The Daily Beast Podcast - Real Reason Trump Lost It Over TIME Magazine Cover

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Trump Chronicler Michael Wolff joins the Beast’s Joanna Coles to unpack the Time magazine cover that ignited Trump’s fury and how the slow-walked political prosecutions of his perceived enemies, including James Comey, Adam Schiff, and Chris Christie, spurred Trump to install Lindsey Halligan. Meanwhile, Melania reemerges with her documentary hustle, prompting questions about her new visibility and even her reported communications with Putin. And with new fractures appearing in Trump’s once blindly faithful MAGA movement and fresh enemies on his list, Joanna asks: Is Trump losing control of the world he built or remaking it in his own image once again? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is on his mind. It's the cover of Time, and he immediately started truth socialing the moment it dropped. And I'm going to read the Truth Social. Time magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the worst of all time. They disappeared my hair and then had something floating on top of, floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird. I've never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is super bad and deserves to be called out. What are they doing and why? Michael. Joanna. Where are we going?

Oh, my God. We are going inside Trump's head. And again, I point out that this is the most important place to be if you are talking about or writing about or thinking about politics. And it's a, it's not the intuitive place to be. When people, American political reporters write about politics, they do it from the outside, always from the outside. And there are various journalistic reasons why that is the case. But in this instance, this entirely unique political moment, what we have to, what everyone has to realize is that everything depends upon. one man and what he wakes up with, what is on his mind at any given moment, and it changes from moment to moment. It is like a William Carlos Williams poem.

Well. Or is it Carlos Williams, Carlos. No, it's a Williams, Carlos Williams poem. It's so much depends upon the red wheelbarrow. Well, no, that's the opposite of that. Actually, so much depends upon the red wheelbarrow means, things are are fixed. It's a, it's, it's, it really is focused on a specific thing.

With Trump, that's not the case. It's the vagaries that go through his, through his head. It's whatever someone has said to him in the last two seconds. It's whatever he has seen on television, the opposite of the red wheel barrel. Okay. So in fact, it's not William Carlos Williams. In fact, it's the opposite. All right.

William Carlos Williams is from Patterson, New Jersey, where I am from. Oh, really? I loved his poem. When I was growing up, I absolutely loved his poems. The plum, the one about the plums in the fridge that someone's eaten. Anyway, we digress because Trump came back. I'll say. But we digress because Trump, there is something poetic about Trump in a kind of distorted, strange way. Ozzy Manders. I could go on, but I'm not going to because Trump came back from his victory tour of the Knesset and then onto Egypt and then frantically started truth-socialing about this. I mean, in the thing, I mean, he has the context of his coming back was that

he had brought peace to a region of the world that has in his version of history not seen peace for 3,000 years. So he has done the thing that no one in 3,000. years of history has been able to do. But he comes back and that's not what's on his mind. What is on his mind is. This is on his mind. It's the cover of time and he immediately started truth socialing the moment it dropped. And I'm going to read the truth social because I think it's important that we get into the details. Time magazine wrote a relatively good story about me. But the picture may be the worst of all time. They disappeared my hair and then had something floating on top of.

Can you see this? Floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird. I've never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is super bad and deserves to be called out. What are they doing and why? Well, there's a couple of points here. First, he is right about that angle. Can we just look at the neck bottle here?

We'll get to that. But he's right about that. You never want someone to take a picture from below, which is a technique that the media or the print media uses when they want to dis somebody. Okay. And why do we think they're dissing him? Now, go to the relative, what did he say,

the relatively good story? Time magazine wrote a relatively good story about me. But the picture may be the worst of all time. It's not a relatively good story. It's a hagiographic story. I mean, it is the kind of story that any politician would do anything to get. Now, how Trump, in a publication that has at best been skeptical of him, how he achieved that is that the owner of Time Magazine.

And let's go on, Time Magazine, which doesn't really exist anymore. No one really reads Time magazine. It exists with events. They do a lot of events, right? Time people of the year. It's a list. Yes. But Trump is still obsessed with time.

I mean, there was one moment during the campaign, actually. It was a pivotal moment. There was all kinds of things going on. Important, you know, and they, the, The campaign staff needed Trump to really concentrate, really do this range of events, which he canceled all because Time Magazine called him up. And they gave Time Magazine a full day with everybody saying on the campaign staff, time?

Why are we doing this? For time? Does anyone read time? Didn't he also? One person reads time. Okay. So, or maybe two, maybe the owner, Mark Benioff, the tech giant who founded Salesforce, with whom the government has a lot of contracts. Okay. And Mark Benioff, who has been considered a reasonable liberal guy in San Francisco, has recently come out as a full-throttled trumper, like so many in the tech community.

And indeed he was at the Windsor Castle dinner Because I looked at him and I was like, I know that person I know that face. Mark Benioff sitting, I think opposite Donald Trump At the Windsor Castle dinner When you were being broadcast on the side of the tower I was outside. All worlds collide.

He was inside. But in Abject, there was a piece recently in the New York Times. In fact, I have it here because I cut out some, I underlined some quotes for it. In a wide ranging, interview. Mr. Benioff said this week that he avidly supported President Trump and thought National Guard troops should be deployed to San Francisco.

So anyway, so it's interesting because the story as written, which I'm sure was sent to Mark Benioff before it was published, is, as I say, abject. But the cover photo, which was probably not sent to Mark Benny off, is the opposite. Yeah, it's the opposite. And this is how journalists get back at proprietors. When people used to leave Robert Maxwell's newspapers, especially if he'd fired them, the sub-editors would always get the words,

fuck Maxwell somehow in the copy. And they would do it by every capital letter would spell out fuck Maxwell. But what's interesting is that Beniof has some Trumpian tendencies, not least him saying, I don't think anyone has hired more people or given more money or supported San Francisco more than I have, Mr. Beniof said. It should be said that it's dream force starting today, which is his big annual conference in the middle of San Francisco. So she's waking up to Donald Trump being very disappointed with this photo, which do you want to give the phrase that Ron Filipowski, the editor-in-chief of Midas, coined for this picture?

I personally do not. I'm going to let you do that. All right. Well, I think he's referring to this, and he said it was a neck vagina, which was not a phrase I'd heard of before. I thought of neck waddle. I mean, this is not a flattering shot. No, I mean, it's actually... I mean, he's obviously concerned about his hair. but they showed his neck vagina, said Ron Filippauses, which did cause me to laugh this morning over my coffee. But we have so much to get into because we've got to talk about Todd Blanche.

We've got to talk about the Maga split. Well, let's go back. I mean, let's go back to. And we're going to talk about Gillen. Yes. And we promised people we would talk about Melania. Okay, we have to do Melania. But let's do Gaza first.

Okay. Before, before. So we have him now returning from Gaza. but what he has he has exited, he hopes, a very serious split in MAGA. I mean, and this is, this is the underlying, I mean, a key underlying element of this peace deal. Go on. And of his willingness to tell Netanyahu, you've got to do it this way. I mean, remember, and he has not done this for the nine months of the presidency.

he has let Netanyahu do whatever Netanyahu wants to do. Well, and famously Netanyahu is supposed to have said I run Donald Trump. Yeah, well, that is being repeated and repeated by the MAGA echo chamber, Tucker, Rogan, Banon. Yeah. And that's at the core of this. Maga has absolutely broken with Netanyahu. We hate the guy. We think he's a war criminal. I mean, you cannot get actually more extreme at this moment in the MAGA view of Netanyahu and essentially thereby Israel.

So whereas Trump has been up until last week, absolutely in the Netanyahu camp. So Trump, and, you know, it's interesting in these moments to see Trump paying attention specifically to his constituency. Okay. So, and where does this MAGA, where does the fury over this come from in MAGA? Well, I mean, it's curious. It's the fury on the far right mirrors the fury on the far left. Right, because I'm almost like Zoran, Mammatani and Maga are joined, well, a lot of people are joined in anxiety and fury over what happened in Gaza. Right, right. So, I mean, some of it is, some of it is obvious. There has been a slaughter going on in Gaza, a slaughter that has gone on far longer than it had to, obviously, because it just stopped when Trump decided it was going to stop when essentially, essentially,

essentially the U.S. threatened Netanyahu with whatever it could threaten him with, which is a lot. So then it stopped. But probably I think it's reasonable to say on both extremes, left and right, this has the fury. I mean, it's hard to say that there is too much fury when it comes to what has obviously been a slaughter. But I think you can reasonably say that there are other political considerations going on here. So this becomes the agent of the MAGA people who want to, as we've discussed before, you know, this is the lame duck season is in the process of beginning. there is going to be a fight about the soul of MAGA and the soul of the Republican Party. And one of the key issues here is that that is that that fight put J.D. Vance on the other side of where MAGA wants to be.

So I would say that that is partly what is being looked at right now. And Tucker Carlson, who we should come back and talk about later in more detail, is right where MAGA is on this. Absolutely. Well, all of those went Rogan, Bannon, very much. This is, we are the true MAGA voices and J.D. Vance is not. No, no. And the only reason I mention Tucker is because Tucker seems a more likely candidate than either. No, definitely. And I think we should spend some considerable time talking about Tucker. I think he's he's he is now a central a central voice. I think he may become a central personality conceivably a candidate, but he is also a central intellectual, I use the word advisedly, voice on the in articulating the MAGA position and the movement. And he's a political

outsider too in the way that Trump was, that he doesn't come from years of being a Congress personal or senator or governor, he's actually a personality who could run. Anyway, let's come back to that because I do want to talk about Melania. But I feel like there's still more to be talked about first with Todd Blanche and Lindsay Halligan and Pam Bondi and, as the Daily Beast calls him, Keystone Cash. No, I mean, what we've seen simultaneously with peace in Israel is, and, Trump in his campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize is Trump at home ordering the persecution, the prosecution, also quite literally, of his enemies. So his intention very clearly is to put his

political opponents in jail. That is, I think, any version of, of, of, of politics, autocratic, despotic, really nasty behavior. Yeah, no, and completely wrong for the United States of America. But he also comes back to warring factions within his own cabinet, right? So which has been playing out in the press over the last few days. In the Justice Department, yeah, no, no, very much. Well, in the Justice Department and against the FBI. The FBI is part of the Justice Department.

Okay. Yes, I mean, he has brushed aside. I mean, clearly there are voices, the senior most voices in the Justice Department. I mean, actually, anybody with a rational brain in their head is saying, this is not a good idea. This is not a good idea just because it's not a good idea to openly be prosecuting your enemies. but on top of that, these are cases that we're not going to win. Right. So.

And they're going to go before a jury, right? Well, they would have. And if they get that far. If they get that far and they won't even get that far. I mean, this is just going to lead to the specific embarrassment of the Justice Department. So, I mean, so they're all Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, you know, who are kind of saying, oh, my God, this is on our watch. We're going to do this.

So they're trying to, in every way possible, as they say in the, in Trump circles or people around him, slow walk this. Right. Because then he loses interest and moves on to something else. Right. Except that he sent out what he thought was, I think, a personal memo to Pam saying, come on, get on with it. This is outrageous. But it went out as a truth social.

Right. And so in order to do this, I mean, essentially, let's understand what he's doing, the president of the United States is ordering the specific prosecution of specific people. That's not supposed to happen. In any interpretation of due process, that's not supposed to happen. But that is happening. And in order to make it happen, I mean, he couldn't, his, the designated chiefs in the Justice Department, essentially, well, they were slow, this wasn't going to happen. So he pushed them aside. He fired the U.S. attorney, himself personally, fired the U.S. attorney in Virginia.

and he installed a person by the name of Lindsay Halligan. Who has zero prosecutorial experience? No, as one of a person in the close Trump circle said to me, Lindsay, oh my God, Halligan. So, and this is someone, Lindsay Halligan was a person, she does have a law degree and she's, she does have a law degree, and she's from Palm Beach. And she at some point joined the campaign.

And on the campaign, it was Lindsay Halligan, Natalie Harp, Alina, Haba, and then Trump used to refer to them as my Charlie's Angels. And that was literally their job is to be the girls around Trump. And to sort of protect him, right? Isn't that what Charlie's Angels did? Well, I can't remember. I just remember Farah Faw's hair, but they all have that hair. Yeah, no, I think that was it.

He was just, there was no function here, actually, quite the opposite. Okay. They didn't do anything. They were, they were, at least Halligan and Haber were lawyers, but they didn't really practice. Their legal responsibilities were limited, except when other lawyers wouldn't do what he wanted. then he would just tell them what to do, and they would do it, sort of. And Lindsay Halligan is important in this because Virginia is the state where so many of these kind of important cases, government cases, come up.

Well, it's just a federal district which encompasses Washington. Right. So, yeah, so he put her in and said, you have to indict James Comey, and you have to indict Letitia James, which has been done. And it looks like they're coming for John Bolton too. John Bolton, Adam Schiff, Lisa Cook, Jack Smith, and Chris Christie, his old friend from New Jersey, and they were once very, very good friends. But anyway, Chris Christie is now on the list.

And of course, he would love to. And sometimes talks about indict. Barack and Michelle Obama, and of course, Joe Biden. And Hillary, crooked Hillary. You've got a shout out in his speech in Egypt. No, no, crooked Hillary, of course, of course. I mean, you can see why people don't even want to be in the room with him because at some point, even if you've been a fervent supporter,

his finger may point at you. I mean, Chris Christie at one point couldn't do enough for him. Yeah, no, no. Remember those, that moment when Chris Christie was always, in the picture with him kind of stroking? Oh, it's horrible. And Trump senses it, and senses the weakness, I think. I mean, it was also sort of crazy the way he went after John Bolton and said that ridiculous mustache that he's got. Well, that obsessed him. He didn't, I mean, John Bolton was not hired on several occasions because of the mustache. And then

everyone else had been hired and fired, so they finally got to the mustache, which is what he said. Yeah, okay, hire the mustache. Higher the mustache. Well, he's getting his back on the mustache now, but it's highly unlikely that any of these people will actually end up in jail, isn't it? Which is what Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche know. We say this at this point, but it was highly unlikely

not that long ago that any of these people would actually be indicted. I mean, we would have said that some, well, they won't actually be indicted. But they've still, in theory, got to get through a jury. In theory. I mean, this is, you know, I mean, this is what happens in, I mean, yes, let's not go down that, go down this hole at this moment because it is inconceivable. But the inconceivable is the times we live in. Okay, I'm going to toss to our sponsors. And Michael and I are back and we're still inside Trump's head.

Right. So the autocracy is creeping in in terms of things like this. Yet there is still, we should celebrate the freedom to say that the president on his copy of time has a neck vagina on X, which is seen by millions of people. So it's a strange dual head fuck, I think is what I'm trying to say, which brings me nicely to Melania. Why are we suddenly seeing? Okay. That's all right. Why are we suddenly seeing? Okay, that's all right. Why are we suddenly seeing Melania? She hasn't been anywhere near him and suddenly she's reappearing. She's reappearing. So she was at the Windsor Castle dinner. Well, we never discussed the reports that Donald Trump left his room, his bedroom that he was staying in. And we did say that they had separate suites and they'd specifically asked for separate suites. We didn't mention the fact that there were reports that he had left his suite in a terrible state. and that there were sort of fake tan stains on the sheet. Oh, you mean he was not, he not, him, he was not personally in a terrible state. The room was in a terrible state. You know, it was a bit like picking up, going into a room after the Rolling Stones have been staying in it.

Yeah, no, no, I have actually had a lot of descriptions of the way he leaves hotel rooms. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, during the campaign, you know, when they, when they did have to stay, He doesn't like to stay in hotel rooms. But when he had to, there was always a kind of post-occupation description. And the thing that I remember most, well, there are a lot of things. First thing, he just drops things on the floor. So there's no papers, whenever he reads a paper or looks at a paper because it doesn't really read,

he rips it and then drops it on the floor. But the other thing is it's also accompanied by candy wrappers. Candy wrappers. Is that because he takes Ambien? I mean, you know, I remember when I was in the fashion business and we would fly overnight for the shows in Milan or Paris and a lot of people would take Ambien. And if they had, well, even if they didn't have issues,

one of the side effects is you raid the minibar and models and fashion editing. would wake up with competing stories of finding themselves smeared in a Snickers bar with a wrapper sticking out of their eyelashes because that's what Ambien, that's one of the symptoms of Ambien. Because you're looking at me very doubtfully. No, no, I have actually heard similar stories and you know when a lot of hotels they put the chocolate on the pillow.

On the pillow and then on Ambien you don't really notice that and then you wake up. in the Well, it's smeared all over you. I've never taken Ambien. I'm terrified of any kind of sleeping drug. All over your sheets, even worse. Oh, uh. Anyway, he leaves his hotel rooms,

but apparently he also left the Windsor Castle room in a mess. Okay, how do we get to that? What can I say? Melania was on the visit, and she's been, you know, we know that she wasn't visible. And as you've said, when she turns up at the White House,

people treat you're at. Okay, well, this is easy. What more? What is she doing? She is not somebody, I heard somebody says, well, maybe there's a rapprochement. Well, yeah, I guess in some universe that might be possible, but not this universe. Okay. She has, the Melania documentary is coming out in January.

On Amazon. She's on a promotion tour. She's beginning this. This is, she's, listen, Melania is, is, you. You know, it's the Melania hustle. Okay, so we haven't, I mean, the Melania hustle is the documentary going to be shown in Russia because we now learn, too. We haven't even, it's been such a busy week of everything coming at us.

We haven't even gotten to the discovery that Melania has been speaking to Putin. I'm not even going there on that one. Why not? What's that mean? It's, what does that mean? I mean, what does it mean that she's speaking? speaking to Putin. The coming payoff is on this documentary, which she's already been paid $40 million for. She has a stake in the back end, I think a very large stake in the back end. I think it's

70% isn't it? And also let's just remind people why Barron has been in the news. Well, Barron, I mean, confoundingly, has become one of the president's central crypto advisors, apparently. But he may also be joining the board of TikTok or getting a job at TikTok. Oh, yes. Then there is that rumor. Okay. So I actually have to say I can't wait to watch the Melania documentary. I think we should watch it together. I think we should do a live watch party the minute it drops. Now, what I do want to know is why is she talking to Putin?

Is it just an elaborate publicity stunt for the documentary? Or is Amazon Prime in Russia? We should know this. But we don't know this. But it doesn't matter. It just is a publicity stunt. Of course it is. Great.

Because we know she doesn't like Christmas. I fucking hate Christmas. She hates it. Is this true? Do you know this? Yes, we heard the tapes that Stephanie Winston Walkoff had of her saying, I fucking hate Christmas. Now, I think we have other things to discuss too. All right, so we've been through Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche,

understanding that it's unlikely he'll get these, well, in theory, understanding that they were trying to slow walk the political indictments because they didn't think that they would actually get. them through or that they could win, which rebounds badly on them. He's cleared them out of the way, put in Lindsay Halligan as attorney for, as U.S. attorney for Virginia, and she's going after people hellful lever. Yeah, let's go. She's sensing an opportunity here too. Well, I know. She doesn't exist here. She's just basically a transparent figure. I mean, she doesn't, she doesn't know how to indict anyone. She doesn't know how to try anyone. I'm sure she has no, no particular politics of any

persuasion herself. She's just a Trump acolyte. And, and she's put in that job so that he can demand, he can order an indictment. She doesn't exist. It is he literally reaching down and indicting someone. So, I mean, she's the vehicle through. which he's moving. I mean, if you were her, I think that even gives her more credit to say that she's, she's the vehicle. She really is, she is just the, the placeholder and the placeholder for him. She has no discretion.

She has, well, she has no abilities, but she also has no discretion. she could not say, I don't want to do this. So supposing the Democrats... I have looked at the evidence, as everyone else said, and this is not going to work. Okay. She can't do that. Right. Well, if I were her, I would be nervous that if the Democrats got elected again, who knows,

doesn't feel like that right now, but let's assume that they might do, that she would then be vulnerable, wouldn't she, to being indicted? You know, I don't know how any of these people don't look to the, the future and think, you know, is this really what I want to be doing? Is this wise? Well, maybe because like Steve Bannon, who just announced over the weekend, that he thought Trump would be running again in 2028. Yeah. Now, Steve has been, I think I've said before that there is Bologna and then there is Bannon Bologna, which is a particular. A particular. A particular advanced condition of baloney.

And knowing Steve, and I know him pretty well, you can rest assured that he's leaving whatever podcast studio, although he never leaves the podcast studio, but were he to leave, he would be rolling on the floor laughing at his performance. apostorous suggestion. Okay. All right. So, I mean, are we confident in the future of the editor of time after this photo?

Who is the editor of time? I don't know who the editor of time is. No, it doesn't. The editor of time is like Lindsay Halligan. Oh, brutal. I'm going to stand up for them because I think they did rather a good job with this photo. It's a wonderfully subversive cover for a man who used to make up time covers and put them on his wall, right? Wasn't that?

No, no. It's a very – It's a very – It's a very meaningful piece of artifact for him. And it's a very 1985 moment, too, which is where he lives. I know you said that Roger Ailes said he lived in 1965 when time was even more important. But 1985, it would have been important too. No.

Time magazine. for years and years, the single most important piece of media in the United States, the cover. Well, today it still is. But, you know, one of the things, I want to go back to Todd Blanche because there was just a big piece in the New York Times about him. But I also want to couple that with a big piece just the other day in the Wall Street Journal about Galane Maxwell. Oh, I can't believe we haven't talked about that. Gellon Maxwell in her Texas jail. No.

And it was a, I mean, it was kind of extraordinary. I mean, the piece in the journal basically said that this jail has been turned upside down by the fact that Maxwell is there. That all of the procedures in this prison have been altered to accommodate her. Because they are terrified. that something is going to happen to her? Well, that seems to be sort of one of the issues. I mean, another of the issue is that she has been given special this, that, the other thing to keep her happy, obviously.

But she's also under heavy guard because obviously they can't, I mean, were something to happen to her, that would, that would Well, that would That would Yes. I mean, the whole notion of conspiracies, yes. Yes.

Absolutely crazy. But I think the point about this piece in the Wall Street Journal was again points to that the leak comes. Remember the journal is the newspaper that published the birthday

letter from Trump to Epstein, which was widely seen as a leak from the Maxwell's. And then that immediately resulted in Todd Blanche flying down to Florida to interview Galane Maxwell. And then within days, she was moved to this, to this comfier prison, significantly comfier prison. Which is not where sex offenders, which she is, are supposed to be. And they're not even supposed to be in this prison. So the rule is already bent for her. Right.

So this was widely seen. That article was widely seen as a leak from the Maxwell family. This too is not least of all because it appears in the journal again, is probably a leak from the Maxwell family. And again, a warning to the Trump White House that Galeen has a voice. and the voice can be used against the Trump White House can be used against Donald Trump. If they don't, I think if there is any hesitation on what is widely assumed to be a deal to pardon her.

Yeah, I'm sure the Gillen-Maxwell voice right now is screaming, get me out of here. Certainly I have heard from friends in the UK that Kevin Maxwell, her brother, which is where they live, Kevin lives, has been telling people she is under incredibly oppressive guard, as she would be. And once again, a message. We love our sponsors, but now we're back discussing, well, kind of everything.

Now, the story in the New York Times yesterday about Todd Blanche is the opposite kind of leak. So it was largely a negative story about Blanche or a story about the antagonism toward him in MAGA circles. And that antagonism is, well, that leak would have come principally because of what is perceived as his involvement in the Maxwell cover-up. Right. which is obviously from the MAGA standpoint, another rift in the MAGA movement between Trump and this core of his base. And the piece in the Times about Top Blanche was trying to suggest at least initially that he and Pam Bondi, his boss, and again, always to remind people they were both Donald Trump's personal lawyers, now number one and number two at the Justice Department, that there was tension between,

between them and that there was tension between them and Cash Patel. In fact, they're united on their dislike of Cash Patel, who's head of the FBI. Right. And remember, both Bondi and Blanche are now thought by the MAGA people to be complicit in the Epstein cover-up. Right. Because they said in July there's nothing to see here. Or the president's, I think we should more accurately say, the president's agents in the Epstein cover-up. Right. And we know that before Cash Patel got the job as head of FBI and his number two, Dan Bongino, who was a podcaster before he was made. Number two at the FBI, both were screaming for the Epstein files to be released before they took those jobs. Now they've been much quieter, though apparently Dan Bongino stormed off for one day after.

Right. Well, they have all been disciplined. They now act like hostage videos. Hostage videos, the head of the FBI and the number two and the FBI putting out their own hostage videos about, of course, what does it all come down to? Epstein, Epstein. All right, Michael, I've got some comments for you, which I'm going to throw at you. Would Trump get rid of J.D. Vance to appoint one of his sons as his successor? Yes, no answer. Who's that from? That's from Tarot to the Tess?

No. Oh, you don't think he would throw J.D. Vance over? No, I think he will throw J.D. Vance over, and I think whoever is the Republican nominee, Trump will undermine because he couldn't tolerate there being another Republican president. But I don't think that has anything to do. And he doesn't want his sons to be the president either. scorched earth. All right. Here is a good question which actually we should unpack for another episode and it's from Alexandra Ratz, N791. I'm not pronouncing that right. Guys, what is in Trump's head with the Insurrection Act? Would you guess about how far he will be able to go on this authoritarian road?

Well, very far. I mean, you know, this is sort of hard to imagine because we have never in the United States of America imagine this. And even now, you think, well, yeah, he did that, but he's not going to go farther than that. And he does. It's interesting how people just get pushed out of his way. I mean, there doesn't seem to be much resistance to him. I mean, I guess the Democrats would say they're resisting him. And we could talk about this more in another future episode about the government standing

up against the troops. I mean, the courts are doing some work, actually, some very brave judges out there. Yeah, no. And in some sense, he is creating his own opposition, too. I mean, this is, you know, a kind of, you know, strange. aspect of... Do you mean internally? Of Trump?

No, I mean externally. I mean, he's, you know, both Governor Newsom in California and Governor Pritzker in Illinois have now suddenly a much greater visibility because Trump has sent in these troops or threatened to send in these troops. And they are standing up. They are opposing him in ways that gives them a, uh, a, uh, uh, a new national political profile. Right, right. No, completely, completely true.

All right, one more question. Why doesn't someone that's able to do so sue over the ballroom? It's the people's house, were bids taken, who is the architect? Did a short list of firms submit plans? Who is paying for this? Is everyone too afraid to challenge him? And that is from Susie Q-1170. Well, I don't know that there have not been suits since there are suits about everything.

But I think that in truth, the existing president of the United States, whoever it is at a moment, has wide discretion over the White House. Spending is another issue. But my understanding is that most, if not all of this, is being privately financed. Right, by American companies, I think, right? Yes. Yeah. That's also worth, okay, what we get from your comments and which is why we love them is we get great ideas for future episodes. Actually, the ballroom is a fantastic episode.

Totally. Especially the fact it's going to be bigger than the White House itself. No, let's do that. My 10-year-old daughter is appalled by this. Talks about this constantly now. Interesting. The ballroom. How can he do that?

How can he just change the White House? and the paving over the Rose Garden. Well, the moro lagoing of the White House is, I think, what's really sort of surprising to people. And the patio is, what did Governor Newsom call it? The predator patio. So we've got pro-pedo Pam, that was your nickname, and the predator patio, that was Governor Newsom's nickname.

All right, there's quite a lot in there. But at least we know now that Melania is out again because she's promoting her Amazon Prime documentary. The Melania hustle. The Melania hustle. All right, great. So what are we going to be talking about next week or on Thursday, in fact? We had some ideas.

We had some ideas. The whole, everything could have changed by then. What I would like is Lindsay Halligan's hair tips. Now, I also want to point out several of you left comments about the strange light on the video that we put out, or the YouTube we put out on, does video make me sound old-fashioned? It might make me sound a bit Gen X slash boomer. Anyway, some people pointed out that I had a strange,

almost Aladdin's sane, like flash that kept going across my face, and it was because unlikely as this might seem. Loranord SVU was shooting on the floor above us, but they had massive Clegglights. I think they're called Clegglights in the street, and they kept zooming into the office and landing on my face, which is why I looked kind of odd. It looked like I had a silver flash.

Anyway, I'm just solving that puzzle for people. Thank you. I wasn't experimenting with new makeup. You always look like a silver flash to me. Well, that's very kind of you. All right, onwards and downwards, and on to our next episode on Thursday. And I look forward to it.

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