The Daily Beast Podcast - The Bonkers Secrets of Phone-Obsessed Trump: Wolff

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to focus on one of Donald Trump’s most revealing tools: the telephone. Drawing on decades of firsthand experience—from Trump’s landline calls to New York Magazine in the 1990s to rambling, unsolicited calls as president—Wolff explains why Trump is almost never off the phone, why he hates email and paper trails, and how calling isn’t about exchanging information so much as asserting dominance, rehearsing grievances, and never being alone. It’s a portrait of a man who governs, leaks, vents, and connects almost entirely by voice—using the phone as both comfort object and command center—and a revealing look at how Trump’s constant talking shapes his politics, his relationships, and his presidency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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with Shopify. Empecia to start your period of month in Shopify. coms bar records. Do people call him? Yeah.

And do they call him direct on the cell phone? If you have the number, yeah. Right. Does he distribute his number sort of wildly? I wouldn't say wildly, but somewhat if you have the number. It's somewhat complicated because the number then changes. Like they changed the number so that Rudy Giuliani couldn't call him anymore. They changed the number so Rudy Giuliani couldn't call him anymore.

And then, oh, and then sometimes the staff will take his phone and take people out of the phone because they don't want him calling this person, often a reporter. Michael. Joanna. Where are we going? Where are we going? Oh, God. We're going back there again.

But we're doing a special issue. Inside Trump's head. Inside Trump's telephone head. Yeah. We're doing a special episode today where we are focused on one of Trump's tools, which is the telephone. We've had so many comments from people wanting to know more about how he uses the phone, and we thought, why not?

Let's do a special episode focusing on it now. And let's set the context. He is always on the phone. If there are not people in the same room as he is who he is talking to, and literally talking to since they don't talk to him. He talks to them. if they are not there, he is on the phone. Or often, when they are there, he is on the phone with someone else.

So part of what's important to understand is that he always must be talking to somebody. Okay. So let's go back in time to when you first had your first calls with Donald Trump. You were at New York Magazine. So I was at New York Magazine, and I was the media, columnist for New York Magazine. And media is what Donald Trump, that's a kind of catnip for him. Who's the, I know how this would have gone. Who's the media guy? Get me the media guy. Anyway, he found out I was the media guy. And then he started to call me up.

Okay. So I want you to set the scene, though. So your phone is ringing. And at this point, is this pre-cell phone? Is this a landline? This is pre-cell phone. Yeah, because I work to New York Magazine, I can still remember my number, I think. Yes. Okay. So the phone would ring and you didn't know who it was or would it come up with caller ID Donald Trump? No, I don't think that there was caller ID there. Okay. So you just took a call? I think I got a call. Maybe I got a message first. I don't know. But it was then Michael Donald Trump or, yeah, Michael, Donald Trump. And then he would go into it. Did he ever call you with his John Barron name? No, I never got that. It was all. always it was always Donald Trump. And John Barron was the name that he would pretend to be when he was calling with stories

about himself to the New York Post. He would pretend he was a publicist called John Barron, who was really Donald Trump. Right. And they still, within the White House, when there is a leak, when something appears in the New York Times or the Washington Post and where does that come from, they go, John Barron. Oh, that's so interesting. So he's still leaking stuff about himself. Well, yes, but now he doesn't do it that.

He doesn't call up the Washington Post and say this is John Barron. But when he does do the leaking and he does leak himself and then the staff knows that where did this come from? Well, it didn't come from us. So where must it have come from? It must have come from John Barron. So funny. All right. So set the scene.

You're sitting there at New York Magazine at your desk. The phone rings and it's Don. Trump and what is he usually ringing about? He's ringing about some article and almost always, as I recall, an article that he thought he should be in. Right. So it's not you wrote this about me and it's wrong. It's you didn't write this about me.

And because you didn't write this about me and didn't include me in this article, the article is wrong. You don't understand anything. Who is that? And then it was somebody... Would he be sort of abusive and critical? Yes, but it would always be of someone else. Who is this other writer saying these things?

That person is a moron. Obviously, it's me here. This happened because of me. And then this and that, and I would go, yeah, okay, okay, you know, I'll pass it on. Right. Or so right you are. And I kind of, I mean, it was always... amusing, semi-amusing.

And, you know, in thinking back, you think, maybe he didn't mean it to be amusing, but it was. And then you could always go, you'd get off the phone, and then you could go, guess who I just heard from. And remember, Donald Trump at this point, and this would have been the late 90s, early 2000s, was a kind of a joke figure. So, you know, why not? It was, I can hear the voice. I mean, I can hear the voice partly because in the years since I've heard it so often.

But he was, you know, and he didn't really even then want to hear from you. He didn't want to hear a justification. He didn't want to hear an explanation. He wanted just to tell you why he should have been in this article. And it wasn't brief. And were there any other people, I use the word important sort of loosely, but were there any other people who would do this? You mean other people in New York? I mean captains of industry or heads of media companies that will call you and say this piece, what are you thinking about?

You missed this. It should have been about me. No. All of the other calls were, you know, why did you say this about me? How could you have said this? And there's usually by their PR people. Right. So there was something kind of nice about the fact. I mean, transparent or honest or different about the fact that Donald Trump called you himself. Right. He didn't have his PR people calling. And there was a sense that he liked to speak to me.

Does that make sense? I mean, kind of. Well, they liked speak to reporters. Yeah. But even individually when, and I think it's part of Donald Jr. Trump's charm in, let me use air quotes, that when he spoke to you, you thought that he was, you know, he was really focused on you. And it was as though he wanted to speak to you. He liked speaking with you, which is the only reason, the only explanation for why he did it so

often. Right. And so, of course, back in these days, he was a Democrat. He was a New York character, a bit of a joke. Yeah, it was never very political, as I recall. There was no politics to this. So he's calling you on the landline. And it was often about articles that he would have no reason to be in. Right. So he just wanted your attention.

He wanted to talk to you, wanted your attention. He wanted to speak to a reporter. He was laying down tracks for when you next wrote about him. I suppose, yes. And how little. did you know at that point how much you would be writing about him. So, so. And there was also, and I think it's important that that moment in time, you didn't really want to write about Donald Trump. You didn't really want Donald Trump in any stories that

were written because he was kind of a cliche. Right. He was written out. He had, I mean, it was clear that anything, any story that Donald Trump was in by that point, he had shoehorned. himself, shoehorned himself into. So it's so interesting. At the time I was writing for first the Guardian and then the Times of London, and the one person that the news desk would ask me to try and get all the time was Donald Trump. And I never once tried. I would think, oh, such a cliche.

It's the only New Yorker they've ever heard of. Yes, yeah, right. So that's a out-of-town figure. That's an out-of-towner's idea of New York. The news says to say, can you get an interview with Donald Trump? and I'd think I would rather shoot myself and get into with Donald Trump. You could have. I could have done.

Well, who knew? But I had no interest in talking to him because I understood within the context of New York, he was thought to be a joke, but he was totally an out-of-towner's view of a New Yorker. So the cell phone comes out. I think the iPhone comes out in 2006, right? Does Donald Trump move to the iPhone? Because what's so remarkable is how he really never seemed to have emails or texts. No, I don't think.

think he does right away eventually moves to an iPhone. Yes. In 2016, he certainly did. I mean, that would have been the first point at which I'm observing him during the campaign. And I remember actually, so I'm sitting with him. This first interview that I do with him is in his house in Beverly Hills. And this was for the Hollywood reporter when he was thinking of running. No, he was running.

And, I mean, that would have been in maybe April 2016. So it's already clear that he will almost certainly get the nomination at this point. But anyway, I'm in the house. And he, and he, I remember he made a, he, he had to call someone. And Jared was there. Jared held the phone. Jared held the phone for him. Yes.

In other words, Jared, I need. Jared, I need my phone. So whereas we all keep our phones... Oh, I see. So he didn't keep the phone on him. Jared was the phone holder. Right. And did Jared have to press the buttons for him, or...

I believe so. I believe Jared got the person on the phone and then handed the phone to... Because perhaps his little fingers can't reach the buttons. But at any rate, so there's a couple of interesting things. The fact that he does not, did not then, and continues not to use... email. Right. So it is all a verbal thing. It's not, the phone is, this is not about exchanging information. This is about talking. And he doesn't use emails and texts because he has dyslexia, because he can't read. Why is that? There's been so much suspicion around it. I mean, I think all of that

is probably true. But I think that the other thing is, and I've known this with other, kind of disreputable people. They prefer the telephone. Right. Well, nobody wants to put a trace. Right. And I think it's very, it's very much inside his head. Don't email.

I don't make that mistake. Do you think he is actually unable to read? I mean, there's been so much speculation about it, and he has that very sort of spidery signature. Do you actually think he can't read? Well, I know, I mean, the people around. him debate this all of the time. Do they? Yeah. You know, what does he, you know, he can read something. He can read headlines.

I mean, he seems to read speeches from telepronters. Headlines about him, but he seems also not to read speeches from teleprompters. But he reads enough of a speech from a teleprompter to think he must be able to read unless he just remembers it, because often people with dyslexia have good memories. I think, I think obviously there's something going on there. Obviously he does something. I mean, he does he does posts on truth social and and he writes the post they're often not um incoherent it's true right but but he but he does but within the what within the white house i mean he doesn't he reads minimally i mean it's very important to treat him that way if you give him something

to read he won't read it that's that's a mistake on your part so um so he likes information coming in orally and he likes to talk. No, he doesn't really like it in information. Of course you've said. I mentioned coming in orally because he doesn't like information coming to him. He likes to dispense information or dispense whatever it is he dispenses which is not

necessarily information. So where does he get any of? But where does he get his information from, from television? From television. Right. So he basically watches television or he's on the phone. Yes. Okay. And the phone is always, you know, you never get a word in edgewise.

So I remember Anthony Scaramucci, who, as we know, was his head of, you know, White House comms for 11 days, just saying that you were on a rotor, that he would, you know, he would call you late at night, you would pick up the phone, he was already talking, he would be already talking when you hung up and you knew he was just calling through everybody he knew. Tell us what it's like to get the call. You know, the interesting thing is that you don't have a second to kind of process that, that the president of the United States is calling you up. Right. Because then he launches into whatever he's going to say. So he's, you're irrelevant, he's going, and then you're trying to understand what the hell he's talking about. And then you think, you think, first thing, you're not sure it's him.

Is it him? But then you think, yes, I know this voice. And does he call, or do they say, Mr. Mr. Wolf, please hold for the President of the United States. Well, I've gotten both calls. Okay, so sometimes it's just directly him, and sometimes you get, it goes via his Natalie Harp or whoever. Yes, exactly. Yes, and then it's, and that's kind of an interesting moment.

Can you hold for the president? What do you say? This is the White House. Can you hold for the president? Right. Not right now. Can you ask him to call me back in five? But then he just launches in.

And you don't know, you don't know the context. You don't know, you're not clear about what the subject is. You're not clear about the purpose. You're not even clear that he has called the right person. So it's, you're kind of almost paralyzed. So you're sort of in the headlights. Yes. And then you're thinking, I'm on the phone with the president of the United States.

And shouldn't I get off of it? the phone. Shouldn't this call end because, you know, the world might need something. And then he goes on and then he keeps going on. So you're on the, you are on the phone with the president of the United States for, and then you're looking at the home. It's five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. It's got to end your thinking. When is it going to end? How do I end it? So how can you end it? He's the more powerful person on the phone, don't you have to wait for him to end it? Yes, I suppose, yes. But then you feel a kind of compulsion to help him end it, to get on and to, you know, attack Greenland, whatever.

And now a word from our sponsors. And Michael Wolf and I are back. Well, you know where we are. We're inside Trump's head. What is he using the phone for? I think he's using it for, for, you know, a, you know, a. human connection. I mean, I don't think he knows how to make a human connection.

So without the actual connection, he has the phone and he is constantly. You know, and I, so there's this other thing. When I report on this, when I'm reporting on Trump, I know a whole set of the people he calls and calls frequently, regularly, people on his call list. And the call list kind of morphs but slowly. And so you can kind of track these people. I know these people. I can call this, have you heard?

Yes. And then they will tell you what he has told them. Because they're always so, I think everybody in some way reacts the same way. What was that about? And so it's to go over it with someone else. else. Right. But it's very interesting that you say uses the phone for human connection because his daughter's not there, his wife's not there. He's lonely, right? What I'm taking from this is he's lonely and this is his way of reaching out and sort of dominating the person he's talking to.

Well, it's certainly dominating because you never get a word in edgewise. And is he trying stuff out on you? Because you say that sometimes he's... Yeah, no, no, totally, totally. And he's dissing people all over the place. I mean, it's unfiltered. And you're just listening to it, but it jumps all over the place. So you don't really know, was there a point here? Are we going somewhere? Is this? What's the takeaway? You don't know. And you're always kind of trying to sort of get a word in edgewise. Why, I don't know. Except that that seems like what you do if he's looking for a human connection, you want to kind of, you know, feel sorry for him. Let's have a little conversation here. You feel sorry for the president of the United States. Or else the just the, just the

novelty of saying, Mr. President, Mr. President. But it doesn't matter. It's all you get to say. And then he's over and then he's on to something else. And how does he wrap up the call? So he's called you. You've put it on speakerphone because you can't believe the president is calling you. And it's a historic moment. And I've sat in my in my house with everybody in my house. Right, listening. Just like... Well, it's the most famous voice in the world, right? How does he wrap up a conversation?

Is he like, got to go by? Or does he even say by? I have friends who have phone calls with me and they don't even say bye. Yeah, no, I have those people too. They're probably the same people. I mean, he does the thing. Let's get this. You let me know about this.

It's a set of instructions. You let me know about this. A set of instructions. And I want to see you. Let's get together. Let's sit down. about this. And that, of course, doesn't particularly happen.

But sometimes it happens. Well, less so now he's suing you. Yes. Well, at the moment, I seem not to be his friend, as he's noted. Yeah, that's not a friend. That was his comment when he said that you'd conspired with Epstein to do harm to his presidency. So he'll be suing you and Trevor Noah, who made a joke about him. So that's not a friend.

That's not a friend. No, so he still thinks of you as a friend. So he calls you and he's already in the conversation. Already. Right. And then he ends it with, let's discuss this, let's get together. I mean, it says though he could be having this with anybody. This is not, you are not, and you kind of realize this, you are, you don't occupy an individual space there.

You're just a person on the end of the phone. a pair of ears. And that can go on for literally anyone. And so as I often track this, you know, and I'll say, well, what did he say to you? And then it will be the same thing he said to me or the same thing he said to the last person I knew he has called. And how early in the morning does it begin and how late in the evening does it go on? Because I'm conscious.

It begins literally first thing. I think as soon as, as soon as, as soon as, as, as, as, as, soon as he gets up. You know, I don't, I think he's up at about, you know, seven-ish. And then he's... He's lying in bed calling people. Yeah, he's lying in bed calling people. I can't even imagine.

Do you think, what do you think he sleeps in? Does he sleep in white pajamas? Does he sleep naked? Does he sleep in, like, boxes and a t-shirt? I mean, you know, we had Jen Welch on the Daily Beast podcast, and she said he's like a teenage girl. And then we got lots of comments in saying teenage girls are much more organized and much nicer and much more thoughtful than Donald Trump, which I thought was a fair point. But she meant that he's just obsessed with his phone.

He's lying in bed on his phone. He's tracking things on his phone. Well, I don't know. I did have, I curiously have had a discussion with him about sleepwear. Because someone, I can't remember the story, but someone mentioned something about his robe. that he came down in his robe. And I don't know why this involved involved. It must have been a white towel.

It involved me. But he said, he said, can you, can you see me in a robe? I'm not a robe kind of guy. You don't think that I'm a robe kind of guy? Of course he's a robe kind of guy. Don't you think he'd be in a white hotel robe with Mara Lago on the left? I don't know. I was thinking, what is a robe kind of guy?

a robe. But I don't know. No, I mean, he was incensed about the robe, the accusation, or the characterization that he would be in a robe. I'm like, okay. I would totally think he's a robe guy, and I feel like I've seen photos of him in a big, thick, white hotel robe. I'm just telling you, it's, it's, that's all I know. So I still can't imagine. I wish I understood what he's doing in, I said yes, no, no. I don't think you're a robe kind of guy. Right. Right. So he's in his bed. With the hamburger. No, the cold hamburger from the night before. I wonder, so I can't imagine what he's wearing. Is he wearing a gray t-shirt and boxes? Is he wearing nice white piping pajamas? I don't know. I can only tell you the robe. Okay. All I know. All right. So he's not wearing a robe. But he's sitting in bed, clutching his phone. The morning has begun.

he's calling to see how it's playing. The televisions are on. He's obviously the lead story in almost every channel. Do you think he has the newspapers brought to him? No, because he would have to read them. Right. But we know he used to read things because he used to cut them out and send them to the journalist with his squiggly thing on it. Right. Yeah. All right. So breakfast comes, English muffin, a bit of bacon, maybe a hamburger. I don't know. This is out of my, I don't know these these details. But does he start calling people? Does he start calling people immediately?

If he does call me again, though, I will ask. Let me know. Okay, please ask him. So does he... Joanna wants to know. Please tell him. He'll be like Joanna who. But I want you to...

So he wakes up in the morning and immediately he's on the phone. Yes. Okay. And then he comes downstairs and he's still on the phone. He's just never on his own is the point. He's never on his own. He's always speaking to someone. his mouth is always running.

I don't think that there is, there must be, but I can't imagine it, a moment of silence. In the middle of the night, what happens? Well, the truth socials in the middle of the night, right? So he wakes up and the first thing he does. So yes. So how come he's disciplined enough not to write emails or texts, but he's figured out how to truth social?

Well, I think the truth social is a specific thing. It's a broadcasting to the world. Right. This is what he knows this is public. He wants it to be public. It's what he doesn't want is private statements. Right. I mean, but it's, it's interesting, this call list that he has. You know, so this is the real, these are the real advisors. You know, the people around him, the employees are not really advisers. I mean, they're minions. They're people in his wake. There are people fetching him things. They're people picking up the candy wrappers. They're not the people he is turning to for advice.

Now, we'll get to how he gets the advice he wants to, but there's this set of people. And it changes, but it doesn't change by that much. You know, there's Fox people. Hannity has been consistently on this list. Sometimes Tucker gets on this list. There's a set of people in New York, real estate people, often real estate people, who are consistently on the list and have been for many years. These are the people he, who he calls constantly,

and who he kind of feeds lines to. So they know what is expected of them, what they have to say. So he'll often lead with, I mean, a lot of his conversation is personal. I mean, like he was suing me the other day. But the people around him, Pam Bondi, you know, he'll dis her. He'll call up and say, you know, I think, I think she's kind of a dummy, don't you think? And then somebody will say, yeah, I think she's a dummy.

So he's saying things because he wants to hear back his own opinion. Exactly. So he's never real, yes. What he's trying to put together as a policy or he's trying to figure out. I'm not even sure that that it goes that far. It's just he needs the, he's looking for confirmation for what he already thinks. There's never a conversation. What do you think about her?

What do you think I should be doing in this? He doesn't want that. He wants to tell you what he thinks and then for you to confirm that. Exhausting. Yeah. Exhaust. I mean, he must dread. His friends around him, I think, must dread him calling, don't they?

Yeah. I mean, I dread him calling. But, you know, on the same time as the president of the United States. Right. So it's a weird kind of thing. Now, he doesn't call, hasn't called me that many times, but some of these people hear from him all of the time. Now, um...

And define all of the time, like every day? Every day. Oh, if you're on the, if you're on the inner circle. Yes, you could be an everyday caller. Now, I think you get things from that. Mm-hmm. So you're on the inner circle and you're getting, um, I don't know, no, you're then become part of a crypto deal. I haven't become part of a crypto deal.

Though if I were a friend. Well, you're not a friend anymore because that's why he's suing you. It's not a thing a friend would do to conspire with Jeffrey Epstein against his presidency. And actually, there's a Jeffrey Epstein point here too because Jeffrey Epstein was not speaking to Trump, certainly during the period that I was talking to Jeffrey. Epstein, but Jeffrey Epstein was talking to many of the people who were speaking to Donald Trump. And Epstein knew the pattern here, knew who was on the call list. Right. And then those people on the call list would call Epstein, and then Epstein would call me.

That's just brilliant, brilliant. For all those people who thought you were making stuff up in your books, in fact, you were. Yes. Right. So interesting. So is there something about the fact that a conversation you have on the phone is once removed from sitting with the actual person that Donald Trump likes? I don't know because actually when you sit with him, it's the same thing. He just, it's just a monologue. So the phone is merely a device to carry on. Exactly. Carry on talking and carry on not being on his own. Right. I mean, I think the phone is transparent. It just is, you know, get me so and so. I am just continuing this conversation. I am just talking. And this is the way I talk now because I don't have anyone in front of me to talk to. So I use the phone and then I talk and then I talk to this person, that person.

In the Melania movie, there is a wonderful bit which actually they put in the trailer because she clearly wants us to know that she's not really with this man and they have a transactional marriage or she turns up when she needs to. But he calls her to see if she's understood that the vote certification has happened. He's now officially president. And she's like, no, I will watch on news. So she has no interest in hearing him. But it was interesting that the information was conveyed on the telephone.

They weren't together. And she was putting that in the trailer because she wants you to know that at the most important time of his life, when he's about to be ratified as president for the second time, against all odds, she is not with him. But again, you're mindful of the fact the phone is the vehicle. He's having to call his own wife who is not. looking on the television, which gives you a real insight into their relationship. And she puts it in the trailer.

She is signaling as loudly as she can as if she's got a huge mirror on the top of the mountain. It's as possible. And the phone is. I mean, he doesn't really have a marriage. He doesn't really have, I mean, there's no one around him. He doesn't really have friends. Yeah.

How did he end up as our president? Yeah. And the curious thing, I don't know of any women who are on his regular call list. Well, he's surrounded by women who look like younger versions of his wife. But the call list are men, rich men, important men. Golfing buddies, real estate buddies, and the odd journalist. And he does call journalists. I mean, one of the things he does do, which is unusual, certainly for a president,

is he calls journalist directly. I mean, in a way, he's much more accessible and transparent than most politicians, but in another way, he's not because it's just you don't. There's no interaction there. Right, and also he's frequently telling lies. Yeah, it's just broadcast, and it's frequently incoherent. I remember someone telling me that he used to call, and perhaps he still does, reporters at the New York Times, and one time he called a number that was usually the number

of a journalist, but an intern happened to be sitting there and picked it up and he went, oh, it's Donald Trump, you know, and he said, well, I'm just the intern. And Donald Trump started giving him advice as an intern, which was actually a rather sort of endearing moment, I think, and I think the intern was sort of eyes on sticks and then probably couldn't get rid of the president either. But it is fascinating that it is a device for connection, as you say, and also he's constantly on broadcast. He's always on but it's a weird connection, which

I mean, it's not a real connection or he doesn't know how to make the connection or doesn't really want to complete the connection because it's all broadcast 100%. Right, he's always untransmit, he's never unreceived. And it is

incoherent, which is the other thing to appreciate about this. I mean, it goes on. You think, my God, where are we going with this? This is like a pinball, we're there, we're there, and what is he talking about? Who is he talking about? You don't know what's going on. Do you think he's watching television while he's on the phone?

In my experience, I don't hear a television in the background, but then again, when he's on the phone, I'm kind of transfixed. I can't even imagine him doing things, though, like plugging his phone in and charging it at night. I mean, does he do what Ariana Huffington always says, we must do, which is have a little bed for our phones and put it outside our room? Does he have more than one phone? Does he have them all lined up?

Does he have one that he truth socials on and then the other that he talks on? I don't know. And it's interesting also that other, and not just flashing on instances, that someone is carrying the phone for him. Right. And does, do people call him?

You know, like Natalie Harp, the human printer. The human printer is often the phone. Where's my phone? Snaps this figure. Does it? He goes, where's my phone? And once more, a commercial message.

And Trump author, Michael Wolfe and I are back inside Trump's head. And do people call him? Yeah. And do they call him direct on the cell phone? If you have the number, yeah. Right. And does he distribute his number sort of wildly? I wouldn't say wildly, but somewhat if you have the number.

And there was a moment when they, when they, and so it's somewhat complicated because the number then changes. Like they changed the number so that Rudy Giuliani couldn't call him anymore. They changed the number so Rudy Giuliani couldn't call him anymore. And then, oh, and then sometimes the staff will take his phone and take people out of the phone because they don't want him calling this person. often a reporter. So because he can't, oh, that's the other thing, he can't dial the phone, the number has to be in the phone. So how does he dial?

Does he just speak into the phone and say, hey, Siri, call? That, that, well, he doesn't, he can just push the thing. The speed dial. So he's got a speed dial and then he just presses the number of the person. So if they take you out of that, he won't call you. You've been disappeared. Right. And, well, I guess they, who has the pass number to his phone?

Who has the pass code? I wonder if it's facial idea. That I don't know. You're in the weeds here that I have not been in. I'm just trying to imagine it all because the details are what make it such a fascinating story. And precisely because he seems so isolated, the phone is his sort of grappling hook to real life. And then the other thing is, and it's interesting, anyone who. who has that number he'll talk to.

So, I mean, it is kind of instant access. You have that number. You call him up, and he will talk to you. Now, you might not be able to transact the business that you wanted to transact because he's just talking. But there you are. Your name will come up on the screen. He'll take it.

And then off he goes. Delighted to talk to you. Oh, well, well, well. Well, if you have been, thank you for joining us. If we get Donald Trump's number, we'll flash it up on the screen so we can all call him. We should actually have a conference call with him and our B-Bee-Bee's members. You know, I'm sure he'd be open to that possibility. Just set it up.

Okay, we'll try and set it up. All right. Another reason to become a B-Bee-Bee's member of the Daily Beast. We're independent media, so we appreciate you all support. Leave us a comment. would you phone Donald Trump if you had his number and what would you say to him if you did? That's not the right question.

It's what would he say to you? Yeah, because you wouldn't get a word in edgeways. Okay, what would he say to you? That's better. All right, Garfried, if you can't make a limerick out of that, I don't know what you can. I guess for people who've just joined the podcast for the first time and perhaps got to the end of it,

should we just give them a line of why we do inside Trump said and why we hope it's different. the way other people cover Donald Trump, which is I'm obsessed by the details of his life, but also we think of him as a character, character is destiny. Well, also we think that in a government of one, it is most vital to understand who this person is, why he's doing what he's doing, what he's thinking, that we are all under this idiosyncratic rule. and we're the people trying to understand it. This is not about politics.

This is about Donald Trump. Yeah, it's about character. It's about what is inside Trump's head. Joanna, hi. I have to tell you about something that we're obsessed with. I'm Kevin Fallon. And I'm Matt Wilstein. And we are hosting Obsessed the podcast about all the TV shows, movies,

and entertainment newsmakers that we're all obsessed with. So make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube at the YouTube channel. Make sure you follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for Obsessed the podcast. And we will see you there. So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support.

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