The Daily Beast Podcast - Mika Defends Mar-a-Lago Visit, Musk-Trump Road Trip

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Bestselling author and “Morning Joe” anchor Mika Brzezinski shares “as much as [she] can” about her and co-host Joe Scarborough’s recent date with president-elect Donald Trump, and pushes back on the backlash to their get-together. Hear from The Daily Beast’s executive editor Hugh Dougherty, who returns to the pod to share more scheming and subterfuge among the Mar-a-Lago regulars also jockeying for Trump’s favor, and learn who caught RFK Jr. ordering more junk food. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, just pop it in to share an excerpt from the newest episode of the Daily Beast podcast hosted by our chief creative and content officer Joanna Coles and late night legend Samantha Bee. So now we're welcoming a standout talent in the world of media and my work husband, Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dockney. Hugh, you're back from last week's analysis on the Mar-a-Lago patio with your bold, unfiltered style, which you've honed over the years. at the Daily Telegraph, The New York Post and the Daily Mail. What is going on at Mar-a-Lago this week? Well, Sam, Joanna, what have you missed at Mar-a-Lago?

You've missed world leaders. You've missed dancing. You've missed feuding. What? You've missed poolside speeches. And you've missed road trips. What? It's been a full-on week for the people of at the patio.

Oh, boy. Because the last time we checked in, we had Marco Rubio. We had Christine Nome. And that's about it. And which now feels in the light of the more recent announcements positively sane. Yes. It's just gone like hurtling. Yes.

Hurtling South. And then, of course, we've got, which I love her or his name, Melania, or Melonia, Melonia, which is Elon as First Lady. Oh, Lord. Melania. Begin at the beginning. What have we missed? Please catch us up.

I'm just desperate for more information. Well, there's been a tronge of cabinet appointments. These are people that Trump is going to ask the Senate to appointees. to approve, and that's brought with its own drama. Matt Gates is the Attorney General Pick, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, and RFK Jr. for Health and Human Services. Some of the undercard is getting filled in as well.

Dr. Oz, the former television doctor and failed Senate candidate. He is in the running to run the centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which is a huge and crucial job. And alongside that, there has been, lots of feuding. And the feuding is around who's going to be Treasury Secretary. And last week we talked about the Battle of the Patio. And this week, that battle has kept going. It's a war of attrition on the patio. Howard Lutnik, who is the chairman or co-chairman of Trump's transition team, was when we last spoke, frontrunner for that Treasury post. He had the backing of Elon Musk.

Elon Musk even tweeted about him, or posted on X, I should say, about how Howard Lutnik was the man. And Howard Lucknick got a consolation prize. He is the Commerce Secretary. And while we're, when, when I'm speaking to you, there's still no announcement. Instead, the field of candidates has opened back up again. And all of them have had to do one thing, which is go to Mar-a-Lago to be interviewed on, on the patio and maybe in the fake situation room. So it's been a busy, busy week for everybody in the sunshine. Who is doing the interviewing?

Is it Trump and J.D. Vance? Are there more people? Is Elon also there? I would say they're not the most qualified interviewers in the land. They don't have the best questions or the best background. So who is doing it? Who is part of that process? What does the vetting look like? Definitely the first buddy.

I'm not even going to try to pronounce it. Elon Musk is in many of these interviews. Some of them are more improvised than others. Matt Gates was actually a surprise. Even to Susie Wilde, the chief of staff, he went to see Trump while on the plane to DC. And Susie Wiles was as another cabin, and he went in with Boris F.stein, who's a key Trump advisor, came out as the pick for Tony General.

And that's how Susie Wiles learned about it. So it's a bit of a chaotic process. It's a bit hard sometimes to work out who's making the decisions. But all of them ultimately are made by Trump. And many of them are made very, very quickly indeed. and perhaps too quickly for the kind of rigorous background checks that other administrations have been seen as being absolutely crucial. So, Huey, how is the power battle going on with Elon Musk and Donald Trump? If Elon didn't get the candidate that he wanted for Treasury Secretary, in fact, Howard Lucknick has gone to be Commerce Secretary?

I'd describe it as a proxy battle. Earlier this week, our Josh Fiavo, who happens to be in Florida, reported how, Elon Musk had a blowup with Boris Euststein and it was on the patio. We're not sure if Trump was there or not, but that after that, Howard Lutnik lost out. So what seems to be the case is not that the battles involve Trump, but that they involve different people in his orbit and they are attempting to knife each other. But it does look like Elon, for all that he lost the Howard Lutnik battle is definitely the closest person to Trump right now. Elon took Trump to Brownsville and Texas to watch the launch of one of

his rockets. And Trump also took some people with them. So it gives you some idea of who gets to travel. This time, it was Don Jr., who is, of course, very much part of the inner circle. And perhaps surprisingly, a couple of senators. Ted Cruz was there, although he didn't travel with Trump, and he is the senator for Texas. But also there was Bill Hagerty. And he's one of the people that as we speak is in the running to be Treasury Secretary. So it seems that he was at the very least trying to get Elon's favour as well as Trump's. There's so many people who I would have loved to have boarded that rocket. It was actually empty, Sam.

So yes, you could have loaded it up. And it didn't quite go entirely to plan. It looked great. It took off as it was supposed to. And the plan initially had been for it to be caught. but at the landing site, that amazing site that we've seen which Trump described as chopsticks, where one of Musk's rockets manages to come back to Earth, that didn't happen this time. Instead, they crashed it into the Indian Ocean.

Oh, if you've got any wish fulfillment there, Sam. Hugh, this appears to be one person missing from all that, and this is J.D. Vance. What's happened? Has J.D. been elbowed out of the way by Elon? on. It's a very interesting question. And right now, there have been sightings of JD Vance, but 1,500 miles away in the capital. He's been taking the nominees around the capital to meet other senators before the confirmation hearings. It's the official name is Sherpa, because they're supposed to be a guide. It's, it, it's, it, it's, certainly there are people who think that that's a demotion for a vice president. Other people have called him a valet or a butler. And, and, and, and,

His job as a valley is to park those people in front of senators and get the senators to agree to confirm them. So that's not traditionally a job for vice presidents. And yes, you're right, that J.D. Vance has largely been absent from Mar-a-Lago. He was seen at a tuxedo-clad event, and that was the last time, as I speak to you, that he was in public at Mar-a-Lago back last week. It's never really a good thing when someone like a J-D. Vance,

goes quiet. It's like when you have little children and they're in another room and everything goes quiet. That means that something terrible is happening that you are not seeing and everybody's like sticking their fingers into electrical sockets or eating eye shadow. You don't know what it's going to be, but it's not a good thing. It's definitely not a good thing. No. So Hugh, I understand it is the three most controversial appointments are Tulsi Gabbard at the department intelligence. Obviously, RFK Jr. and his brainworm at the health and human services. And then, of course, Matt Gates as Attorney General. Do we have any confidence that the Senate will actually reject some of these appointments? No. I'm going to answer that question for you. No, we don't have any confidence

of anything ever again. End of story. Can you just tell me why you named your cat, your cat? Just for regular listeners, they may not know the name of your cat. I keep talking about her. My cat's name is Susan Collins, and I'm very certain. The only thing I'm actually certain of in this entire world is that Susan Collins is going to disappoint me in the next few months in some capacity. And I hope that that doesn't reflect poorly on my cat, who is a beautiful, sassy creature. But didn't you call her Susan Collins because Jason, your husband, insisted if you were to get another cat,

you could only have one with a name that would always make her. laugh. It always makes us laugh until it doesn't. Right. Which may be coming soon. How does she manages to get a sort of a reputation of someone who's thoughtful and yet she seems to regularly come down on the wrong side of decisions? I mean, almost always. I mean, she talks a good game and she's sort of deliberative except when she actually casts her vote. I mean, what can I say? Susan Collins, don't do it. Huey, thank you very much for this update. We're glad that you're taking the patio duties very seriously.

Thank you to Josh Fialo, our excellent correspondent in Florida, who's really covering his bases down there. Any final words? What should we be looking for for the next week? I would say that the thing to look out for is not just the people on the patio, but they're wives and husbands. And we have an excellent guide to the waggers, the Maga Wives

by our Mel Adolphus he's put together who the real queens are in the world of Maga and I think we're going to be seeing a lot more from them except the biggest one of them all, Melania, who has now not been seen for four or five

days at Marilago or in New York but there's a lot more drama to come and I'm off to check out the endless shrimp because there's one place in the country that's still got it it's Mar-a-Lago. Huey, thank you very much, and I can't wait to read our wives and girlfriends guide to MAGA,

Wagga guide to MAGA. It's fantastic. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Joanna. Want to hear more? Subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast, wherever you're listening to this, to catch a new episode every Thursday.