The Daily Beast Podcast - Paranoid Trump Haunted by Epstein's Ghost: Wolff

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

Michael Wolff, author of "All or Nothing," joins the Beast’s Joanna Coles to discuss how the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is haunting Trump's White House. Wolff lays bare how Trump's bizarre conspiracy thinking explains exactly why he went after former FBI chief James Comey. And Wolff gives behind-the-scenes insight into Trump and Pete Hegseth used their unprecedented meeting with 800 generals and admirals to attempt to force blind loyalty. He and Coles dissect the desperation to control the military and weird obsession with dress codes and beard bans and how Trump's obsession with image is shaping America's future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the Epstein files. It's Epstein. There is only one obvious weakness for Donald Trump, one obvious threat. It's Epstein. Michael, it's been too long. Where are we going? It's time for a trip. Where are we going? We are going inside Donald Trump's head. And again, I just want to know that what is me, missing in so much discussion, and there is so much discussion about Donald Trump, is really getting and trying to understand the motivations of the strangest person I know, you know, or anyone that we know has ever known. Michael Wolf, your blazer blends into the background so much that it's like you're a strip of blue with a head on top of it. A suit. It's a suit. It's very smart. Very smart. Thank you. A full day. I think actually under Pete Hegsseth's new rules, you could automatically join the armed services should you so desire.

You know, I mean, it's a big thing in Trump world, how you dress and specifically. specifically, if you're a man, you have to wear a suit. I mean, it's actually sort of killing suits in the wider world because all you put on a suit, you look like somebody works in the Trump White House. Well, I am very interested in his theory that no one in the military should have a beard unless they work for special services. Does that mean that people in the military who currently have a beard have to immediately shave it? off, in which case if they are working under cover, it will become completely obvious. Well, they will shave it because, you know, I mean, he issues these dress edicts and people follow them. I mean, they follow them because actually they're among the most important things in Trump world, how you look. Because it's all casting for television, right?

You know, it's not only casting for television, it's casting for a point in time. I mean, this is, you know, when America was great and how Americans looked during that time. I mean, that's what goes on in Trump's head. He has a specific vision. And the vision often involves things that happen decades and decades ago. So Don Jr. and J.D. Vance both have beards. Is this a shot across J.D. Vance's bow from Pete Hegseth, who clearly wants to take over from Trump at some point? I mean, they're all now gunning for his job. Correct? Yeah, I don't, you know, that is this interesting thing.

And I always thought that J.D. Vance was trying to actually position himself as Trump's son. So therefore, he would look like Trump's sons. And since Trump doesn't like his sons, he might shift his attention and favor to J.D. So J.D. and Pete Haxeth are arguably in a competition for Trump's affection. And I'm sympathetic to Pete Hexeth on the beard front because I don't like beards. And I don't know if I've ever told you this. I actually had a phobia of beards when I was younger. It's called Pognafobia. It's a real thing. And I don't know where it stemmed from. But I'm also slightly phobic around beard. So I share that with him. And also, Peter Higgsath strikes me as a sort of American doll of a man. He has all those stars and stripes accessories. He has his pocket chief, pocket handkerchief. He has his socks, the stars and stripes.

And I don't feel that American doll would do a beard. Like Ken doesn't have a beard in Barbie and Ken. Yeah, well, actually, beards are. you know, there is a clean-cut America, which is Trump's version. And clean-cut America did not have beards. My father, for instance, did not trust men with beards. Or mustaches. He was particularly, mustaches particularly.

Well, they're very porn-starry mustaches, aren't they? I mean, Bert Reynolds had a mustache. And, you know, there was that whole naked spread in college. cosmopolitan, which Hearst always wanted me to replicate with a modern, a modern male star. And of course, nobody wanted to do it. There's a picture of me on my first book from many decades ago in which I have a mustache. Oh, my God. We have to find that picture. And in fact, look quite like a porn star of the moment.

Okay. That's making me feel very uneasy indeed. weren't you once married to a man with a beard? Well, he has a beard now. He didn't have a beard when I married him. Fair enough. And I think beards are very sort of COVID, right? Everybody grew a beard. I think I should explain to people why I'm fumbling with white words this morning. It's because I'm on a lot of painkillers.

You are in the studio. I am actually at home because I've had surgery recently. and a mainlining painkillers, which may make me speak strangely. And if I do, you have to indicate, you have to do a hand gesture in some way. I think you're in better form this morning, actually. Perhaps it's a... Well, maybe they're making me more articulate, in which case. But Pete Higgs-F pulled together all the top generals to basically put them in a room and tell them he wanted them to embrace their warrior's status,

the politically correct culture of the military is now over. And he didn't want trans, I think, in the military. And he definitely doesn't want beard, which seems like something you could have sent in an HR, I mean, let's go on to the more alarming aspect of this. And the alarming aspects of this is that once the constitutional structure it basically says that that civilian authority is in control of the military because we didn't trust people in the military. I mean, the military, they were very narrow focused. They did not have the worldly and intellectual depth to see the full picture.

Now we have a kind of reversal here in which the military. And throughout the military, or the higher ranks, there's, there is nearly universal skepticism of, of the, of the, of the people in charge. That is to say, the executive branch in the White House. So it's a, it's a reversal. The military is, are the reasonable people and the civilian authorities are the whack jobs. So to what extent? extent is this because both Hexas and Donald Trump, and this is going to sound like a trite question, but I don't mean it like that, have been exposed to two very impressive displays of military pomp and circumstance. Once, most recently in Shanghai, with Xi in charge and that remarkable display of the Chinese military with all sorts of weapons.

And then, of course, harking back to the past, but the British military, which, which, you know, the Brits can no longer do very many things, but they can put on a good military parade. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think more immediately you have the Heg-Sith problem. He is trying to project his authority, which he does not normally, I mean, does not naturally have. And I think throughout the Pentagon, there is a real sense that Pete Hegsseth is a joke. And he knows that. And he's trying to do something to overcome that. And I think that there is a lot of pressure on him from Trump to be a man.

And so his version of being a man is to command all the generals to appear in one place, which actually strikes me as a kind of major security concern. Totally. That's exactly what I thought. Security concern and also at a time when they're threatening to fire people, if there's a government shutdown, an enormous waste of money. I mean, this is literally an HR memo, any normal company, including, Fox where he used to work as a weekend host, would have sent out a memo saying, hey, guys, no beards from Monday. Yeah, I mean, this is, it's, I can't even begin to think what would be the operational purpose of this.

I mean, this is, even the PR purpose seems, seems pretty vague. I mean, it's all about Pete Haguesteth. And then it's interesting, so Pete Hegsith called this meeting to project his authority, but then Trump elbowed his way in, thereby diminishing Pete Hegseth's authority. Right. And then he came in and he said, oh, I've never heard a run so quiet, i.e. Pete hasn't done anything to sort of rally the troops here, literally rally the troops. and then he went off on his weave about various things. But saying you can laugh if you want, you don't have to laugh.

But it sounded like he feels uncomfortable in a room full of generals too because A from his first term in office, he didn't trust the generals around him because they were undermining his more ludicrous thoughts. But also he spent many years avoiding doing national service and, you know, the nickname President, Bonespurs. Yeah, well, a whole generation of people, including yours truly avoided that. James, did you also have bones spurs?

No, but I had flat feet. Well, flat feet, I think, is a real reason not to join the military, isn't it? Whereas bone spurs seemed... It's not a real reason. Oh, it's not a real reason? No. Okay. All right.

Well, you and Trump have something in common that you both wanted to avoid active warfare. Well, we both wanted to avoid actually, more specifically, Vietnam, you might recall. Wait. So I'm not quite sure where to go with this. This is an unexpected curveball in the middle of inside Trump's head. But if we go back to inside Trump's head, because you weren't addressing a room full of military because you haven't run for president. No, perhaps you should, because you certainly have one qualification. I think he felt uneasy there. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's a, I mean, on, on. On. On. On. On. Trump's, from Trump's side, getting along with the generals has been fraught. And it's fraught for a couple of, a couple of curious reasons. I mean, being a general has changed. In other words, he would probably, Trump would have been much more comfortable with the generals of the 50s and 60s, the, you know, the bomb them back into the Stone Age generation of, you know, the bomb them back into the Stone Age generation of,

of generals. But since then, generals have become kind of high-level technocrats. Right. So the McKinsey consultants. Exactly. And, you know, they all have been, they all have gone to graduate school, extensive training. They are, they function like McKinsey consultants. They do PowerPoint. I have sat in a room on several occasions with Trump when generals come in to make a, or military people come in to make presentations. And it's all PowerPoint. And Trump doesn't last for 90 seconds.

Well, and I'm very sympathetic to that because I wouldn't last either. So it turns out in this podcast, you and I are revealing that we have quite a lot in common with Trump. You had flat feet and avoided going to Vietnam and I don't like PowerPoints. In fact, the minute someone puts a PowerPoint up, I just panic. Well, we hope that you will not have to send us to war then. Well, I'm not planning to. I'm not planning to. So we've got a government shutdown looming tonight.

We're recording this on a Tuesday morning. We've already had Trump do his weave. And it sounded like he was a little thrown off by the fact that there was very little response from the generals, they weren't cheering, they were just sitting very quietly, listening, and I think not trying to eat anything away. Let's set the broader scene. They have no idea why they are there. They have been ordered to show up for what reason. They don't know. So they're sitting there waiting, I suppose, they supposed, for someone to tell them why they are there, which apparently does not happen.

Right. Well, they're there because they tell there's going to be a change in culture. That the reason Pete Hegseth got rid of senior black military officials was because he said that you can't change the culture and keep leaders of the culture there. So he fired them and that they can't have beards. Bingo. Bingo, indeed. So they should have just sent out a memo. All right. it's possible I'm repeating myself because of the painkillers. And I want to, I want to assure people it's not dangerous surgery. It was hip surgery. It's mechanical. It's nothing other than that. But Donald Trump has built a whole career on repeating himself. That's true. So maybe I'm doing my, I'm doing a medicated weave. I'm doing a medicated weave. So let us talk about, and I don't want to forget Kai Trump's merch during the rider's.

cut using the White House as a backdrop. And I certainly don't think we've just spent enough time discussing the Mara Lago umbrellas on Jackie Kennedy's now paved over Rose Garden. But let's go to the shutdown because the shutdown will happen at 12 o'clock tonight. And the expectations are that this is going to happen. The Democrats, and let's make no mistake, it's the Democrats who are going to shut down the government. The Democrats who have scant leverage in the past eight months of the Trump administration now have the Trump card. They can shut it down. And it appears that they will do that, not least of all, because they didn't do that in March when they could have. Chuck Schumer punted, and kind of, I think his explanation would be that this would, that if they shut down the government,

then the Trump people could do worse things than if they let the government run. But one can hardly imagine that there are even worse things that they could have done. So Chuck Schumer has been hoisted over that disson. decision. So therefore, he definitely has to shut down the government now. And by the way, this is in the Senate. The House has actually approved the funding bill. So it is in the Senate. The Republicans need 60 votes, so they need seven more votes. So they would have to go to the Democrats. The Democrats are not giving them those votes, are withholding those votes. So the government will shut So what is going on inside Trump's head over the whole prospects of a shutdown?

We've had one shutdown before for just over a month during Trump 1, which everybody seems to have forgotten about. What, how is he thinking about this? I mean, he's thinking that he'll be able to blame the Democrats for this, that he will come out ahead. And given that these are the Democrats and that they seem unobes. unable, certainly in the past eight months, to have mounted a cogent case that the country might unify around or even that Democrats might unify around. He's probably right. And right now their rationale is a traditional democratic rationale. We want to, what we're holding, They are demanding that a certain funding for Obamacare and Medicare be reinstated,

which is worthy, of course, but it is not electrifying. So what would be electrifying? Are they playing this right? I mean, they're playing it terribly. They're playing it as Democrats. They now, they have, the opportunity that they have is for all eyes to be on them. And so they need a message. What's the message?

Why are they doing this? What is the, what is the clarifying thought? And the clarifying thought is not, I'm afraid, health care, no matter how worthy a thought that is, it doesn't cut through all of the frustration that so many people, Democrats and Republicans feel. So, and my, you know, I'm looking at this and I actually can't for the life of me understand why they would not pick up the most obvious issue. and say, we will close down the government until the Trump White House releases the Epstein files. Brilliant. You just need a symbol.

What is the mission here? And the mission here is we know that there is something wrong in this government. Or we know that there is something wrong in government in general. Now you have the opportunity to use your leverage to make every effort to get this government to do the one thing that people across the political spectrum believe would shed some truth on what's going on. It's also the sort of move that you could imagine Governor Newsom making, but he's not part of the Senate and he's not part of this shutdown scenario. He can suggest it.

But who within the Senate can you even imagine asking that? Maybe Senator Klobuchar. But even that, this is what the leadership of the Senate, this is Chuck Schumer. So this is a problem. this is a democratic problem, that the Democrats are in their nature. Bureaucrats, people who actually like and thrive in the bureaucracy. They are, they thrive in exactly the thing that many, many Americans, and certainly much of the coalition that Trump has built are against.

And yet they thrive in making government work, and it's that quiet work of government that allows people to get educated, drive safely, fly, safely, do all the things that actually people want to do. Yeah, and there's the rub. There's the rub. So predictions on what happens this evening? I think that the government is going to, they're going to shut down the government. And does that rebound badly on Trump? Let's remember his poll numbers are pretty low at the moment. I mean, the Democrat poll numbers are also low. So no one is coming well out of this scenario. But because he makes everything about him, his poll numbers are low. And this doesn't feel like a good moment for him to have a government shutdown. Plus, he may blame him.

on the Democrats, but everybody knows the Republicans have got all three branches of government. Yeah. You know, I'm, I, if, if I were, if I were Trump, I would be worried about this, but Trump doesn't worry about much. And Trump looks, looks at this for his, for his own opportunity, conflict. Remember, Trump's all, his opportunities always involve conflict. So, um, So right now he will go head to head with the Democrats. And, you know, I mean, he will, he's very good at this. The Democrats are very bad at this. Right.

And Chuck Schumer versus Trump, you know, the light is going to, I mean, the metaphorical light will focus on Trump because, as you say, he's better than this. All right. So when we come back. But let's go to this. I mean, the Democrats, I hope the Democrats are watching. It's the Epstein files. It's Epstein.

If they would have learned anything, there is only one obvious weakness for Donald Trump, one obvious threat. It's Epstein. So, you know, I mean, why wouldn't they use that? Yeah, it's the Epstein file, stupid. That should be the new cry. The adaptation of James Carvels. Yes. It's the economy.

Yep. All right. So by the time we get back together, we may well have a government shut down. Let's also discuss, because since we last saw each other, James Comey has been indicted or charged by, as you predicted, Lindsay Halligan, a new face on the block, or at least not entirely new because she's been in the background. Not new to me. Not new to you, but new to it turns out any kind of prosecutorial role. And now a word from our sponsors. We love our sponsors, but Michael and I are back and we're rattling around Donald Trump's head. So what is it that so gets under Donald Trump's skin about James Comey?

Well, you know, this is, I mean, this is really, you know, the, the story that has run from the beginning from 2017 through now. And it's one of those Trump things that he can't let anything go. And the Comey question and the Comey family has really haunted him from the earliest moments of this administration, even before the administration. I mean, remember, Comey showed up in his office in Trump Tower before the inauguration to tell him, cleared the room and then told him about the report of the P-Tape. So this was the steel dossier, which had been put together by the Democrats. arguing that the Russians had all sorts of personal information on Donald Trump. Exactly. So that was one of his first interactions with James Comey.

Now, one of the other takeaways from that first interaction, which would, which he has continually mentioned over the course now of more than eight years, is that Comey is very tall. So Comey is six foot eight. Trump, who has almost a need, a motivating need to be the tallest guy in the room, had enormous problems dealing with this. And so on the occasions when he would see,

Comey, there was always an effort to choreograph this of having Comey seated before Trump came into the room, of any other way to create a situation so that Trump would not be conscious in that immediate moment of Comey's really impressive height. So interesting. And also that became clear when he was most recently on his state visit to Windsor Castle in the UK because Prince William is six foot three and towered above Donald Trump. And I think the British tabloid press, knowing this, deliberately took pictures from an angle where Donald Trump would look smaller. And interestingly, Kate, Middleton, Princess Kate, Princess of Wales, also towered. above Melania. Melania, I think, says she's six foot, but Kate towered above her. So the two of them were quite diminished. I wonder if Donald Trump is losing height, as some of us do in our later years.

Yeah, well, I think we're all losing height. I was rather alarmed to discover last week. I'd lost an inch in height, so I'm sure Donald Trump has. Well, James Comey does not seem to be losing height. So anyway, but so the Comey thing, but it is even more complicated. than just the height, thank goodness. So, and we can get back to Epstein in this, as all things Trump do come back to Epstein. So, Comey is fired in the spring of 2017 because he has pursued the Russia investigation. And again, going back to the irony, that it is James Comey who opened up the Hillary email investigation a week before the election,

helping to guarantee that Donald Trump would be elected. So Comey gets Trump elected. Then Trump always believe that he didn't want him to be elected. And so therefore began this the Russia investigation, the Russia. a hoax in Trump terms. Well, and I think you wrote in the Fire and Fury that James Coe, it never dawned on James Comey, that Donald Trump would be elected. In fact, he felt confident coming out in those last days before the election when Hillary's

emails had been found on Huma Abidim's computer, that he felt very confident coming out and saying it because he assumed she was going to win the election and he didn't want to look like he hadn't mentioned it because he was two-party pre to the Democrats, right? Yes, it never occurred to anyone that Donald Trump would. Well, at least the bold, Donald Trump. Right. At least the whole Donald Trump. So, but anyway, so he's fired in May 2017, which then immediately leads to the appointment of Robert Mueller, which then haunts Trump through the end of his term.

But he also believes that Comey, coming out of the FBI, has been involved with leaking Epstein's material. This goes to 2019. So at that point, the Southern District of New York, which is the Justice Department office in Manhattan, has commenced an investigation, separate investigation, of Donald Trump. In July, Jeffrey Epstein is arrested. The senior lawyer in this investigation is Maureen Comey, James Comey's daughter. Within Trump circles, there is the belief that Epstein is in fact arrested to squeeze him for information about Donald Trump.

Now, we don't know what information that might be, because conveniently, at least for Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein dies shortly thereafter. At any rate, though, Donald Trump continues to hold this belief and this grudge. And shortly, and this is at the beginning of the subject, summer, shortly after Pam Bondi announces that there will be no release of the Epstein files, Maureen Comey is fired from her job with the Southern District.

And then subsequently, not long after, her father is indicted. So what did you think of his, by now? I think everybody's seen his post, Comey's post saying, I will not live on my knees, neither should you. I'm not afraid. You shouldn't be either. Well, you know, I mean, I think, I think that, well, from Trump's point of view, he believes that he's going to prosecute this guy and he's going to put this guy in jail. I think that that's highly unlikely. The poetic turn here would be for James Comey just to declare that he is running for the president of the United States.

as did Donald Trump when he was facing indictment. Well, it certainly felt very presidential as a statement, the way he came out and said it, didn't he? And also, we know that the reason Lindsay Halligan was put in as the U.S. attorney of Maryland to, and given the order to prosecute by Donald Trump, James Comey, was because her predecessor had said there wasn't enough evidence. There was nothing to prosecute him on. and she has no prosecutorial experience.

And let's go over that that that no one in the chain of, in the Justice Department chain of command, he had to, Trump had to attack the attorney general Pam Bondi over exactly this issue. Because it's, this is a ridiculous prosecution. Everybody knows it's a ridiculous prosecution.

It would never happen in any, in any world in which process, and ruled. And Donald Trump had to come in, had to break the process here, had to disregard it, had to impose himself, had to order the prosecution of James Comey.

And what's depressing is he's found someone to do it in Lindsay Halligan, who... I mean, Lindsay Halligan, I mean, doesn't really exist. She's not really a figure in this. She's just a stick figure. She's just put in there. She's just just the face. She's not doing anything. She's not doing any thinking. She's not doing any analysis. She's not really doing any even legal work on this. And that was her function, by the way, as a lawyer, as one of Trump's personal lawyers during the campaign. She was not given any legal responsibilities at all. She was just there to be in his law. entourage to support the, I may not have the, I may not have the best legal team, but I have

the hottest, says Donald Trump proudly, during, amidst his extensive legal woes. Well, and she is doing a lot of blow drying. She is doing a lot of blow drying. I will say she has very impressive hair, and it's that Miss Universe hair that Melania has, that Margo Martin has. Ivanka has a version of it and Hope Hicks had it. Natalie Harp has a slightly thinner version of it. But Lindsay Halligan has great hair.

Yeah, and she was a Miss Colorado runner up, I believe. And to be a beauty contestant in Donald Trump's world is a high resume point. High resume point, and she's got a law degree, I'm assuming. We're assuming. We're assuming. I know. I was like Pam Bondi's law degree, which is from, as you're always pointing out, the fifth law school in Florida. The fifth law school in Florida.

So, I mean, I barely feel we've scratched the surface. We've got Hegsef and the warrior culture. He seems to be also using it, I would say, as a get-fing. scheme. Every time we see him, he's running around, he's doing burpees, he's jumping about. I know lots of people within the Pentagon are fed up that he's got pictures of him and his wife everywhere, which also seems peculiar. We've got the government shut down looming. We've got the prosecution of James Comey looming. We haven't discussed Kai Trump's merch opportunity. Rider Cup. She suddenly pops up with Katie her new t-shirt line. Any thoughts? Have you ordered any? We don't know where

it's made yet. I'm going to leave that one to you. Okay, I am going to order. I'm going to order one of Kai's shirts. And are you going to wear it? I'm going to wear it on the podcast if it ever comes, because I want people to know where it's made. Is it made in Trino? Is it made in India? I hope it's made in America. Hold that thought, Joanna. And now a word from our sponsors. We are back because I've been holding that thought, but I want to get back into it. I think a final point before we wrap today and my painkillers wear out is the Trump Library. Ah, the Trump Library. The Trump Library, which, because he collected some more money from YouTube this week.

So, yeah, so there was a piece in the Wall Street Journal, I believe, which did the roundup. So Trump has collected in total $80 million from suing media organizations. Okay, and this is 10 months in, so there's probably a lot more to come. And the most recent was YouTube, which I think paid him around $25 million for having taken him off the platform after January the 6th. And so, and I think is that the YouTube settlement goes, some of it goes to the library. one of the settlements. Well, I think the ABC one definitely went to the library, and the library seems to be a catch-all for payments coming in.

Right, and there are effectively payments to him. He controls all of this money. So the library is just an adjunct to trump lifestyle and business. And then there was a piece in the New York Times saying that it looked like Governor DeSantis to complete his ritual humiliation by Donald Trump is about to give Donald Trump a very valuable building that has been segued out of the University of Miami, I think, or the University of Miami-Dade to give to Trump a free for his library. So I have a library story, a Trump library story.

So in the spring of 2021, I went down to Mara Lago to have dinner with Trump and with Melania. How this came to pass is a story for another occasion. Well, and we should remember you'd already written three critical books about him at this point. I yes I actually I was then on the verge of writing the third um okay so you're written two but you'd written fire and fury and the siege right um but he had been a prize that I was writing the third and then and that's where I got my invitation so at any rate I went down and had a long beat before our dinner we had we sat in the Moralago um lobby which is where he generally conducted much of his business and with people passing by and, you know, country club goers, and he kind of jumps up. And he's also, as he talks to you, he's kind of the host. You know, hope you have a good day. Hope you have a good dinner.

Or he sees a mother and daughter and says, and says, and says, and this happened certainly two times as I sat there with him. He said, so you're sisters, right? At any rate, at any rate, so we're talking and then, and he's telling me the election is stolen and all of that. And then I ask him about the, you know, remember he's out of office, I ask him about his plans for presidential library. And he looks at me, there's, I mean, he pauses, which he doesn't often do. I mean, he looked at me with kind of horror because clearly, the suggestion of a presidential library is that you are you are out of office and you will stay out of office, which is in part good news. So the fact that he's talking about a presidential

library now, I think, is a fair indication that he's looking forward to being out of office and not having a third term. So silver lining. We will cling to that. We will cling to that of hope. But so anyway, he's looking at me like, like I've said some, some terrible thing about a presidential library. And I get, get nervous and I fumble. And I said, you know, you know, presidential library doesn't have to have, have books. It can be, it can be, and this comes to me literally at that moment. I said, it can be like a theme park, a Trump theme park. And he clearly brightened at that idea. And I actually think it's a perfect idea.

So we may see in the Trump presidential library competition with the other theme parks in Florida. Well, and also we give him a chance to bring back all the old favorites that didn't linger around Trump water, Trump stakes. You could get a certificate from Trump University. You could do a quick Trump minigolf where you cheat or you don't cheat, depending on the cards. get perhaps. What a good idea. And actually, I will say having been to the Reagan Library, the Reagan Library is a bit of a theme part because it's got the Air Force One there, which is amazing. And the whole thing, obviously, is their goal is to tell it from that president's point of view. There's no such thing in the UK. I mean, prime ministers go off and write books. And actually,

British Prime Ministers, for the most part, read books, which I'm not sure Donald Trump has ever wanted to do. Or it's capable of doing. Yeah. No, no, I think we will look forward to a presidential theme park, which will have no books, and it will be a money-making opportunity for the Trump brand. Of course it will. And of course, you know, interestingly, the Obama Library has hit all sorts of snags.

That still hasn't. The price tag has swollen. It's still not done. the construction company is, I think, suing part of the, you know, the foundation. It's all a mess. So building these things is not simple. But as we know, oddly, the one thing Donald Trump is able to do is construction. Yes, and we should do the Rose Garden.

Well, we should do the Rose Garden. I mean, I'm fascinated that he's literally put in the same umbrellas that he has in Mar-a-Lago on Jackie Kennedy's rose lawn, which he's paved over. And now the ballroom is going to dominate the White House. It's going to be bigger than the White House itself, which is a very clever way of leaving his physical presence behind. You know, and you begin to think about this because you do think Donald Trump will leave the White House at some point. And the damage that he has done will be.

undone by a more more reasonable minds. But that's probably not true. And the ballroom will be proof of that. It will stand for generations. Yeah, unless of course likes the occasional Trump property, it gets mold or it starts leaking or it doesn't turn out to be as well-based. as it might look from the outside. Richard Nixon paved the pool. Well, that's probably because he didn't want to parade around in a speedo, right? Exactly. And there has been no pools since. Interesting that Donald Trump has never had a beard.

Do you think he could grow a beard? He's just, he's not a man you could imagine with a beard. He's from an age when there weren't beards. Right. And then from 50s and through the first half of the 60s, certainly didn't have, that was a no beard generation. I'm going to go on to AI and see what he would look like. And also he's got a lot going on up here.

So he's off the age of the comb over, right? Yeah, I mean, he's the ultimate comb over. The ultimate comb over. All right. So Michael, next time I see you, we may be in the middle. or we may be at the beginning of a government shutdown. So I hope that doesn't impact the Jitney schedule. We're private.

Okay, Michael, I think that's a lot for today. It's a lot for today. It may be the Tramadale talking. I've got no sense of whether or not I made any sense whatsoever. But then our president doesn't either, so we have that in common. I will see you on Thursday. All right, Michael, do you want to read us out? Do you want to thank people for joining us and remind them they can subscribe to The Daily Beast

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