The Daily Beast Podcast - This Is Why Cry-Baby Trump Is in Terminal Tantrum

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles look at Donald Trump’s escalating battles with the Supreme Court, the collapse of the Kennedy Center under his control, and his increasingly aggressive response to the AI debate, where Trump has declared that “whoever wins AI wins” while threatening critics and accusing them of conspiracy. They also examine Trump’s rollback of climate protections, his approach to conflict as a political strategy, and the extraordinary allegations surrounding Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding and its Russian connections. Plus, Trump’s threat against Oman, the consequences of burning through missile supplies in Iran, Jared Kushner’s transformation of American diplomacy into a business operation, and what a post-Trump administration could look like if Democrats make major gains in the midterms. #ad Unlock your best hair & skin with @iRestorelaser and HUGE savings on iRESTORE with code BEAST  at https://irestore.com/BEAST! #irestorepod  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here is today's conflict. We'll go after the court. Today, the court is the enemy. The logic is only the conflict. Who is my enemy? Let me vilify my enemy. So I have to, and he's in an awkward position here, these are the people he appointed. These are the people he appointed because of their conservatives beliefs. So now they are turning against him. It's pathetic, of course, it's intellectually pathetic, but from his point of view, it is the thing, it is, this is what he's bringing to the Maga Corps. You like conflict? I like conflict.

Everybody's having a good time here. Michael. Joanna. Are you looking forward to our trip to Los Angeles, where we're going to be live on October the 20th at the Terregram ballroom? Well, you know, I never look forward to any trips. I do look forward to a live audience. I like an audience.

I like a live audience too. What can I say? Well, it's going to be fun. If you're in L.A. or you need a trip to L.A. or you just want to hear us live, come head to the beast.combe. That's beast.com pub slash ITH live. That's beast.op pub slash ITH live to grab your ticket. or you can go to Ticketmaster, and I suppose you type in inside Trump's head.

Terragram Ballroom, L.A., October the 20th, be there or don't be there. Where is the Terragam ballroom? Do we know? It's in downtown Los Angeles, Michael, downtown. Downtown, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-go. Petula-Claudeau. Yeah, I know who it is. Come on. All right, Michael, we'll be live. Mitch McConnell is also live. Mitch McConnell rolled into the Senate yesterday, aged 84, looking half the size he was before. And this isn't about age, really, because you have Bernie at 84, who's never seemed more youthful and who will be talking about. But I just want to go back to your conspiracy, the day. Billy Beast conspiracy about poor Mitch. And it turned out not to be true. Poor Mitch was just

ailing. Seriously, ailing. But he was everything that he said, everything the Mitch Camp said was the situation turned out to be. He just was in bad shape. Well, actually, we have no idea because he wasn't allowed to be filmed speaking. And he said almost nothing. He said in a hushed whisper he was looking forward to some votes. And then he was wheeled away. Didn't take questions. So you think that he's just the body being wheeled out

and casting votes by an unseen hand. What I think is he is too old and infirm to be a working senator. and the people of Kentucky deserve better. I completely agree with that, but I'm just going back to the conspiracy that you previously propounded. It didn't look like Mitch McConnell yesterday given his wheeling out to an audience.

I get it. It didn't look like he could have a conversation. He didn't want to take questions. The conspiracy continues. Okay, we'll see. Well, sometimes things are happening right in front of us and we see them and we call them. And Mitch McConnell did not look well.

Okay. Just to be established the record here, you're calling the conspiracy, the Mitch is just a body that has been wheeled out. No, I'm not saying he's just a body. I'm not saying he's just a body. I'm saying I thought it was really weird that his aides didn't allow any journalist to film him speaking. Okay. Whereas we can film you speaking.

Perhaps not. Perhaps I am AI. You are many things, Michael, but you are definitely not AI. Even AI couldn't AI, Michael Wolf. But we are obviously going to talk about Trump's response. What's going on inside Trump's head to the whole AI freak out this week. And Trump's answer, obviously, that the. only thing that AI needs is a smart president and how lucky that we have him. We're also going to be talking about the Supreme Court's pushback on Trump's attempts to rein in mail-in voting.

It's fine. If you have a mail-in ballot, you're allowed to send it. In fact, send it ASAP. We're going to talk about Trump's revenge on the climate. Will it ever be safe to breathe American air? Now he's threatening Oman. And I would like to throw in the new. New Yorker piece on Jared Kushner? Which I haven't read it. Well, you need to set aside an afternoon to read it because it's very long, but it is an appalling indictment of Jared Kushner and how he basically has reduced American diplomacy to his business strategy.

An appalling indictment of Jared Kushner, that seems like not a not. a new story. Not a new story, but it's a detailed story. And it's basically Jared going around the Middle East, shaking his affinity partners begging bowl and demanding more investment. And as someone said, until he started that, the only thing he'd invested in was his 401k. Let's do also the Kennedy Center. This is a story that I'm really taken with. Let's start with the Trump Social, because it was a, well, if not a work of art, a work of Trump. It was a work of Trump. It was 500 words, basically.

His response to Scotus deciding that mail-in voting could go ahead just as it has done. Can I, should I read some of it? Because people may not. It's just dropped, actually. So it's possible that not everybody's read it. Okay. I could do it. I know my Trump impression is not very good, but...

It isn't. It isn't very good. All right, so I won't do it. All right. Republicans just got another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court, one that the court system took forever to give and then blamed it in part on no time left to implement a solution to are totally corrupt and out of control, mail-in voting disaster, which is a laughing stock all over the world.

and where we are the only country that has to endure such a nation destroying scam. That's the first sentence. And just remember, just said this, that this court is his court. This is the court that he has appointed more justices to this court than any president in the last three terms, I believe. But go on. It's a big loss for Republicans and America itself and makes cheating by the radical left Democrats or bail it's. easier thing to do. And now they have an open field to do so. The Supreme Court has really let our country down, exclamation point. Certain justices are petrified of these crazed and depraved

Democrats and are totally unable to show the courage necessary to save our America. That would be the three justices that he appointed, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Amy Kami Barrett. Their horrible decision on tariffs will be costing the USA for. for many years to come, trillions and trillions of dollars, they didn't even state money paid does not have to be paid back, much to the benefit of entities that truly hate our country and have been ripping it off for years, unnecessarily costing us immediately billions of dollars. And then I'm just going to read one more line. Likewise, the Supreme Court's decision on birthright citizenship is a complete and total disaster

for America and has already led to massive corruption with respect to safe. citizenship in our country. It's just this broad horizon of all things, of all things that the court has done, of all things that Trump wants. I want, I want, I want, I want. But let me, let me give you, I can give you the background to how this, a post of this length comes together. Okay, give me the background. So he's saying, he said, I'm going to do a, I'm going to do a, let's do a post about, about, about the court. The court is all fucked up. Let's go and get them. blah, blah. And then he says, and let's include. And then somebody has to write, somebody else is writing the, the bullet points there. Isn't it Natalie Harp? Give me a line. It could be Natalie Harp.

It could be Dan Scavino. It could be, there could be any number of contributors to this. But a long, he can't write a long post like this. So let's learn 500 words. He cannot write. Okay. So therefore, It's that. You do the, okay, and then he'll say, throw in birthright citizenship. And then somebody will give him, will give him the line on that. So this is all Trump, Trump seeing, okay, I mean, this is the thing that he always looks for. This is the conflict. Here is today's conflict.

We'll go after the court. We'll accuse him of doing everything. Today the court is the enemy. And he's personifying. So it isn't the issue at hand, which is mail-in voting in that, which would require a complicated explanation. It's the court. The court is at fall. A new season is always a good excuse to upgrade your routine.

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And right now, I Restore is offering some huge discounts on their red light therapy devices. You can save on customer favorites like the I Restore Elite Helmet and the Illumina Face Mask. Just head to irisore.com and use code Beast. That's Beast at irrestore.com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Give your hair and skin the upgrade they deserve so you can feel confident and refreshed. So what does he mean when he says? He says here a little bit later on,

this Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the radical left into making decisions that have set America back at least 100 years. These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court. They are merely a shell of their original selves. What is he talking about? What does he think has happened to them? Is he blaming John Roberts here?

How have they gone from being these people that he interviewed to, you know, empty casts. There is no logic here. The logic is only the conflict. Who is my enemy? Let me vilify my enemy. So I have to, and he's in an awkward position here. These are the people he appointed. These are the people he appointed because of their, of their conservatives beliefs. These are the federalist society people. All of this thing. So now they are turning against him. So what does that mean? Well, it just means that we will have to we will have to come up with a rationale for why they are not the people I appointed. This is all Well, but I mean, surely they must be sort of very weak people if they've been manipulated by

the radical left. At the end, he says, it's not easy for me to write this criticism of the United States Supreme Court. It will likely cost me dearly for years to come. But I feel it my obligation and duty as president to do so for the America we love. This is extraordinary. But also this is part of, this is campaign stuff. So they only have one issue in the midterms, the radical left, the Democratic socialists, all that is their singular issue. So it's how to get that into everything.

Repetition, repetition, repetition. Put it in here. Make that the issue. But this really truly seems pathetic. As you say, he's put three justices on the court. It's a conservative court and somehow they've been hijacked by the radical left. I mean, it's pathetic, of course. It's intellectually pathetic.

But for what Trump is doing, it's identifying a conflict and having him stand up. Now, this is not going to get him Democratic votes, certainly, and not independent votes. But from his point of view, it is the thing, it is, this is what he's bringing to the Maga Corps. I am standing up for, for, I am the guy. I am here. These are our enemies together. And also, you like the conflict. You like conflict?

I like conflict. Everybody's having a good time here. Well, you know where they're not having a good time? the Kennedy Center, that is not a good outcome. I mean, it's not a surprising outcome. Well, it's totally, I mean, this is extraordinary. So 18 months ago, you had a thriving enterprise. Trump comes along and... Are you talking about America or are you talking about the Kennedy Center? Right, right. I know you are. Okay, 18 months ago, before Trump becomes the president for the second time. The Kennedy Center is a thriving cultural institution. Pays for itself. It sells a lot of

tickets. Everything is as it has been for the last many decades. Trump comes along. 18 months later, it's on the edge of bankruptcy. With Trump essentially saying, if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to kill the place. So, so you kind of, I mean, you have that perfect Trump metaphor. What he takes, he breaks, what he can't have, he wants more of. I mean, and go back, I mean, the, what happened here is Trump becomes the president of the United States. He scuttles the board, the Kennedy board as it exists. He installs his stooges and then demands that they vote to change the name of the Kennedy Center to acknowledge him.

This means that the performers and the audience beat a retreat, meaning that the financial viability of the Kennedy Center is suddenly under threat. The court then says, no, Congress made the Kennedy Center the official memorial to John F. Kennedy. You can't put your name on it. Take it off, which is theoretically has been done, although it's still behind a curtain. Trump then says, no, you have to put, you have to find a way to put my name on the Kennedy Center. And if you don't, I will not help you raise the money that you need to cover the deficit caused by the fact that I demanded you put my name on the Kennedy Center. So this is kind of pure Trump.

He fucks things up and then he fucks them up even more. and because of his rage, petulance, and, you know, really, I want what I want, abuse of power. Everything he touches turns to shit. Yeah, and so the Kennedy Center joins a pile of things that Trump has been involved with that end in bankruptcy, Trump stakes, Trump water, Trump University, Trump champagne, all of it. I mean, and also his name will go on the building, but as the help in terms of renovated and refurbished by Donald Trump. Well, even that, that's up. It's not clear that he can do that either.

I mean, that's what he's now insisting on. You have to find a way to put my name on the building. And if you... Well, they could put bankrupted by Donald Trump. Well, apparently the court has said his name can appear. any place on the building. So, so this is a, this is a problem. But the interesting thing is that it's in financial extremists because of Trump. And Trump is now saying, I'm the only one who can get you out of this financial extremist. So what do you think happens? You know, I, I, I, I, I bet that

Kennedy Center will, will, will, will, will close. I mean, I think that, I mean, this is all. this is this is this is this is Trump and just just think about about Trump this is this is if I don't get what I want I take my marbles home that's you know he's the petulance here the crybaby nature of this this phenomenal lack of of well maturity of of of course but this is all richy rich behavior it's just it's remarkable and so The National Orchestra has no home. There's nowhere for people to play on a large stage in Washington. It's just incredible.

The country's sort of foremost art center. And also the other thing is it's a memorial to a slain president. Yeah, yeah. No, nowhere. This ought to be all. I mean, one of the things here, and this is particularly Trumpian, all that is obviously Trumpian, all that is obviously. obvious. And yet he is willing to diss it. He is willing to challenge it. So the fundamental

logic of this, the logic that there is a thriving art center that reflects well on the nation's capital that has been named after the slain president. president, nevertheless, Trump can wave it away and demand that it be remade in his own image. What? I mean, even I think I'm pretty well grounded in what's inside Trump's head, but this is even a leap for me to understand. Yeah. Except it's this baby.

You know, it is the baby thing. You can't understand it because it is. like a child. He is like a child, and it's possible that he's getting worse, that, you know, the look that Mary Trump, his niece says she can see in his eyes is the look that his father had when he was beginning to get dementia. I mean, you saw it, you know, he was sleeping through the 9-11 memorial. Yes, it's very possible, but I think that almost gives him an out.

That's an explanation. And the truer explanation is he's a fight. fucking asshole, you know, and he doesn't care. So it's rage, it's petulance, and it's, I can do anything I want. So that's not dementia. That's Donald Trump. Okay. That's not dementia. That's Donald Trump. I don't know which is worse, actually. A president with dementia or Donald Trump doing Donald Trump. All right. So the other thing that he went sort of furious about was AI. your friend Steve Bannon is meeting with Bernie Sanders today to talk about AI. And Bernie Sanders, you've got to hand it to him at 84.

You wrote this a few months ago, but Bernie Sanders is still a very relevant voice. Anyway. Okay, but let me just say that both Bernie Sanders, and this can be said about many, many people in this AI debate, about the entire debate, but particularly Bernie Sanders and. Steve Bannon know nothing about AI. I mean, they're both kind of famously computer phobic. They are, they know nothing. They could not explain to you what AI does, how it works, what are the implications of how it works, nothing. But, I mean, let's not single them out. This is true about everyone. And in fact, I find it true about the leaders of the leading AI industry,

of the leading AI company. The frontier labs. Yes. When they start to explain this to me, you think, what the fuck are they talking about? This doesn't make any sense at all. It is remarkable that the leaders of the AI companies aren't able to articulate the real benefits of AI. They keep saying, oh, it's incredible, it's incredible. All. All we know is that it's going to help medically because it can, you know, AI at its basic is just pattern recognition, right, at scale and at enormous speed. Yeah, I mean, you can sort of sort of get that. And we sort of, you know, many of us use AI and we see the certain, the kind of extraordinary benefits that it can, that it can return a, you know, a fairly articulate sentence. But then this other thing, remember, we've moved on.

The AI is now going to destroy the world, a 10% chance, a 30% chance. What are they, A, what are they talking about? And B, tell me how. You have not told me how the AI is going to destroy the world. I think it's to do with paper clips that if you tell an AI bot, you know, make paper clips, it will make paper clips until it's killed everybody. I mean, it's sort of ludicrous. I couldn't agree more.

I don't understand that leap. It will make paper clips until it kills everyone, which was this was actually in a New York Times story without the New York Times being able to say, what the devil that means. And that is also true because the media who is covering this story, they don't know. They can't explain AI. And ultimately, though, the one person who really can't explain AI. I know what you're going to say. And who is the a pivotal voice now in this debate is Donald Trump? Is Donald Trump.

So he said yesterday there is a sick conspiracy going on against AI and data centers. And the only one that is happy about this is China. Whoever wins AI wins. We are leading China and all others and will continue to do so. Conspiracy theorists, treasonists, traitors and leakers, beware. I mean, it's the very CEOs and founders of these companies. who are saying, if you're not careful, AI is going to kill you, i.e. we're going to kill you because we're the founders of these companies that have created these things.

I mean, the weird thing for me is the way they keep distancing themselves from the product they are making. So they're like, well, it's got away from us. It's AI. AI is going to kill us. Dudes, you're the guys who are responsible for this. If you are a car manufacturer, if you are a plane manufacturer, you would be responsible. So why are they behaving as if they're not responsible?

I mean, let's go. And the China thing is interesting because this is a case that you've argued. Well, and I do, I mean, who benefits from this? China does benefit from this. This is always the canard. We have to build, we have to, we have to get more weapons because Russia has more weapons. We have to do this because China does. All of this stuff historically has turned out not to be true.

And to set up that straw man, we have to do this because they are going to do it. They have the same problems as we do, or they have more problems than we do. And so suddenly setting them up as an exemplar of what should happen and what is going to happen is a logical fallacy of the worst kind. I think your bigger point is that nobody understands how to talk about this. And sure as hell, Mitch McConnell being wheeled into the Senate is not someone who's on top of this either. I have no confidence that our elected representatives for the most part can talk about this stuff. Let alone regulate it. I mean, here's another view that leaders of the – so, I mean, we have a couple of things here.

The world economy is now highly dependent on AI growth. So, and that's probably, that's not only a vulnerability and a weakness, it's almost in inevitability that that will, that there, that will collapse or that there will be serious problems there, which will bring down the economy, which will bring down, obviously, the value of these AI companies. I thought you were going to say it brings down actually more than that. I mean, it brings down politicians. It brings down everything with it. It's economy collapses.

But from the AI company's view, you know, all of the leaders of this industry, they're kind of thinking, oh, my God, you know, we're looking at this. The demand is really not there. The costs are exceeding what we thought of. So we're going to be in a problem. Our share price is going to face problems when we start to see significantly lower growth. So here's a solution. We're going to say lower growth is good. I mean, this is all at every level, obviously, a scam,

because people who are running this debate, who are unable to explain exactly the terms of what they're talking about and of this debate, all have a financial interest in this, including Donald Trump. There was a hilarious interview, actually, with Daria Amadeh, their co-founder of Anthropic yesterday with Anderson Cooper. And Anderson Cooper just looked bewildered throughout because Amadee was really not making very much sense at all. He's spoken long, ridiculous cliches about how we have to manage this and we have to temper growth.

And then he would say things like we need good policies, not bad policies, and we have to create good policies, not bad policies. And you look, man, what are you saying? You have no idea what you're saying. Let's look at these people, him, Elon Musk, Sam Altman. First thing, these are people so rich, so rich that they are far removed from the humanity that they seem about to destroy. Well, there was one moment as well in the Anderson Cooper interview where he asked him about regulation and should open AI. And everybody's talking about this thing that I think Scott Galloway started. It's about whether or not AI should actually be owned by the government, should you have technology as powerful as this in private company hands.

And that's what Anderson Cooper asked Dario Amadee, who's worth $15 billion, who said, well, that's not for me. That's someone above my pay grade. And you're like, what are you talking? Who is above that pay grade? No one in government is above that pay grade. Okay. these are all of these people, Elon, Sammel and Dario, what's his name, you know, are exceedingly peculiar people. And they're all men, they're all men of roughly the same age.

And on top of that, they are profoundly inarticulate. So therefore, this is the fix we're in. I don't think the fix is necessarily a technology fix. The fix is that we, is a very human fix. these are people who we should not be trusting. These are people who should not really be leading this debate about this technology. The problem is that other people outside of these companies and this technology can't lead the debate because they don't understand the technology. So what happens? We all end up dead in 10 years.

Yeah, I don't know. You know, it's insane. It's very, very strange. There's a famous story by the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. I think it's called something like Dial Double Zero, written in the early, I think the early 60s, late 50s, in which he posits that a spontaneous life form is created in the telephone lines. And I mean, this is sort of interesting because among the reasons this is interesting, is because this story seemed no one can find this story. This is just sort of the rumors about this story.

But, and I don't know, I don't really have a point here, except for the fact that life was not created spontaneously within the telephone lines and the telephone business itself went out of business effectively. So, so we're in that one of this, the thing. What is the future here? And I think you can, one of the things that you can say safely about the future is that no one predicts it accurately. No one predicts it accurately. That is a good thing to say. And also, these AI companies demanding to be regulated, why can't they regulate themselves? Well, companies don't particularly regulate themselves. I mean, and I think it's, I think it is. That's the job of politicians.

but it's a problem because politicians don't understand this. And the thing that politicians, the last thing that politicians want to do and the last thing the media wants to do is look stupid. But they are stupid. Agree, except that if your product, if you yourself as the CEO and co-founder of these companies is saying it might kill everybody in 10 years, you would think you would want to self-regulate. I mean, you might welcome external regulation, but you would think I need to get on top of this.

Otherwise, I've got a product out there. I mean, you couldn't do this with a food. You couldn't, you know, have a farm where one in ten people died of eating your product. You would have to self-regulate. Otherwise, you'd be closed down. Yeah. I mean, let's go back to Donald Trump, which is who has inserted himself as a key figure in this. and Donald Trump, who himself has a vested financial interest in this. Well, as John Ossoff said, he's thoroughly compromised. Yeah, on a personal level, he has a financial interest, but also on the interest that if AI goes, if there are, the more questions that are raised about AI means that the slower the growth will be,

which will impact on the economy and he will be blamed. So he needs this. He needs AI growth to continue for the next two years. After that, I'm sure he doesn't give a shit. Well, I'm sure he doesn't give a shit anyway, as long as he continues to get rich. And you know who's benefiting from this? You know, who's looking sensible, you know, who looks like the leader that we want. Back to Mark Carney in Canada, who said on Monday that he favored the creation of a global technology stability body to oversee AI.

There's a need for coordination, Mr. Carney said. Ultimately, a technology stability board, in our views, along the lines of the financial stability board would make sense. That sounds scary, too. Sounds less scary than leaving these guys in charge. This is a natural segue into climate change. And Donald Trump saying that, again, two things, that again claiming climate change is a total hoax.

and the dismantling of essentially all of the progress that has been made against climate change in the last 20 years. So, you know, I mean, actually this is probably significantly more serious than the AI debate, which remains theoretical. This remains, the climate issue remains, is a present and immediate issue, and not only is Donald Trump not helping to solve it, but Donald Trump is making it worse, which is to say back to he fucks things up and then fucks them up even more. Right. And what he's actually done here is the raised limits on climate pollution from power. centers from power plants. And so, and, and again, this is that kind of thing. This is, this is, I want what I want. And the whole, the point here is, is, has nothing little to do with climate change, which

again, Donald Trump does not understand, certainly has not spent the time, the time trying to figure out what is true and what is not about, about climate change. Rather, he is opposed to the people who favor climate change. Therefore, he will undo the progress that they have made. So they lose, he wins. But again, nothing to do with the fundamental issue. Do you think he's now unraveling? I mean, he hit the ground running faster than any president we can think of.

at the beginning of Trump, too. He had Project 2025 all laid out. He had his people in place. Every single one of his policies appears to have backfired on him. Is he conscious of that, do you think? Or does he just lurch from moment to moment, as we've discussed, not really concerned about everything flailing around him? Yeah. Yes. Obviously, he lurches from moment to moment. But all of these things, and in fact, in fact, you know, Project 25, I think that's inaccurate to say that that was his plan. That was a plan by people around Trump, which he was happy to have them ultimately try to implement because first thing, it's a level of detail that he, he. Yeah, couldn't be less interested in.

He can't be interested in. And it also sets up, again, it's the nature of the. conflict. Climate change. I know he doesn't care about climate change. He cares about opposing the people who are in favor of climate change. So it is, again, this is he thrives on conflict. He exists on it. He benefits from it. He embodies it. So right now, not only, you know, I don't know, The idea of Trump melting down confuses me because he's always in a process of melting down because melting down is more conflict, it's more emotion. It's more him being at the center of attention.

That's what you. When a child melts down, the child is at the center of attention. That's what the child wants. That's what Donald Trump wants. So there is a strategy here, although I'm, of course, reluctant to use the word strategy. But there is something at the core of this that Donald Trump understands. There is a method to his madness, essentially. I know what I can do here to get attention, to make people not be able to look away from me,

to make this all about me. I am the performer, and I know how to command an audience. Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know the same way you can skip an ad. I get it. I'm Siaiaa and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned.

And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. So do you think there was conflict between him and Don Jr. When it emerged that Umar Klemlev, a companion of Vladimir Putin, turns out to have paid for a large part of the celebration. of Don Jr.'s marriage to Bettina Anderson.

Although I think, as Don Jr. put it, our friend, Omir. His friend, very generous friend. And Bettina said sometimes there's no motive behind a very, very generous gift of several hundred thousand dollars when your husband is the oldest son of the president. Yeah, I don't. It's a good, this is a good question. I mean, a really interesting thing. Does Trump himself,

would have been perfectly understanding of this. I mean, he did take the airplane. Right, Griffith Force One. But he is resentful when his kids do the same thing. So it was described to me, for instance, when Trump moved back to Moralago after his defeat in 2020 and after he left office in January 2021, moved back to Mar-a-Lago,

and the family followed him to Mar-a-Lago. And Don Jr. bought a house for $10 million in Palm Beach. And so a screaming match was described to me between Trump and his son. with Trump demanding to know where did you get that money? You don't have that money. Where did that money come from? And again, this was cast not as the fact that that Don Jr. did something that Trump wouldn't have done.

But that Trump, but that Don Jr. somehow went around his back to get this money. So I think that this is probably what the, there will be another screaming match. about the wedding after party. The after party. Right, the after party. Yes, it was a sort of cockamamie Instagram post by Bettina saying, yes, this is true. They're responding to excellent reporting in ProPublica that broke the story about Kremlev's very generous hand on his checkbook. Bettina then came out very quickly.

Obviously, I'm assuming, with the knowledge of the White House, but perhaps not saying, Yes, yes, he paid, but actually it was all a bit of strange. We were all meeting up anyway, and it was a party, but then it turned into an after party, but it was a wedding gift. So it was strange logic there, but apparently he paid for the hiring of the Bahamian Islands. I think that's how you say Bahamas Islands, and the fireworks display. And then she released... That old fireworks display.

Which you are the only person who, like me, finds fireworks boring. And as you once said to me, like, is it the finale? When's the finale? Can this be the finale? I agree. Why don't they just go straight to the finale with fireworks? Because there's always 15 minutes of throat clearing before you finally get to the big bangs. And she then released 20 photographs of the wedding, which I must admit I poured over actually. It also looked like Don Jr. was wearing kind of linen pajamas. It wasn't a very good look for him. I was intrigued, nevertheless, and I entreat anybody listening. or watching us. If you have information on this, apparently Don Jr. had a chin treatment, a chin straightening treatment. So I didn't know if he'd actually broken his jaw and had it reset or whether or not it was a kind of firmage type treatment where you have lights that flash into your skin to boost collagen, which gives you a tightening effect. And how do we know this? I miss this. I must confess. Well, I think it was in the main piece

that the ProPublica piece that he had a chin tightening treatment. So he had this for the wedding for his marriage. He had it for the wedding for the photos because everything's about the Instagram photos. You know you're an Instagram star. Everything's about the gram. And there were lots of pictures. Can I just say one more thing? There were just lots of pictures which, and I've noticed this now as a guest of occasional weddings,

the force with which the bride has to smile with her mouth open as if caught mid-lough for the photos. It's all about the photos and the ground and the showing off. And we should at least do a little tip of the hat to Kimberly, Kimberly Guilfoyle in Greece. I feel bad for her. Why, do you think she's the one that tipped people off about the wedding being paid for by the Russians? Oh, very good. Well, there's a theory.

There was speculation on X yesterday that that might have come from. That might have come from Kimberley, and I thought what an interesting theory. Yeah, no, we should definitely run with that. I mean, someone leaks that story, right? Someone leaks the fact that Kremlin of Omar, Kremlin, friend of Putin paid for the wedding. Yeah, no, absolutely. But what we will sit here, the Trump's response with this, we're going to go, I mean, he's going to be pissed at Don Jr. but he will then go revert to the Russian hoax.

This is again the Russian hoax. Democrats trying to pin Russia, which I mean, I don't see how you, what better example could there be that Vladimir Putin's friend is sporting Don Jr. to an after party. Right. And also that, I mean, he can say it's a Russian hoax, but Bettina fessed up to it very, very. quickly. Bettina, graduate of your old alma mater, Colombia.

But nevertheless, it's the Russian hoax will mean, not that the Russians didn't do this, but the hoax is that Donald Trump and the Trump family is being connected in any way to Putin and Russia in a way that might compromise their their Please don't say integrity. There. Well, I was looking for a word that, yes, exactly. You got there. That was saying.

Compromise there what? Yeah. But the odd thing is that Donald Trump Jr., according to Forbes, is currently worth $300 million. So why couldn't he pay for his own wedding? Who would want someone else to pay for their wedding? I think it's bizarre. Well, don't you understand that the way you get to be worth.

$300 million is to take money from other people. Right, right. You never get to the point, I have $300 million. I don't have to take any more money. No, because I don't have a billion dollars. I have to keep taking money to get to a billion dollars, or in Donald Trump's case, to get to $6.4 billion. Yeah, it's never enough.

It's never enough. Do we want a drive-by? We shouldn't forget we're still in a forever war. And now Trump is threatening one of our allies, supposed allies, people who've been involved in trying to, you know, create some kind of a broker a peace deal between Trump and Iran, Oman. We're apparently going to, or at least we're threatening to bomb Oman. For what reason, I think nobody has any idea? Well, probably least of all, Hager's. And who knew we had the bombs? Who knew we had the bombs anymore?

Well, we haven't bombed Oman, and we probably will not bomb Oman. We will just threaten to bomb Oman. For what reason, no one has any idea. Meanwhile, the Russians are going after trains. There was a drone attack on a train that David Petraeus had been on. And again, Russian attack on a train in Ukraine, because the Ukrainians, don't have enough Patriot missile interceptors. We used to supply them, but we've stopped doing it because we've been too busy bombing Iran. Because we've run out of them. Yeah. Yes. So Boris called for the money that's been held, I guess, in some sort of international escrow because it's sanctioned money against Russia. He immediately called it for it

to be released to the Ukrainians for them to replenish their munition supply. Which seems like a great idea except for the fact that there are no munitions. There are nobody to buy these interceptors from because we've used them all up. Good times, Michael. Good times. So maybe it's... So just to make a... And I think it's important. This is an important theme to keep coming back to that Donald Trump could not hold two ideas in his head at the same time, which is that if we went to war against the Iranians. We would use up the supplies, or at least if he had been able to think beyond the first week of the war, we might use up the supplies that would be

instrumental in gaining an advantage against the Russians in Ukraine. Therefore, losing that advantage, we open up Europe and the world for a new level of aggression from the Russians, which we might have stopped dead in its tracks. If only we had had those bombs that we expended in Iran for no real advantage at all. Well, happily we've got Steve Wiccoff and Jared Kushner who are going to solve. everything. And I will recommend Dexter Filkin's piece in the New Yorker. It's very long. And rather ominously, it said at the top, it would take 59 minutes if you were to listen to this article. That's quite a recommendation. That's probably using AI too. But a sort of fascinating look at

how Jared views everything as a deal and now through the lens of affinity partners. So what's in it for him. And then there's great detail on the Albania situation and the fact that Jared Navank are trying to build their luxury resort in Cézanne, which is an island, their sort of nature reserve island, has actually now that the prime minister of Albania who is supposed to be helping him is now being basically driven out of office by the decision to help them. But it's a really interesting piece about, more about Jared than Wittkoff and just how inexperienced and proudly critical he is of all the diplomats who've gone before him. You know, it's interesting that he's still inexperienced after spending a term four years

in the White House as pretty much the second most important person in the executive branch. Well, what's also interesting, they describe a day where, you know, one day he's doing Russia in the morning and then he's trying to do Iran in the afternoon. He's shaking his begging bowl, which I think has now got $5 billion in it from Middle East investors, largely the Saudis. And so essentially, he looks at the world through what's in this business-wise for me. how is my fund going to benefit from this?

And he's got management fees, which means that he's suddenly got a large chunk of money coming in, even though much of the money is not yet invested. But it's just the price for doing business with the president. And this was the deal, basically. I mean, he was not coming into the second administration because of his desire to run his own. own fund and make his own money. So the deal to bring him back in was that you could continue to

do this without a worry. And the worry might be that he would ultimately be held to account by a future Congress and administration. But that will not be a worry because he will be retroactively, proactively, pardoned by his father-in-law before he leaves office. Right. And then I guess the challenge for any Democrat coming in is how do you undo what is essentially the privatization of U.S. diplomacy? I mean, we've got over a hundred countries at the moment that don't have anybody in the ambassadacy.

So that soft power of just talking to leaders and understanding what's going on in countries, it has vanished, that expertise has vanished. Well, that will be, no, I mean, this is a major topic and we'll shortly start to become the major topic of as we get beyond the midterms. How do you then begin to envision a post-Donald Trump world? A post-Donald Trump world, perhaps there won't be one. perhaps AI has seen the Donald Trump world and is like, you know what, enough already. I'm ending it now.

But even, and then even more immediately than imagining that, we should spend some time thinking what happens to, what happens when Donald Trump loses this election? Then what are the final two years of this administration of a raging petulant, a, abuse of power guy, what does he do in that situation when the world turns against him? A raging, petulant guy who may not agree that the seats that have been won by the Democrats, assuming there are some in the midterms, are actually, you know, true. He may just deny all of it. We will certainly, yes.

I mean, that's my anxiety, that they're just going to spend the next two years. and bullshit legal cases, challenging things that are completely obviously fine? Well, what's going to happen? Yes, and that may, in a close election, there's a close election that he wins and is close because of the way he's manipulated things, or there's a close election that his manipulation has managed to make close, but he still loses, and then he will rage against that for as long as he can. Or, and this is obviously what we might hope for, that there will be, and this is what the polls

are now looking like, that there will be a massive vote against him, which he will, and reality will have spoken in a way that cannot be denied. Well, I think he can deny almost anything, can't he? Well, yeah, no, actually. I mean, there is some level in which it is, it is the, even even the, the, the, the, the pure math of it overwhelms Donald Trump. And, and if, if the Democrats vote in the way it, it is now seeming that they will, along with independence, then Donald Trump is going to face. a new reality. Well, which is even odder then that he's insisted, and we saw this Trump of

Paloosa last week, that he's on the ballot, that people should vote as if he were on the ballot. Let's hope they do. And perhaps they will. Yes, exactly. To his detriment, yes. Okay, we will be back on Thursday. I'm just reminding people who want to come and join us live, October the 20th at the Teragram Ballroom in L.A. Which is downtown L.A.

Downtown L.A. So make an evening of it. Book yourself dinner. And I think there are some tickets that you can actually come and talk to me and Michael before or after the event. And I can assure you that Michael is very good with a live audience. So head to B-Stop Pub slash ITH live. That's B-stoppub slash ITH live. Or you can go to Ticketmaster and tap in inside Trump's head,

terogram ballroom, October the 20th. If you have been, thank you for joining us, as always, if you've been watching, if you've been listening. And big thank you to our production team, Michael. You know, just suddenly it comes up like that. Every week. Ryan, John, Heather, Rachel, Neal. Oh, you've still got it, Michael, you've still got it.

White, leg. School, tomato. Cool. Joanna, see you on Thursday. See you on Thursday. So the good news is we have so many B-beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.