The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump's Circle Drops F-Bomb Post Putin Meet: Wolff

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

Trump biographer Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles for a scathing examination of Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin—and the shadow of Jeffrey Epstein that's cast over the entire affair. From Trump’s failed promises to release Epstein’s files, to his floundering attempts at deal-making in Ukraine, Wolff reveals how distraction, denial, and deference to Putin define Trump’s playbook. With insider texts, sharp analysis, and vivid accounts of the theatrics on the world stage, this episode unpacks the haunting ties between Trump, Russia, and Epstein—and what it all means for America’s future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does Vladimir Putin have on Donald Trump? During the first administration, Epstein told me that he had gone on a secret trip to Moscow to meet Putin. So here is the question. What did Jeffrey Epstein tell Vladimir Putin about Donald Trump? I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. Please don't forget to subscribe to our news. spin-off podcast with me and Michael Wolf going deep inside Donald Trump's head. It's called Inside

Trump's head. We'll be talking about it in a second. But first, most importantly, what we'll really be unpacking is, was the Putin summit the moment that Donald Trump was able to shift the narrative from the thing that has been hanging over him for the last six weeks and he cannot get out from under, Jeffrey Epstein. Will Maga give him a break here, or will they just circle back to Epstein? Because as Michael Wolf is always saying, the Epstein story keeps coming back to haunt Donald Trump, even from the grave. Let's get into it. Michael Wolf, what is happening? Where is Alaska? Is Alaska still in America? Can our president find Alaska on a map? Last time we talked, you said that you thought he needed a big idea that Trump had been wandering around the corridors of the White House saying he needed a big idea to get Jeffrey Epstein and the White House's refusal to release the Epstein files off the front pages. Has he succeeded?

Well, first I should say, we should ask the question, what am I doing here? because I am supposed to be on the inside Trump's head podcast. So what is, what's the plan here? To be very clear for all listeners, we have a new spin-off podcast inside Trump's head where you and I put on our crampons, we grab our grappling hooks, and we go deep in the mind of our current president.

But this podcast is not that podcast. This podcast is the daily book. Beast podcast where we started doing that, but we also have other guests on this. And we also cast the net a little wider in terms of subject matter and in terms of guests. So you and I will exclusively always be on. I am being spun out to this new podcast, but I am still visiting my old friends today. Exactly. Exactly right. And if you haven't subscribed to Inside Trump's Head on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast, please do. And if you get the Daily Beast podcast on YouTube, which we hope you do and we hope

you subscribe to, then you can find inside Trump's head on the Daily Beast network. The point is that we just always want to be talking to you about what on earth is going on with Donald Trump. Let me headline this first, because as I was watching the press conference, the Trump-Putin press conference. And Trump Putin press conferences have become one of my favorite forms of programming. It's just so transparent. You just see what's going on. What's inside both of these people's heads. But as I'm watching this, I got a text from someone in the close Trump circle. And it just said one word, fucked. Does that mean we're all fucked? Does that mean America's fucked? Well, let's recap. I don't know. I mean, this is all it said. I felt it was not in the spirit of things to go back and say, who's fucked? What does fucked mean? What are you talking about? So we have to read the tea leaves here. And so to recap, so Trump scheduled this summit meeting impulsively last week. And really the point.

and certainly this was what people in the White House were saying, that it was another effort to distract from Epstein. And it was very specific in his mind, which is, you know, he made two MAGA promises, very clear, undeniable MAGA promises. He was going to release the Epstein files, which, of course, he has decided not to do. And he was going to bring peace in Ukraine.

or at least get the U.S. out of the Ukraine war. I mean, he was going to bring peace to Ukraine overnight, as I recall. So this was the distraction. I'm not going to give Maga the Epstein files. I'm going to give them Ukraine. I'm going to give Russia Ukraine. And so this came about. And then there was a frantic effort. Zalinski has gotten pretty good at this. pretty good at managing Trump. And he got all of his allies, our allies, the European allies, to get on the phone with Trump and say, we need a ceasefire. It has to be a ceasefire. Before we do anything here, a ceasefire. So Trump says, okay, ceasefire, I can get a ceasefire. Who doesn't want a ceasefire? But also, he realized that this is going to be, you know, quite some, a bit of negotiating here, a bit of detail work, which he doesn't like. So he brought in Rubio and Whitkoff to this meeting, where originally he wanted just him and Putin. I mean, there is this idea still in Trump's mind that he is the best negotiator who has ever walked the earth. The art of the deal.

When in reality, he is probably the worst. But I mean, it's the worst because he doesn't prepare. He doesn't You know, negotiation is all details, and he doesn't do details. At any rate, he goes into this, and they go into this meeting, and they say, you know, Vladimir, can we get a ceasefire here? You know, what will it take? And Vladimir says, no. The other person on top of Zelensky, who's become good at managing Trump, is, of course, Vladimir fusion. Very much.

And he said, you know, I mean, it then became, I mean, it has been clear. This is not, this does not come as, should not come as a shock and it is not new. He certainly does not want a ceasefire. And he does not want an end to the war, really, unless he gets everything that, that, unless he gets Ukraine, basically. And, and from there, they don't move. And this is, the meeting is cut short, by the way. And, but anyway, at this point, Trump is fucked.

And, and he is not going to get, he's not going to come out of this being able to claim any kind of deal. And, you know, I mean, the whole idea of negotiating, of Trump negotiating with Putin. I mean, it really, negotiating with Putin is really like. negotiating with death? Well, can we talk? David Rothkoff talked on this podcast last week about how skilled Putin's KGB skills are at negotiating, manipulating. And you saw the bit where Putin said to Donald Trump, oh, this war wouldn't have started

if you'd been in power then, which was the one thing that Trump seemed to take away from it. So can we discuss it from, you know, if you're MAGA and you're watching this, is there anything here that's working for you? Because as a television episode, it seemed devoid of tension. Yeah, no, I think from MAGA can take, I suppose, be hopeful about this, which is that, you know, clearly Trump is not defending Ukraine. Clearly, he has gone back to, you know, I love Vladimir. I'll do whatever the Russians want. This is, and he's going to, I mean, he really has no alternative. I mean, he's left with two possibilities here, which is either shove something very difficult to eat down Zelensky's throat.

or basically walk away from this and distance himself in the U.S. and let Russia have its way. So, I mean, from the MAGA point of view, well, that's certainly better than realigning with Zelensky and going after Russia. So what was your interpretation of the theatrics of the event, of the red carpet, of the fly past, where both men had to look up ostensibly a display of American might. Well, you know, I don't know. I mean, my sense is, I mean, I found the contrast today between the New York Times coverage and the Washington Post coverage really interesting because the New York Times concentrated all on, I mean, their coverage was about the

choreography of this, the orchestration of this. I mean, that was their lead, whereas the Washington Post lead was Trump got fucked. We got nothing out of this. This is, you know, this is really, really a loss for Trump and potentially a loss for Ukraine. So in that respect, the choreography really worked because the New York Times took the bait on it. And perhaps that was part of this. Let's disguise the fact that, you know, substance might not happen here. And substance didn't happen or didn't happen for what Trump wanted.

I mean, substance happened for Putin. Putin got really everything that he wanted. Right. But the choreography is also interesting in terms of what it inadvertently or unwittingly reveals about Donald Trump. right, when he's in charge of the choreography. And one couldn't help thinking he looked older. There was the strange weave across the red carpet. When they sat down together, we wrote in the Daily Beast that his cancels,

that his swollen ankles, which actually must be quite painful. I mean, they were almost spilling over his loafers. And compared to Putin's neat little ankles, we did a comparison shot. And I thought that Trump looked old. There was also twice last week he'd said he was going to Russia on the plane there when he sat down with Brett Baer of Fox News. He said, well, if I don't get anything from it and I am a deal guy, I'll come back to the United States. And you're like, these are senior moments happening in front of us as they happened with Joe Biden. And I think you could see a certain self-satisfaction on Putin's part.

And Putin looked, I mean, I hesitate to say the guy looks good because he looks like an agent of death. He's got no color. He's got a completely gray face. But he looked like he was certainly in command and right where he wanted to be and all going his way. Well, which reminds me of you quoting Steve Bannon, A, on this podcast, but B, in one of your books, maybe The Siege about the Helsinki Conference, where, well, tell us the story of you're watching it with Steve Bannon. Steve and I had gone to Europe together. This was back when we were speaking, which we can get into some other time. but saying we were both watching the press conference after Helsinki,

and that was the meeting where Trump and Putin were alone together. And then they came out and Bannon is watching. And he says, oh, my God, he looks. He, Trump, looks like a beaten dog. And then went on to speculate about all of the things that Putin might have on Trump, which is still, you know, I mean, behind all of this, there is the Trump, Russia, Trump, Putin mystery. What is this about? I mean, why would Trump always be so, so eager to ingratiate himself with death? If you're Donald Trump, let us for a moment borrow from our other podcast and go deep inside his head, what is he, do you think,

think thinking as he's sitting down opposite Vladimir Putin at the beginning of the actual sort of discussion. We don't really know this. We know that he is drawn unlike virtually everyone else in the free world, as we used to call it, to Vladimir Putin. Why? You know, as I mean, Bannon would speculate that he had, that Putin has something on him. And, um, and, um, you know, as, I mean, Bannon would speculate that he had, that Putin has something on him. And, you know, Bannon at one point, I mean, sort of enumerated all of the things that Putin might have on him, but then went on to sort of talk about Putin's enormous, not only Putin's personal enormous wealth, but the enormous wealth of so many others that he controlled.

Therefore, you could not be, as Bannon described Trump, a money grubber on international levels, without crossing paths with Putin or Putin's money or Putin's capital at so many various points. So, I mean, I think that there is that, you know, that feeling is always with Trump, that he, is somehow connected to Putin in a way that, to say the least, is not transparent. Michael, let's just take a break for a moment. And we're back talking about Donald Trump's summit with Vladimir Putin. Is there any role here for Steve Wittkoff and Marco Rubio? Were they in the room with him? I know initially it was going to be the two of them just together with the translator.

Well, I mean, I think it's interesting point. I mean, neither of these guys has an expertise in this. I mean, neither of these guys have been, you know, spent their careers traipsing the world, trying to accommodate and understand and negotiate with leaders of foreign countries. They just haven't done this. I mean, Rubio has some experience in the Senate with foreign policy, but not on a direct one-to-one level.

And Whitkoff is an idiot. He's just a... Well, he's a golf buddy, right? He's a golf buddy, and he's a real estate guy whose expertise is downtown real estate in Manhattan. Yeah, I mean, the fact that he is in this is its own separate scandal among the many, many, many scandal. that fly around Trump.

And I mean, I'm told by people that Russian experts that previously worked for the State Department don't want anything to do with this because it's just so embarrassing. Well, it's embarrassing and it's dirty. It's embarrassing and it's dirty. Yeah, you can't come away with this. You can't get involved with the issues of Trump and Russia without saying what is going on here. we don't know what's going on here. You know, so Trump can

repeat, return to the, you know, the Russian hoax again and again and again. But, you know, but, you know, but we know that it's not a Russian hoax. We know that there was that

that the Russian investigation, Mueller's Russian investigation, while it did not produce, what is that thing that Trump, that Putin has over Donald Trump, it did produce a, you know, just a roadmap of dubious connections. Last night, he gets back on the plane after what has not been a productive conference, and he goes straight to talk to Sean Hannity. What's that about?

Well, that's, I mean, okay, so he's a, this is Putin's win, Trump's loss. But what is one of Trump's key talents, turning a loss into a win. So now this will become. I mean, we can all say this is a loss. And then, and out there in some other reality, another split screen, Trump will be taking a victory walk. Did you watch the interview with Sean Hannity? I did. I did. What was your take on it? Is it just our equivalent of Russia today? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just, you know. It's state, it's state approved television. Yeah, I mean, it's just Hannity doing, you know, I mean, Hannity's main portfolio in his television career is Donald Trump. I mean, the context of these things, before Donald Trump, Hannity was the low man, the low prime time man at Fox News, always in danger of being fired.

after the post-Donald Trump, he became the, you know, the captain of right-wing prime time. And what did you make of the fact that Donald Trump, who's never walked away from a crowd of journalists yelling questions at him? Because there's no place he'd rather be, I think, came out. He did his spiel. Vladimir Putin did his spiel. And then amazingly, the two words you never hear, no question. No, I mean, we don't have to, we don't need to know anymore. I mean, it was, it was a failure. There is nothing that he could say. So he decided to, and remember, he threatened if we don't get a deal, I'm going to walk away, I'm going to do tariffs, I'm going to do, you know, all of this. No, he didn't do that. Instead, he basically embraced Vladimir Putin. So that, That was the decision.

We're not going to confront Russia. We're going to bow to Russia. So serious question. Do you actually think Donald Trump could find Alaska on the map? You know, with, I mean, another returning to Bannon, Bannon would always revert to falling down laughing about Trump and geography. It's so worrying. And it's not been a good week for him because I noticed that Tom Cruise turned down a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center because he had scheduling conflict. Scheduling conflict seems to be the diplomatic thing that you should say to the current White House if they summon you. You'd love to go. You're very flattered, so sad you have a scheduling conflict.

I mean, I'm not sure if it's such a bad. If the measure, and this is certainly one of the measures, is to distract from Epstein, well, he's distracted from Epstein. Michael, let's take a break for some messages. And we're back talking about Donald Trump's summit with Vladimir Putin. There was, however, a report that the new prison that Gellon Maxwell has been dispatched to from Florida, we remember, we haven't forgotten Epstein. Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, number two in the Justice Department, went down and spent 10 hours with her, and then she got promptly moved to a much nicer prison where she has a relative in Texas. She has the sister there.

There was a report that fellow prisoners are keeping their distance. They don't want to get involved with her. In fact, they're terrified of her, and she has become radioactive in Bryan prison. Any thoughts on that? I think she's probably a happier prisoner. And she's, you know, she's very charming. She'll win them over. I think I might have mentioned this to you before. I've met her only once and she was wearing a wig. And what she does with the wig,

and apparently this is a thing she used to do, is she moves the wig around a little when she's talking to, which is oddly disconcerting if you're the person talking to her. I imagine it would be. Yes. Don't ever try that on our podcast, Michael. All right, so bad week for the world, bad week for Ukraine, good week for Trump and good week for Putin. Epstein is off the front pages.

But please promise me that we will not give up on the Epstein connection with Donald Trump. No, and actually, let me. I'll give you a, and this occurred to me as I was thinking about this today going back to what does what does Vladimir Putin have on Donald Trump? And during the first administration, at some point, Epstein told me that he had gone on a secret trip to Moscow to meet Putin. So here is the question. what did Jeffrey Epstein tell Vladimir Putin about Donald Trump? Okay, we are definitely getting into speculating on that in our next episode of Inside Trump's head on Tuesday.

Michael, does MAGA now let the Jeffrey Epstein issue go? Yeah, I'm probably not the person to ask, and Joe Rogan is probably the person to ask. and, you know, one of the interesting things this week has been to see Rogan just pursue this in really uncompromising and uncomprehending manner. You know, why is he not releasing it? I mean, essentially that's the question, the question that Rogan keeps stating, and it's the question without an answer. So I don't think so.

I think that this comes back. I mean, that's the thing about the Epstein thing. You just can't shake it off. It sticks. Michael, as always, thank you for your insight and for your refusal to bend the knee to Donald Trump. I'm just thinking about what would that be like actually bending the knee to Donald Trump? Well, it would mean you had flexible knees. So many people do it, but it is just what would be the reward?

There would be no reward. Well, you would just have to keep on bending, right, until you're flat, until your entire body is on the floor. And then he would kick you in the stomach. So better not to go there. Michael, thank you very much Saturday morning. I heard your children in the background there. We can watch your children occasionally on Michael Wolf, NYC, on Instagram. And we will be back with a new episode of Inside Trump's Head on Tuesday evening on YouTube, Wednesday morning, wherever you get your podcasts.

And please subscribe to this podcast. Leave us a comment. We'll be reading out some comments on Tuesday. And as our first lady has taught us to say, be beast. Joanna, I'll see you on Tuesday on Inside Trump's Head. And thank you to our producers, Devin Rodgerino, our research assistant and logistics manager, Anna von Erson and our editor, Jesse Millwood. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber.

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