The Daily Beast Podcast - This Is The Proof Angry Trump, 80, Is Unraveling

Episode Date: September 12, 2026

Joanna Coles and Hugh Dougherty take apart Trump’s bizarre week of self-glorification and political humiliation  — from the half-empty “Trump-a-palooza” where his supporters were urged to “cheat like hell,” to the Republican candidate he publicly belittled and the disturbing threats of political violence echoing through the crowd. Then comes the confrontation with ABC’s Rachel Scott, when Trump lunges into an angry tirade over his $5,000 checks, exposing a startling flash of the rage and intimidation that increasingly seems to be bubbling just beneath the surface. As Trump’s war in Iran worsens and his social media outbursts grow increasingly unhinged, Hugh and Joanna ask whether we are watching a president unravel in real time. And on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Trump’s strangely low-energy appearance at the Pentagon—and his apparent struggle to engage with a day that isn’t about him—provides an unsettling ending to one of the most revealing weeks yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is Trump unravelling? I think it's very hard to argue that he is not unraveling. If we go back to the Labor Day weekends, dozens and dozens and dozens of unhinged social media posting, his family were not around him, and we've rolled into this Trumpapalooza, this Maga Fire Fest. Two speeches, not one. It's impossible to see that this is anything other than a revelation of character, and unraveling and opening up of Trump in a way that we have not seen before.

This is different. The anger is at the surface. The crazy is at the surface. And the desertion of his own party as well. There was nothing for Republicans at the Republican meeting in Dallas. It was all for Trump. I'm Joanna Coles. This is The Daily Beast podcast. Who is here with me in the studio? Fantastic to be back, I will say. Hugh Doherty. It is so good to have you back in the studio, Joanna. Thank you for being back. Executive editor of The Daily Beast knows everything. going on in the news. So today, obviously, we're going to be talking about Trump a Paloosa. We're going to be talking about, was Trump really there at 9-11 when he said he was? Of course not. Oh, we're doing spoilers now. We're going to be doing, we're going to be talking about him lunging, lunging after Rachel Scott, the reporter at ABC. And Stephanie Grisham,

his former press spokesman saying she recognized that face. I think so does everybody. that works around him. And of course, we're going to be examining the pledge. I pledge. I pledge to talk about Trumper Palooza with Hugh Doherty in a way that, well, what should we pledge to, Huey? Well, I tell you what, Joanna. If you are watching, you could pledge to hit the subscribe button and join our community. Very good, yes.

Will you pledge to join the Beast community, smash our subscription button wherever you get your podcast. Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever we are here to dissect Trump. We're going to lay him out like one of those frogs that people dissected in the biology class where you sort of take it apart and unpeel the viscerality of the frog, I think. What was Donald Trump doing at Trumpapalooza? Why did he need a two-day conference to celebrate himself when he is the lowest polled president in the history, nobody's ever seen anything like it. Where do we begin, Huey? How bad is it? And how bad was Trump a Paloosa?

Well, our reporters, Barra Thomason and Serio Weiss, were at Trumpapalooza. They were there. loads of other reporters were there. I think we can safely say who was not there. Quite a lot of people. Donald Trump spoke twice at this. He calls it a convention. Is it a convention? It's hard to say if it was a convention. It's hard to say if it was a convention. because there's never been one like this before. It wasn't ahead of a presidential election when you have a convention. But he called it that. So let's go with that.

And he said it was packed to the rafters. Unfortunately, Sarah O'Wise was up in the rafters, and she had a pretty good view of what was going on. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can see it now. Right. Just take a look at Sarah's video, showing you actually how many people were there. because television is so deceptive.

It can focus on a group of people that are corralled. I mean, you see this in concerts that they often corral people to sort of dance in the mosh bit and then you look around and everybody's just sitting there stony face. This was a sort of, as you say, mini-conference. It was really a self-celebration for Donald Trump to make it all about him, because when is it about anybody else? And it fell pretty flat.

Yeah, there's no doubt it fell flat. It was two days. spoke on both days. Lee Greenwood, who viewers and listeners will be surprised to learn is only 83. So a youngster in terms of Trumpian universe. Relative youngster, of course, sang, and a load of Trump people got up and spoke, among them RFK Jr., who said he didn't expect to ever be at a Republican convention, even though he was at the last one, so perhaps. Short memory. Short memory. Short memory. The brainworm remembered. Right. The brainworn. remembered and it's all that sniffing stuff off toilet seats.

And PSA. And then we, you know, we saw a lot of a low energy performance from a lot of people. J.D. Vance spoke. And those who are in the Republican world just saying this morning, this was great. J.D. Vans really nailed that he is absolutely the person to succeed Donald Trump as the candidate. Did you say contest? Were you about to say contestant?

You're a pet to say contestant, which is the right word. It was kind of like, it was a bit of a low energy game show. And one of the things that Serio Wise discovered was that when you go to a concert, you get merch. The merch was half price on the second day. The merch was half price. So tell me about that. What was the merch? I mean, what even is the merch at something like a Trumpapalooza?

Obviously, lots of very shiny things. Lots of gold. There was a gold Mercedes parked out. side. Mercedes, of course, not, this Mercedes, we checked, not made in the United States. Oh dear. Did Mercedes know there was Mercedes? No, there was no way that Mercedes,

this did not leave the factory in this color. Absolutely guaranteed. The inside, you could buy Texas themed hats with Trump, hats with Trump 20208, jackets with Trump's name on his back in that sort of, you know, sort of rodeo-style sequins. Right.

Rodeo. Radio-staffed. I'm sort of cross between rodeo and sequins. Or trucks. Trucker jackets. There were some trucker jackets. And yeah, it was half price. A lot of it half price on the second day.

So was it being tariffed, in fact? Well, that's a good point. That's a good point. Right. Because if they were being sent in from China or Vietnam or whatever, these things are often made. Right. That's true.

But maybe nobody was buying them. So they had to incentivise. I think it was a simple. that, you know, they needed an economic stimulus. Did we give Farrah and Sarah our correspondence who were there? Did we give them an expenses budget to buy some merch for the office? I feel like we should have one of those gold jackets hanging up. I have to say that we were fiscally responsible, unlike the Trump administration.

We do not do deficit financing at the Daily Beast. So we didn't actually do that. I will check if they bought some for themselves. They are both well-dressed people. And if they are, we will ask them to parade in it for future edition. Well, who doesn't need a trucker jacket, honestly? It's all very odd. And I noticed that James Tala Rico had taken Trump's name.

We had a story about this in The Beast this morning. And he, Donald Trump is calling James Talaiko the Democratic Senate candidate, standing opposite Trump's candidate, Ken Paxton, who will come back to in a minute because Trump managed to insult his unlawful. own indoorsy. But Trump calls James Tala Rico Talafriko, and James has taken that very smartly and turned it into a nickname for himself. He's owning it, which is a smartly. He's owning it. He's merging it. He's selling T-shirts so that people can proclaim that they too are Talafriko's. And of course, he's ahead in the polls in Texas, and some polls in Texas. The polls are tied up.

Texas had been deep red, it had been MAGA. People had really believed that It was very, very hard for a Democrat to even approach the idea of winning in Texas. But the tide has turned and we have that. We have to thank for that. Ken Paxton and Ken Paxton managed to be insulted by Trump, not once but twice. And smiled throughout the whole thing as if it was marvellous. I mean, this is what Trump does. He manages to humiliate his own most loyal stewards.

Because ultimately he despises them, I think, for being loyal to him because he knows he's not worthy of it. It was notable that it was almost a bit of both nights, the bits of Trump speech that Trump seemed to enjoy most, were attacking in Paxton in his home state, where he is maybe tied up and, you know, maybe within the margin of error, maybe behind in significant number of polls. He's running out, he's run out of money. He spent it all beating John Cornyn. And he has in James Talafriko, as I guess we have to call him, he has in Tala Rico, what is clearly a formidable candidate. And then he gets Donald Trump saying, I don't like how he speaks. I don't like how he dresses. But please do me a favor and go and vote for him. I mean, is that what you want on your ads? Right. I mean, absolutely, you don't want that if you're Ken Paxton. Although Trump has amazingly dug into his 400 million stash that he's been raising, right, to give Ken Paxton $10 million because he understands that the race is tight.

Paxton might lose and that would be bad for Trump because of course Trump backed Paxton, who was, he installed this guy. Exactly. Evan John Cornyn, who'd been disloyal to him. And Paxton was impeached as Attorney General and both parties in Texas said this is the one of the worst politicians we've ever had. And yeah, and the scandals just follow him around. You know, his wife divorced him on biblical grounds.

He has attacked Talarico saying that. but Talarico hates Jesus. And Talarico, of course, you have interviewed him, Joanna, on the Daily Beast podcast, fantastic interview. This is a guy who went to seminary. And on the other side is Ken Paxton, who cheated on his wife, serially and is now... Well, and cheated on the people of Texas, I think, right? I mean, he's been accused of all sorts of financial shenanical. And he's also, you know, said that Talarico hates Texas and hates America.

spent July the 4th and Ken Paxton spent July the 4th in London, which I believe is where America was declaring independence from. So there we are. But, you know, Donald Trump got a lot of amusement out of having a goal at Ken Paxton at Trumpapalooza. And it's like, it brought to life. I know, as you say on his own territory in Dallas. But the thing that really brought Trump to life, we discussed just at the top of the show, was the pledge. The pledge.

Okay, can we show, for those of you who didn't watch Trump a page? And why would you watch it? We watched it so you didn't have to. Let's show the pledge. Please raise your right hand. I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can't even breathe that I will go out with my family, my friends. I'll do it anyway. I don't care if I'm registered. to not I'm going to try and cheat like hell like they do. He's going to, he's asking people to pledge. Oh, sorry, can I take my hand down?

You can take your hand down. He's asking people to pledge to cheat like hell. Yes. To cheat like hell. Well, at least he's open about it. And we should say, by the way, Mike Johnson, the speaker, had his hand up. Mike Johnson on January. Had his hand up where?

During the, during the, during the pledge. standing with his hand up. Of course he was. And I think someone else had their hand up, Mike Johnson's jacket, because Mike Johnson is like one of those fellow, what are they called, ventriloquists kind of puppet. He just says whatever Trump wants him to say. Mike Johnson had tremendous power, actually.

January the 3rd. He will be the speaker until January the 3rd. If it's a blue wave, Hakeem Jeffries should become the speaker. but the whole Congress has to be seated by the outgoing speaker and he has to hand over the gavel in position of, you know, in the manner of civility. We've seen that before. These things are not actually guaranteed. There are things that can be done by an outgoing Congress that can make it messy and difficult.

And there he was, standing up as a man said, I want you to pledge to cheat. It's a bit. It was clearly amusing to this crowd. Right. And also when you heard them repeating back, I pledged to what is that the greatest president, the world has ever known, whatever, the greatest president of the United States of America, I don't think anybody was actually saying the words. It sounded like they were all going, because nobody actually wants to pledge that.

And I think probably a lot of people in that crowd take the pledge of allegiance seriously. It's actually, it's a weirdly, it's a weird thing for a Republican president to make fun of the pledge of allegiance. Yes. And this is a party that has dined out on people not taking the pledge, on people not standing for the flag, on people, you know, on people not showing the outward signs of loving America. And in fact, that was one of the themes of this whole event before Trump had his joke pledge. And if it was a joke, it was a joke. But he was making a joke about the pledge after two days of. They hate America. They are the party that is dangerous. They are the party that despises the Constitution. They are the party that despises what unite us. That's their message going into this election.

And then he gets up and he makes a joke out of the Pledge of Allegiance, which they are, you know, they are frankly obsessed by having recited any opportunity in this performative fashion. And again, none of this, none of Trump about. Palooza was a great message for anybody who was there to take home to their district, to their state, and say, vote for me, I was there, look how great it was. There's no doubt this will pop up on Democratic attack ads. It will pop up that they were there. There's already been Democrats pointing out about, well, where was the candidate? Abdel Zahidu, who were about to talk about

in a different context, was pointing out on CNN that he was in Michigan. But his, his rival, Mike Rogers, was in Dallas. And this is going to be a theme. You were there. Here's what happened. You were there. Look, did you have your hand up in the air for this pledge? It's going to pop up at local television debates and television ads that people are being bombarded with already.

It's given Democrats a lot of material. Right. So another person speaking there was someone who used to hate Donald Trump, who was an opponent when they were running for president. I'm talking about the Texas Senator Ted Cruz. I'm not cutting this. You're not cutting this gun. I'm not going to say a lot of people. A lot of people ran against him.

It was true. Yeah, because the vice president said he was like Hitler. But yes, Ted Cruz was, I think most people, I think both Farah and Sarah said that Joe, that Ted Cruz got actually a very warm reception. He was in Texas, so, you know, it's his native state. Although he's often not. Actually, he's not his native states from Canada.

Well, I was going to say, and not. And he's not always in Texas, actually. I mean, the time they had the big floods, he was in Greece. I mean, there was another moment when he was in Cancun, when there was a disaster in Texas. Well, we know that it was safe in Texas because he was there. Right. Right. Okay.

That was, yeah. Good news. Good news for the people of Texas. Ed's home. You know you're going to be okay. And he was, he did get, he got a warm reception. And, but in the course of it, we had another. example of something that while people might go, oh, this is flipping or whatever, is actually

pretty chilling. Well, and it's particularly chilling, I think, just to preface it with the fact that it was a year since Charlie Kirk had been shot. Yes, exactly. This was on the day the Republicans had come together and talked about the dangers of political violence. And this clip suggests something rather different. Right. Let's play it. When Mandami says he wants to seize the means of production. He means it. When Abdul al-Said says he has a, quote, obligation to comply with Sharia law, he means it. And when James Talariko says he wants to dismantle capitalism, he means it. So that's the sort of ominous, the voice, the sole voice in the crowd, there, although he got support from people when he said he should be shot.

Yes. I mean, again, we just said on the day, on the anniversary of Charlie Kirk actually being shot. What is Ted Cruz doing here? Well, I will say we do not know if Ted Cruz could hear what was being shouted from the floor. It's a big event, it's a big event space. it wasn't necessarily a big number of people there, but it's a big event space. It is possible that he could not hear. What we haven't heard afterwards from him is a condemnation.

What we didn't hear was that that that person who shouted this absolutely twisted attack on these three Democrats, we didn't hear that that person had been removed. In fact, we asked and we were told, oh, we know nothing about that. So it doesn't appear that any action was taken. And this, again, this is the group. demands that, you know, that Democrats are flayed for the views of one extreme streamer, Hassan Piker that we've all heard about, and honestly, who has even watched. But we've all heard about that.

And sure, this guy has said some important things. This person who shouted he should be shot was explicitly demanding the death of three, three Democrats, two of them notably are not white. and nothing has happened. This person has not been, apparently, not been found. The Secret Service haven't gone after him. And we've got to say, at what point is it plausible that the Republican Party just didn't notice?

We're well past that point. So overall, was this a win for Trump? I mean, Fox News covered it slavishly. The other networks not so much. So the numbers are not good. the ratings for the first night show that Fox News didn't get a bump out of it. So the same number of people tuned in to Fox that would normally tune in. So you might say that's a failure.

I'm going to offer a slightly contrarian view, and I'm not one of those like, oh, I'm going to be a contrarian normally. But the fact that nobody really noticed might actually be the win, because it wasn't good. Right. It wasn't good at all. The big pledge was this $5,000 bribe for everybody. That has kind of resonated a bit, but nobody believes it.

And then, you know, people threatening political violence, people making pledges to cheat. And when we come onto it, the revelation of how many people were actually there, none of that looks good for Trump. And the fact that hasn't really been watched, that it wasn't on the networks, that it wasn't on the networks, that it's not resonating through social media. Google, which shows the trends that people are Googling, not many people are Googling about this. So overall, the fact that hasn't made an impact may be not entirely a failure

in a very strange, very strange way. That is a very contrary intake, and I admit I could be wrong. Don't follow me for analysis. Well, it's intriguing. And also on Wednesday, of course, there was the bombing by Iran of American planes, F-15s just taken out. Was the war much of a theme?

No, there was absolutely an attempt to avoid talking about the war. It came up very glancingly now and again, but there was a real determination not to mention this. Occasional mentions about standing up, about victory, and about things like that, but the real detail and nitty-gritty, absolutely not. one thing that's worth noting, we're talking about this on September the 11th, 25 years ago. You know, we sort of started the cycle of forever wars.

And it was very notable that previous Republican conventions had paid tribute to the troops, had paid tribute to those who went to serve. And this really wasn't mentioned. Because, let's be honest, it's bad news. It's bad news. It's bad news for Donald Trump, this war cannot be. It's getting worse. Although he's revisited the war in his speech at the Pentagon.

So we know that he was basically frozen out of the New York Memorial Service, where the previous presidents were all gathered. So you had George W. Bush, you had the Clintons, you had Obama, and you had Joe Biden. I wonder if Donald Trump looks at them and thinks, oh, it's the president's club and they're all hanging out without me. and now they are laughing at me because I've done this thing of starting a war that I said I wouldn't do and now I can't get out of it. And now even my closest allies, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State and Pete Higgsath and J.D. Vance, obviously the vice president have let it slip that they think it's going to go on until the end of my term. Well, you know, everybody who has watched those very moving commemorations down at ground zero, for me,

many years, I've noted that one of the points is it's not about the politicians, it's not about the politics, it's about the names of those who died. And it is always every year, it's tremendously moving to just hear those names being read from A all the way through. And, you know, Donald Trump wasn't going to be allowed to make a speech. He has denied reports that he demanded to make his speech. But he hasn't denied that he wanted to make a speech. Well, and he made his speech and he said, he went to the Pentagon. Right. He went to the Pentagon. He was, I mean, he was honestly pretty low energy. It appears that after his speech, he in fact was spotted appearing to doze off. And he was reading off the teleprompter, which he never does well. And he weirdly

referred to the date of atrocities, a date that is etched on everybody's memory. He referred to it as 20-01. We will always remember the victims and the families of September 11th. 20-1, very famous date, unfortunately. Right, instead of 2001. Because he was reading. He wasn't prepared. Well, he'd obviously not read it before either, and he kept veering off, very clearly veering off, with his sort of visceral descriptions of what happened.

and how if you were related to someone who died in 9-11, you could listen to that and not be appalled by him trying to cheapen the drama of it. And then, as I say, he appeared to doze off at the end as they were reading out the names of the dead at the Pentagon. Well, I'm sure he found it very tedious because it's not about him. It's not about him. And this is, you know, this is a day that is not about anybody here that is still alive. It's about those who died and those who were bereaved.

Right. And those who ran to help, and many of them are now suffering as well, none of that, none of that relates to the world of Donald Trump. Right. Just we know, and I'm not going to crawl inside his head. I believe that it's Michael Wolf. But there has never been a moment in all of Trump's time as president in which that empathetic, I feel your pain role of the president has been one that he could adopt. Well, he did have one school, which is that his wife turned up and sat. next to him. I was wondering if Natalie Harp would be sitting next to him, the human printer. In case he had some late minute printouts for him. Some new memes. Yeah, some new memes.

But Melania actually had a rare showing. As we know, we've been chronicling Melania's presence. We've been auditing her time as First Lady. And it turns out she's the least visible first lady of the century. We're recording this on Friday morning and she was at the Pentagon ceremony with him. She was at the Pentagon. She did not speak. not at all surprising. That's the first public appearance that she has made this month. She also had a private appearance

earlier in the week, and we're viewing slightly from September the 11th here, but I think it's worth recording. It was a surreal occasion. She spoke in the Rose Garden to the White House Historical Association, and she spoke about the value of design

and legacy. And the irony that she was standing where her husband had concreted over Jackie Kennedy's Rose Garden alone, a few hundred yards from where her husband had destroyed the East Wing. And just behind where the Rose Garden is, is the portico which he has adorned with pictures of former presidents and covered in gold. And then it's just beside the Oval Office,

which of course is now bedecked in so much gold that it's a miracle it hasn't collapsed under its own weight. And she lectured on the importance of design and beauty. So very strange. I would like to discuss the value of design. I mean, it's so peculiar. And nobody was alerted to this in advance. There were no reporters there.

They put out a short video on social media. I think even her team must have realized that, I mean, come on. It's somewhere beyond parody. Right. You go to the White House, your husband is desecrated and talk about beauty and design. Well, perhaps she likes the new helipad. She may be a fan of the new helipad. Right.

It allows you to take off more quickly. Well, I was going to say, and also she's the one that has to walk across the lawn in those very high stilettos. You know, good job, Melania, because that's quite hard. It's an un-selebrated role of the first lady to wear heels on the lawn. Uncelebrated and now retired. And now retired. So, yeah, and in fact, one of Trump's reasons, he said, for paving over the paradise of Jackie O's Rose Garden

was that ladies couldn't stand in their heels. Yes. They were puncturing the lawn with their stilettos. I guess Democrats probably wore, you know, wedges. Birkenstocks. Birkenstocks. But really old ones, not the new trendy ones. Right.

The original Birkenstocks. The original Birkenstocks, yes. Oh dear, we're falling for memes. We're falling for tropes. We're falling for cliches. What I think might become a meme on the Democrats, for the Democrats, though, is what happened. At the end of Trumpapalooza, the empty seats.

And we have some pretty remarkable video. Okay, let's show it. There's empty seats. That's why last night I said, please don't get up and go to the bathroom to sit. because they're fake people, they're fake, horrible, horrible human beings. Not all. Not all.

You have some, my journalist, not too many, we'll be honest. It's just what you want to see when you're boasting that it's filled to the rafters. It's filled to the rafters, except it's not. There's an entire tier that is completely empty, and they're selling merch at half price. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary.

Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. So what happened after Trump ranted about empty seats? Well, he left, obviously, and he was flying back to D.C. And he stopped on the way onto his Gryft Force one. The gold plane was waiting, fuelled up, ready to go. The one that the emergency shoot came off. Yes.

No emergency shoots came off this time. No catering trucks were at hand. Could there have been a better metaphor for him on his way to Trump a Palluzer than the emergency shoot suddenly being triggered on his grift force? All it needed was a load of Republicans going down the shoot. Right. No, it was a fantastic metaphor. But he stopped to take questions from the press and he looked, just be honest, he looked old, he looked sweaty, he looked disheveled. Well, he's also had a week of bad hair.

Yes. Because when he was going out with the emergency shoot in the back, he looked. background, he also stopped to do an impromptu press conference. It was very windy. His flap of hair flew up and you could see the scalp. I think you could see the scars from the scalp reduction that Jeffrey Epstein told Michael Wolfe Donald Trump had had. And then you could see this kind of weird construction where he's got bits of hair here that are then attached to the other bits. It's all very odd. But it was very, normally he keeps that stuff hidden. It was very, it was very much on display. It was as if the Wizard of Oz had been revealed and he was bald. He's

bald after all. The Wizard of Bald. Yeah, the Wizard of Bald. Yeah. That hair's not real people, just in case it's not real. And although someone's, there was a very funny meme of someone saying they'd seen it breathing. And I think I've seen it walking around Central Park on its own early in the morning. So it's possible it's real. Yeah. Yeah, because it's going to be sitting on his scalp all day. Anyway, we. We digress, but he stops for an impromptu press conference. Stops for an impromptu press conference. And he takes a couple of questions.

And then he is asked by Rachel Scott of ABC News about these $5,000 checks. And we have got the, we have got the clip. It's almost a reward for the people having to put up with Biden's palace. Not you. You also offered check during the refund checks. And that's in the president is. On Iran. You're networking.

You're the worst. Go ahead. Wow, not you, not you. And then the way he pushes his face, you can see people are intimidated by him. Michael Wolfe talks a lot about how Trump uses his physicality, which is obviously shrinking now and he's sort of curving over. But you could see it there. And then Stephanie Grisham, which we mentioned earlier, exed out, tweeted out,

oh, I know that face. I know that face. We rarely get such an obvious incisides into what is going on. on inside the side. And the lunge, the way that he moves forward, if you're, if you're listening on Apple or on Spotify or on podcasts, what we saw with Trump is that he literally lunges forward towards Rachel Scott. He's slightly taller, I think, than Rachel Scott. Despite, as you say, he's shrinking, he was, he was a reasonably large man. He was not quite as tall as he said he was, but he was still, he's still a big guy. Well, he's six to, right? He's probably

six, two, and he's wide. He says he's six three. He's certainly wide. I think realistically looking at it, he's now below six foot. We've seen pictures of him with people who are genuinely six foot. We've seen him with pictures of people who are six foot too. Clearly not. Right. The picture of people who's six foot, he's slightly under. I think he's on his way down.

His posture is clearly an issue. Right. But he lunged towards her. And he's growling might be the word, the way that he's saying it, not you, not you. And Rachel Scott is not the first. target of this sort of thing, not the first woman to be targeted, but he actually has very specific history with her, that they have, I was going to say they have clashed. They have not clashed.

He has gone after her for the way that, for questions that are completely legitimate that he doesn't like. It started at the National Association for Black Journalists in 2024 when he was campaigning. And he uncorked, I think we will probably remember this extraordinary tirade against, um, Carmen and Harris saying, I didn't know she was black, I just discovered she was black, is she black or is she?

Indeed, incredibly offensive. And Rachel Scott, quite rightly, called him out on that and asked him what he meant. And he left the stage early. And afterwards, the NAB, the National Association of Black Journalist said that she had received death threats, but were clearly from his followers.

Right. But that has not put her off. She has been able to keep going after him. She asked him in the Oval Office about the deaths of 18 service members in his war in Iran, and he described it as small potatoes. And again, she challenged him on how's that small potatoes? And again, this, you know, this prompted an angry response. But this is, without doubt, I think the physicality of this anger,

we are seeing something more disinhibited, I would guess is probably a way to look at it. Is Trump unraveling? I think it's very hard to argue. that he is not unravelling. I think, yes, we have seen evidence this week that suggests he's unraveling. We saw, if we go back to the Labor Day weekend, dozens and dozens and dozens

of unhinged social media posting. I know you've discussed them with Michael Wolfe. We've talked about him with David Rothkoff. The one that jumps out, of course, is him in an animation attacking. Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister with a hockey stick. There are other ones, one Spartan International Incident, because he wanted to take over Iceland.

And there was just this series of things. He was obviously up late. He was, you know, he was posting on Truth Social. Late at night, his family were not around him, rather notably over this Labor Day weekend. And we've rolled into this Trumpapalooza, this Maga Fire Fest. Two speeches, not one. You know, this sort of this very public going after Rachel Scott, which is atrocious. And then this morning, falling asleep during the names. I think it's impossible to see that this is anything other than a revelation of character and unraveling and opening up of Trump in a way that we have not seen before. Not even during the appalling this handling of COVID, when it was clear that his administration then was teetering on the brink, not even after January the 6th when people deserted him.

This is different. This is much more public. The anger is at the surface. The crazy is at the surface. And the desertion of his own party as well. There was nothing for Republicans at the Republican meeting in Dallas. It was all for Trump. So, Hugh, let's take a pledge at The Daily Beast that we will continue to cover Donald Trump with neither fear nor favor. Thank you very much. I always feel guilty tearing you away from the newsroom because I know there is so much to do.

There's a lot to go on. There is a lot to do. There's other things, and I'll just say on the Daily Beast, www. www.com right now, we're covering other news for Donald Trump, which is not great. The economy, which he has got. problems with and we're covering that in depth. And we're also covering the commemorations of

September the 11th. And one of the things worth saying is that the contrast, I think we've seen between Donald Trump falling asleep at the Pentagon and those four living ex-presidents being there is probably the moment that I think we should all reflect on as we go forward. Yeah. And I would just say I was down in downtown. I mean, I live downtown, but I was right down in Fidei last night having dinner at a couple of restaurants, actually, a double dinner at last night, and just thought to myself, what an extraordinary job the city has done in rebuilding that whole area. And it's vibrant.

There's an art center. The memorial is a huge tourist attraction now. And, you know, 25 years ago when we were both here, it wasn't possible to think about how the city would be rebuilt and how people would survive. We all really thought that this was some crushing blow. Right, an existential blow to New York City, and it turns out that New York City is bigger than any one particular terrorist event, let's hope anyway.

And it was sort of thrilling to be downtown, knowing that actually 25 years on, the city is more vibrant than ever. I think, you know, maybe we should all reflect on that, that, you know, what we saw this week at this Dallas event was dark, And what we saw with this attack on Rachel Scott was dark. Maybe we can reflect that there is the possibility of resilience and redemption here too. Huey, profound words for a Friday morning.

It's time to get back to the newsroom. Thank you for joining us if you have. Don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast. And a big thank you to our production team, John Romero, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passa, Heather Pissarro and Neil Rosenhaus. and I will be back tomorrow inside Trump's head with Michael Wolfe poking around to see what is left inside that strange cavernous space.

So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support. This family is on the brink of civil war on September 18th. Mobland. The hit original series is back on Paramount Plus.

We are the hernigan. on the ad and Google us. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. Do you want to step up the ladder? I want combat dead. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. Do I have to do everything myself? You want to want?

I'll give you a ball. Glad. New season hits September 18th on Paramount Plus. Reaching your audience on Spotify with display ads is easy. Use your existing creative and launch your first campaign in minutes with Spotify Ads Manager.