The Daily Beast Podcast - These Are Trump's Biggest Achilles' Heels: Wolff

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to take apart the most durable myth of Trump’s presidency: the idea that there is some master strategist at work. As Ukraine remains unresolved, the economy wobbles, and Trump’s promised “day one” deals evaporate, Wolff argues that what actually sustains Trump is not strategy but performance — a relentless projection of dominance learned on reality television and refined in politics. They trace how Trump’s refusal to retreat, apologize, or show weakness keeps him squeaking through moments that logic says should break him, from Greenland to Epstein to Minneapolis, each distraction layered atop the last. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He understands that for some reason, the audience, for however much this is crazy stuff and looks crazy and is crazy, it nevertheless defaults to the strong man. The audience loves the strong guy. The audience, any sign of weakness takes that away. He maintains that illusion of strength and it gets him through. Not necessarily by much. He kind of squeaks through. But it is the thing that he learned.

It is the thing that works. It is the thing that he continues to pursue. Michael. Joanna. It's a year on. It's a year on. So many truth social posts later. So many stories none of us can remember later.

And now Greenland. How would we characterize this year? I mean, just in your own life, in our own lives, other than a year of relentless podcasts. A year of living dangerously. I would characterize it by our design, actually. I don't know if everybody can see this, but I think this kind of,

it's we're living in the fallout of the frenzy of Donald Trump's brain, which is getting more frenzied. We are, but what's the result of that? Where are we? So when people call you up and they call me up and they say, are we losing our democracy? What do you say? Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like all conversations, and you never want to be a podcast that devolves to, oh, I heard this at a dinner party. But I'm reading a book

called, I think it's called Looking for Trouble by a foreign correspondent called Virginia Cowles. No relation to me, because she's got a W in her name. But it's about the beginning of the Second World War and how everybody is sitting around. And the only thing they can talk about is, is he, Hitler a madman and is he actually going to do this and the world is divided into two or London certainly is divided into two because she's reporting from London and you've got the Chamberlain appeasers and then you've got the Churchillian he is a terrible man this is darkness over Europe we have to stop it and it's very hard not to see the similarities and I myself was reading something although of course I don't remember what or where

But it was making the argument that there were two existing realities in pre-war Germany. And in one reality, the world was ending for many, many, many people, transforming and seriously, truly ending. And in the other world, life went on as normal. So, and certainly that's what we are seeing at this moment, obviously in Minneapolis, obviously with immigrants across the country, obviously with anyone in who has worked for the federal government. Obviously, anyone who is in the media and has been sued, or in my case, is suing. But for the a large part of the rest of the country at this point in time, life goes on as always. Well, life does go on as always, but the promises that Donald Trump made, certainly about bringing down the price of groceries, hasn't come to pass.

Groceries are more expensive. People feel the cost of living. But that's in a basic political terms, and that could have occurred in any administration. So the thing to focus on. I'm just pushing back on your principle of the two things that one part of America isn't impacted by him and the other is, because I think people are impacted by prices, not feeling under control. Yeah, I think that that misses the point, however, because that point, that could happen. Yes, prices and prices across many administrations, you go through economic ups and downs. But in this administration, and it's the important thing to keep in mind, things are happening which have never happened before in any administration. It is a transformation for many, many people of American life and what we assume to assume and the

assumptions of American life and the promise of American life. That is all changing for many people, but not for others. So that's the, that's the, as we say, the split screen that we are, that we are living in. And that's the split screen that Donald Trump manages to exist in without the country rising up. And as I keep saying, 10 million people go into Washington. Because for a good part of the country, if not most of the country, life goes on. And we can ignore the fact or at least turn away from the fact that in this other part of the country, life is being transformed. So after a year of this, you know, I think I think the problem is we know that something seminal has occurred, but we don't quite know what it is.

Well, Congress seems to have just given up the ghost. And we know that power seems to have been transferred to the presidency in a way that we haven't seen before. I just think there are more people impacted by it than you do. don't think it's just brown people terrified that they're going to get rounded up on the streets by masked agents, which is certainly new in American life and a horrifying new detail of American life. I do think that people who've had their healthcare premiums doubled or trebled or are choosing not to. The first time since Obamacare was created, there's been a drop-off of people enrolling because they just can't afford it. And that,

I think has a huge impact on families. Obviously, I don't disagree. I think we're just disagree on what is a political problem and what is a transformational situation in democracy itself. Well, what I think is transformational is the way that he and you have written about this, and we've talked about it before, but it is transformational, which is its policy, on the hoof by truth social. And, well, what have you been hearing from people in the White House about this?

I mean, I think this is, this, this certainly goes to the right to the heart of who Donald Trump is and how he governs. And I use the word govern loosely. I mean, it is literally off the top of his head. I mean, I mean, I know people in the White House and I speak to people in the White House often. And I think this is very difficult to appreciate, probably impossible to appreciate, that the people within the White House are often as surprised as we are by what happens. He, they literally open up, they go to bed at night and then they open up their phones in the morning and they look to see what he has posted. and that becomes policy. That becomes reality.

A friend of mine was saying the other day that, you know, we just wake up to see what he's posted and then we go into the office. So Susie Wiles is, of course, the chief of staff, the person who is titularly in charge of taking Trump's... of moving these policies through the executive branch to some kind of fruition or resolution. And she is as unaware of what is going to happen from day to day as, again, as we are.

So she's basically sort of damage control. But can you just set the scenes? Because I'm still struggling to understand his routine in terms of sleep. We know he's a bad sleeper, but he seems to wake up at about three in the morning and just fire off whatever is on the top of his head. And we know he's sleeping alone. At least we assume he's sleeping alone. He's certainly not sleeping with the first lady. So he's trapped in his bedroom.

Nobody likes being awake at three in the morning when the world is asleep. He's sleeping with his hamburger. All right. He literally has often has the hamburger in bed. All right. So he's got a half-eaten, a half-digested hamburger, sort of chewed, hopefully on a plate with a nice crest on it by the side of him.

He's fallen asleep, I imagine, with all the televisions on. He wakes up in the middle of the night. The world is asleep. Nobody's answering his calls. And so he just fires off crazy through socials. Completely. I mean, so, I mean, that is. And think of that.

state of mind you're in at three in the morning when everybody else is asleep and you can't sleep and you're anxious and you're furious and you're impatient to get things done and flex your power. Exactly. So that's in one screen. He's doing what anyone might do, the things going through anyone's head. The difference is that A, he's posting this on, he's publicly posting this, and B, this then becomes policy. I mean, he's the president of the United States. So when he says this crazy stuff, I want to own Greenland. I mean, and I think that's an interesting baseline.

The Greenland strategy, gambit, policy, whatever we want to call it, because who knows what to call it, is off the top of his head. I mean, how it came into his head and for what. reason and for what it means to him or what it symbolizes, no one quite knows. And also the usefulness. There is no, and I think almost everybody in the government, Republicans, Democrats alike, would agree that there is no advantage here. We do not get anything from all of this stuff about Greenland. As a matter of fact, we just increase the risk. No advantage, increase risks. So he makes this pronouncement, and then it becomes real. Everybody, and that's the

other interesting thing, is that no one knows how to react to this except in the way you would react if it were real. That is to say, the political establishment, the White House staff itself, the political establishment in Washington and in Congress, world leaders, the media, everybody has to take seriously what is fundamentally unserious. And then because everybody is taking it seriously, because what else can they do, actually, he begins to take it seriously. we're in a the mirrors here are are well yes a house of mirror right it's a house of mirrors so he wakes up he he he truth social something the world wakes up sees what his truth social and because he is the president of the united states they have to take it seriously and what we find ourselves with is an astonishing point in European and American relations where Europe's biggest ally and protector has now transformed into its biggest potential enemy, both economically and militarily.

So we understand there is no advantage here. The military point, which Trump has initially made, is not true because we already have a treaty in place which gives us the right. to do almost anything militarily in Greenland. And we once did. We once had bases all over all over Greenland. And then after the end of the Cold War, we withdrew all that. Well, we could put them back there if we want. It would cost billions upon billions of dollars. But even if we own Greenland, that is what it's going to cost.

There is, and there was some talk about exploiting, exploiting the mineral resources in Greenland. But they would love us to do that. And again, owning it does not shift the cost burden there at all. So nothing changes on the ground in the least. And he's now invented this other weird rationale, which I can't even unravel. that because they didn't give him the Nobel Peace Prize, then he has no reason to be, to try to...

Well, he's no longer a man of peace. Right. This was his letter to... So he is looking and in a more far-flung way for a rationale to this, for something he doesn't need, shouldn't do, will not gain anything by. At the same time, of course, he's undermining, you know, this NATO, one of the one of, one of, histories really most successful treaties ever.

I'm saying this off the top of my head maybe, and there may have been more successful treaties, but it's been successful. and a fulcrum of, I think, what we call the world order. So let's destabilize the world order. And here we are. This is what is happening today. And everybody is on their way to Davos. And this is the only including Donald Trump.

And this is the only thing that is going to be on their mind, trying to unravel what is going on here. And they're not going to be able to unravel what's going on here. because there is fundamentally no logic whatsoever to what is going on here, other than one man's grandiosity and, you know, madness quite possibly. Well, no, one man's madness and also Davos itself has somewhat unraveled. I mean, Klaus Schwab, the guy who started it, has been shunted off to the side after some minor financial irregularities and accusations of bullying and all the things that Davos stood for and Davos man stood for about the rule of law and about climate change and about big ideas and the rolling forward of humanity seems to have just been undone. That, you know, what Davos stood for is the elites scratching each other's back.

Well, that's what I'm saying, that all that has. come to an end because Donald Trump has just delivered an enormous turd to them in the shape of Greenland. And they are all a flutter. Every single world leaders. No, everybody. And again, the process of figuring out what this is about of trying to reorganize, reorganize intellectually, reorganize politically in response to this is almost impossible because.

it has fundamentally no logic. Does he really want Greenland or does he want the attention that he's going to get from demanding Greenland? And is he really going to go forward with this or is he going to wait for the next distraction so he can slip out the back door on Greenland and everything remains the same? Well, doesn't that seem the most likely outcome? I mean, we've pretty much forgotten Venezuela already. After the Exxon guy, that wonderful meeting where he had with all the oil executives, and the Exxon guy says, well, it's highly unlikely we're going to invest in Venezuela because there's no rule of law and we've been there twice before and twice before we had everything taken away. Venezuela is uninvestable. Venezuela is uninvestable. No one's talking about

Venezuela anymore. He grabbed the Peace Prize, which is what he always wanted, even though it wasn't really his. I mean, that alone is such a pathetic indication of who Donald Trump really is that he steals someone else's Nobel Peace Prize. Though happily, she didn't give him the money. I'm surprised he hasn't asked for it. He'll move on from Greenland, don't you think? And then there was a good piece in the Atlantic this morning by Elliot Cohen saying, why don't the Europeans just put 5,000 troops in Greenland, arm themselves with some anti-aircraft missiles and some missiles to go after the ships. Trump does not want bodybags of American soldiers coming back from Greenland because America doesn't care about Greenland. This is not our fights, not what you campaigned on. It's not America

first. Yes, I can I can answer that because, you know, what this means, and this is what Donald Trump is obviously counting on, is that Europe still needs the U.S., not least of all in, in at this moment in time, in Ukraine. So, and he's. will. Remember, Donald Trump doesn't back down. I mean, you know, we've just, you know, and again, this, this happened as a tweet in the middle of the night. He's going to now levy, levy new, new tariffs on the European countries that are most vociferously oppose this. Again, the White House, he posted that in the middle of the night. The White House got in. Susie Wiles is there. And everybody goes, oh my God.

Well, and tariffs otherwise known as import taxes. So American people will have to pay tariffs, import taxes on things from Europe because Donald Trump wants Greenland. This makes no sense. Why aren't Democrats using this? And here's another level of senselessness here, of Donald Trump shooting himself in the foot. The Supreme Court is now on the verge. of deciding the constitutionality of his ability to impose these tariffs. This is a decision that could come today, tomorrow, any time.

I think they give their deliberations on Wednesdays, right? And it could mean in it and and if they decide the way that it looks like they might decide, which is to declare to throw this out, his ability to do this, then even Trump has said, Well, the whole economy goes down the drain. The whole world ends. I don't know. But so this is, you know, it's very meaningful for him to have the court decide in his favor. So what he is instead doing is demonstrating the capriciousness of these tariffs, which would be one of the primary reasons for the court to restrain this power.

if not just completely throw it out. But nevertheless, Donald, it doesn't, he can't seem to think that cause and effect doesn't occur to Donald Trump in the most basic, in the most basic political consideration. Well, do you remember initially when he came in and people like, oh, the thing about Donald Trump is he plays four-dimensional chess? And you're like, this is a man who's not even playing checkers, right? He can't even put one counter in front of the other. He can't see round the corner. I mean, what's happened to Ukraine and Russia, the deal that a year ago he said he would

solve on the first day of his presidency? Yes. Well, I'll give you an example of a 3D chess playing. I'm not sure I would call it a 3D. I'm not sure what I would call it. But there is always the consideration for with Donald Trump, that what wins at the end of the day, what supports him, is that. the illusion or the persona of dominance.

That is his, that's his baseline consideration. I can never show weakness. I can never apologize, you know, Renee Good in Minneapolis case in point. Right, double down, double down. I always has to double, I always will double down. I will never retreat because the most important thing that I have to my credit is the look of dominance. And for some reason, and he understands that for some reason, the audience, let's think of that as the, rather than voters, the audience, for however much this

is crazy stuff and looks crazy and is crazy, it nevertheless defaults to the strong man. Now, that's something he would have learned, I think, throughout his life, but even most explicitly as the star of a top-rated reality television show for 14 years. The audience loves the strong guy. The audience, any sign of weakness takes that away. He maintains that illusion of strength and it gets him through. Not necessarily by much. He kind of squeaks through.

But it is the thing that he learned. It is the thing that works. It is the thing that he continues to pursue. Sue. But he has an Achilles heel, I think in ice now. I mean, all the polling coming out now says that people feel very uncomfortable about masked men in the streets, rounding people up and throwing them in the back of cars. And also Epstein, also Epstein, another Achilles heel. Minneapolis is an Achilles heel. First thing, the largest Achilles heel is the economy. Then there's Minneapolis. Then there's Greenland.

which is at this point probably an effort to distract from Minneapolis, which was itself an effort to distract from Epstein. Right. God, it's complicated. It's layer upon layer. And I totally, totally. I mean, the logic of this is obvious. He's a fool and he may be a madman.

And everything that he does is in some profound way counterproductive. And yet, I just want to warn here. and just hold up because all logic would say he is crumbling, except for the fact that this strong man persona pulls him through. So another thing which has really defined the year and made this an exceptional presidency is just the sheer audacity and the level and the scale of the grift. And you would normally say in a normal presidency, in a normal time, how does he get away with this? Right, right.

I mean, I mean, this is extraordinary. We have seen this is not just millions, this is billions. This is his family, his friends, his circle, profiting off of his presidency to a degree. we have never seen in the history of the United States. I think that's incontrovertible. And it goes on. And it may be that almost everything that he does is designed for this purpose. We may be missing, speaking of three-dimensional chess, the dimension, the Greenland

dimension in which he profits. We are now seen in Ukraine. and Gaza and Venezuela, plans which would probably create a yet again enormous profit for him in members of his family. So how does he get away with this? I mean, again, I think I might default to this dominance issue that there is that he has in his audience, in so many American voters, created this mythology of the man who gets away with everything.

So why challenge him on this? Because we know he's going to get away with it. So at Davos this year, apparently there's been a lot of squabbling about who is going to introduce Donald Trump. It looks like, as we're recording this on Tuesday morning, it looks like it's going to be Larry Fink, who runs black. Black Rock, the massive private equity company, and who gave 2.5 million to the ballroom, and who is a sort of co-leader of Davos this year. And interestingly, there was a piece in

the Times about Black Rock trying to raise money for the rehabilitation of Ukraine, the rebuilding of Ukraine, the refurbishment of Ukraine, which they tried to do for the last couple of years and hadn't got very far because European countries who'd largely be investing felt that this was all going to go to the benefit of American companies. But yet they continue on. And this has been revived recently

by Trump and his golfing buddy turned international gadfly turned the deal guy, the deal guy. I don't know. To put BlackRock back in this in this physician as essentially as essentially the financial funnel of all things that will then of the enormous amount of money that the world will have to have to bring into Ukraine to put it back together again and of which we can I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that

there will be skimming off the top. And skimming off the top of a lot. I mean, this is almost a trillion dollars that they're saying they're going to need to rebuild Ukraine, $800 billion. Yeah, no, this would be, this may become one of the biggest deals in the history of the world, actually. Steve Wittkoff and Jared Kushner basically turn up in the rubble of any war zone. And it's like they present their grifter Marshall plan. This is how we get out of it. They're building condos. They're building casinos.

They're going to turn everything into a kind of. And remember, they're in Gaza too. So it's Ukraine, Gaza. There's Albania they've turned up in. They're trying to build a hotel in the center of Albania, which I think has been pushed back now. Albania wants a potential gold coast. I remember 40 years ago in London, people were all saying,

oh, we're going to buy a house in Albania. Albania is the new Riviera. It's not the new Riviera. But maybe Gaza will be the new Riviera from the Grifter Marshall Plan and just the rebuilding of everything. And now we have this other piece. What is this called? Oh, the peace board. I can't believe it.

It's taken us half an hour to get to the peace board. Donald Trump's Peace Board, which has already signed up, I think, Hungary and a couple of Middle Eastern states. which Israel is very upset about. And the only price of entry is a check for $1 billion to Donald Trump, who will administer the Peace Board and be in charge of the Peace Board. So they love this $1 billion. That's what, you know, Maloney was suing me for $1 billion. Well, it's a round number.

It's easy to understand. It's a big number. That's their go-to number. We've just jumped over hundreds of millions, and now we're just settled at a billion. Yeah, so this peace board is, I can't unravel that. What does this, what is it supposed to do? What is it supposed to signify? What is nothing? Don't you think it's the, it's signifying the end of Davos. It's probably signifying the end of the UN, another very successful organization. Now, God knows it's had its flaws. Well, let me, let me offer that it signifies nothing, which is, which is the real, the real meaning of this. We're just going to do this. We're just going to do this. it doesn't mean anything, it doesn't solve any problems. It just is another avenue of grift, quite possibly,

and another avenue of illusory dominance. Illusory dominance. Yeah, that's a very good line for it all. And of course, people are going to be coerced into signing up, unless the whole of Europe talks to each other and that hopefully says they're not going to do this. It has no meaning, it will do nothing, It won't even meet, but you have to sign up and give me a billion dollars. And I think it's time for a word from our sponsors.

And Michael Wolf and I are back inside where else Trump's head. What's interesting is that the only people that he seems to think highly of are Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Everybody else is treated as if they absolutely do. don't matter. I mean, the way that he was... Those are the strong man, the dominant guys. Since we're all interested in lawsuits on the part of the, on the part of the White House and lawsuits, in my case, suing the White House or principal players in it, you've had a good week. The Daily Beast has been in a Tangle with Chris Lhavita, one of the campaign, one of Trump's lieutenant and campaign managers.

I never understood what he was suing you about. And perhaps he didn't either because he dropped his suit this week. So you were, you won a complete victory over these, over these bullies. So congratulations. and what's the behind the scenes? Well, thank you. Well, quietly we've been fighting this suit over a piece that we ran saying that Chris Lus Vita and his company advancing strategies had taken in $19.2 million for the buying of media in the run-up

to the Trump campaign, which he objected to. And of course, you know, I understand that the story ruffled some feathers within the White House, because as we know, Donald Trump doesn't like anybody to make money off working for Donald Trump. Only he is allowed to do that and members of his family. And just let me put a behind-the-scenes point that Chris Lasavita, who was the co-manager of his campaign with Susie Wiles, did not get a White House job. He did not get a White House job. He did, however, get the opportunity to make Albania great again because the opposite. leader there hired him, I think, for 1.5 million to help them.

No, and it could have been on Las Avita's part, you know, as money hungry as anybody in the Trump world, you could, I mean, a number of people higher-ups in the Trump circle made the calculated decision not to go into the White House because they could make so much money outside of the White House. Interesting. Well, there was a piece in the Atlantic which described Trump as shouting at Lasavita and telling him he needed to sue the beast. By the way, that's a setup that could work for almost anybody in the Trump circle. Trump yelling at the screaming at them and saying that they had to sue somebody or other. Well, interestingly, Chris Lasavita and the RNC who is paying for his defense hired the LA celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos,

who's better known as the wife murderer Scott Peterson's lawyer, the Menendez's parents' killer lawyer. We get the picture. Hunter Biden's lawyer also. And interestingly, Colin Kaepernick's lawyer. So he's had an interesting collection of clients, and he can now add Chris La Cvita it anyway. Do we know how much Las Avita paid him? Well, it looks like he got paid $650,000 from the RNC. They were footing the bill for this. So that's what that's

what we've seen to date. And we just very methodically went through all the and they got nothing out of this. You didn't settle with them. You didn't, I mean, I mean, I He quietly walked away. He quietly walked away. But seeing reference to this as a settlement, but it wasn't really a settlement. It was a true, complete capitulation. And he just, he just. Yeah, there's no money, no apology, no retraction. If you want to read the piece, it's available on the Daily Beast website.

You know, I mean, I saw the Times piece too, which, which, I mean, I knew a little of the background here. So I was thinking when I saw the Times piece, I think, I think. thought, what? Because it actually suggests there's some ambiguity here. And it gives the impression, it certainly gives the Lasavita side the last word on this saying that they won this lawsuit, which is obviously preposterous in any way. I was very surprised that they did that. I don't understand why Katie Robertson, who wrote the piece, actually included Garragos's quay. at the end of it because it was nonsensical. It was like black is white.

Well, she's one of their media reporters. She's one of their media reporters who I know and she's a kind of, you know, a B-minus reporter, certainly. But the other aspect of this, which I can personally attest to, is that loss of Vita. Can I just say how withering to be described as a B-minus reporter? Katie was one of the four sitting around Trump and she did ask the question. Is there anything that will stop you? And he said only my own morality. But please continue, because this was not my favorite piece by Katie.

And I don't understand why she ran that quote when it was clearly untrue. Anness, of course. Well, I can give you something that Lasavita is a, well, let's use our language here so we don't get further sued by these people. he has a good relationships with the press. So, you know, from time to time he would tweet at us, you know, F-A-F-O, as if we were somehow supposed to be sort of cowed by that. And, you know, during the campaign and on the campaign trail, you know, every night he was out with late with reporters. So this idea that the Trump people somehow, you know, were at odds with the mainstream press was totally not. not true.

Beyond intriguing. And we never give a shout out to our lawyer, Neil Rosenhaus, at the end of the podcast. We only ever give a shout out to the production team. But Neil always is a – Neil is a terrific lawyer and his co-pilot on this, Kate, Cape Bolger at Davis-Rite. Tremaine, I want to give a shout out to because she did sterling work. And we would have occasional check-ins and she was steadfast and nobody was planning. to back down. And in fact, I encourage everybody to go and look at the FEC filings where you can see in public quite how much Chrysler Savita took into his LLC, of which he is the only

apparent member. No, and I know that other people in the White House, when he filed this, this suit, they were like, oh, man, you know, this is, why is he doing this and this is going to get everybody in trouble? Well, and of course, the minute. discovery looked like it was going to happen and we had a list of 50 subpoenas. He walked away. He walked away. And, you know, this is the man who's famous for being tougher than tough. He was the one that orchestrated the swift boat disaster. But this was a bit of his own swift boat disaster. Yeah. So boom. Hoist by his own guitar. The New York Times is really, is really, that was a, um,

That was surprising and how would we characterize when the New York Times report something? That's actually completely wrong. Well, you would think they would have been more robust about it as they also face their own. And it's not a matter of robust. They clearly in every respect gave the wrong impression, consciously gave the wrong impression. Consciously gave the wrong impression. Well, as I say, no apology, no money, no retraction. If you want to read the piece on the Daily Beast website, you can.

All right, Michael, give us an update with where you are on suing the first lady, 10 days before her movie opens. Well, let's go. I mean, we are no, we're just grinding along in this, in this lawsuit. I mean, she's moved this to federal court. We're asked to move it back. And we're now waiting for a, the procedural decision on that, which should come relatively soon. But meanwhile, there is a premiere of Melania the movie that is scheduled for the 29th of January. And this is being held where?

Is this an Amazon premiere? In Washington, in Washington, I'm told a, it's a mandatory appearance from all of the people in the of the Trump White House and any other trumper and the most loyal Trumpers in Washington. As a matter of fact, I think it's if you want to show your loyalty, it's kind of a requirement to be there. And I guess my question is, do you know if Jeff Bezos is going to be that? Because, of course, his Amazon commissioned this for $40 million with Brett Ratner, a director who had hitherto been a need-to. $40 million. And she gets $70 million. And she gets 70% of the back end.

And she gets 100% of the corporate sponsorships. She is selling at $10 million a pop. The grift goes on. The grift continues. But will Jeff Bezos be there? on from when he and his then fiancée Lauren Sanchez in her Bustier, which caused Mark Zuckerberg, a flurry of excitement. I think we all remember when he was caught looking down her substantial en bon point. But will Jeff Bezos be there for...

Well, I don't know, but I suspect that he very well might be there, which will then cause some conflicts with the Washington Post, of course. That will be nice to look forward to. Right. And whose reporter was last week raided by this government and had her computers and her phones taken because she's become the federal government whisperer and reports endless stories of government employees being fired, then rehired and the chaos that's going on in the federal government. But let's talk about Brett Ratner, because I think this is this is totally fascinating. So Brett Ratner, a very significant Hollywood director, producer, Powerhouse, who was me-toed out of his career several years ago and is now being, because he is now the director of this of Malani of the movie. Which can I just say from the trailer looks like just one long Instagram post, which is what documentaries are.

a bit these days. Yeah, somebody I know who saw the movie and I said, well, what is it like? And there was a pause and he said, stylish. Stylish, okay. I think in this question, it meant it certainly meant superficial. I mean, it looks, I'm sure, Brett Ratner is a very good director. I mean, he's a moron. But from a visual standpoint, that's his gift.

And I'm sure it is a visual kind of... Yeah, I mean, the trailer literally looked like an Instagram, a really good Instagram. So, you know, I... But it's the interesting thing that this has completely restored him again to... Restored his career, restored him to Hollywood prominence. The... His fourth... What's the name of his franchise movies?

Rush. Is it the Rush Hour? Rush Hour, yes. So Rush Hour 4, which he could not get picked up or financed or distributed, is now being picked up finance and distributed by Paramount. Now, and Paramount is doing this, you know, basically at the request of Donald Trump. Brett Ratner is becoming Donald Trump's director. And Paramount, which is run by the Ellison family, Larry Ellison, the second richest man in the world, and a Trump supporter, who is now trying to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. That's a deal that can only happen with Donald Trump's approval.

So we see the grift here. Everybody's a beneficiary. If you're in the Donald Trump circle, you're a beneficiary of it, which Brett Ratner. has clearly joined. Well, just imagine if they'd got the TikTok deal already sorted out by now because Larry Ellison is supposed to have a big chunk of that and then they could promote the Melania movie on TikTok. Yeah.

And the other thing I heard about is that, how was this put? Well, you know, this has a worldwide theatrical opening. Now, let's remember, this is a documentary film. Documentary films, which usually have, you know, are made for a couple of million dollars. They don't have worldwide theatrical openings. This is now $40 million and a worldwide theatrical opening. And what was described to me is that tickets, advanced ticket sales are soft. But they said, but there's an enormous appetite for people to screen this, they said.

We'll see what kind of appetite. How would they know that there was an enormous appetite for people to screen it? I don't know. I'm going to be chronicling it. We're going to, I think we should, A, we should watch it, and B, we should check it against the Beckham documentary, the David Beckham documentary. But we have not been invited to the January 29th premiere. We could try and crash it.

We could try and crash it. I wonder if protesters will manage to smuggle themselves into the theatre. I would imagine the security is going to be very tight because that would be such a thing to protest. I would imagine. And I don't know where this is. Geez, I wonder if it's at the Trump Kennedy Center. Do you think Melania will go? Will she be in Trump Tower?

No. I'm gone to Premier. No. No question. As a matter of fact, someone I know who was invited to this was invited with the promise of personal time with the president and the first lady. I will be doing personal time for my movie. I hope she's talking about Epstein. We've got some questions for you.

He is not going to be there. He's going to be there in spirit, Michael. He's going to hang over the thing like a specter. everybody's going to be waiting to see if he is alluded to or not. I think we can safely answer that. He will not be alluded to. He will not be alluded to. And let's take a break for a commercial message.

And I'm back with Michael Wolfe and we are inside Trump's head. All right, Michael, I've got a couple of questions for you here. Ask Melania questions. Yes, I've got a couple of, you know what, they're not very good. Me, but questions for Melania. Okay. Although, feel free to ask questions of me. Yeah, I'm going to question for Melania.

Did Donald pay her to threaten Michael legally? Well, that's an interesting, that's, that's, that's interesting. Or maybe it's better how much of. the one billion that she is suing, that she proposes to sue me for, she is not suing me, I'm suing her, but she threatened first. Does she get to pocket herself? That's a good, that's a very good question. Then this is from, that question was from Lillia. This is from Ken Patchy. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff wrote the book, Melania in Me in 2020. They were friends for about 15 years. I think there were friends as school moms, actually.

And Stephanie is certainly one of the people who knows the mysterious Melania. Could Stephanie Winston Walkoff, Melania Trump's ex-friend, be one of your guests? Well, we haven't ever had a guest because we're so wrapped up in each other. I wonder if she will be watching the movie. But the book is, her book is actually great. I mean, incredibly insightful kind of eye-opening, like flabbergasting. So we'll be recommending Stephanie Winston Walkoff's book. I wonder why nobody's made that into a documentary.

And then this is from Better Ways, Better Days. What is to stop Melania from promising not to sue anyone else and then doing it anyway? Will there be any consequences if she does that? How will you put teeth in the agreement if you win? I don't know the answer to that. I mean, that assumes that she would actually agree that there would. be no sense. And actually, I want a broader agreement. I mean, there's no reason for us to stop this lawsuit. We have been people all over the country, all over the world, have been incredibly generous.

We've raised a lot of money on our GoFundMe page. So we intend to push this absolutely to the end. But were they, the White House, to look for ways to stop this, which they might very well have to because they, as we've observed often, they really can't afford to sit for depositions and to be asked under oath questions about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. So I don't, maybe at some moment, it comes to this that they have to, like Chris Las Avita and the Daily Be. that they have to capitulate here. And I think the only terms I would accept are, you know, an agreement on the part of the White House not to sue anybody in the media business.

Which would be an amazing result. And let me just say that in, I mean, this seems like, whoa, that would be amazing. But no other White House has sued media organizations. So this would just be sort of returning to the Democratic baseline, the First Amendment baseline. The Democratic baseline. All right. So we've had a ton of limerick's sent in. And I don't, annoyingly, I was going to read some of them.

And Garfried has identified himself. Garfried, who is our regular limerick writer, has. inspired a ton of other Limerick writers. I've got one poem here because we've now got high cues, we've got poems coming in. I can't quite keep on top of them. I promised I would read some out. And of course I haven't got them in front of me,

except I've got one, which is from Regina Ashby, and it is, the quality of mercy is not strained, except in all the worlds so ruled by Trump, that power reigns and blinds the hearts of men and women, so no breath of. of life remains. So keep sending them in. I promise you I will read more out.

But we've got a whole poet thing going on on our comment section, which is very exciting. Fantastic. It's very exciting. And actually what's really fun is when the podcast drops the live conversation that goes on between people, there are friendships being made. It's very exciting. I try and drop in when I can. And it's really enjoyable.

So if you have been, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your comments. We love them. But speaking of friendships and commenters and everybody who has any interest in what we're doing here, Joanna, we are live tomorrow night at the 92nd Street Y in New York City at 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. And there may not be tickets left, but there certainly are virtual tickets left. And there may be a few tickets left. Seems to me there's always a few tickets left.

So if you're in the neighborhood, please, we'd love to see. We would love to see. 92nd Street, Y, www.92nd, n.org. 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 podcast. Just search for Obsessed the podcast. And we will see you there. Yvette Johnson, Methinks, Betsy O'Farrell, Mills and Linz, Chalby Max Cupid

David Shari Thomas Moore Maria Voltaine D. Kujerwatz Sien Lund Sine Lund Okay John H. Overracker

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 Mellor, Tatnell, Val Love Francesco, Will Hutchinson, Andrea Hodel,

Bocock, D.C. Sharon Chipley, Connie Rutherford, Karen White, and Heidi Riley. Thank you all. Our incredible team, Devin, Heather, Ryan, Rachel.

And Neil, Neil, who... And Neil... Who legally reads these podcasts. And Neil, we're going to need you tomorrow live. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at thedailybeast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber.

Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of the your podcast as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the dailybeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.