The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Aides Are Secretly Prepping for His Downfall

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to tackle the question Washington won’t confront: what happens when a president’s cognitive decline is visible but systematically rationalized by those around him. Wolff describes how Trump’s inner circle shields alarming behavior as “Trump being Trump,” even as voters recognize familiar warning signs from their own families. He also explains the significance of Susie Wiles’ long-standing relationship with Marco Rubio, and why her influence still shows in his disciplined, professional posture as Trump spirals. As Trump’s grandiosity accelerates—from galloping speeches to branding national institutions—Coles asks why no one is willing to take the keys away, and what that silence means for the country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Marjorie Taylor Green, the Congresswoman from Georgia, warned that more women were going to leave Congress. Is this going to be a stampede because they're all thinking, I'm not going to get any further under Donald Trump's party. The people who are squabbling for the future of Maga are very unappealing. And there is money to be made. Look at Tucker Carlson. Look at the women on the view. Maybe I can go to Fox News. It's also this thing that happens with anyone in a relationship with Donald Trump.

It all comes a cropper. 100% of the time, no one comes out of a relationship with Donald Trump and saying, great, that great guy. You've changed our order. We like to change it up. Michael Wolf, chronicler of four books on Donald Trump, two books on Rupert Murdoch. And that an assortment of other books. And I think this is episode 50, possibly, of inside Trump's head.

Why don't you remind people why we started it? You know, I don't like the way the media covers Trump. I think it's always been off. It's off because it treats him as political reporters treat all presidents. That he is a politician. His issue is politics. He comes out of politics. politics is the process of cause and effect, and that's the way they approach Donald Trump,

even though for all of them this has turned out to be unsuccessful. And I think they would largely agree that it's unsuccessful, or they certainly does not explain Donald Trump. And I think the issue is that they look from the outside instead of trying to see this from the inside, trying to see this from this utterly unique person who has, for reasons, inexplicable reasons, become the president of the United States. It is a government of one, a government which entirely depends on what Trump is thinking or feeling when he gets up in the morning. And it lurches this way and that way, or careens or whatever the, the, the, the, the,

the word for not staying on track you want to use. But in order to understand this, in order to get any kind of sense of where this comes from and where it's going, you have to be able to think from Donald Trump's point of view. And that's what we are trying to do. Well, we launched this podcast in August. We've spent the last four months trying to get inside his head

using our various tools. And obviously, you've been talking to people regularly who are in the White House. and trying to manage his weather system. And I've spent 10 years doing this. I mean, I am the person in Donald Trump's head. I mean, I think there are a few of us probably who have found ourselves locked in this strange space. But I'm certainly one of them.

Well, then you seem to have pulled me in with you, which is not a place I expected to be. But we have finally the first installment of the end. Epstein files, which were released yesterday at about 4.30, classic PR maneuver that you drop something on a Friday afternoon when you hope nobody's paying attention. And the Friday before the holidays couldn't be a better day to try and bury something. But it seems very clear that they are starting with what seems like an attack on Bill Clinton. Well, they're also trying to bury the fact that they actually are not releasing the Epstein files. They're They are actually in violation of the law to release all.

And then they went out, Todd Blanche, the number two in the Justice Department, and the president formally, the president's personal lawyer, and the lawyer who went to Florida to interview Galane Maxwell, and said, explained yesterday that actually there was just too much material. They couldn't get through it all, sort of a homework excuse. Just too much going on. It's pre-Christmas. We don't have time.

We're buying presents. Right. And of course, they are redacting so much of this that it is a lot of work. They have to go through everything, look for the name Donald Trump, or look for the names that Donald Trump wants to protect. And then they have to redact them. And that takes weeks and weeks and weeks. And he said, we're going to release these basically when we can. So we got a meager staff.

yesterday. Nevertheless, I think it was still 23,000 photos and files, emails, letters, whatever. Most prominent seem to be photos of Bill Clinton in a swimming pool, in a hot tub, wearing a very unfortunate sort of silver, how would describe it, silver smock. It was not flattering. I would be protesting the release of that photo as I've. crime against fashion, never mind anything else. And then Bill Clinton, interestingly, came out with a statement. I would have thought he would just ignore this. You know, we're used to ex-presidents just retreating into a dignified silence when attacked like this, especially by

Donald Trump. But in fact, he came out with a statement saying, whoa, this was 20 years ago. I dropped my friendship with Jeffrey Epstein before we knew how bad his crimes were before he was first arrested for solicitation of prostitution of a minor. And this is about Donald Trump. This is not about me. What did you think of that? Well, I actually wouldn't have done it if I were Bill Clinton, but he didn't ask. But let's understand the pattern here or the method here.

Whenever Donald Trump has gotten in trouble for girls, which has been on quite a few occasions now, what he does is says is point to Bill Clinton. So Donald Trump, first thing, Donald Trump is a creature of habit. He does what works, what has worked for him in the past. And so in this situation, it's the same thing. Not Bill Clinton, don't talk about me. Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton did it. When after grabbed them by the pussy gate happened, the really, the way they, one

of the key ways they got, they got around that was, was then there was a debate, there was a Hillary Clinton debate shortly after that, a debate with Hillary shortly after that, and they filled the front rows of the debate theater with women who had accused Clinton of, whatever, of sexual abuse or, I mean, the whole, the whole, the whole range. of Clinton names, who I used to know, and now I can't remember one of them. But that was one of those things that immediately changed the subject. I mean, I think it's probably scared Hillary, for one thing. So the Democrats became muted on this, what everyone thought was a fatal issue,

grabbed them by the pussy. So again, why not do it? And I am sure, without any question that this was done strategically, we have to release these things. What are we going to do? We're in trouble here. This is a problem. And then it was obvious. Well, what do we do?

We blame it on Bill Clinton. Well, and Prince Andrew took another beating, too, with the photos. And Gillen Maxwell appearing to be Commando in various photos. What do we mean Commando? Well, we mean there are various photos of Gillen, Maxwell. one of which is in a sports car where she appears to have nothing under the robe that she's wearing. They've redacted it.

I miss that one. Well, I can send it to you, but I think you can imagine, and you might not want that. But I think Gillen, Maxwell, Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton are not going to have a great holiday this year because it just continues to haunt them. It's the story that won't go away. And we've got a lot to talk about,

not excluding Trump's mental health and his appearance that rallies again. he's both in campaigning mode. You said earlier this week that this is now about the midterms, that the speech he gave in the House was about the midterms. So we can come on to that. But one of the things I just wanted to... And mostly just to frame this, and I think we should continue. Mostly everything from here on in for the next year will be about the midterms.

So we've had the first year, which was about what he wanted to do. In other words, that's his... that's his window to make his mark. Now he has to defend it effectively. Right. Well, my only point, because we're going to come on to the rallies and we're going to come on to the fact we've seen a lot of him this week, was that he suddenly raised Hillary again as a specter,

as if she was still somehow on his mind and said, she's a nasty woman. I wouldn't want to go home to her in the evening. I mean, what a strange thing to bring up in a rally in 2025 when he's won the election, and Hillary is very much politically in the rearview mirror. Anyway, the other news this week is that Elise Stefanik and a senator from Wyoming, Cynthia Loomis, are both pulling out. Cynthia Loomis said she'd had enough.

She didn't have it in her to do another six years. And of course, Elise Steffernick, who is perhaps. Perhaps the better known. She's the Wyoming senator. I think the Wyoming senator is 70 or 71. So he's related this. But at least Stephanic. Stephanic or Stefanic?

Well, I think it depends what mood you're in. I think it might be Stefanic. Yeah, but that's the much more dramatic. She's 41. She's a central star of the new Trump Republican Party. And she was the youngest woman to get elected to Congress. Yes. And she has now.

bagged it. I mean, dramatically bagged it. Like fuck you bagged it. Yeah, well, she was running for governor of New York, right? Trump appeared not to endorse her for it. Said it was too early.

I think you have to go from the beginning of this. She has been abject in her loyalty to Donald Trump. Yeah, she got elected as a moderate. Let's start there. Yes. And she went to Harvard. It was a New York, a New York Republican. A New York Republican is a particular kind of Republican.

What they used to call in the days when people remembered who this was, a Rockefeller Republican, because Rockefeller was the governor of New York for a long period of time and a Republican, and what would be now considered quite a liberal. So that was, that was Elise Stephanic, was that kind of Republican. But then she got elected, Trump got elected, and she never looked back. She signed on to MAGA and to Trump like no one's business. She's incredibly young. So she got on the, she earned the president's, I mean, the president jumped on to the,

at least Stefanic career bandwagon. And I think that her first move. was to become, replace Liz Cheney as the, essentially the number three in the House Republican hierarchy. Pushed Liz Cheney out, took that spot, a key leadership position. I mean, it's like a spotlight on her. This person is going to be a Republican star. This person is a potential future Republican president. And then, after, that, she had these hearings, which were extraordinary. I mean, you know, usual congressional hearings which go on interminably and constantly to very little note. But sometimes they become

a forum for really making you famous. And in this moment, it did. She confronted the presidents of as I recall Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania. Right. And she called them out on their, effectively, the tolerance on their campuses for anti-Semitism. And they were helpless in front of her. She was, she mowed them down. They were legalistic. She was emotional, and it cost all three of them, certainly the Harvard, the president of Harvard and the president of the University of Pennsylvania, their jobs.

Is the MIT president, these were all women, by the way, did the MIT president keep her job possibly? I think the MIT president may have kept her job, but what was also? Anyway, this was, this was the, in earthquake, in action. academia. And she had her name on it. And also what was notable was that Elise Stephanic or Stefanik had also been to Harvard. So there was the added frisson of her turning against her alma mater. And she, as you said, was very emotional, did a powerful job. And it turned out that all three of these women university presidents had been advised by the same law company. Law firm. Law company, law firm. Whatever. You get my point.

So, Elise Saffanick then was also talked about being a potentially a vice presidential candidate in the run up to 2024. She was talked about as being the UN ambassador, which is what she wanted. No, no, no, no. She was not talked about. She was nominated for that position. That was, correct. Correct.

They had made this deal with her, the environment. administration, listen, we're, we want you on the, on our side. You're great. Your Trump loves you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is what you're, this is what you're going to get. Right. This is your reward. Yes, every politician, what do I get? This is what, this is what you get. And remember, this is, this is, actually, the UN ambassador is honestly not much of a job. But because Nikki Haley had that job, it was suddenly seen as a potential presidential jumping off starting point. So, yes, she wanted that job. It also, by the way, gets you out of Washington.

Actually, the virtues of the job are it gets you out of Washington and it gets you into proximity with major donors in New York. Right. And also you get to shmooze without the war. world leaders. So you move up the totem pole in terms of internationally. And I think you get a very nice property. Yeah, all of that. In the center of Manhattan, which is a very nice deal. Yes. So she's planned. She's making that her she's going to get that job. Everything is is she announces she's not running. She's she's out of Congress. It's this is public. She is going to get this job. There would be no and for her not to be confirmed, she's there.

Then at the last moment, Trump says, no, no, you can't have this job. And the excuse is the Republican margins in Congress are too tight. We need you. We need you there. So her world falls apart, literally. Her whole career trajectory, where she's going to live, the plan she's made around her family, everything.

Nothing. You're back in Congress. You're nothing. Right. So promises unmet. And then, of course, who does get the job, but a man who's been utterly incompetent in his job, Mike Walsh, National Security Advisor, who manages to add the editor of the Atlantic to a WhatsApp or a signal, I should say, a signal chain with plans for, well, for classified material and war plans.

And then to boot, she does not get along with Mike Johnson. Right. Who is the Republican Speaker of the House, who has a reputation for treating women terribly, regards women as people who should not be in Congress. I think maybe who shouldn't have the vote. I don't know. Well, he's very religious in an old-fashioned way, isn't he?

And he believes that the man is the head of the family and the wife must be the supplicant, not unlike Charlie Kirk and Erica Kirk, I believe. So that's an unhappy relationship. Now she has several unhappy relationships. She has an unhappy relationship with the White House, with Trump and the White House. Also, just Susie Wiles and Elise Stefonic are, there's no love loss there.

And I think that comes out of, you know, there may be something else, but I think it also comes out jockeying for power within the Republican Party and who has the ear of Donald Trump. So who's closer to Donald Trump? I mean, that is a, that's the key currency in, in Republican politics.

And if you are perceived as having more of the ear than the other person, then you're potentially vulnerable. And Susie Wiles is among the people who are said to have taken Elise Stefaniac out. Marjorie Taylor Green, the Congresswoman from Georgia, warned that more women were going to leave Congress.

I think everybody thought that she was exaggerating it. But now I can't help wondering, is this going to be a stampede because they're all thinking, I'm not going to get any further under Donald Trump's party. The people who are squabbling for the future of MAGA are very unappealing. And there is money to be made. Look at Tucker Carlson.

Look at the women on the view. Maybe I can go to Fox News. Well, I think that that's, it's also this thing that happens with anyone in a relationship with Donald Trump. It all comes a cropper. 100% of the time no one comes out of a relationship with Donald Trump and saying great, that great guy,

quite the opposite. And in fact, you know, Elise Stefonic, so she decides, okay, I'm going, you know, I don't want to be in Congress. I've done this. I was going to, I was, I had my way out of it. It didn't work out, but I really don't want to

stay in Congress. Mike Johnson, forget about it. So I will run for governor of New York. which is a totally plausible thing to do. I mean, that's an uphill battle in a democratic state. But there's been moderate Republican governors of New York. There have been, but not for quite some time, like 20 years. But George Tataki was the last one, right?

Yeah. Before Andrew Cuomo. And I believe that that would have been 20 years ago. Certainly. a long time ago. And I think it would have been, I mean, it would have, she would most likely have not become, not been elected governor,

but having run a good race, that would certainly position her within the Republican Party. It would be a step up from being one of, I was just going to say, the number of Congress people, but I forget the number. 460 odd. So that's what she was going to do.

She's already raised a lot of money for this. And then a Republican from Long Island announces that he is going to step into the primary. Now, she is well ahead of him. Probably would have won

a battle against him. But then Trump says he's not going to endorse. He's going to be neutral. They're both good. And at that point, in her long downhill course of her relationship with Donald Trump,

I think it just came to inch. That was just the fuck you moment. In the formal, fuck you, I am dropping out of the gubernatorial race. I may, and this will be the interesting thing, drop out of Congress before the, end of my term. I am going home and I want nothing more to do with you. And do you think, I mean, I do think that a lot of these people think there is much more, well, clearly there's

much more money to be made in the world of freewheeling new media as we've seen. But do you think she wants to come back to politics or do you think she's done for good? No, they all want to come back. They all want to be the president of the United States. So how to triangulate that. What is your path there? You know, the path through Congress is a pretty difficult path to become the president of the United States. So you have to go somewhere else to the Senate, but the Senate in New York is a difficult, it's a difficult place. And so she's got to figure this out.

She had to get out of Congress. That was her. Just think of her as the, as, as, as at a maximum point on the ambition scale. You know, I remember Steve Bannon once described Nikki Haley to me as ambitious as Lucifer. And I think that's about ambitious women, though. They never say that about men. Well, I think it's because it's a given that all. men are Lucifer.

Nicely turned. Nicely turned. But I'm sure it's depressing the patronizing attitude of Mike Thompson. Sure. But I think that's a leap. You don't have to go there. It's depressing being a congressperson. You know, it's a, you know, it's a pretty low rent job.

You don't make much money. You have a, you know, a very, you know, a relatively small staff. your job, the bulk of your job is having to deal with constituent complaints. I mean, you're like a, you know, like a, you're just like a bureaucrat. And you have no hope of, of, there's no clear, clear path to advance beyond that. And also you have to spend so much time groveling for money. And you have to run every two years, terrible, terrible, terrible job. So she had to find a way.

out of that. And she thought she deserved a way out of it. You know, she had done absolutely what you're supposed to do for the president of your, the president of the United States, the head of your party, you want a reward. Well, and neither MTG or Elise Steffinick got a reward. And they had both, well, in Elise's case in particular, had sucked up beyond what you assume she felt comfortable doing, but was doing it anyway. You know, and I think, and I think this goes to this larger, this larger ecosystem of, of, of loyalty to Donald Trump, that he demands absolute loyalty. But the problem of demanding absolute loyalty is that people come to hate you.

And so they are the, in fact, the opposite of loyal. And certainly in, in, um, in. In 2020, when he ran for re-election, that came to haunt him. An enormous amount of bad blood among Republicans. And I think that we will now potentially see this in terms of the midterms. Right. Well, we've seen a lot of the president this week from kicking off with his statement about Rob Reiner to his, what appears to have been.

hastily put together speech on Wednesday addressing the nation from behind the podium. Peggy Noonan in her column in the Wall Street Journal said it looked as if he'd just been walking past the podium and suddenly seized it and decided to deliver a speech as opposed to it being considered or in fact sitting behind the resolute desk and then he's been not at one but two rallies this week as if he's sort of both incumbent and battling the incumbent. I mean, talking about Joe Biden as if Joe Biden was still very much a thing, referring, as they mentioned earlier to Hillary. So there's a lot going on. And then during one of the rallies, he got fixated in a very peculiar and frankly, cringe way on his wife's panties and how they were, how she got very irritated because the feds had gone through them looking for classified doctor. when they were raiding Mar-a-Lago at one point after he'd left the White House the first time.

But he was also obsessed with the way she folded her panties. Yeah, I can't even hear the word panties. It's so peculiar. I just can't. And him, that word coming out of his mouth made me very uncomfortable indeed. But he's been talking about... What do you call them then? Well, in England, we would call them Nickers.

But at least Nickers has a kind of... comic twist to them. Panty seems to have a kind of veneration for them and I think of them as things that little girls were not women. It's kind of fetishistic and infantilizing. Yeah, there's a sort of Lolita quality to them which just feels inappropriate for a president to say it to rally and interestingly the camera panned at one point and you could see a couple of women sort of going like this because they obviously felt cringe too. Anyway, what do you think of his state of mind? We're inside his head. right now. Is it a good place to be?

Is it busy than normal? Yeah, no. And I was kept thinking when he talked about the folding. The folding seems so fetishistic. I mean, it really, and then I thought of Malania does she fold her own? He seemed to imply that she folded her own.

She's very organized. And then he seemed to credit this to being from Eastern Europe, which which might be possible. Maybe they're big folders in Eastern Europe. Well, maybe we'll see more of her folding her underwear in the Melania documentary due

out at the end, due out in theatres globally, theatres internationally. Worldwide. That's right. Worldwide release of Melania. And it's time a word from our sponsors. And we are back, Michael Wolfe and me, inside Trump's head. We talked about the very peculiar statement he put. put out after Rob Reiner, after Rob Reiner's death, where he blamed Rob Reiner's Trump derangements.

Well, that's not even, it was, it was, it was not just peculiar, it was deranged. It was deranged. I mean, I mean, nobody would do that. That's not going to be good for, for, certainly it's not going to be good for Donald Trump. It's, it's, it didn't even make sense. It's just, you know, it's, it's a problem with, with, you know, with, you know, with, reflex control. And, you know, so it's back to that, that, you know, Susie Wiles said in her, in her interview

with Vanity Fair that it was like dealing with an alcoholic. And she got a lot of, this was like everybody went, whoa. Now, that's a common, it's a common usage in the White House. And it's a usage that he almost seems proud of. And I think the rationale is he doesn't drink. Everybody knows he doesn't drink and he really doesn't drink. So therefore, therefore, it's, it's not, it's a cop. It's a compliment to being, to being compared to an alcoholic.

I don't, I don't quite get the logic inside Trump's head on that. But she, but, but, but Susie Wiles might have just as well said, it's like dealing with a dementia patient. I mean, it is the same thing. And because he doesn't drink, it is probably closer to that. I mean, he,

in which he has, he has his, the aspects of his uninhibited, the uninhibited aspects of his personality. That might be like, it's like anger or self-pity or, his case or other racism for some

people become increasingly more uninhibited and that seems to be what's going on he opens his mouth and you go this is a problem

anybody that had a relative who'd posted that would be appalled and tell them to delete it and take them to one side and say we're taking the past word away to your phone, you cannot behave like this. Similar at Charlie Kirk's memorial service at that huge stadium in Arizona where Charlie Kirk's widow, Erica Kirk, got up and said, you know, I forgive you. And then Donald Trump gets up and talks about how he hates his enemies, how he hates his enemies. It's just peculiar at this stage. And no one around him seems to be

saying enough already. You sound arranged. Yes, but that's, but that's true. No one around them does say that. I mean, we have in American politics, which with two back-to-back octogenarian presidents, we have a problem. And the problem is there is no way to diagnose the president. I mean, clearly, clearly Joe Biden had had enormous cognitive difficulties. And obvious, and everyone around him closed ranks to protect him until he could no longer. be protected. So there is no mechanism for for an objective world to diagnose someone. There's no willingness on the part of people around the president to step forward with an honest assessment. And this is not different now from Donald Trump. There is no way for us to say,

okay, he has he has experiencing cognitive issues of a, you know, of a, of a, of a, of an alarming variety. And no one around him is going to say that, although Susie Wiles in acknowledging the alcoholic thing was curious. But here we are. Now, we're also in a time in which, and this also is somewhat, somewhat new, where so many Americans have firsthand experience with cognitive decline.

So many Americans have older family members. who have experienced this. I certainly have. And many, many, many people I know also have. It's a kind of inevitable thing. You know, I think that we're in this curious moment. And it's different from certainly from past decades in which so many people in this country have personal experience with cognitive decline.

if you have family members of a certain age, the overwhelming likelihood is you're going to have seen this. Certainly, I have had this experience. Many, many, many, many, many people, almost everybody I know of a certain age has this experience. You know, old children with old parents, that you're going to see this. You're going to see things that now remind you of,

Joe Biden, but equally remind you of Donald Trump. And I think we're all kind of, what do we do about this? And I think one of the interesting side effects, you mentioned him sounding increasingly deranged and disinhibited. But the other thing that often comes with some kind of dementia, whatever stage it's at, is grandiosity. and I'm reminded of a friend whose grandmother used to constantly order until Harrod's got wise to it from Harrod's food hall, endless platters of food which would arrive solemnly in a Harrod's van and be unpacked for their modest home. And the grandmother had created this huge party that she was going to have,

which was obviously wishfulfillment. And I can't help thinking that Trump's determination to slap his name on, every single Peace Institute and now the Kennedy Center is part of that grandiosity, which is no longer attached to real life. No, and remember, there are these kinds of themes that continue. You know, there was a very well-known person in New York who I knew, who always repeated the same jokes. It was constant.

It was like you would. and then along with other symptoms it became clear that he was repeating these same jokes

not not because that's what he always did but because he was sinking into dementia and actually this person is now in this I don't know fifth or six years of being gone so

you that line at which at which your these aspects of your personality become cross over into a a fearsomely exaggerated form of those same things

it's unclear and I think the people sitting around Trump and I have the people I know in the White House I've kind of pressed on this and they sort of describe, well, it's, you know, Trump 2.0 is just more Trump, or Trump doubling down on being Trump, which in its own way is alarming or it's a way to rationalize. And the Biden people rationalize Joe Biden's incapacities. And I think it's now quite possible that the Trump people are also.

so rationalizing. I mean, they see this. It's very clear to them. Everyone in the White House, when I, when I, when I called them after the, you know, after the Rob Reiner statement, I mean, nobody was saying, oh, you, you go, you go guy. Everybody was like, yeah. Well, one of them said to you, to you, he's teetering. And presumably you teeter on an edge, but it seems he's already tipped over that edge with the, with, with, and his speech. this week, which appeared to be twice his usual pace, galloping through a sort of, you know, an angry Santa speech telling us we should be more grateful. He came in, he had a mess to clear up, the economy was better than we thought it was, and that we should just listen to him and believe him. So the nature of this, this was an address to the nation. Right. You know, and it was, I mean, it was that kind of thing. You get caught, you get caught, you think this is going to be consequential.

Well, it was not consequential. It was the opposite of consequential. It was like what? Right. Well, it was sort of diminishing, and it was him railing. And again, no one around him is able to stop him. And actually, I thought the depressing thing about the Susie Wiles interview, the 11 interviews that Chris Whipple

did for Vanity Fair with her, was that she seems utterly uninterested in trying to stop Trump being Trump. She said that the point of the alcoholic's personality is when someone's been drinking, their personality grows and they become, you know, a car too. Well, you know, yeah, I mean, that's absolutely, absolutely true. And I don't think her mandate is to stop Trump from being Trump quite the opposite. And she knows that. But in some kind of contextual defense of the people in the Biden administration,

did not seem, I mean, I mean, they did not, they, in hindsight, it certainly does not seem that they regarded themselves as having a higher responsibility. Right, but they're not mutually exclusive, right? And Joe Biden wasn't slapping his name on every building. And the Kennedy family have come out this week's swinging. Yeah, no, but that's it. But again, it's a different, that's a different, I mean, the symptoms here, and there are no, no, no one, one, one, one, pattern of dementia. Right. You know, I mean, I mean, Biden was not slapping his name on buildings because he had forgotten

his name. I don't think that. Well, and actually, I think what's really interesting, and it sounds like the am against that noon horn is. It is the amagence at noon horn. Okay. You could set your clock by it. Okay.

It's either that or it's a very noisy truck, but it's the amygens. What is it for again, your small-term horn? It's literally just to set your clock. It's noon. Okay, it's to set your clock and it's to reassure everybody that everything's all right. Like that episode in the Simpsons, where Homer Simpson keeps an alarm and the alarm goes off all the time to reassure people that everything is fine. Anyway, I mean, what's interesting about both presidents is neither of them seem to work very hard. I mean, I think Joe Biden sort of got cracking at 11.30 and clocked off at about three.

And Donald Trump doesn't seem to get into the office much before noon. And as you say, is talking all the time. No, and, you know, I hope when I'm 80, I can catch a break. I think you'll be having more young children when you're 80. Every now and then we catch glimpses of your children's voices. And, you know, who knows? You may have an entirely new family at the age of 80, Michael. You continue to surprise us.

You continue to surprise us. But let's go to, you know, because speaking of surprise, the Trump Kennedy Center thing is a surprise. I mean, it's extraordinary. It is another one of those, what is he thinking? Right. And of course, the Kennedy family came out, and they've all expressed their horror at this,

which, and it is, it is kind of horrifying. It's completely horrifying. It's completely horrifying. I mean, even for the President of the United States to put his own name on anything is weird. Well, it's also a memorial, which is usually something for people who have died. Yeah, no, it's going to be. And Congress is supposed to approve it. And, of course, Congress is nowhere to be found here.

Yeah. Yeah. And what now? Will it be the Trump-Lincoln Memorial? Very possible. Very possibly. It might be the Trump United States. It could be the Trump United States.

He's already renamed the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. He could easily rename the country. Who is going to stop him? That's what's so bizarre. Nobody is going to stop. Okay. So, and let's spread this out into symptoms. We have a whole set of symptoms here.

Now, this idea of a president's mental health, we don't really have context for this, when, in fact, the context should be, well, this is a paramount issue. I mean, obviously, if the, if the president is unwell, we should, we should, we should discuss that. We should, it actually is an issue probably of far greater importance than any other political issue. And once again, gratefully, a word from our sponsors. Michael and I are back inside where else Donald Trump's head. It couldn't be of more importance. And as we know happily, he's aced three cognitive tests, one of which asked him to identify a giraffe out of a giraffe, a hippo and an elephant, I think.

And then he bragged about this, which is yet another symptom, obviously a heightened sensitivity to this. to this issue and a defensiveness about it, which is, and again, anyone who has experience with this when you say to your family member, you know, are there issues? There are never, no. Well, it's like when you have to take the keys away. Give me the keys to the car. Well, I've always said to you,

would you have had Joe Biden driving your child to school? Absolutely not. Would you have Donald Trump driving your child to school? Absolutely not. And nor would you want me, as we've noted before, to drive. Well, but that's because you don't have a driving license. I happily will drive everybody's children to school. Anyway, we know who wants the job.

Marco Rubio is limbering up for the job. He gave a two-hour press conference this week, and he did it in both Spanish and English. And he was nice to the press. He didn't call them piggy. He didn't call them rude. Yes, all with relative. Relative, with relative equipoise.

Equipoys. Equipoys. Whoa. That's a very fancy word for a Saturday. You know, Marco Rubio is demonstrated, which few people in this administration do demonstrate, that he is a political professional. Well, and as you pointed out, Susie Wiles used to work for him. She was on his team.

And you saw the hand of Susie Wiles. at this press conference. Yeah, no. I mean, Susie Wiles has been, Susie Wiles, who has spent her career as a top Republican political consultant in Florida worked for Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio is her client. And in some way, I think, continues to be her client. And J.D. Vance is not her client. Well, and worth pointing out that she described them both to Chris Whipple in Manate Fair, and she said J.D. Vance is 180-degree turn on Donald Trump from calling him in the new Hitler in 2016 to being his vice president now. It was purely political. It was just a political maneuver. And Marco Rubio, by contrast, had had to look deep into his soul, not quite sure how deep Marco Rubio's soul is,

to be able to persuade himself that it would be worthwhile working for Donald Trump. I would say that a measure for Susie Wiles of her success in this job as the president's chief of staff is, at least one measure, is whether or not Marco Rubio becomes the 2028 Republican nominee. So interesting. Well, he clearly is limbering up for it to our press conference. in and out of Spanish and English and utterly polite. So the press.

Impressive in traditional terms. Now, the problem for him is that impressive in traditional terms does not in this day and age seem to win elections. Right. Although, let's hope that Trump is an anomaly, is an anomaly. So the other thing that's going on, which is interesting, is the MAGA infighting post-Charlie Kirk. So we have the Turning Point Rally. in Arizona on Thursday where Ben Shapiro got into it with Tucker Carlson. Yeah, no, I mean, it was a, yeah, I was throwing down the red flags.

I mean, seldom do you see actually such, such open, I'm just trying to think of the, you know, it's open hostility, but it's just, it is really drawing the line. you're I mean essentially Ben Shapiro was saying all of you people are illegitimate or or worse right and he went after Megan Kelly he went after Candace Owens he went after Tucker Carlson I've got a bit which I wanted to read actually which is from what he said at his speech at turning point the conservative moment is also in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually trafficking conspiracies but actually traffic in conspiracy and dishonesty who offer nothing but bile and despair,

who seek to undermine fundamental principles of conservatism by championing enervation and grievance. These people are frauds, they are grifters, and they do not deserve your time. Before we address the specific content there, it's worth calling attention, I think, to the fact that, that right-wingers are actually great speakers.

And whereas the Democrats completely milked toast, you can't listen to them for more than a few seconds. You just snooze. That is an incredibly well-constructed attack on his enemies, of which is kind of riveting to listen to. And I'll point out that when Tucker, Carlson came on after this, he also was riveting to listen to. So the right wing has figured out that fundamental political virtue, how to give a speech that people listen to.

Right. The power of really well-written speech and a good, sharp, fast delivery. although Ben Shapiro is a fast deliverer Tucker Carson less so but nevertheless scrambling for I disagree I think Tucker is is machine gun lips no I mean he's a it's a it's a it's a slower more conversational but it is as as compelling he's good at it he's got a high pitched voice well actually so does Ben Shapiro they're both have slightly high pitched voices Just compare them, let's say, to say, Chuck Schumer. All right. I'm not going to, I'm not going to compare them to Shuck Schumer. I can't even remember what Chuck Schumer sounds like at this point. Exactly.

Anyway, what did become clear is there's no clear person to step up yet for Charlie Kirk as the leader of Turning Point. I know that his wife has stepped into the CEO's shoes, but it remains unclear if she can maintain his power over young men. I can't help thinking it's going to have to be a man that does that. I don't see them following a woman. Well, I'm not sure really that that is entirely the issue. I mean, turning point USA is just a, you know, it's, it's an organization that makes money from charging people to come to its conferences.

That's what it does. The real point is, is the larger MAGA point. Who is the person that comes to represent the future of this movement? Does this movement itself have a future? Or was it just another Donald Trump anomaly? I mean, these are the questions. And, you know, the other interesting thing is that it's, is that MAGA, turning point, MAGA is so related to the media figures that, that articulate its reason for being.

And so will we see a movement of those figures into actually running for office? Right. And will we see Marjorie Taylor Green and Elise Steffernick and possibly Cynthia Loomis confront the microphone? Will they start their own media companies knowing that there is money there to be had? That's my theory on why they're all leaving. It doesn't mean they can't come back into politics, but I'm told Marjorie Taylor Green wants a seat on the view. That will be her fantasy.

That has been many people's fantasy. Perhaps yours. I think that's a better. You should get a seat on the view. I've already got a seat sitting opposite you inside Trump's head. That's enough for any sane person. And I'm not yet displaying. symptoms of dementia.

Perhaps I am and I can't see them because that's, of course, the tragedy of dementia that you often don't know it's happening to. Although I will say, I interviewed Iris Murdoch once, the great British novelist, arguably one of the best novelists of the 20th century, and she was entering the twilight zone

and she kept saying, I'm falling, I'm falling, I can't find the words. It was a remarkable interview. And remind me what happened after that. Did she... Well, she got full-blown dementia and then she died. But she was an interesting person to talk to because, of course, like Donald Trump,

there's a very public baseline. She'd been a writer. So you could see her incredible facility with words at her peak and then her panic as they slipped away from her. No. And I think, I mean, again, this is relevant to everyone But then it has a different kind of relevance when is the President of the United States. And the question of how do you diagnose the President is more and more, I think it becomes a central question.

All right. Well, on that note, Michael, we should go and do our Christmas shopping if you've got any left to do. I imagine you've done it all. No, no, no. I'm, I've yet, well, I've slightly begun. You've slightly begun. All right, well, in that case, you must hurry, because it's the last Saturday before Christmas.

We will be back, however, on Tuesday. We'll be back inside Trump's head, trying to figure out what will have happened to him over the next few days. But you're right, it becomes the central issue of his presidency, and also for the people around him. How do they manage it? If you have been, thank you for joining us.

Please leave your comments and leave us your experience. of handling family members who you see slip into dementia and your recommendations for people around Donald Trump into how they should deal with his verbosity and his grandiosity. Michael, I remember you wrote a very poignant, very moving piece about your mother who suffered from dementia in New York magazine. In fact, I think it was called I Love My Mother

but I wish you were dead. No, you're right. I mean, you remember, and it was. I mean, it's still a piece that I hear, I mean, must be, well, you know, it's over almost 15 years old. But I still regularly, you know, often several times a week hear from people who find that piece.

And it speaks to them because everybody goes through this experience. Well, for anybody going through this experience now, write and tell us your experiences. You can email us or you can drop us a comment on YouTube. Feel free to subscribe to the podcast. We're independent media, so we appreciate your support. And Michael, what else do we have to say? And we should thank our top-level members, and they are Sandra Clark,

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