The Daily Beast Podcast - This Is Why Trump Has So Many Weird Work Wives

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

David Rothkopf joins Joanna Coles and Nell Scovell in their third installment of Inside Trump’s Women for a revealing and often hilarious look at the women orbiting Donald Trump and the strange power dynamics inside his White House. From Natalie Harp’s extraordinary devotion and Margo Martin’s constant presence at Trump’s side to Karoline Leavitt, Laura Loomer, and the formidable Susie Wiles, the trio traces the history of presidential “work wives” from JFK and Bill Clinton to the present day, asking what happens when professional loyalty, personal access, and raw power begin to blur. Rothkopf brings his own White House experience to the conversation, exposing the loneliness, paranoia, favoritism, and need for constant affirmation that can thrive inside the presidential bubble—and why the women closest to Trump may reveal more about his inner circle than anyone else. #ad Use code BEAST at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan: https://incogni.com/beast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There is a long track record of Trump having a power pathology in trying to impose himself on people. Trump doesn't have a wife around him. He doesn't have kids around him. So he has these women that he has around him, particularly people like Natalie Harp, who's a really egregious case, who are like, you're great boss. You're a wonderful man. I love you. You've filled my heart. So you create sort of some artificial family-like quality.

to it. It is perilous if you're a young woman working for a powerful man, because almost inevitably people will assume the worst. Nell Scabelle and I are back for this particular episode of Inside Trump's Women. I think that's what we've ended up calling this series, even though there was some squeamishness about the title, Mel. I think it's a brand inside Trump's head, inside Trump's women. Where do we go inside next? Colon, I don't know where we're going. Hopefully not, hopefully not, and hopefully not with cyclospora.

Anyway, today we are looking at power and the complexity of working in the White House and why are there always so many workwives flittering around the president? Who knows better to discuss all this than David Rothkopf, who saw at the knee of Bill Clinton, the Aphrodisiac of power? and he's here to tell us what he knows about workwives in the White House. You know, I thought you were going to say that I was joining you because I'm a historian who's written a lot about the White House. But whatever. Of course, you have. Of course, that's why we love talking to.

Whatever. And you are, of course, known very much to our readers and viewers as our Monday. If it's Monday, it must be David Rothcopf. But David, you've got such experience, and of course you've written several books about this. You're a Washington insider, but you have the eye of an outsider, the sharp eye of an outsider. Let's talk about the role of women first sort of historically in the White House, especially around the presidents, and then let's come on to the specific workwives we want to talk about, Natalie Harp, maybe Susie Wiles, Margotne, and Machine Gun Lips Herst.

Caroline Leavitt, who we know is a big fan of the Daily Beast. Hi, Caroline. Yeah, and I saw in the Daily Beast that last week, the White House Press Secretary's office said I had a brain the size of a peanut. So, well, they get some things right. And they're allergic to peanuts. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I said Brazil nut, but go on. All right. So, David, well, no, where should we stop? You know, presidents have always surrounded themselves with young attractive women. We'd seen that with FDR, with JFK, with Bill Clinton. I mean, this might be the most presidential thing about Trump that he does this too. Is there, do you think the power attracts a certain kind of young woman? You know, I'd like to take a step back. The reality is,

women, once they entered the workforce and were around men, were, A, put in positions of unequal power usually. And B, there were immediately rumors because people don't have the vocabulary to talk about relationships like that. Workwife is a fairly new term. And so, you know, since FDR, we have seen people working with presidents who there have been rumors about, in his case, Missy Land, who was an assistant, with whom he may or may not have had a relationship. He had a few relationships. And so there was that. You know what, Dwight Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied commander in Europe.

He had a driver named Kay Somersby. And there was a lot of talk that maybe Kay Somersby and Dwight Eisenhower. had a relationship like that. Interestingly, in the case of Kennedy, although he had many affairs and people talked about the affairs, he had a strong secretary who actually protected him from the world was his doorkeeper. And there is a big tradition of strong women's secretary

sitting next to the Oval Office who protect the privacy of the president. It could be, you know, Rosemary Woods with the non-sexual Richard Nixon. As it happened, under Kennedy, there was only one woman in the White House that he was actually rumored to have some relationship with. And interestingly, it was a press secretary to Jackie Kennedy named Pamela Turner, who Jackie had requested to become her press secretary. And there is some evidence that Kennedy had some relationship there. Wait, I'm going to jump in.

Remember, Nora Ephron was one of the women who worked in the Kennedy, White House and was very hurt that he never made a pass at her. Yeah, but he, you know, he working with Miss Lincoln and others had a very sophisticated way of covering his tracks. And so he was very careful about who he met and where they met and so forth. And of course, there were rumors about his many liaisons, including about one woman who was found murdered by the C&O Canal and so forth. As time goes by and as more women enter the workforce, you get more conversations about this

and you get more strong women. And George W. Bush, I remember I did a couple of books on the NSC and I interviewed Condoleezza Rice. And Condoleezza Rice, I don't think anybody ever seriously suggests that she had a romantic relationship with George W. Bush. But she did on one occasion say, she referred to him as her husband. Actually, she stopped halfway through it.

And when I was talking, you know, she would go down to the ranch. Bush's wife would go to bed. They would sit up talking late at night. And I remember her sitting there saying to me, well, you know, he was the most strategic man. ever met. And I was like, who is she talking about? You know, but she said, he would say brilliant things. And you feel like, whoa. Did you watch, did you watch scandal and think that they stole that

from that? Well, I didn't. But, you know, she, she said to me, he would say brilliant things and I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. So I would go into the kitchen and I had post-it notes and I would write down what he wrote. And then I'd go back and continue. conversation. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't forget, but, you know, but, you know, nobody suggested that they, they had a relationship. But the reality is his father, George H.W. Bush, had a personal assistant named Jennifer Fitzgerald. And Jennifer Fitzgerald, in the New York Post ran a story that they were having an affair for 10 years. So, you know, but, you know, that's George H.W. Bush. And those were the days.

when people didn't talk about those things or tried not to talk about those things. And then, you know, yeah, you get into Clinton, and, you know, Clinton had strong women around him who were staffers, who were just his staffers. And then there was Monica Lewinsky or Obama. Nobody made any untoward rumors about him. But he had strong women around.

Valerie Jarrett was, you know, Valerie Jarrett was considered a rival to the chief of staff. She was a friend of the family. She was the one who could go to the East Wing after hours and talk to them where the rest of them couldn't. So that's a kind of a middle relationship. And then, of course, when you get into Trump, you know, there've been a plethora of people and he likes to have pretty women around him. And, you know, people speculate more with him because he ran the Miss Universe contest.

and 24 women accused him of sexual abuse, and he's a sleazebag. Well, and his best friend used to be Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, and so Hope Hicks or some of these people, you know, that you've just listed, you know, they're rumors about them. Here's something most people don't realize. There are companies called data brokers making billions by collecting and selling your personal information, your address, phone, number of family members, even details about your income. And it's not just about junk mail. That

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or click the link in the episode description box. David, I think what's different in the case of Donald Trump is that we have a first lady who's literally the laziest first lady of the century. So she's not in evidence. And as far as we know, or at least from talking to people in the White House and those around Donald Trump, he's now post-sex. His daughter isn't around. He doesn't have close female companions, which I imagine makes him more vulnerable to the attentions of younger women. Why did he get the new wig, though? The squirrel, the squirrel on his head.

I'm pretty sure Natalie Harp told him it looked fabulous. Well, do you remember when Wendy Deng first hooked up with Rupert Murdoch, and Rupert Murdoch went from gray hair to orange hair, very similar to the squirrel that's taken residence on Donald Trump's head, and I'm sure he's hiding nuts under there. I'm sure it's hiding its own nuts. Yeah, I'm sure, well, never mind. I'm not going to make jokes about the point.

presidents, nuts. But the reality, you touch upon something that I hope you're touching upon elsewhere in the course of this thing. But in many respects, just to be a little serious about Washington history, the most influential workwives have traditionally been wives. And Maloney is a real outlier. And Edith Wilson was considered the deputy president when Wilson had a stroke. Eleanor Roosevelt was out. She had her own mission. She had her own portfolio. Rosalind Carter had a big, strong role to play.

Nancy, you know, as Reagan declined in the last couple of years after he was shot, and as the Alzheimer's started to kick in, Nancy Reagan had a very important role to play. Hillary Clinton had an important role to play. And Jill Biden had a super important role to play. And so the most important workwives are almost always wives. the interesting thing about Melania is she's AWOL. You know, she's just not, you know, whatever her contract is, and Lord knows it looks like a business relationship, you know,

she shows up at certain events, and then she goes out the back door, the house, you know, in the tunnel that has famously been used by, you know, remember Warren Harding had an affair with a woman, and he would visit her at the Hay Adams Hotel. tell and there was a tunnel under Lafayette Park. And, you know, that's an interesting story. That's an amazing story. I did not know that.

Well, and she got pregnant and had a baby. And the press beat them up about it and beat her up and said, how dare she say, it's the baby and she's lying. And then, like, 40 years later, they did a DNA test. and it turned out it actually was his baby, and that she had been unfairly pilloried, which rhymes with Hillary. But, you know, in the Clinton, you know, around Clinton,

you know, he had a woman who dealt with, in the lingo of the time, bimbo eruptions, because Clinton had a lot of relationships. Some of the relationships I know for a fact with people who later ended up in his administration. but they were sort of out of the orbit of the inner circles of the White House because that was just not acceptable. I just want to get this straight.

You're saying that Bill Clinton had relationships with people that he later put in to run government departments. Hmm. I wonder how I'm going to frame this. Let me put it this way. There were people who I know who are in government agencies who asserted that probably to the administration, they had interacted with the president, often late at night, in cities that he was traveling to, in a way that was not businesslike. And I think there were a number

of people like that in the administration. Right. Well, it is a 24-7 job, and I imagine you're traveling and lines blur. There's alcohol consumed. things happen? Well, also, you know, guys who are running for president are deeply needy people. In fact, I think wanting to be president is kind of a pathology. And many of those guys, and Clinton is a perfect example, really, really crave approval of one sort or another. Some of them may crave adventure. Who knows what it was that John F. Kennedy craved? He may have just craved, you know, solace. I don't know what it was he craved. But, But, you know, these guys, there's also this kind of notion that, as we've seen with Trump and with Epstein, that with power, like with wealth, there comes certain prerogatives and that people get away with certain things.

And they have people who make it go away. The Secret Service makes people leave via the back door and helps them home and hides this. And they have secretaries who say that you're having your hair cut at three in the morning or whatever, you know, whatever it is. And so they cover their tracks. And with the Missy LaHan and some of these other people, it was X number of years later somebody discovers a trove of letters. It was a lot more dangerous back in the day when people were writing letters. Because then somebody would discover them.

They'd be under the bed wrapped and tied up in a ribbon. Well, but Natalie Harp has been known to leave handwritten. notes for the president. We learned from regime change that she leaves little notes saying things like, you are all that matters to me. I don't ever want to let you down. I want to bring you joy to feel like we can get through a day without even having to talk work. So, now, tell us a little bit about Natalie Hart. She's known as the human printer. Michael Wool identified her because the Secret Service had said to him, she's becoming a problem.

This was in his book, All or Nothing. Regime change writes about her too. What do we know about her? Well, first of all, of all the suckups in the White House, I think she's the suckiest-stoppyest. She is a special... Watch yourself, thing now. She's a special assistant to the president.

She was born in 1991. So she's very, very young. She grew up in an evangelical household. It was so religious that her brother's Pokemon cards were deemed demonic by their mother. Her father taught at Biola University in California. David, do you know who graduated from Biola? their most famous graduate? I thought Biola was a virus in Africa.

John Thune, Senator Majority Leader, John Thune. Anyway, the father dies tragically at around the age of 60. The coroner rules it a suicide. But Natalie and the mother tell everyone he died in his sleep until her estranged brother Preston came out and said that's not what happened. And he had a great line. And that he was possessed by a Pokemon card.

Now, the brother said it was important to be honest, which does not run in the family. She, so the question is, how does she enter Trump's orbit? Well, how does anyone enter Trump's orbit? Do you want to guess? They get referred by Jeffrey Epstein. She was on Fox and Friends.

Of course she was. Of course. She gives a speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention. She talks about having bone cancer and that the president saved her life by passing the right to try law. Which is the right to try new medical treatments, right, which haven't yet been approved by the FDA. drugs. Yeah. Washington Post says her story doesn't add up that two months before he signed the law, she'd already spoken out about receiving the new treatment. And also her doctor said the drug they gave her was not experimental. But the good news is she survived. She survived. A young woman diagnosed with

bone cancer, that's not a tissue. No, no. But did Trump save her life? That's the question. Perhaps he saved her life in other ways. Well, she calls him her, what does she call him, her guardian and protector in life. So she helps him with social media. She prints out articles that she thinks would make him happy. So she runs his true social for him, essentially. Yes.

And she's often in the background. She travels with him. Trump has said that she, He is the only one who loves him as much as his wife and kids and that she will never leave him, which I guess makes her different from everybody else. Doesn't she- Including his wife. Including his wife.

Especially his wife. Maybe I could get a job at Trump's side. Well, you could get a Trump, yeah, you could get, or a job with the Trump University, the Trump Organization. What is it called the Trump? Yeah, the Trump Organization. Yeah. one of the few jobs where I don't think my peanut-sized brain would be an obstacle.

You know, it's that, it's a version of that old joke that Trump gets older, but the workwives stay the same age. You know, she's, the age Hope Hicks was, like, that it's, she's very much his type. Well, is his type, you know, I mean, we can examine this on a lot of different ways. And I don't, you know, I've there's no position to speculate on the relationship that he has with this woman. She obviously has, is on the record as saying she kind of adores him. And, you know, frankly, we know that Trump likes people who behave that way around him. So, you know, if he is post-sexual or even, you know, quite apart from that, you know, finding people who will sit around all day going, you look fantastic boss and that dead fox on your head looks real, you know, that, you

That's not surprising. But there is this other component of, you know, Trump's life. It could be a contestant, a Miss Universe pageant. It could be somebody he met from Jeffrey Epstein. There is a long track record of Trump having a power pathology in trying to impose himself on people. Now, what do we know about Margot Martin, who looks like a much younger version of Malani,

very similar, similar height, long hair, very similar look. Oh, Dead Ringer. And in fact, Fox has mistaken Margo for Melania and had to be corrected. Well, and we remember Donald Trump mistaking E. Jean Carroll for Marlon McAples. Well, also Donald Trump at one point mistook the Easter bunny. So one thing that's different, from Natalie to Margo is Margo's got a very hunky boyfriend who's 6-6 and she posts photos of the two of them together on Instagram a lot.

She also posts photos of herself and her boss, but I think she sends a clear message. Much like Melania did that she no longer sleeps with her husband. Margot has made it very clear that she is someone else in her life. And actually, Laura Does Melania have somebody else in her life? We hope so. Someone who appreciates her. You hope so?

She has barren in her life. She clearly. No, no, I think we were about to hear from Melania. What? I don't know other relationship. I'm married to president. I am first lady. Now you see me?

Did you say president? I can never understand what she says. I thought she said. was married to a Pilates machine. Married to president, U.S. president. I am first lady. Now you see me. Now you don't. I also speak just like his first wife. Yeah, his dead first wife is buried under a putting green at a golf court.

That's right, a bedminster because it's good to get the tax. The tax break. Exactly right. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back to school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always 375. and get Life Brand Pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. So if Natalie's the human printer, Margoe's the human printer, Margoe is the human iPhone.

She's the one who's often recording the president. In fact, when he was recorded talking about the confidential papers he had, which he couldn't declassify. That was actually on her phone. She recorded that. All her devices were subpoenaed. She was appeared before the grand jury in 2023. And then, as we all remember, Jack Smith got the conviction and Trump was sent to jail.

Oh. Oh, wait. Really? That's great. No, that did not happen. Eileen Cannon threw a toss the suit. But I was just having a nice one report. Melania didn't turn up any of his trials.

Margot was by his side. Actually, she's been with her boyfriend for two years. They both went to Christian schools or she did at least. No engagement. And I wonder if she's holding off so as not to what to upset Donald. I mean, I do think a lot of these jobs are quite lonely. I remember Hope Hicks, who was. in the first administration telling me

that she would get up at three in the morning to get to the White House for five so that she was always there before or it's exactly the same time as Donald Trump because A, he didn't like being on his own which was something that actually Andrew Card, George Bush's chief of staff, George W Bush's chief of staff, said that

you should never let the president be hungry, lonely, angry or tired. Quite difficult with his president, seeing as he literally falls asleep in his own meeting. But the role of these women is clearly to sort of keep him pepped up, to make sure he has a diet Coke, you know, to manage him in a way, as if he were an elderly relative. I mean, the way Natalie Hart speaks about him is the way if your pet could suddenly talk. That's what it would say. I just want to be with him all the time.

You guys are horrible sexists. There have been men who have been body men for presidents for a long time who would get him a Diet Coke, who would get him whatever he wanted, who took care of him. Yeah, well, Nata has his little scissors to cut to trim his hair. I think the real workwife in Trump's first term was Ivanka. Yes, but she's gone. She said that politics was too cruel. It was a very dark place.

She'd wanted to get involved. She'd wanted to do all sorts of things for women. and she realized very quickly that she was going to be a target. And so she fled. She fled. You know, there is another side of this, which in the midst of your leering speculation, I should throw in here. And that is that being in the White House, you know, you mentioned Andy Cards, quote.

And, you know, I worked in an administration too. And you do get up at five in the morning. And you do try to get to meetings early. and you do then work for 14 or 15 or 16 or 20 hours in the day. And throughout that whole period of time, when you exit the White House, you are subject to scrutinate, potential attacks, grueling schedules, media commentary, and so forth. There is a kind of an impulse to create something that's akin to a normal life

in the White House, that you have relationship, with normal people and so forth. And it merges with another thing. And Natalie Hart plays to this. And where I wrote about the NSC a lot or the national security community at a writ large, there's something that happens in administrations, which is called a group thing.

It happens when people are inside a bubble. And the only people they talk to are the other people inside the bubble. And so, you know, stop thinking about other points of view and you start thinking what you're doing is right and so forth. And so there is this, I mean, it's weird. It's another pathology, but, you know, Trump doesn't have a wife around him. He doesn't have kids around him. I don't think he likes his kids from. I certainly didn't go to Don Jr.'s wedding. People beyond, like, one degree of separation can't

be trusted. He's paranoid. And so how does he create the idea that, I don't know, life is pleasant that he's a human being. And so he has these women that he has around him, particularly people like Natalie Harp, who's a really egregious case, who are like, you're great boss. You're a wonderful man. I love you. You've filled my heart. Let's pray.

You know, it's... The thing it most reminds me of, actually, is Hollywood and when a movie set that people are isolated from real life, they go on location somewhere, it's all about the group of people that they are with, it's why movie stars constantly have affairs with each other, because it's an intense work process, you're often shooting 15 hours a day, it happens in television too, and you create these relationships which are sort of substitute for real life relationships, and then they fall apart the minute the project is over, or maybe you get back together to promote it. And that is the origin, that's the origin of the term work, one.

Right. Right. It's just that you're around these people more than you're around your family. And so you create sort of some artificial family-like qualities to it. And sometimes it gets out of control. And sometimes it doesn't. But it is perilous if you're a young woman working for a powerful man. Because almost inevitably, people will assume the worst. Well, but I also think about all the pairing up that's done in that bubble. with Stephen and Katie Miller and Corey Lewandowski and Christy Noem. You know, I was pretty sure when you said Stephen, you were saying Stephen Chung, and I was wondering who he was.

No, he is another of Trump's workwives, I think. Stephen Chung is? Yeah. Oh, I love that. The Daily Beast would like a comment. Nell Scovel says that Stephen Chung is one of the president's workwives. What do you have to say? What's smaller than a peanut?

Yeah. Well, as soon as I told my wife that, she said, they didn't say sesame seed? And that was like, it came to her far too quickly. Anyway, go on. Well, I did want to mention that there's a form of workplace sexual harassment that's known as sexual favoritism. And that's when you have this sort of sexually charged workplace where you know there are lines are being blurred between business and pleasure. And in most cases, let's just say, the women

are getting benefits. So you're the intern, but you get to sit in on the production meeting or in the situation room because you're close to the person in power. It works that way with powerful women too. They play their staff off each other. Joanna Coles gives Michael Wolf croissant when they do their podcast together. I gave you a quasson when you came in. You don't come into the studio once a week. I don't get treated the same way. And honestly, I'm hurt.

All right. Can we, well, I mean, I think you're making a serious point. Well, just to finish the point, the problem with sexual favoritism is the people it hurt are the people who not indulging or who are not being asked to indulge because not only are some people getting benefits from their willingness, but that means other people are losing out. It's not an equal opportunity meritocracy. Well, and by the way, that example, you know, the example occurs in non-sexual circumstances as well. In the Obama White House, Valerie Jarrett would go and have dinner with the Obamas.

All his staff, who were treated like staff, Rahm Emanuel and those guys, they were pissed off, that they didn't get the benefit of the personal relationship to go along with their professional relationship because they felt it was like an inside track. Well, it was an inside track, isn't it? Although she came with the Obamas from Chicago and she'd introduced Michelle to Barak. So she had a sort of almost familial role before she was. came. But let's talk about Caroline Leavitt, too. Oh, yes. Well, so she's interesting because she is married and she just had her second baby with her. She's married to Mitch McConnell.

They look similar. There's a similar look to her and her husband. She's from New Hampshire. She ran for Congress. She lost, but she won because while campaigning, she met her much older husband. I like to think of him as a New Hampshire 10. Do you remember the Bo Derek movie, a 10 is perfect? Yes. So a New Hampshire 10 is a four with $6 million. Wow. That is painful at so many levels coming from you now. Painful at so many levels. So she gets her start by out of college, she's in the correspondence office of the White House. So she's sending letters. I mean, talk about a job that could be replaced by AI, right?

Number one. She joins the communications staff of Elise Stefaniac. And then she becomes the. youngest White House press secretary ever, which I guess we applaud her for, except that during her first briefing, she let the journalists know that they were becoming more irrelevant than ever. So, I mean, her willingness to lie, I assume is what Trump loves most about her. He also, though, has spoken about her face, her lips, the way they move. It's like a machine gun, which appeals to him.

Oh, yeah. Everybody is looking for machine gun lips. And then, you know, then there's Laura Lumer, who's another one of these. Like, she's the long-distance workwife. She lives in Florida, Florida. But she has let her boyfriend know that Trump is her forever number one. And she, you know, she has his ear. She also traveled a lot with him, which led to speculation.

And in fact, then she stopped traveling with him. Very clearly, someone had whispered in his ear, or perhaps Susie Wiles have said we're not taking Laura Luma on the plane anymore. But there was a period when there was a lot of speculation, I think possibly inflamed by Laura Luma. Right. She's super thirsty. Bill Maher made a joke about her and basically said, you know, who Trump's been a dog too long.

So he's got to be screwing someone. We know it's not Melania. I think it might be Laura Lumer. This is. Laura Luma then sued him, right? She did. And I love that the judge ruled that no, quote, reasonable person. would take the comments as facts.

Well, yeah. The judge also said that she'd not suffered any reputational damage by being linked to Donald Trump. You like that. I find this a little uncomfortable because I don't know whether she had any sexual relationship with him. And frankly, I find the most disqualifying aspect of the relationship being her politics. and his politics and where they take it all

and they make each other worse. But it's interesting to me that as you make a list of these workwives here, you are not including the most powerful woman in the White House. Well, Susie... Possibly the most powerful woman ever in a White House who wasn't married to the president. And that's Susie Wiles.

Right, but she's more of a... She's like his mother, right? Now, is this ageist? No. I think it's her persona. No, it's lookist. It's lookist because the thing that Donald Trump has said, and the reason that we're talking about this, is that Donald Trump said famously that everybody on the apprentice

flirted with him, that there is always a degree of sexual tension in any workplace. And Anthony Scaramucci, who we talked to earlier in this series, talked about Mrs. Doubtfire, and that there's the Mrs. Doubtfire character, and then there are the, contestant characters. And Susie Wiles is, you know, Donald Trump called her the refrigerator when he first met her because she's not. Oh, Jesus Christ. Well, I think it's actually because she often wears sort of silver or very light blue, at least I like to think that. But she's very obviously different from the Hope Hicks is and the Natalie Harps. She's 35 years older. She's a grandmother. She doesn't give off the vibe that she would be interested in being an emotional support

for him other than as a chief of staff. She's 20 years younger than he is. But, you know, let's leave that aside. I'm just saying, you know, among his work wives, among the people that he works with on a daily basis, the widow has the most sway, who is the most important to his career, who has done the most for him to protect him.

And frankly, somebody who has accomplished something, I can't believe has been accomplished, which is she has been White House Chief of Staff for over a year and a half. And she's not the center of the news. Well, that's why she succeeded, right? Because unlike John Kelly and unlike Grant's Prebus, who thought it was really about them in the first administration, she stays out of the way and she basically lets Donald be Donald.

Right. He does have a nickname for her. Do you want to hear what it is? Well, it's got to be better than the, refrigerator. Well, it's ice baby. So I wonder if it's related, because where do you make ice? But yeah, he praises her for staying in the background, and she likes to stay in the background. And you know, though, what he liked about her from the very start, what impressed. Yeah, I do know. I do know what he liked, is that his, her father was a famous NFL football player an announcer, Pat Sumerall.

Pat Somerall here, right? I always thought here was his last name. But yeah, he even said that he always looks for the genes, and she had good genes. Well, and she says that the reason that he hired her was that she went in to see him. He was shouting at someone, and she said to him, if you're looking for someone to shout at,

I'm not that person. If you're looking for someone to actually tell you the truth and help you get elected, then I'm your. go. I'm your ice baby. I'm your ice baby. But that's a very effective technique. And I have to tell you a personal story, which has a famous name in it, so you'll like the story, although it's not as salacious as all this stuff. I was a managing director of a firm called Kissinger Associates. The managing director was Henry Kissinger. My office was next to his office. He would, on a regular basis, go out of his office and blow up and yell at people. He had three or four assistants,

and every day he would make them cry. Sometimes he would blow up and yell at other senior staffers there. And he one day, came in when I was pretty early there, and he said, he blew up in me for sight. I had nothing to do with it, but he just was blowing up because he couldn't control himself. And he had created one of these environments where people would tolerate this. And I said, look, you know, if you ever talk that way to me again, I'm leaving. And he never did again. Because, you know, these guys who are used to testing lines like to know that there is a line there. And they're used to a lot of power. And they kind of overuse it sometimes. So when Susie Wiles comes in and says, you know, it's my way or the highway, that's what he needs to hear. And that's

why she's been a big success as a chief of staff to the extent if you discount the fact that the administration has been a flaming catastrophe. Right. And much easier to do that when you're either in your position as the managing director or Susie Wiles' age with a boatload of experience behind you than it is when you're in your 20s. No, there's no question that there's no question about it. I'm just saying it's just interesting and people don't, you know, make these rumors about her. And yet she's also managing the ecosystem in which these other women exist. Right.

And the fairness comes from Trump's own philosophy, I think, which I'm going to ask you to read a line that I texted you early or today. It's something he said like 34 years ago. This is Donald Trump talking to Esquire magazine. and I don't think his philosophy has changed, and I think it helps explain why he, Natalie Harp is there, why Margo's there, why Hope was there. So, David, if you would do me a favor and read the line. Yeah, I knew I was being set up when you sent this to me. It was like, why, you know, like, what, you all of a sudden lost the power to read? Okay, so the line is,

it doesn't really matter what the media write as, long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of ass. Now, this is grammatically a little confusing because does he mean he has a nice piece of ass? That Trump's ass is lovely. And it's obviously been heavily edited because it refers to what media writes grammatically properly with media as a plural. And he would never do that. David Rothkopf, it's always a joy to see you. I want to sound like Tony DeCopal signing off on CBS's evening news when they said, we salute you, Marco Rubio Man of Florida or whatever. I was going to say, we salute you workwives doing the work that, well, I'm not sure anybody else wants to do. You don't have a workwife. Do you, David?

You're just... David has AI. She's called Ford. I am somebody's... I am Joanna's work. I have many work husbands. I have many work husbands. I am part of Joanna's work harrim. David, I'm thrilled to have you as part of my harem. David Rothkopf, thank you for joining us. And to our listeners and viewers, thank you for joining us too. We'll be back with our final episode on Trump's women next Sunday, where we'll be exploring those who really, now, they're not his type,

as he openly says, not his type. These are, of course, the women who've beaten Trump at his own game. Thank you for watching. Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Pissarro and Neil Rosenhaus. 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.