The Daily Beast Podcast - The One Thing That Truly Terrifies Trump: Wolff

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to unpack the central illusion of Trump’s presidency: that someone, somewhere knows what is going on—when in fact nobody does, least of all Trump himself. From Iran’s uprising to Venezuela’s phantom “invasion,” Wolff explains how Trump exploits uncertainty by announcing conflicts he has no intention of prosecuting, using noise, grandiosity, and endless talking to stay at the center of attention while avoiding real risk or consequence. The conversation ranges from ICE and Minneapolis to Greenland, shoes, height, and the limits of loyalty, before landing on the most dangerous question of all: What happens when Trump’s talent for manufactured crises collides with a real one—Russia, Iran, or a nuclear threat he cannot simply talk his way out of? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Venezuela is a perfect example of this. He wants to create conflict, which puts him at the center of attention, which distracts from other issues, which means people are wholly focused on this conflict, but he doesn't want the conflict to actually create danger. But then if you contrast that to yesterday, the Russians fired a missile with nuclear capabilities. Now, this is an existential situation in the world that Donald Trump may well have to address. What happens? It's unimaginable how Donald Trump would respond to this. Michael. Joanna.

I'm already exhausted. We've only been back one week. I can't keep on top of it all. No, it really is extraordinary. I mean, I'm completely. I mean, I was looking at this stuff out of Iran this morning, and I was thinking, what a relief. I mean, something that does not involve Donald Trump, although I'm sure he's thinking, how can I become the center of what's going on? Well, how can he claim credit for it, right? Or claim credit, yes, absolutely. But meanwhile, he can't.

And it is happening independent. from Donald Trump, which is quite a relief. And also fantastically brave and sort of very exciting, actually, in a way. I mean, you see people ripping up pictures of the Ayatollah to light their cigarettes, and you think, gosh, this is so brave. And the women in particular marching without headscarves, very moving to watch it. And I hope it ends as well. This is just coincidentally, really, not related to this at all.

I just have picked up a couple of weeks ago this. this current book about Iran, actually Iran in the revolution, 1979, called the King of Kings. And it's fantastic. And it is one of those things. You know, there's that whole, that old Hollywood expression, nobody knows anything. Yeah.

Yeah. What's his name? William Goldman? Yeah. The beginning of his memoir. And this is transferable to virtually everything. And especially in 1979, when the revolution happened, which nobody foresaw, especially the United States State Department,

and then the takeover of the U.S. Embassy, which nobody foresaw. Again, that lesson, and that lesson applies to so much of what is going on. And we can go to the New York Times sitting in the Oval Office, which also had that same. of nobody knows anything at all. It all just happens by some set of principles unclear to virtually everyone. Well, and the assumption is that somehow somewhere out there there is somebody who knows.

And that's, I love that phrase. It comes from the first line of William Goldman's memoir. And it's so good. And I always try and remember it when I'm in a situation where I feel like everybody else is the smartest person in the room, and I'm, as usual, the least smart person in the room. Because people pretend to know things. And it's not helpful.

And it's certainly not helpful in the times we're living in now. Yeah, no. And actually, you know, Donald Trump, I think he, many of the things, he is actually responding to this and taking advantage of the fact that nobody knows anything. So he can go in. We do this Venezuela thing, and that's, and suddenly, I mean, literally nobody knows what to think about this. Nobody knows what he's doing because actually he's not doing anything. And it is the thing he gets to fool everyone.

I mean, and let's go this. We have invaded Venezuela. He has announced we are taking over the country. We are essentially reverse nationalizing their oil. industry, none of that is going to happen. We are not taking over the country. We are leaving the country absolutely as is. We are not taking their oil. We have all these oil guys coming to Washington command performance. They've, they're going to, you know, they're going to look at their shoes. Can you imagine being one of the CEOs of the big oil and gas companies and having to sit

opposite Trump and nod, you know, seemingly enthusiastically. as he explains how he needs you to invest billions of dollars in Venezuela to ship out some oil in a country which is clearly going to be unstable. And we heard when one of the New York Times reporters asked Donald Trump how long he was going to be in Venezuela for. And he was like, I don't know, years, years. Yeah, no, because he's going to be there years because he's not ever going to be there. Right. So, and then the oil, there's this other oil things which must be perplexing to virtually. everyone in the oil industry is that his desire, wish, hope plan is to get oil down to $50 a barrel.

This is, again, it's like what is that about? First thing, no oil company is going to invest anything at $50 a barrel. Plus, it's this other thing that he does. First, it's not going to go to $50 a barrel. It is just going, he is just saying, saying, you know, this is to voters, we're going to bring oil down. You're going to see this at the gas pump. Everything is going to be great instead of actually, if that happened, everything would be kind of a catastrophe. But it doesn't matter.

And also, I am taking over the economy. That's this other thing. I am going to run the American economy, which I am not going to do, but I'm going to say I am going to do. Well, his grandiosity and the fact that he appears to be the only thing he thinks about came out. I'm only halfway through the New York Times, the daily podcast with the wonderful Michael Barbaro. And I think it's good. You pointed out to me as we were just coming on that the Times reporters got there at 5 o'clock and they left at 9 o'clock, so four hours. Four hours of listening to him.

No, no. And that's been my own experience is when this happens, when he lets you into his presence, he doesn't let you go. I mean, you are a captive audience, just listening to him. And he goes this way and he goes that way. It's unplanned. It's unscripted. It's revealing in its own way, although nothing that he says is. is necessarily true or related to reality.

So you don't really know what it's revealing of except a person who has a desperate, desperate need to talk. Well, and also he's just sort of spinning a narrative that has, I mean, you know, hour two may have nothing to do with what he said in hour one. Hour four may have nothing to do with what he said in hour three. I mean, it's just, it's sort of word. coming out that in theory makes sense but don't really make sense. We have Anthony Scaramucci on Sundays the Daily Beast podcast. He came in and we were in the studio yesterday and he was

remembering something that you have talked about often, which is what it's like to be on Trump's rotor of calls when he calls you late at night and he's already talking and you hang up and he's still talking and he's probably dialed the next person and he's just talking and people come in out of the phone call. It was just sort of hilarious. And you could see the panic across Anthony's face still. It's this very interesting thing when you're on the phone, when the president of the United States calls you up, you're on the phone with the president of the United States.

And you assume it's just something that clicks into you is that this is an incredibly busy man and he is going to get off the phone with you as soon as he says what he's going to say. Not true. In the end, you're kind of prompting him to get off the phone because the world is, you know, the world may need something. And he doesn't. It just opens up another thing. And I can't tell you how many occasions this has happened and Trump's voice is, you know, I mean, how can you resist? You just put it on the speaker phone and everybody in the house is.

And you're part of a live recording, right? The whole thing is like live entertainment. What are your best lines for getting someone off the phone when they call and you're, I always try and say something like, goodness, well, you must be very busy. I can't take up too much more of your time. But do you have lines to get rid of people? I'm trying to think of what you do if I ring up and I want to talk to you and you're in a hurry. I think you just say, I can't talk to you now. It's very hard if you have a determined person.

The most determined person that I know is a well-known Hollywood screenwriter and director now somewhat past his prime. And he calls, and this happens often, and now I have to say, I can give you 30 minutes. 30 minutes. You have to at the outset of the call, 30 minutes, that's it. because otherwise it will go on indefinitely. Well, it's always difficult when there's a power differential too, right? Because when it's the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, you would expect him to have more interesting things to do.

No, completely. It's just kind of complete. I mean, you feel you're in some other, you've entered into some other universe in which there is only you and the president of the United States, which leads to kind of a little bit of a sense of panic. Well, panic and perhaps power and flattery. I mean, one of the interesting things Anthony was talking about was how you get this Potomac fever of being close to power, but you don't recognize it in yourself. And it was just a curious conversation. Anyway, I'm directing people to listen to it on Sunday. It's a thing. Everybody's relationship with the president of the United with Donald Trump is odd. And everybody knows it's odd in every. everybody is bewildered by it and everybody thinks that somebody else knows what's going on. We can come back to this.

But nobody, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Well, another man who didn't know and who called in the middle of the New York Times interview was the president of Columbia who had been trying apparently to get hold of Donald Trump for some time now, heard that he was next on the threat list and called. amazingly Trump decided to take the call summoned in Little Marco and J.D. Vance, who's suddenly back on our radar, J.D. Vance, having been absent for some time. Well, but I think we have to challenge this a second.

Do you think it was all performative? I would assume that was a setup. Matter of fact, I'll guarantee you that was that was a setup. Well, also suspiciously, the Times said that they'd had their reporters in with the President of Columbia just before he'd called Donald Trump. So it was a good setup for them too because it made it look like they were everywhere all the time. And they certainly had four reporters sitting around the president.

But you think it was a setup? Absolutely. Okay. Well, he's now coming to, he's coming to D.C., I think, next week. He sounded very excited in the subsequent videos I saw of him, not on the call with Trump, but telling people he was coming. I'm just trying to think of how you. how you respond to that. First thing, you're suddenly put into the headlights and you're suddenly the center of everything. And so you have to think, oh my God, the world is going to cave in on me. Or this is an incredible opportunity. I am I'm the center of the world. I am adjacent to the guy who is at the

center of the world. And what do I have to do? I mean, I suppose it must be sort of evident to everywhere. The world leader community must know that there is a specific community. Maybe they have a little, a little chat group and they just say, all you have to do is flatter Donald Trump. There's nothing. Nothing else is required here. Just flattery. What did Maduro do wrong? Well, he didn't flatter and, in fact, the worst thing, he ridiculed Donald Trump. He ridiculed him and did his kind of crazy dance. Although I will say the premier of Greenland appears to be somewhat belligerent and bellicose in his statements to Trump. He's not bowing down to Trump. And neither is the premier of Denner. That may cost him. Although I don't

know what it would cost him. I mean, I expect that Donald Trump will announce that we have taken over Greenland. We will, we won't have taken over. Nothing will change. But he will make the announcement. Right. And what are we going to do, say, no, we haven't. I mean, we've had several people have written to us to say that our direct flights from Newark to, I don't know how to pronounce it, Newk, I think it is, the capital of Greenland, I think, which is where we should go to do a podcast. I've since discovered that, in fact, they're not direct in the winter. They're only direct in the summer. We may have to go via Iceland, but we need to get on it.

Oh, no, we could go to Iceland. That sounds. Sounds kind of fun, doesn't it? I'd much prefer to go to Iceland than to go to Newark. Well, I think we would go to Iceland and then get another little plane to Nuke. And I want to do a podcast from one of those beautifully painted little huts that they have their houses. Anyway, we can put the logistics. I will set it up.

I will set it up. And before we do, I've got a question for you because I'm missing a word from the Moka test. This morning I sat down and our producers challenged me to remember the five words. I've got four of them, but I wonder if you can remember the missing one. Can you remember the four? Legs. Well, I can do. legs, cotton.

Where'd your kids go during the day? Oh, school, thank you. Legs, cotton, school. I can only do legs and cotton. Well, I couldn't do cotton. I'd forgotten cotton. I got leg, school, tomato, white. But I totally forgotten cotton.

White, white, of course. So you think these things, maybe he did ace it, and maybe these tests aren't quite as easy as we mock. No, it could turn out in this, in the world down this rabbit hold, that, you know, Trump is the, um, Trump is the only sane one and we're all insane. I don't think that's true. He's the genius that he says he is.

Well, he did say, I'm just, again, again, we live in a world, Donald Trump's world in which everything that is supposed to be is not everything that he says is certainly is and everybody, including four New York Times reporters, are left kind of flummoxed all of the time. Right. Well, it is the emperor's got no clothes and it's very difficult to challenge him. There was a moment where Katie Rogers, one of the reporters, who actually wrote a very good piece about The Daily Beast last year,

asked him really, you know, did he believe in international order, etc.? and he ends up saying that the only thing that really stops him from doing anything at all is his own morality, which again is just sort of, it was an interesting insight into his psyche. Well, I don't know what is. Is it an insight? What does that even mean? What is his own morality from a guy who has demonstrated over and over and over again, that he certainly has no conventional morality? I mean, we don't have any judge. What, what is Donald Trump's morality? Jeffrey Epstein, I would say, defines Donald Trump's morality. So again, what does he mean?

What is the fuck is he talking about? What the fuck is he talking about? And we come to the limitations. Yeah, they can't say that. We come to the limitations of journalism, which is the New York Times can't say that. They somehow have to treat everything. They're four hours with the president of the United States.

as basically rational. When it is not, it is the opposite of that. It makes no sense. Well, it makes sense in terms of his own grandiosity, if you think that he's the beginning of what certainly runs as a strain through his family, which is dementia, that grandiosity and the belief in self and self above all else and one's own reality is actually a symptom of dementia. And yet he appears very co-hears.

This is too. tumbled around for me. So his proves his, his, his rationality is that he is irrational. Yeah, okay, I kind of, I guess I get that. People who display symptoms of dementia frequently live in their own world. They have their own truth, their own reality, it's different to everybody else's. Theirs is right. They're paranoid. He's completely paranoid that we're, you know, going to be invaded by other people or that we have insecurity on our borders, et cetera. and grandiosity that they are the center of all things. And he's definitely displaying grandiosity.

Well, without question, but then that comes back to the limitations of journalism. The New York Times cannot say. Headlines should be president demented. President may be demented. Well, we can say that. We can discuss it. But interestingly, given, again, his grandiosity in his moaning that he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize, despite having ended all sorts of wars that neither he nor we have heard of.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee came out this morning and said that as they put on the bottom of invitations these days, the prize is non-transferable. So Maria Carina Marcedo, who won it this year or last year, cannot share it with Donald Trump. To that, we might say, duh. Indeed. But the fact they had to come out and make a statement about it, I thought was kind of interesting.

As I have pointed out before that I once met the head of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee at Jeffrey Epstein's house. It's such a crazy story. It could have been something that Donald Trump had, you know, it's a missed opportunity for Donald Trump. Missed opportunity. And it's going to be very difficult for them to give it to him now because they've put their stake in the ground. Anyway, I was very excited to see that his own morality, extends to buying J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio new shoes. Did you see this detail? I did. And here's something else that immediately crossed my mind. Please don't tell me he bought you shoes when you were writing Fire and Fury.

No, but the only person, adult person outside of my family, even in my family, who has ever bought me shoes. And shoes are a strange thing to buy for someone because he, you know, they fit, you know, if you don't try your shoes on, it's... Yeah, it's weird. They're not like one size fits all. Quite the opposite. The only person who has bought me shoes is Jeffrey Epstein. Okay, okay, okay.

Tell me more. I thought you were going to say RFK Jr. when you were on your trip to Alabama. No, no, it was Jeffrey Epstein would find shoes that he felt were, were particularly comfortable. And then he would buy them in all. sizes and then you would come and then it would be like when you arrived at his house in New York it would be like a shoe store what's your size and did you get to

keep them or you could only wear them when you were at his house no you got to keep them you got to take them what was Michael what was the brand of shoe I you know how could you not know what the brand of shoe is that Jeffrey Epstein well actually they were kind of unique brands of shoe at that particular moment this was sometimes ago, whatever the sort of comfort shoe of choice was. So bizarre, so bizarre that Jeffrey Epstein would buy people's shoes. I imagine that he would buy them made out of the skins of virgin goats. I thought you were going to say some other.

I know. And then I added, I added goats. I added goats because. So, but maybe it's a. control thing. And maybe that's what Donald Trump sees here. I mean, if you buy people shoes, that's pretty, you know, it's pretty paternalistic. It's pretty. Well, he then called them the kids, right? Yeah. It was paternalistic. He said, oh, the kids, Marco and JD. Yeah, no, I think it's a, it certainly sends a weird message to the people, to the people around you. It reduces everybody, oh, shoes. Then you have to

take off your shoes. You have to put the shoes on. Also, do you remember how obsessed he was? I mean, crazily obsessed by his own shoes when he was shot at in Butler, Pennsylvania. And when his team were... That was what he said, my shoes, my shoes. And then some of the people with him said, well, that meant, you know, everybody, well, you know, it's the lifts. Right. Well, I wondered if he'd put lifts in Little Marco's shoes. If, for example, the reason he'd bought them shoes was because he wanted Marco to appear taller, that when he was assessing his performance on the stage. Usually, he likes people to appear shorter because that makes him appear taller.

But doesn't it reflect badly on his central casting cabinet if he's got short people in there? Well, that's a little bit of a contradiction there. But certainly he likes in Donald Trump's work. world, you can't be taller than Donald Trump. What is James Comey's paramount sin? Six foot tall. Six foot six. Interesting. It's such an interesting way of thinking about Trump, but of course you're right. Why is he intimidated by James Comey? And didn't he say to him when he met him the first time, oh my God, you're so tall. It's a, it's literally a major, a major preoccupation.

It's fascinating. Okay, so I did think now that J.D. Vance is back and was immediately trying to seize the moment in Minneapolis, how utterly charmless he actually is. Well, let's, I mean, we're having a nice discussion here, but I think we should change the tone because what happens, what has happened in Minneapolis is dark. very dark. And it contrasts, you know, the president in the Oval Office with the New York Times was kind of, you know, in a good mood, jovial light. You know, he'd accomplished this thing. He obviously is looking to distract by lightening the mood, the good news. Everything worked out.

He invaded a country and nobody died. American America is back. American might, we prevail. And then in contrast to that, and no doubt he would like to distract from this, you have what happened in Minneapolis. And you have this thing that happened in Minneapolis was, you know, I mean, how do you see it as anything other than inevitable? You have a, you have an inexperienced police force with virtually unchecked powers. You mean ICE? Is not actually a police force? No, no. A policing force, a paramilitary force actually by any other name. Something is going to go wrong.

They have weapons and they have power and they don't know how to use either. And it happened. Somebody tied. somebody who, you know, very clearly in no frame of reference, deserve to die. And that's kind of crossing a line. I mean, I think it was a line that we could have looked forward to and say, we're going to cross that line.

But now that we have crossed that line, and because it forces another thing, because this happened, now the people who have put this paramilitary policing force in place have to defend it. So it becomes in turn more righteous and more unchecked, which will then lead to more situations like this, more people killed in cold blood. Right.

And I thought a couple of things. One, of course, everything like this is now caught on video. So you have people pouring over the videos from people. cell phones that they've posted. I couldn't stop watching it, trying to understand what had actually happened. There was a very good column by Monica Hess in the Washington Post talking about her just inability to stop watching it and trying to understand it and looking at it from all the different angles. And of course, there are lots of different angles and different versions of the same incident. And then you have Donald Trump sitting with the New York Times people going through

the video and explaining to them what they were actually seeing was completely different from what he was seeing. And then you have J.D. Vance and you have Christy Nome getting up there. And the only thing they seem to care about is loyalty to Donald Trump, flamming on behalf of Donald Trump. And when this is clearly very bad for Trump and for ICE, you know, just what did J.D. Vance say this was a terrible event, but it was a terrible event of her own. Yeah, okay, okay. Well, we know that this is, let's be very, very clear that they have, they are just doing this thing. They are doubling down. It's their mistake. They have to defend their mistake. The way they defend their, their mistake is to amp up the, again, the righteousness and the unchecked power of, of this of ICE, this policing force. And it goes to another aspect of, of, of Donald Trump.

is that there is never any guilt. There is never any rethinking. There is never any acknowledgement that something might have been done wrong or that something even could be to have done differently. You can't even say, I mean, we can't, we can't, we can go back to other things. You know, I mean, you know, I mean, Kent, we were on the, we were back in the 1960s, the other day. And this is even Kent State, they're in the Nixon administration. Well, they acknowledge that this at least should not have happened. We don't even get this acknowledgement

out of the Trump people. This is, they were righteous. Ice was righteous. Right. And it's the victim's fault. So blame the victim. So immediately they were saying she was an activist. This was an act of domestic terrorism. The idea that she was perhaps trying to run, well, not even perhaps, Perhaps they said she was trying to ram their word, one of the ICE officers, when that's not what the video shows. I mean, the video shows a very slow-moving car of people trying to, she, you know, I mean, I would have read it that she's just trying to get away. Everybody, it's a bad situation, but fundamentally, fundamentally. And the only point that really matters is here, she's unarmed. Right.

She's unarmed. she's not trying to run over the officer. And the only virtue here seems to be the volume of disinformation they are putting out. And it's how J.D. Vance and Christy Noem show their loyalty to Donald Trump. And a word from our sponsors. And Michael Wolfe and I are back inside Trump's head. And I thought, Christine Nome was particularly vituperative against the woman who died. a mother of a mother of three who said that she liked poetry and music on her social media profile.

And I thought, oh, she's she's auditioning for 2028. This is a woman who, you know, in December people were talking about her maybe being the first person to get cut from the cabinet. We know that he's been unduly loyal to his cabinet over the last year. The first administration, there were lots of changes. There haven't been those changes this time around. she seemed to be up for the chop and now she seems to have reinforced her power there. No, you reinforce your power by doing something that putting yourself in a situation which the public then finds appalling and the media finds appalling.

Then the president has to defend you. So this is a sure way to keep your job. Yeah. And even Tom Homan said that he thought they should figure out what the investigation said before they rushed to judgment. But she was quite happy to rush to judgment. No, it's a good lesson. And the lesson is learned, of course, by her, taught to her by her, do we call him her boyfriend. I think we call him her special advisor.

Yes, her special friend, Corey Lewandowski, who. is a Trump hanger on from goes back to 2017, 2016, with Trump over and over and over again, or people around Trump trying to get rid of Corey and Corey yet hanging on. So he is the expert on how to remain firmly, implacably, inextricably in the Trump orbit. Yeah, and of course, she was very much hoping that she would be a vice presidential candidate. She was, of course, the former governor of South Dakota, very conservative, believes in a federal ban for abortion, believes that life starts at fertilization, extremely conservative. She's been banned from the reservations in her state by nine different Indian or Native American tribes.

Least you forget the dog. Well, no, no. I was coming to the dog. And, of course, what ended up disqualifying her was her, surprisingly frank confession in, I think, her second memoir, the second of two memoirs that came out within two years of each other, that she had shot her puppy cricket after he'd disturbed the eight. other dogs on a hunt they'd been on. Yeah, actually, that was not the thing that disqualified her.

The thing that disqualified her before that was her relationship with Corey Lewandowski. Okay. Well, that she didn't talk about about that. You know, this is well known within within, I mean, it's actually, for a while it was a, you know, a central topic in the, in the Trump camp. Well, she's denied that they're having an affair. I'm just putting that out there. She denies it. Yes.

Yes. No. I mean. But it's generally accepted they are special friends. Well, certainly within the Trump White House, there was no question about about what was going on here. So that excluded her from serious vice presidential consideration. But she grew up on a farm. And interestingly, she didn't finish college first time around because her father died in a farming accident.

It's actually a sad story. I mean, she had to give up college and go back and run the first time around. family farm, which she added a restaurant slash cafe to, which if it's open again, I thought that would be a good place for us to do the podcast. That doesn't sound so sad. Well, what? It doesn't sound so sad. I mean, sad that you can't finish your degree.

The father died, but having to drop out of college to, you know, take care of your family. That doesn't sound so sad. Sounds like. Well, it sounds like life. Right. Yeah, it sounds like what you're supposed to do. But nevertheless, she dropped out of college, went back to run the family farm, set up a cafe on the grounds of the family farm, and finished college in 2012, actually, which I thought showed staying power. I'm trying to think how to respond.

Well, you don't need to respond. Anything positive about Christy Nome. Well, perhaps the thing that most stands out about her is she is the perfect example of the Mar-a-Laga makeover. she wears different costumes depending on what she's doing. She loves guns. She's been behind a lot of legislation in Dakota, in South Dakota to make guns more readily available. She loves being photographed holding a gun.

And of course, she wears different costumes. She cosplays whoever she's out with. Totally. And again, it's just a kind of fascinating, you know, the Corey Lewandowski of it all is fascinating. and inescapable, that we are in a moment in a Trump time for better or worse when a senior level politician can openly have an extramarital affair. Great, I suppose. Is that progress? I don't know. It might be progress. You know, one of the things that I think it's against the whole Venezuela business,

And remember, the Venezuela business is a created crisis where there is no crisis. You know, and it's turning the wag the dog thing on its ear. So you don't have to create a war to distract. You just can announce that you have done something. We've taken over Venezuela, a distraction from everything, although we have not taken over Venezuela. We haven't done anything. We will do nothing.

Nothing will be at stake or at issue. But then if you contrast that to a set of world problems at this time where there are very real issues. So in Ukraine, you know, just, I mean, I think yesterday, the Russians fired a, fired a missile with nuclear capabilities. And clearly a warning shot, clearly a threat, clearly all of those things to indicate.

Now, this is an existential situation in the world that Donald Trump may well have to address. Can he address it? How would we feel about that? of what happens. We can push this. What happens? Because the Russians certainly are perfectly capable of using a tactical nuclear device against Ukraine. What does Donald Trump do? You know, we're silent because there is no, we've then gone over the line of what is imaginable. Not only from It's what's imaginable

What's unimaginable is not that Is that they would do it But it's unimaginable how Donald Trump Would respond to this Well and the thing we've been leaving out of this Because as you're always saying it's a government of one Is the idea of Congress That Congress is completely disappeared on this

And what would the US Congress say Well I'm not even sure Are they even relevant? In this situation, it is not the U.S. Congress. In this situation, it would be for any president wholly on his shoulders. Of course. But you're still taking advice from wise people that you would have around you, you would be hoping. I mean, the anxiety with Trump is he just makes this stuff up at three in the morning on truth social.

We would have to depend upon Donald Trump. Right. Right. And is this a moment when Donald Trump would actually take counsel from other people? would he admire Putin for doing this and thinking that, well, he wants to use a nuclear bomb. And if Putin can do it, he can do it. I mean, who knows what goes on inside that orange head? Well, that's what we're here for.

That is our job. Of course, that's what we're doing inside here. I've forgotten. I think we would, I mean, one of the things that goes on in Venezuela is a perfect example of this is he wants to create conflict, which puts him at the center of attention, which distracts from other issues, which means people are wholly focused on this conflict, but he doesn't want the conflict to actually create danger to him.

Right, and he also wants to appear as if he's somehow in control of the military. So it was a very well executed, as far as we know, operation in terms of extracting Maduro and his wife. So Trump gets the benefit of that. And now, of course, it's, I mean, not only have people slightly forgotten it because of what's happened in Minneapolis where someone did die. But as you say, really important events are going on around the world where Trump's attention is not focused. No, and the Iran thing is also. I mean, it's another yet a critical moment in a critical situation.

Iran is possibly the most critical foreign policy, foreign. foreign policy issue of the last several generations. And clearly at this moment, it is, there is the, again, the existential possibility that the, that this most oppressive regime could be pulled down. What does Donald Trump do? What is the, I mean, actually, I haven't heard anything, any, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. US administration seems at this point to have been absent from whatever is happening there. Right. Well, they're fiddling while Rome is burning. And then, of course, while Russia is sending in enormous missiles to Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are having to deal with their power down and people being killed, Donald Trump is faffing around with his new White House and Shalom

Barron, his new architect, is putting out, well, there was a hearing this week, a public hearing for the new White House, who's thinking of putting an extra floor on the West Wing. And, well, what did you think of the plants? Did you look at them? What can anyone think about this? It's all Trumpian. It's all, I mean, A, it's clearly unnecessary. and B, it's just about Donald Trump.

He, he, his, his intention is to leave the White House utterly transformed by his presence there. So one can never forget he was there and indeed the city. You know, and curiously, because I remember in, in 2017, when he came into the White House and, you know, and I was in the West Wing for much of that early, early period, that would be always a refrable. that the White House was a dump. Well, it's not a fancy corporate office, and deliberately so, to remind the leader of the free world to stay humble. No, and I watched the transformation, certainly the reception area, that was one of the, of the West Wing, was in the time that I was there, often sitting on the couch there, done over

from a, you know, so it went from looking like a, you know, kind of like a college admissions office to a... That's exactly what it looks like, a college admissions office. To a, you know, a Trump hotel or cast off furniture from a Trump hotel. Cast off furniture from a Trump hotel. I noticed that the first lady's office was as far away as it could be from the Oval Office. It's tucked in the corner of the enormous new wing they're planning to put on with the ballroom on the second floor.

You know, one of the interest... The interesting things at which I was a little confused. So there is a second floor to the west wing. And, you know, it's like... Well, maybe he's trying to put the second floor on the colonnade, right, above them. I don't know. I mean, I was... But, you know, like Kelly N. Conway, a lot of semi-exiled people in the Trump White House had their offices.

Right. It's like a little Warren and they're a kind of weird little steps. up there. Yeah, and it was always pointed out that Donald Trump had never once gone to the second floor of the West Wing. And I'm sure Melania hasn't been up there. You need to give us an update on what's happening. We know her office is being exiled to the far corner of the Trump ballroom extension, which I think is going to be like a conference center and they're going to charge people to attend. But where are you with your legal suit? And ever gratefully a commercial break.

And I'm back with the Donald Trump chronicler, Michael Wolfe, and we are where else inside Trump's head. After so many weeks of not acknowledging this lawsuit and then of strategically avoiding trying to service on this lawsuit, they are now responding to it. And I think that they have, I think that they have kind of woken up to the fact that they can't let this happen. The worst thing that could possibly happen to Melania Trump and Donald Trump, and possibly this administration, is for them to be forced into a deposition where they would have to answer questions about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I think in some sense, that brings the house down.

So they can't let that happen. Therefore, they go, they are now, and they have now begun the slow process of resisting this in every way. And remember, they have enormous capabilities to resist this. They have unlimited legal resources. They have vast influence over the federal courts. They have unlimited financial resources. Now, thank God for GoFundMe in about 20. 20,000 people who have given me the resources to actually be able to fight this lawsuit or wage this, pursue this lawsuit against them.

But my resources, theirs are truly unlimited. So anyway, so we are at this point. This slowly is clear what's happening there. And they have, they have, they have, we sued them in New York State Court. They have moved this now. They have the, you know, just by saying she lives in a different state than I do, they can move this to federal court. And in federal court, they have now a move to have this lawsuit dismissed. Or if it's not dismissed, then to move it back to Florida.

Now, can I just ask you something? Because you're bringing this case against the first lady the first time anyone has sued the first lady or a first lady because she threatened you with a slap suit in New York. You immediately threatened her back with an anti-slapsuit. Is it possible to get an anti-slapsuit in Florida? Yes, it is. It's just it's more favorable set of laws in New York. But yes. And it's not we, she threatened, we sued. So that's the pivotal distinction here. But now we will move back. We will say we will move to remand this case to New York. And we get to do that if she actually lives in New York, which she does. So we now will have the chance to prove. that with we go through or we request the court for a discovery period to show that she lives

in New York, something else, which they probably can't let happen. And so how do you prove that she lives in New York? What is that? Is that cell phone records? Is it? Oh, yeah. The whole, I mean, I mean, there's going to be a whole, a whole, I mean, documents will show that. And then it's like how many nights have you spent in Trump Tower versus is how many nights have you spent at Mar-a-Lago, scamp few. How many nights have you spent in the White House? Scamp few. So this is pretty straightforward,

but the problem is, and then that would, for them, is that that would reveal that this is a marriage, the likes of none other than we have ever seen in the White House. Well, we've seen some pretty odd marriages in the White House. But if Melania Trump and Trump, Donald Trump refused to play ball, as it were, are you still able to depose other people about it? Yes, I mean, yes, of course. I mean, and they will have this, this, this moves forward.

It creeps forward at a, you know, at a slow pace. But the point is here is we are in it for the long haul. The race is long and we're in it. Well, the train has left the station, another way of putting it, right? And I have a substack piece that actually, I mean, this is so complicated in this, you know, minutia here or there and these moves. But I think it's, I think I explain it pretty well in the substack piece that's up today. Well, I can't tell you how many supportive comments that are on YouTube about this. Lots of non-supportive comments about your remarks on Mark Kelly, which I noticed Trumpian,

like you doubled down on. And people still haven't forgiven you for that. But a lot of people supporting this action against the First Lady. And a lot of people saying you're very brave. Okay, we've got some questions from people too. Here's one from in South Chicago. This is for Melania. Ask Melania.

How were you involved with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein's modeling agencies? Were you involved with recruiting girls and women from Eastern Europe? An elemental question right there, yes. Okay. And that is, you know, at the end of all of this, and all of this wrangling federal courts, state court, this and that, you know, still there is that fundamental question. What was the relationship of these three people?

Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Jeffrey Epstein. Okay, well, there's a question here, which I rather like from Robin C. 7669. why has Melania lately taken to smiling so much as she appears next to Trump? You know, I think it has to do. I mean, Melania is in a promotional phase, the pre-promotion, we call this. The documentary about her, which she was paid $40 million for and gets 70% of the back end and gets paid $10 million per corporate sponsorship hit. debuts on at the end of the month.

January the 30th, I think in theatre. Someone texted me saying that they'd been in a theater. And a trailer had come on for Melania, the movie, which, as you say, is getting, I think, a worldwide release on at the end of January. And the entire theater booed. So that doesn't bode well. And this is an Amazon deal. We should point that out.

This is Jeff Bezos, um, currying favor with the white house. Well, I feel like Jeff Bezos is currying favor with one hand, paying Melania of $40 million for her documentary and then slapping Donald Trump with his Washington Post with the other hand. So he's trying to have it both ways. I mean, I don't know.

I mean, I see the Washington Post is, um, is, is a, is a, a pretty docile player, certainly against, against, um, against, um, against, against the Washington. Washington Post. I think that I think the Washington, the Washington Post manages to get in a few, a few licks because, you know, he doesn't pay too much attention, but were he to pay attention, he would. Well, there's been some more robust reporting recently. They, they were the ones that reported that Pete Higgsath had given the order to kill the survivors left in the water after the

boat strikes. That was a good story. Anyway, moving on, question to Melania from very, very Mary Anna Berry. Did Donald ever try to seduce Gillen? We haven't heard much from Gillen Maxwell recently. Do you remember there was a sort of flurry of activity and it's gone quiet since the release of the Epstein files? Jeffrey Phillips 731 wants to know. Ask Wolf to ask Melania to detail what Trump's relationship with Putin is

and whether he is a Russian asset. A straightforward question, I suppose. perhaps too straightforward. Perhaps too on the nose, that one. And then we've got another question which I like here from Chazy B. 2025. Ask Melania, has she aced the Moka test? And then Chazzy B says, I took it for medical reasons. I also slightly struggle with the five words.

I suspect everyone does. And then from Janet Findell, ask Melania if she helped Gellin Maxwell. Did she know why Gellan was recruiting girls from Mar-a-Lago? Well, I think again, I think that this. is all the life they lived. The three of them is the primary topic of this lawsuit, the life they lived in the late 90s. Okay, well, good luck with your legal case. For people who want to read more details about it, of course they can look at your

substack, Howl, named after the Alan Ginsberg poem, which is very wolfy and very New Jersey of you, because I know he came from New Jersey, as you're always pointing out. But from Patterson, New Jersey, where I come from. Right. And who else comes from Patterson, New Jersey? William Carlos Williams. Dr. Williams. Dr. Williams.

And where did Philip Roth come from? Newark. Newark. Where I don't want to go. Anyone else? Well, Alexander Hamilton didn't come from there, but he took note of the waterfall, a very impressive waterfall in Patterson, which then powered the, the growth of the silk mill industry.

Okay, is it still going the waterfall or has it been dried up by climate change? No, the waterfall is still going. The silk mill industry is not. So on that note, I think we should thank people if they've been watching or listening. Please leave us your comments on YouTube. I read them all the time. In fact, if I have a... And she does read them because then she reads them to me.

Yeah. And if I have a spare 20 minutes, I often go in and try and leave emoji. and comments for people. Not as many as I would like. In fact, if there's anybody out there that knows how to do this better, other podcasters listening, I would really like to know how you handle the response because it's so nice to be able to respond to people personally,

but it's difficult. Anyway, don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast. Please subscribe to this podcast. We are independent media, so we appreciate your support. Joanna and I will be live. together unfiltered at the 92nd Street Y in New York City on Lexington Avenue and 92nd Street on January 21st, one day after the first anniversary of the second Trump term. And that is www.922N.org.

And we'd love to see you there. I think it will be fun. Well, I think I'll be a little bit filtered when you say we're going to be unfiltered, but also what we've just discovered is. I will not be. You will not be filtered. You will be unfiltered. It'll be like Goulowars.

You'll be like Goulowas and Guitin. And I will say that we've just discovered you can buy virtual tickets so people can join us live from home. We have lots of viewers and listeners actually all over the world. Huge contention in Australia. intention in Australia, the UK, Canada. Yeah, you can join us virtually. There are virtual tickets to buy. So www.

92. What is it? 92NY.org. Great. Do you know what you're going to be? Well, you'll be wearing a suit, won't you? Yes. Apparently I would be wearing a suit.

Yeah. And maybe shoes bought for you by Jeffrey Epstein. I would like you to turn up in them. I need to examine them. This is a whole new detail of horror I didn't know about. Extraordinary, yes. But anyway, we will be there. Joanna, hi, just a second.

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. Big shout out to our Bee Beast level members. Yvette Johnson, Methinks, Betsy O'Farrell, Mills and

Lins, Shelby, Max Quibbitt, David Sherry, Thomas Moore, Maria Voltain, D. Kujawatt, Sinha Lund, John H. Ovarocker, Deb K. Ostrander, Sandra Clark. travels with Carl, Andrew Beaver, Cappanator, Harry Clark, Dawn McCarthy, Daniel Doglover, M. Griner, D. Stone, Fulvia, Orlando, Herbie, Andrew Meller, Tattnell, Val Love, Francisco, Will Hutchison, Andrea Hodel, Bocock, D.C., Sharon Shepley, Connie Rutherford, Karen Wright, and Heidi Riley. Devin, Rachel, Ryan. And Heather. And Heather. Our team is growing. It's very exciting.

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