happening, the more, you know what's been the craziest thing about it,

is people who are Republicans, people who I know, friends of mine, who receive emails and texts from the Trump campaign, have received five times more requests for money now than they did before. Every 15, 20 minutes. Hey, we need $30. Hey, we need $5. Be one of the first 30,000 people to send $1. I mean, they're just going all out to fleece people during the worst time in American history with this pandemic

where nobody has any money. And all the rich people that were basically supporting him because, of course, they were supporting themselves, they've all now jumped ship. What, Donald who? Donald? Donald. Donald. Right? No more money for Donald. I have Trump fatigue. I'm done giving more money to him. Well, Michael, you have been through the ringer, brother. And I will just say this, Michael, all the pain you've been through, you're about to watch that motherfucker suffer in ways

that he has never imagined in his life. I know that doesn't undo it all. It does not, because the pain that this man and this situation has caused to my family, I believe you, brother. It's soul-wrenching. It doesn't just break your heart. It shreds your soul. Before we get into things, we have a fun little treat. There are so many insane things happening in the world right now,

and two episodes a week just aren't enough to cover it all. So, the new Abnormal is going to release a limited run series of bonus interviews over the next few weeks for Beast Inside members only. We'll release a new one each Sunday. But listen carefully. Only Beast Inside members will have access to these. So, head over to the New Abnormal, dot the DailyBeast.com to become a beast inside member now.

That's new abnormal. dot the dailybeast.com. James Carville is a democratic institution and a veteran of countless campaigns, and he's going to talk to us about the latest news and all of the fuckery. So, James, the last time you were on was the day after election day, and this is what you said. If you were to have the biggest election in your lifetime, and when you know, man,

And I'll tell you two things even better. You're going to win the popular vote, and you're going to win the electoral college vote. But the deal is you're going to feel like shit. James, how do you feel today? Well, I felt great Tuesday night. I got my vaccine on Tuesday night. Oh, good, because you were a national treasure. So this makes me very happy.

And I did MSNBC. It was late. And I drank about three-quarters of sister bourbon. I go to bed to like 3.30. I got up at late, and I'm sitting in my chair and said, you know, I'm going to honestly having some reaction to this vaccine. I don't feel very good. You got a hang on.

Jesus. Let's talk about Georgia. How do you feel about Georgia? Aestatic. Yeah. It's really ecstatic. And as I pointed out, Trump went to Dalton, which is in Whitfield. County and actually

Ossoff ran about a 10th of a point ahead of Biden. Right. And the turnout in Whitfield County was below the state average. So he lost big time. He didn't even get it done in his visit. And I just, I had fun

sticking that shit in it. But it was good. I mean, it's, you know, the Democratic Party can't be any more liberal than Joe Mansion. So I don't know what people are, you know, Well, we are. So what do you think happens now besides, I mean, do we, first of all, Trump leaves office theoretically. What should Biden get going on?

If Biden does three things, all achievable, all achievable. The first thing is, is Merrick Garland that the only pages that Merrick Garland needs to turn are pages in the federal criminal code, all right? Okay, let's hear it. That, that's the first thing after, the second thing I have to do is get this guy, Mr. Zeyant, who everybody's, says is a very competent, talented guy. And call him in and said, in the next 60 days, we've got to have a 50% better production and distribution of the vaccine.

Whatever you need, you got. Right. And the third thing he needs to sit Joe Manchin down and said, I need two and a half trillion dollars worth of infrastructure to get started, right down to five things you want in West Virginia. Yeah. And let's start pouring concrete and, you know, doing all the stuff that we need to do as a country. If he does those three, he's going to be fine. So infrastructure, vaccines, and what's the first one? And enforcing

the federal criminal code. Against Trump. In other words, indict him and conduct him. Do you see that happening? Because I feel like Biden is not a big indicter. Well, if they say they're not going to look at him, I'm going to resign from the Democratic Party. Okay. I will change my arrest. I can't be a member

of a political party that is tolerant of mass. Crime things. I can't do it. Yeah. I can't do it. And I mean, there's, I don't know how many. I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, Godin and Biden will.

I really do. Good. And I think what Trump's, all of this, what we're seeing is, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I know this is called phobia. Fear of being incarcerated. Right. And that's what's driving with behavior. Yeah. That makes sense.

Yes. That's why he's, I mean, even by his standards, he's, he's, he's, he's, extra money. What do you think about, like, I see infrastructure seems like an easy win. What should Biden stay away from? Is Joe Manchin sort of holding this whole thing hostage because he's not very liberal? Without him, they're out of votes. Right. No, no way. Yeah. I know Senator Manchin. He's, you know, I know these guys. He's actually a Democrat. He had every, if he wanted to have been a Republican, they would have let him, that are giving him that Senate seat for lights. Yeah. All right?

Now, you know, he's got a lot of chips. And, I mean, Mark Warren, I know Governor Warner well, he's not the most, you know, he's definitely a Democrat, but he's certainly not the most liberal guy I've ever known from Arizona, Christian Sinema. Yeah. He's hardly a fighting and lefty. I mean, Hickenlooper. Yeah.

They're just not. They're not that last. The fantasies are both the right and the left about what this. but this Congress can or will do. Yeah. They'll do a lot. Don't get me wrong. Right.

Which is a lot of power, as we've seen from Mitch over the last four years. Right. And, you know, Mitch's mausoleum and there's all kinds of stuff. Exactly. They could have brought up that would have passed, but he wouldn't bring it up. So that's going to change a good bit. I mean, look, the world is infinitely better for Chuck Schumer to date. And it was, you know, Monday.

Yeah. And all of Biden's cabinet will sail through now. Yeah, they'll probably shoot one, you know, or two. I mean, just something can come up. I mean, I presume, you know, something always happens. I mean, somebody's going to send a text to someone with a man and, you know, going to be unacceptable. The shift I saw for people like Mitt Romney, not Mitt Romney, because Mitt Romney's been pretty consistent, but like people like Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, it was like they completely,

in my mind it was like they were scared. Shit, everybody was scared. You'd have been scared if you'd have been there too. Oh, yeah. I mean, by the way, Senator McCown's wife resigned today, which ought to give you a pretty good indication of what he thinks about it. I mean, I literally, and a number of people called me, I literally cried yesterday. Yeah.

I can't bleed at my children. I can't believe people were seeing this. The people that were just, like just friends of mine, not Washington types, they just couldn't believe it. Yeah. And they're going to jail every one of these people if they don't all go to the penitentiary. I can't tell you how many federal criminal statutes you violate when you do something like that. And they have all that facial. The FBI is going to get them all.

Yeah. And they're going to put them away. And they need to. There's just a pack of common criminals. You know how secure the capital is. Why do you think it got so out of control? Well, I'll give you a series. One of the theories is that every, you know, completely nutty person within a 300-mile radius of Washington came.

And I don't know the difference between proud boys and the plans of the neo-Nazis and everything. But, I mean, if you were a highly motivated person if you came to Washington, and these are people that are, frankly, prone to violence. Now, there are some people that think that maybe certain elements of the capital police were less than vigilant. You know, you don't get to congressmen hiding on the floor of their office worried they're going to be shot to death without a lot of mistakes happening along the way. Well, remember Trump, one of the reasons he should be impeached this afternoon and convicted. He delayed calling a national guard up for three hours. Yeah.

If it's not an impeachable offense to encourage a mob to interfere with a constitutionally mandated congressional procedure, then there's nothing impeachable. And then him delaying the guard call up. And according to the Philip Rucker, he was enjoying it on TV. That's in the Washington Post. Yeah, no, no. I'm sure. I mean, I'm sure that's true. Well, I mean, he's just truly mad.

Yeah. We had Bill Cohen on our podcast yesterday. Yeah. You know, the 10 secretaries of defense, and that was instigated by Cheney. Oh, it was? Oh, yeah. Eric Edelman, and I knew, because my wife worked for Cheney. He said, I knew, I'd know Ambassador Edelman.

He could, you know. Yeah. He was the rain grown, and he put them all together. This stuff in Iran, Jesus. What in Iran? Well, we had one aircraft carry it at. The Secretary of Defense, Miller, decided that he was going to announce, we would take of what aircraft carrier out because he just wanted to de-escalate it because it's just so

freaking white hot. Right. And then 48 hours later, Trump countermans him and the audit aircraft carrier back. They don't know what they're doing, all right? It is that serious, it is that bad. If we get through to January 20th and there's not some major event over there, I'll be surprised. And of course, the Saudis, that's how Trump gets out of financial trouble. His bank, Genscha Bank is fired all of his bankers.

Putin doesn't, he, Putin don't give a shit about him. He's in deep trouble. Yeah. I mean, deep trouble. Financial trouble, legal trouble, you name it. When you leave, you can't take it all with you. They have too much evidence in the government. But they'll tell him what you'll find out.

So, James, what's your sense? Do you think D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood is on the docket? Yes, that's good question, Jesse. That's like my favorite thing. It's a good question you'd have to ask Senator Mention. The other thing is he said he's not going to get rid of the filibuster, so that pretty much takes care of that. Yeah, the filibuster that's not happening, it seems like. He said he's not going to get rid of filibuster.

I doubt if Warner would. And something tells me there's going to be 41 Republican senators who are not going to like this idea. Yeah. But I do think with Puerto Rican statehood and D.C. statehood, you, Mariel Bazar has been really smart. I mean, she immediately started pushing for that yesterday. It's a very good idea. Right now, 18% of the United States elects 52 senators. That's a pretty good distortion of democracy. It's not going to happen. You know, if we don't get, and particularly what, unless Manchin decides that he wants to get rid of the filibuster, get ready for the filibuster for DC and Puerto Rican statehood, of which they can do. They could do it with 51, you know, with 50 votes plus Harris. And I would be totally for it. I think it's a great idea.

idea. But now one of the things we under, remember these two seats in Georgia, we got an awfully promising Senate map coming up in 2022. Right. Very. Let's assume that most of these economists think that, you know, once the vaccine takes hold, that the economy is going to come roaring back. And let's just assume, and the markets are going crazy in a positive way, because they think that feds are going to spend more money. And let's assume that the element three of the Carville plan, the, the, in incarceration, inoculation infrastructure, the three eyes. And they announce that maybe they'll have a pretty good year. I mean, who knows what's going to happen in two years?

But a lot of people think when the recovery comes, it's going to be so robust. And the thing that kind of convinces me that they might be right is just a high savings rate. Oh, this is a good. Few people have deserved to fuck that guy. I got like 15 different suggestions in my inbox today, Rick Wilson, about fuck that guy. I'm going to go with Mr. Rush Limbaugh as my fuck that guy today. Oh, a fascinating deep cut. How come? Rush Limbaugh today said there are a lot of people calling for an end of the violence.

I'm glad Sam Adams, Thomas Payne and the actual Tea Party guys, and the minute Lexington and Concord didn't feel that way. Oh, wow. That's a bad take. That's a bad take. That's a bad take. I'm going to blame the pain medication and everything else. No, I'm not. He's just an asshole. Rush, you are on today's Fuck That guy

My guy's Josh Holly Well, of course He's the all-time I mean, Josh Holly's got to go In our Hall of Fame, right? Hall of Fame, yeah. I mean, he goes on the calendar When we do our wall calendar

Of fuck that guy, he gets January, you know, with his clenched fist As he went past This is a great merch idea Right, seriously. And we, as he went past

The protesters With this sort of Che Guevara thing going Right, yeah, no, fuck you, Josh Holly. Go fuck yourself. You know, he thought he would be president in 2024. I hope that he's out of the Senate in 2024. So Josh Holly, you are my fuck that guy. I think he is a richly deserved fuck that guy. I'd also like to give a shout out to the Metropolitan DC Police Department who is posting pictures on mpdc.dc.d.com. You can find the links there, or you can just Google it. They're posting pictures of the various Magi who invaded and besmirched

and defaced our capital yesterday. And I would like to encourage our vast audience of listeners to go there, have a look, and see if you can help the D.C. police identify any of these people. One of them apparently, and I have not yet confirmed this, but I'm hearing it, my phone's been blowing up while we've been recording this. One of them apparently is the deputy director of the Florida Republican Party. Oh, well, we saw it coming. You've got to move out of Florida, Rick Wilson.

It's time. Well. You've got to get out. I'm considering my options between Bern Switzerland. Yes. Very nice. Easy to go to. Triania.

Albania is the best. Filled with Albanians. And you know the Albanian cuisine is a very light touch. Kind of something. Yeah. Something amazing. It's amazing. Anyway, well, folks, just so you can, we'll talk to you get on next Tuesday.

And I just want to remind everybody that he's suspended from Facebook through then. And hopefully at this point, once the Twitter board meeting is over, there will be some amazement and wonder. And we'll go from there. On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking with smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science. Who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. We're just getting started and don't want you to miss an episode.

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