The Daily Beast Podcast - What Being Mocked Really Does to Trump: Wolff

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to examine how Nicolás Maduro’s dance mocking Trump became a genuine trigger for the president — and why humiliation lands harder than policy. Wolff explains how Trump turns foreign affairs into personal vendettas, and when Maduro refuses the deals, dances, and laughs, it pierces Trump at the level of ego, not ideology. Also, the conversation widens to Trump’s fixation on the MOCA test as proof of competence, the way distraction becomes a governing tactic, and how figures like Mark Kelly are pulled into the narrative to shift attention, rewrite the stakes, and keep the spotlight where Trump needs it most, namely away from Epstein. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And then, of course, there are the dancing videos of Maduro that everybody said actually triggered Trump. Trump personalizes these things. It only really works for him if he personalizes it. I need an enemy, and the enemy is not an abstraction. It's a person. In this case, it was Maduro. Remember, they offered him all kinds of stuff. You know, we'll set you up anywhere you want. You know, a luxurious retirement. And he said, completely rejected that and then and then danced in a mocking fashion. It pierces Trump directly when you mock him. Michael?

Joanna. So we're back in the studio. This is our first in-person podcast. We've got so much to discuss. It feels like we've been away forever. This was a long holiday. Well, a lot happened in the holiday too. My four-year-old kept saying, I want to go back to school.

Really? Yeah, well, but that seems unlikely because Mr. Swankypants, you and your wife have a very nice piece about you in the New York Times today. So what a lovely home you have. And talking about how Victoria... Particularly about my wife. I'm the bit player in this. You're the bit player, but what she talks about doing is creating this lovely home. I've been to your home so I can testify to the fact it's, or I can attest to the fact it's a lovely home. because of the brutality of what you deal with on a daily basis.

No, I mean, it's this interesting thing that happened and quite unintentionally that because I can't do any of this. So when I started... When you say any of this, what do you mean? You mean the home, creating a home? No, no, I mean any of the social media stuff. So that she, I mean, was Victoria, said, well, you should start an Instagram account.

And she said, you don't have to do anything. and you just say what you always say. Which you're saying anyway. I imagine that all the time in your house, you're just walking around talking. Yes, just Trump, Trump, Trump. Yes, absolutely. And then, but she would put me in particular settings in the house,

in which largely had to do where the light was. And that started to send this interesting, I don't know if you'd call it a message or a kind of, subcontext of this is going to be all right. I mean, you're saying these terrible things about Trump, and it really, I mean, if you go through all this and everything that we talk about here and everything that we're exposed to during the day, I think it's an obviously reasonable conclusion that we are living in the middle of a catastrophe, that history will see this moment as how did they survive that, if they survived it. But told against the backdrop of this

place that we live, which is reassuring and inviting in every way. And again, it's Victoria's, Victoria has created as not me. I'm just the guy who talks and sits in a corner and types. but that has had a kind of powerful effect. You know, and now, you know, from just in a couple of months, from, you know, nothing to hundreds and, I think, 800,000 followers, it's people want to be reassured. Yeah, I'm comforted. And I actually think one of the things that really works about it, too,

is that your house is, what, 200 years old? Yeah. and there's something very comforting about seeing things that have weathered storms. I often think New York itself still feels so new that it's possible you can walk down the street in New York and be wrestling with a problem that nobody else has wrestled with. Whereas when you walk in Rome and all the steps and the sidewalks are worn with the 2,000 years of leather sandals, you feel like there is no problem in Rome that someone hasn't had before. and it's a different, it's just a different, you feel it in London too actually

where again the steps are worn and the pavements are often worn that people have lived through a lot, whereas here it doesn't feel that people have lived through quite as much. Having said that, of course there was a civil war, but there is something very comforting about looking at you. No, there's something very comforting about living in a house that's 200 years old. Often something very irritating about it too. The leaks, the lack of windproofing. Exactly.

But along with that is that you feel many people have lived here before and they have left a mark and an aura. And it's nice to go home to. You know who lived in my apartment before me? John Paulson. John Paulson lived in my building, lived in my home. apartment before. I think there were a few people between him and me, but, and now he has a huge, he's one of Trumpy's billionaire, he's now got a huge building across the street at NYU.

I know John Paulson. In our apartment in the village, you know who lived there before us? Who? Bogart and Bacall. Really? That was a fantastic apartment with that lovely garden. Yes. Well, there you go. All right. Go, we've gone on to domestic things. Anyway, if you haven't read the piece yet, please do. What's it called living with the wolf? Or how to live like a wolf. I didn't understand the headline. All right. Well, anyway, it's all good. And then, of course, I thought we might also touch on your substack. I don't want to make this all about you, but your substack, I thought this morning was very good. A howl after the Ginsburg poem of death,

where you talk about Donald Trump's first thing in the morning when he wakes up is how's it playing? It's his constant refrain, how is it playing? How is anything playing? To everyone. I mean, and he has actually designated people. Their job is to call him up. It's his first call, second call in the morning, and then he always says, how's it playing? And it means anything that has gone on, a speech he's given or troops he's sent into some city or country, how's it playing? And how's it playing is for him not really a question of do people approve of this or am I getting good reviews? It's, am I dominating the news? Right. Is this, is this the singular headline? Is anyone paying attention to anything other than this? Or than me?

And then this would be, of course, of course, other than me, yes. And that is, I mean, and I think you have to see that's the intelligent way to look at what's happened in Venezuela. I mean, everybody else is grasping for the intelligent way because this seems so ridiculous, so counterproductive, so self-defeating. So everyone is in, is this a, can we see this in some novels? Trump geopolitical terms, or can we see this as a bid for oil or Stephen Miller in the immigration side or drugs that seems to have passed now? Right, the fentanyl phase. Right. But there must be some reason, what is that? And I think that's an incorrect way of

looking at this. The way to look at this is that is in reality television terms. Okay, then I'm going to read one of your own quotes back to you. And for those of you who are joining the podcast for the first time, what we try to do is go inside Donald Trump's head and imagine what's going on there. And in fact, if you can see our design here, we think that there's a lot of chaos going on inside that. And one of the premises here is that people see this wrong

because they try to, the people who analyze politicians believe that you have to analyze them as politicians, that their goals have a clear cause and effect context that they have an agenda, a political agenda, a policy agenda. And our view is that that's really not true about Donald Trump, who is clearly, who is not a politician. And it is about his motivations are far different and really have nothing to do with a political agenda or a policy agenda. They have something to do with his own personal agenda. Yeah, and that you'll fail to understand him and you'll fail to understand the scale of what's going on

if you only look at it in the way that you have looked at politicians before. So this sort of obsession with, oh, is this Trump's Iraq, Venezuela, is sort of missing the point. And I wanted to read a couple of lines from your piece. In television terms, especially reality television, success is determined not by positive reviews or even the likeability of your characters, but by the inescapable attention,

often of the train wreck variety that you engender, conflict and spectacle, which is exactly what he does, and he's so good at it. And then you go on to say, and I also love this, because we know he's surrounded by certain people that are trying to corral him and make him follow the straight and narrow that we feel much more comfortable with.

This view is at odds with almost everything, every one of his political advisors, indeed with almost all people in politics, who regularly try to counsel him on the qualitative response to issues. We need to focus on the economy. He corrects them or ignores them. He leads instead with his guiding view born of 14 years as the star of a top-rated reality television series of what will bring viewers to the edge of their seats and make them full participants in the story unfolding before their eyes. As we've always said. Very smart.

You're not supposed to say that after I read. You're supposed to get, oh, I wish I'd phrased it differently. But it is that we keep saying this is the spinoff of the apprentice. The presidency is the spin-off. And I think, I mean, again, and let's go back. I mean, this Venezuela thing, which is on everybody's mind for obvious reasons, sense makes no sense. Makes no sense.

No sense in any kind of global strategy, in any kind of geopolitical point of view. And from a political standpoint, it's a, no one would have done there. There is nothing to gain here. And this idea, his announcements, we're going to take over, we're going to take over Venezuela. That's just a recipe for. Who's going to run it? I am. I am. I'm going to run it. Who's in charge? I am. So what is going on here? And what is going on here? It is just much better. In this piece, you know, I talk about the reality television shows and the relationship to this White House. And it sounds like I'm talking about that this is a metaphor. It is not a metaphor. It's straightforward. It is very literal on his part. How do I hold the attention? How do I get attention? How do I hold the attention of the public? How do I do it in a way that ensures that no one else gets any attention? That is the recipe for Trump political success. Right. And also, when he's got the attention for something like Venezuela, we're completely distracted from health care premiums, doubling, the

Epstein files, the east wing of the ballroom being demolished at night, all the issues that actually have given him catastrophically low polls. Right. No, I think it is a function of distraction, but even that is seeing this in a political context. So we have to distract because those issues are not playing. And the context that he's seeing it is, I need the world to focus on me. Right. Me alone. And if they focus on me, and this is, this is, this is really critical, and this is really the fundamental Trump political insight, if all that attention is focused on me, it's not focused on anyone else. Attention is a zero-sum game. And if no one else can get into the picture, then I'm it. I'm, I'm, I'm, you know who was trying to get into

the picture pathetically on Air Force One this week, Lindsay Graham. Did you see that tragic exchange? Tragic, tragic. And Lindsey Graham also has gained a lot of weight. Looks terrible. Well, he could take one of the new fat drugs. They've just come out in pill form. I think it's Wagovi. He's come out in pill form today and it's much, much cheaper than having the shot, that needle thing. But what I loved was he came out, he groveled to Trump and then Trump slapped him anyway. I mean, I shouldn't say I love it because that's horrible behavior from the president, but it was just the worst kind of groveling from Lindsay Graham. No, and I think it's true.

I think it's good to look at this in a broader sense. Every other politician is trying to get into this frame unsuccessfully. Unuccessfully. Apart from JD Vance, who appears to have given up all together. Where is J.D. Vance? If you see J.D. Vance tell us because we're looking for him. Republicans can't get into this. Democrats certainly can't get into this picture.

But Republicans can't get into this picture either. Right. So it is a government of one. It is a political moment, which has gone on for quite some time now, of one. And Marco Rubio is there to sweep up the mess. But before we get to Marco Rubio, because I do want to unpack him, I do want to talk about Stephen Miller, who is yelling about Greenland, because he's figured out that he can get attention by saying outrageous things.

He's been saying outrageous things about immigrants for some time, but now he's on the Greenland Bank wagon. Well, he says outrageous things in a natural way because he is crazy. I mean, let's not... Right, he is crazy. And grim looking. And he's having another baby. He and his podcaster wife, Katie.

I mean, the Stephen Miller thing is really interesting and really central to this. I mean, if there is a consistent policy person in this utterly inconsistent White House, it is Stephen Miller. Deputy Chief of Staff. And he has been able to sell first this immigration policy, which in no way can I construct a scenario in which this is going to ultimately redound to the, Trump administration's benefit here. Yes, yes, immigration is down, but to then pair that with these pictures

on a daily basis of incredible cruelty, does this work in America? I think it absolutely does not. And does it work on social media? Yeah, no. And the cruel Cruelty is part of the Stephen Miller thing. You understand, you look at the man.

He says, I am a cruel person. I want to be cruel. This is what gives me pleasure. Yeah. And didn't you say that Donald Trump thinks of him as weird? Yes. I mean, always, certainly in the first administration, it was weird. I mean, he would call him weird Stephen.

And there's something wrong with them. I mean, you can't spend five minutes without thinking, I mean, the way he looks at you, the way he moves. I mean, I don't want to, let's not make fun of someone's physical, the oddness of someone's physical presence, except if they're a cruel motherfucker. And obviously in this situation, we have whatever is going on there is warped.

Is warped? is warps, that's a great way of putting it. And he is a vital piece of this Venezuela thing. Where does, where did the Venezuela obsession? Imagine being obsessed with Venezuela. Hard to imagine. Do you think that Donald Trump could find Venezuela on a map? We have, I just, many of you challenged us to take the Moka test.

So I have the Moka test here, and we're going to take part of it. And I urge everybody to download this. This is the Montreal cognitive assessment test that I'm. our president aced, we're going to see if we can ace it too. But how did I get on to that? We tried it a few minutes before we went live and we already had a few problems. It didn't go well. It didn't go well.

But do you think, I know he passed the, well, he aced the Montreal. Does he know where Venezuela is? Can he find it on a map? No. Could he find it on a map? If you gave him a map of South America and said, please draw us the shape of Venezuela. He could not. Absolutely.

Could not. But anyway, why Venezuela? Out of every place? I mean, if it's an, if the interest is in an interdiction of drugs coming into the country, well, then you would pick any number of other Latin American countries over Venezuela. Well, and you wouldn't have just pardoned the Honduran president, who we talked about Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had tried to stuff cocaine up the noses of the gringoes. literally his phrase. And I made a mistake in our last podcast when I said he'd personally been responsible, not personally himself, but overseen 50 tons of the stuff. And someone pointed out, no, no, no, it was near 500 tons of cocaine into America. And cocaine is not a problem drug. I mean, it is a problem drug, but not on the scale of fentanyl. Yeah. No. So you would pick other countries for that if your concern was a, a, um,

an incompetent leftist regime. There are other more incompetent leftist regimes. Not to say that this is not an incompetent one, because it certainly is. And then, which leaves you with the oil question, but we're in the middle of a worldwide oil glut. So why Venezuela? Because it's season two of Landman.

Well, it is, yes. Well, it's actually season three. I didn't realize Paramount had released season two. I can't wait to watch it. It's my absolute favorite show. Go Billy Bob Thornton. Love him so much. And everybody's learning about the oil industry through Landman.

It's amazing. Landman season three. That's what this is. I bet you Trump's been watching Landman at four in the morning. Completely. But anyway, so where does this come from? Why? And there are really two reasons.

One is Stephen Miller, who is obsessed obviously with immigration. Latin American immigration, Brown immigration. And one of his, part of his visions here is that we have to take over these other countries and then we can contain the immigrants there. I mean, this is, we're in a... How does this sit with not only MAGA,

but Peter Thiel and all the silicon Valley Bros. David Sacks, who's his big AI advisor, who are desperate for real engineering talent from India, I mean, and from China. How does this work with their worldview? How do they square this circle? Well, I don't know how they square this circle by believing that they can control Donald Trump in some way or manage Donald Trump or get something from Donald Trump. I mean, they have, I don't, and maybe they have. I mean, the whole, the whole, the whole, it's supposed to be the HB1 visa whisper. Yeah, I mean, the whole, the whole crypto world, obviously, has been amply rewarded by, by Donald Trump. They're in the AI world, they are trying,

certainly trying to get what advantages they can. And I think that they believe at this point they have scored, certainly scored more from this administration than they have from the last administration, a Democratic administration. So, I mean, I think that they feel, I would say that tech bros feel relatively good about this. at the same time they think Donald Trump is a moron, of course. And then, which brings that question to the J.D. Vance question, you know, is J.D. Vance the future that they are riding on here? But then the other aspect to come back to this of Venezuela, which is fascinating to me, why Venezuela, is Marco Rubio.

and Marco Rubio, who is a Florida politician, the senator from Florida, deeply involved in Cuban exile matters. Well, a child of Cuban immigrants. Child of Cuban immigrants. And the relationship of Cuba to Venezuela is very direct. So that Venezuela is one of his hobby horse. So both Miller and Rubio have brought this Venezuela to Donald Trump, and essentially saying we have our issues here.

And then Donald Trump has taken this and bent it to his uses. I'm going to take over Venezuela. I'm going to go, I'm going to go head to head with this guy, Maduro. I'm going to take him out. I'm going to be, he's going to be my enemy. I am going to win. He is going to lose. I mean, the whole Trump thing, who is my enemy?

I mean, in reality television terms, where's the conflict? Who is the enemy? There's this good guy and the bad guy, the person you root for, and the person you root against. Now, by the way, and it doesn't, you don't have to be the person you root for. You know, the villain is also as charismatic as the hero or more. Right, right.

And in this situation, it doesn't matter. I mean, basically, basically you have two villains. I mean, finally, what always happened, the thugs turn on the thugs. And so you have the bad guy Trump against the bad guy Maduro, which is compelling. Another spin-off. It's another spin-off, really.

It's a telenovela coming out of the apprentice slash the presidency slash Venezuela. Right. But the important thing, the important context to realize here and to see this, the lens through which to see this, is not that there is anything material to gain. So there is no strategy here. There is no agenda. He does not want to run Venezuela, and he will not run Venezuela.

He will say he's running, and he will say they're going to do what we tell them to do. But that's not going to happen. The oil is probably not going to happen. nothing is really going to change except the plot line. Okay. He couldn't run a bath. So the idea of him running Venezuela is sort of absurd.

But you know who's going to have to try and run Venezuela or at least try and clear up the mess? And you saw him doing it over the weekend, Little Marco. But even Marco Rubio took the positions. Trump is we're taking over Venezuela. We're running Venezuela, which I'm just. again. What does that even mean? Well, and as you pointed out when we did our emergency podcast on Sunday, he made it up on the spot. He just made it up. Totally. A spontaneous utterance, which has no basis. Congress is certainly not going to appropriate the hundreds of billions of

dollars this would require. The idea that this will be supported by taking this oil out of the ground, Who's going to take this oil out of the ground? American corporations, conservative American corporations, which are being asked to make a once-in-an-era, existential investment in an unstable, one of the most unstable political situations now on earth. Oh, yeah, that's going to happen.

Yeah, well, and there was gunfire last night. I mean, it feels like it's already begun, journalists arrested. it doesn't look good. Yeah, but it doesn't matter because none of this is going to happen and one of the interesting things about Rubio is that he basically

contradicted the president. I mean, basically said, yeah, this is not really, we're not really taking it. We're going to work through the existing government. And let's remember, so the existing government, all they have done in this idea, of, you know, I mean, there's a lot of talk about this is regime change. It's not regime change. It's the same old regime. At least regime change would be a goal and an agenda and

something to accomplish. No, they've gone. No, no, no, no, no. Moshado, the Nobel Peace Prize winning, in theory, leader of the opposition is not allowed. Forget about her. We're going to, we're going to She's not allowed back. We're just going to take Maduro, the enemy. I win, he loses. And then we're going to let everything go on just as it has. Right. So Delsey Rodriguez.

Which is essentially what Rubio was saying. Right. And Delcie Rodriguez, who was the vice president, is now in charge and appears to be every bit as potentially difficult as Maduro. Although maybe she'll be more pliable because they're going to give lots of money. Yeah. No, no. I think that.

They will. I think that they've come to some accommodation there, how long that will last remains to be seen. It doesn't have to last very long. It just has to, you know, last until the next. And until the next plot line. Yes. All right. So, and then we should talk about Mark Kelly. Mark Kelly, who is now being threatened by Pete Hegseth, who, let us remind everybody, couldn't run to Veterans Affairs organizations and is now the second most. important person. Well, because he's in charge of the military.

And he's going to run Venezuela too. Who's going to run Venezuela someone in the news conference? And then they're jumps with all these guys behind me and everybody, they're going like, what? Yeah, they're like, uh-oh, uh-oh. Yeah, Pete's thinking, well, my experience

of running things isn't going so great. Anyway, he's now turned on Mark Kelly because Mark Kelly, with some Democrats in November, urged members of the military not to fulfill orders that could be illegal. Alas. What is that? Alas. Hegsteth is right.

I cannot believe those words have come out of my memory. I can't believe those words have come out of your right. Hegset is right. Surely not. We love Mark Kelly. Mark Kelly, astronaut. It's been to space many, many times. He's done how many 40 combat missions?

I'm sure. I'm sure he's a very nice man. He's an interesting what he was saying to members of the American Armed Forces was disobey orders. You know, yes, there's a technical point if an order is illegal, but that's a highly rarefied situation and a highly complicated one, who is to, if we had a military in which everyone, which is essentially what he was saying, could make the decision, oh, this is an illegal order.

I think this is illegal. I'm not going to follow this. Okay, well, that would be a, that would, we would no longer have a military. So I'm afraid, I'm afraid. Pete Higgsath is right. Not four words I was expecting to come out of you about, now I wish I'd never mentioned two words, Mark Kelly.

Let's move swiftly on. So now I want us to do something that we mentioned on Sunday, and everybody said, yes, you've got to do it, you've got to do it, which is we are going to live take the Montreal cognitive assessment test. This is the test they give to people to see if they are suffering from dementia. And then they repeatedly give it to them if they are monitoring that dementia. A word now from our sponsors. And Michael Wolf and I are back inside where Elf.

Donald Trump's head. So we could attempt to do the first stage of the Montreal cognitive assessment, which our president said he had aced. For those of you who haven't yet downloaded it, this is what it looks like. This is the animal section that he was saying that he'd managed to identify. I think this is fairly straightforward. Horse, what do you think the second one is, Michael? Well, I would say that's a tiger. And the third one. And that's a duck. If it looks like a duck. I've never understood that expression. All right, what about the numbers?

This is visuospatial. I quite like that term. Yes, I can do this. 1A, 2, B, 3, C, 4D, 5E. I did it. Well done. Well done. Could you copy the bed that they've done?

There's a drawing of a bed that you have to replicate. I think we could both do that. Let's assume we could do that. We could do that. We could draw the clock, five past ten. I could draw the clock. I would just just doing this with my four-year-old. Oh, you were?

Learning till time. Okay. So the thing that we both stumbled on, if we're being truthful, beforehand is the memory. Read list of words, subject must repeat them. Do two trials. Even if first trial is successful, do a recall after five minutes. Five minutes.

A recall after five minutes was tough. And the words were, leg, cotton, school, tomato and white. Leg, cotton, school. You say tomato and white. Very good. We'll come back to that. If we're still talking in five minutes, we'll come back and see if either of us can remember those words. I don't think we can.

I'm already blurring on them. Yeah. And then there's abstraction. So this is making connections. And apparently our president ace this. So the similarity between banana and orange. What is the thing they have in common? Can you tell me that one?

Well, I can because I'm reading it right here, but that's the example. They are fruit. All right. Well, that's the example, and it's fruit. All right, I'm going to read you the second one because they answer is done in that. Hammer and screwdriver. They are tools. Well done.

Matches and lamp. Sources of light. Okay. Very good. Okay. This is humiliating. All right. Can you remember the work?

words. Leg, cotton, school, tomato, white. Well done. Okay, now I'll test you on them again. A bit later. Okay, an orientation. For this, you have to give your date month, year, day, place, and city. So can you give me the date? With difficult, the fifth? No, no, I'm going to give you a clue. It's the fifth anniversary of. Oh, January 6th. Is this January 6th? January 6th? Yeah. Oh, my God. So why aren't we? Why aren't we at what?

Why aren't we pausing at that? Well, we can't pause at that. But right now we're trying to orientate ourselves on the Moka test, which our president has aced. So date, January the 6th, year. Can you give them the year? No, we're at the month. Yeah, I know you said January the 6th. Oh, yeah.

January 6th. Yes, yes. The year. It is 2026. Well done, which is the year of the, in the, Chinese astrological year. Do you know what animal it is? No, no.

The year of the horse. The horse. The horse. The horse right here. It's part of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Part of it. Okay, what's the day?

Day of the week. It's Tuesday. Always Tuesday when I'm sitting here. Yeah. Well, sometimes you come in on Thursday, but mainly it's Tuesday. Place. New York City in the Daily Beast offices. Very good.

Okay. Far, far west sign. I'm going to sign. You've passed your mocha test. Well, wait a minute. You have to give me the words. You have to give me the words again. You see, I've already.

Okay, wait a minute. Just start me off. What was the first? Body part, lower body part. Legs, cotton, tomato, white. There's one word missing. Where do your kids go during the day? School.

Excellent. Michael Wolf, you have passed your Mokatest. You and the president of both. It's marvelous. It's absolutely marvelous. So the president's mental health clearly a big issue. I know that you're saying that Venezuela is a plot twist. To what extent do we think he really is wrestling with mental health issues?

Well, let me frame this back to reality television terms. You have to, you have a central character in, in reality television or you have the character that you want people to focus on. And in his character is, I am indomitable. I'm the winner. Everyone else is the loser. That means that's basically the single character note. But he's had problems with that in the last number of months,

in which he no longer seems, his strength seems to be. fading. And that's on the health side and especially, of course, on his inability to change the Epstein discussion. So we're coming into the, not just the distraction from this, but a new plot line that gives him, makes him again the strong man. Because he looked at the press conference, there were two things that struck me. One, he appeared to be slurring his words slightly. And the other was that when Dan Cain or Raisin Cain, General Cain was talking, and when Marco Rubio was talking, he appeared to be asleep standing up. He could not keep his eyes. You know, I mean, I think that there is very, and I think that this comes clearer and clearer that there is decline here. The

extent of the decline, we don't know, but we can see that that there, it is a fact. He is, he is lesser than he was. There are things starting to go wrong here. Now, will invading a country and taking out its leader and then putting him on trial, will all this

distract from that? Will all this redound to his the image of his strength? Well, we have yet to see. But, you know, as I say, and I think it should not be underestimated, he's pretty good at this.

Yeah, and I sort of, it's hard not to see the decline, and then you see him answering questions at the press conference, journalists hurling questions at him, and he seems very competent in answering them, although he does definitely seem more irascible, hence him sort of slapping back. Well, but he's not really, I mean, I mean, he answers, I mean, he's bold in his statements, but are. Are they good answers? We're going to run Argentina. No, no, they're terrible answers, but he does it as it. He does it. He's still playing a character.

Absolutely. He is not. He was coherent enough to ad lib his way through the press conference, which if he was really wrestling with dementia, he wouldn't be able to do, I don't think. Well, it's a different kind of dementia. I mean, dementia comes in so many forms. There's the Joe Biden form in which he could not put words.

together and then there's the Trump form or the potentially the Trump form in which he he departs by a factor reality at any given moment or he loses the plot line and that's back to the mom-dani meeting where everybody around him you know they went into that meeting and he was going to treat mom-dani like like he trained he treated a Zelenskyy upbraid him and he was going to be, he was going to be the strong man. This was, this was the weak man. This was a setup. This was part of the key midterm setup.

Mamdani is going to be our foil, our enemy. And instead he embraced him and everybody around him was going like, what the fuck happened here? This was not supposed to, it was not supposed to play this way. What did you think of Mamdani calling him to register his anxiety? that going into Venezuela and extracting the president was illegal. I think Momdani also wanted to get into the picture. Right, of course.

Right. Third day end. And I think probably, I think probably Mamdani was confused by this embrace of Donald Trump. And he, for his own reasons, had to be on the other side of Donald Trump. So this was his way of asserting his own strength. Okay, so as we're talking, as we came into the room, we heard the unfortunate news that Doug LaMalfa, a Republican congressman from California, had just died. At 65. I'm attentive to these things.

Yeah, we're all attentive to these things. Anyway, very unfortunate, and our condolences go out to his family, it, of course, means that the difference between the Republicans and the... Do you know his family? No, I don't know his family, but I feel terrible for them that he died unexpectedly. Maybe he doesn't have a family. I can't believe we're having this conversation. I suspect he has a family. Anyway, he certainly has constituents who must be thinking who are we going to vote for next.

And interestingly, the governor has to call a special election. So this now means that by my accounting, the Democrats have 213 seats, the Republicans have 213, and there are four seats now empty. Doug's, newly empty as of today, Marjorie Taylor Greens, and then there are two other. One is a special election that's going on forever in Texas, and the other is Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey, who became the governor. So there's one clear Democratic seat. Well, there are probably two, I think there are two Democratic seats.

So there's Mikey Sherrills, and then the one in Texas was a Democrat. And then Doug Lamalfa in California is Republican, and obviously, Marjorie. It's possible that if the two Democrats, if the two Democratic seats are replaced, that would give the Democrats. That would go to 215 Dems and there would be 200 and if the other two seats that are Republican now, Marjorie Taylor Greens and Dougler-Greens and Douglas. Yeah, but I'm just, I mean, that's that, I mean, the math still does not work. I would just wonder if it would. But if Democrats got all four, which could happen in a special election, just as a protest vote, They could be one vote within the Republicans.

All they would need is one Republican, Thomas Massey, Don Bacon. Well, we're not. Anyway, the point is it's close. We're grasping at straws here. But it's close, and Mike Johnson's got his work cut out. Will Mike Johnson be there in six months' time? We're handicapping this? Well, I think we should go on Kalshi or...

No, he will not be there. Wait a minute. Let's figure this on terms of the midterms. They'll want to sacrifice somebody for the midterms. So maybe he gets to hang on just so that they can blame him. Oh, that's interesting. So the minute the midterms are over, assuming the Democrats win and win back the House, he will be gone.

That would be in a relevant position. He still seems very unpopular with the Republicans. Well, any speaker would be unpopular. He's not as unpopular as past speakers. Fair. Okay. So he... Republican speakers, that is. Right. Democrat speakers always quite popular. I mean, that's a reflection of the Republican Party, which is another key subtext in this midterm year,

that the Republicans are fractured. The Republicans hate each other. the Republicans hate Donald Trump, but they can't say they hate Donald Trump. So it's a cauldron of unexpressed, or sometimes expressed, vile. All right. So, Michael, you've got young children. Your friend from when you were traveling with him as a reporter, RFK Jr., is limiting the number of vaccines that children can have, seeming to me to be unsolving problems we have already solved.

No, it's, it's, you know, I mean, there's Venezuela over here, so, so, so we're not paying attention to probably the bigger issue and the bigger problem, which is the undoing of the, of the health care system in the United States by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. Former heroin addict. At 72 years old, still junior. And, and in that, that, that, that, that, you know, that. is. That is going to be a lasting legacy of the Trump administration. The dismantling of health care that has been, I mean, vaccines that have been one of the major accomplishments of the last 50 years. No, and all on the part of a, of a no-nothing opportunist. Also attention-seeking. Yes. I mean, also running for president in 2028.

Yeah, absolutely. And this is all, all MAGA-based stuff. So this is all a political agenda. It is not a health care agenda. And health care for a very long time in this country has certainly been to the side of politics or over-polity. It has not been a political. there has not been a political agenda here. Now there is a clear political agenda, a clear political agenda with a political purpose. Bobby Kennedy, Jr., at 72, is running for president. And at 72, he's still 20 years younger than the judge who is now overseeing the Medoro trial,

who is 92? Yeah, well, that's... seems extraordinary. It's incredible. But to some of us, that's good news. RFK Jr. So anyway, so yes, and I think this is, and I've been trying to work this out. I mean, this can't be good for Trump, this dismantling of the health care system, this

anti-vax crusade. It is only relevant in terms of the support of the MAGA base, which. which he needs, but at some point, and I think that point has already begun, that that bleeds, grievously bleeds over into all other voters. So anyway, a point of distraction. Well, anybody whose trial gets measles. And we will, we will, and pay no attention to the fact that, that the, that the, that your kids are not going to get vaccinated. And once again, a commercial message. And I'm back with Michael Wolfe inside Trump's head.

And of course this week we had the tragic memorial service for Tatiana Schlossberg who just died his cousin. Yeah, yeah, well his cousin's daughter. His cousin's daughter, so his first cousin one's removed. Whatever that is, yes. Who wrote a very eloquent piece in the New York before she died about how the Trump government are stopping research into essential work to cure cancer. Pining it on him? Yes, on RFK Jr., still at 72.

A truly disturbed individual. No, no, and he is. I mean, that's the other thing. And everyone who has had dealings with him over the years, including myself, it's been very clear. There's something wrong here. is as many members of his family have said too. Yeah I mean he spent you know decades as a as a drug addict just to begin with yeah yeah and now he's trying to end the Narcon program that has

actually been very effective in helping people who've overdosed especially from opiates. I mean you can't make it up you really can't make it up. Governor Newsom now under threat because Governor Walts says he's no longer running for re-election to governor because he couldn't spend enough time on his campaign and serve the people of Minnesota. I don't know what happened last time he ran. Somehow he was able to do it last time, but he can't do it now. He looks like he's just thoroughly beaten up and had enough.

So he's stepping aside. Maybe Amy Klobuchar will run for his seat. And what does that have to do with Newsom? Obviously they're trying to, I think, get Newsome out of the way because he seems to be head and shoulders above the rest of the Democratic candidates at the moment? You know, yes, of course. I mean, and that's what they're going to do.

That's their job to, their job as Republicans going into a difficult, a difficult election year, is to then start to try to pick off Democrats. I mean, but this is not exceptional. This is, I mean, Trump is, is particularly good at this. But, you know, you've got to rise to the occasion.

Let's see what Newsom has. Well, I think this has probably be good for Newsom. He's very good at dealing with Trump and taking whatever's going on. This is what Kamala Harris was not good at this because she was not particularly tried. So, yeah, bring it on. And also she didn't seem to have the sense of humor that I think helps in the situation. Well, whatever the reason.

I mean, there's a lot of ways that you have to deal to deal with this, but you're only going to learn how to deal with it if you have to deal with it. Right, right. And then, of course, there are the dancing videos of Maduro that everybody said actually triggered Trump. Do you think that's possible? I'm absolutely. 100%. This is mono-a-o-mono.

This is, you know. Can you just say that again? What was that? Mano-a-mano. Say it one more time. Well, that's what, you know, it was, Trump personalizes these things. It only really works for him if he personalizes it, you know, and the walls thing, I am against him. The Newsom thing, I am against him.

I need an enemy, and the enemy is not an abstraction. It's a person. In this case, it was Maduro. Doing that weird dance. And then, yeah, and then to the extent that Maduro, remember, they offered him, kinds of stuff. You know, we'll set you up anywhere you want, you know, a luxurious retirement. And he said, completely rejected that and then danced in a mocking fashion. You know, I mean, it goes, it pierces Trump directly when you mock him. The thing you must not do is mock

Donald Trump. And so yeah, he took them out because of that. And his tracksuit, his sweatsuit that he was wearing, you cannot find it for love nor money because it's sold off the shelves. There's now a wait list. Would you like me to put you on the wait list for one of those? It's a sort of beige track suit. You know, Joina, I would not.

With black zip details. I'm going to pass on that. So, Michael, as you made the point, the release of the Epstein files didn't really solve anything. It just threw 1.6 million files out into the open and people are still wading through them. And with apparently another 5 million to go. Another 5 million to go. Yes. Oh, I missed that. Yeah. No, this is, this is, I mean, Venezuela, of course, it is going to dominate the news for the next X number of news cycles. But then we are going to

come back to Epstein. 2026 is going to be the, it's going to be the, this is going to be the Epstein year. This is the year of the horse and the year of Epstein. And Epstein on the horse. It's the year of moving forward. It, you know, it is the year where Trump is going to have to account for this. I don't know how he gets out of this.

I mean, I guess, I guess, you know, there's many countries to go. Yeah, there's Cuba. Yeah. There's Greenland. Colombia. Do you think that we're serious about we're? Do you think the president and Stephen Miller are serious about getting more of Greenland? Well, it's a totally confusing thing because we basically, we already have everything we could want out of Greenland.

Greenland's a NATO member. We can put more military bases there. Actually, we used to have a lot more military bases there. and then we, by our own decision, shrunk it to one, I think, in Tully, Tully Greenland. Oh, Tully. Tully. And then we have a variety of mineral rights there that we can exercise our access to or the access through American companies to these.

I don't know what we get, where are we to take over Greenland, except another plot point. Well, there's only 50,000 people there. So what would we or who would we be taking over? We're not going to extract their president because they don't appear to have one. I mean, there's the premier of Denmark. I mean, it is just, again, it is what Greenland represents something I want. Or I heard somebody say, well, that Trump wants to be remembered as the first American president in X number of years who has increased the –

the land mass of the U.S. But again, I think that that's all that sees it in terms of agenda, even a ridiculous agenda, but it's still agenda, where what he wants is just to be the center of attention. Well, it's also what Putin's trying to do with Ukraine, right? And then if he gets eventually Ukraine, he can go further into Eastern Europe. But it's what he has in common with Putin. Well, I don't know.

I think Putin has a very clear agenda. He wants to recreate the Soviet hegemony. And I mean, Trump clearly doesn't want to do that. He doesn't want to wreak American hegemony. We already have, there already is an American hegemony. And again, Greenland, why? For what reason? Ukraine, yes, you can say, Putin wants this for the following strategic reasons.

And those are objectionable on so many levels. But they're clear and they're consistent. Greenland? I mean, Greenland is like this other thing. Venezuela. But if you look at a lot. One of these things that they have in common is that you create conflict where there is no threat.

In other words, he's not, Trump is never going to go, Trump is not going to go into Iraq. Trump is not going into a situation where actually he might put U.S. troops in harm's way.

I mean, in a way that's, I suppose, good. But it's also a... It's almost like a mock war, right? It's a mock charge. It's like, you know, standing up to an elephant that's mock charging you. Is that a good analogy? No, well, I think it's just, again, it's the theater of this.

It's performative. I'm doing this, but really what is at risk? I mean, it's good that there's very little at risk, except the world order, of course, but that's an abstraction. All right. Again, performative, but can you remember the five words? No, I can remember school. I can remember white, I can remember tomato, and I can remember legs.

But let me do, I think you probably have to do them in the right order. I think you might do. Legs, school, tomato, white. And then the second one is a kind of fabric. Cotton? Yes. Cotton, is this on there? You've still passed, though.

You've still passed. You've aced it. You've aced it. All right. some questions for our Ask Melania session. Again, for new viewers and listeners, Michael is suing the first lady, first person to do it. So we're asking for questions so that when he has her under deposition for his anti-slapsuit,

we have all the questions that you want him to ask the first lady or the president or anybody else he chooses to subpoena. Here's a question for Melania from Stardust Memories. Here's a question. Woody Allen film. From in South Chicago for Melania. How were you involved with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein's modeling agencies?

Because of course she was a model. Fundamental question. Right. And were you involved with recruiting other girls and women from Eastern Europe, presumably to model? Valid question. Okay. this is a question from someone called Amy Baw.

I would like to know if Gillen Maxwell could also be deposed. If Friends of the Trumps can be deposed? Yes, answer yes. Yes, okay, yes. So we will get an update from you on how it's going with Melania on Thursday. Yes, as a matter of fact, I'm heading from here to a meeting with a lawyer's meeting. Oh, that's exciting. Well, it actually is pretty exciting.

All right, so we promise that if you send Michael your books, he will sign them. He's going to sign today's to Barb McClennon. Can you sign it here, please? You know, now I have done this often enough now that I know the place. You sign books on the title page. Okay, and you cross your name out, don't you? This will make an incredibly valuable in years to come. Okay.

And who are we signing this to? We're signing it to Barb McClennon. Can I see Bob's... Barb, B-A-R-B. Oh, Bob. Barb, who says she loves listening to the podcast and she loves your book. Okay, great. And she's recommended us to her entire circle.

So Barb, if you're watching, Michael is signing your book. Thank you. To. And she says, by the way, I picked up your book from biblio.com. I noticed that this was a remainder copy. Barb, it's a remainder copy. We're also, but thank you for sending stamps. We're going to send it back courtesy of the Daily Beast.

But if you have one of Michael's books, and God knows, there's four of them on Donald Trump and two on Murdoch, and you want him to sign them, he is very happy to do so. Very scribbly signature, just like the president. Nice thick, sharpie. All right, so if you have been, thank you for watching. Don't forget to leave a comment. Tell us what you think about Venezuela. Do you think you could pass the Moka test, download it and try with your friends? Do you think you could run Venezuela?

Yeah. Do you think you could run Venezuela? Very good point. All right, we'll be back on Thursday, God willing. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast. God willing. And Michael is going to read out our Bee Beast tier of members. Don't forget you can join the Daily Beast community, you get extra content,

but also you're supporting independent media, which we really appreciate. And we have these great dinners, which you can... Yeah, we're going to start doing dinners, which you're invited to. Yeah. great dinners. I've never been invited, but... You're hosting one. You're hosting. And also, don't forget, I'm not sure if they're sold out or not. 21st of January, the 92nd Street Y in New York. Michael and I will be appearing live. And it will be Trump, Epstein, Melania.

Maybe a little Venezuela, but it will be the day after, it'll be a year to the day since the inauguration of the second Trump administration, so there will be much to review and bring questions. And we would like to thank our BB's level members. Yvette, Yvette, Yvette Johnson, Methinks, Betsy O'Farrell, at Mills and Lins, Chelliebee, Max Quibbitt. A lot of new names here. David Shari, Thomas Moore,

Maria Voltaine D. Kujerwats Sign Lund John H. Overracher. Deb K. Ostrater. Sandra Clark travels with Carl. Andrew Beaver. The all-time favorite, The Cappanator.

Harry Clark, Dawn McCarthy, Daniel Dogglover. M. Griner. D. Stone, Fulvia Orlando, Herbie, Andrew Melor, Tatnal, Val Love Francesco,

Will Hutchison, Andrea Hodell, Bocock, D.C., Sharon Shipley, Connie Rutherford, Karen White, and Heidi Riley. It's Andrea Hoddle.

Hoddle like Yodel. She actually had to write in and tell us how to pronounce it. because you would to get it wrong. Anyway, Andrew, we really appreciate it. And thank you for our team, which has changed now. So I'm Kevin, Ryan. I'm Kevin Fallon and I'm obsessed.

I'm obsessed with finding the best movies and TV to watch and stream. I'm obsessed with all the celebrity gossip you text your friends about in that group chat. I've spent gears binging everything worth watching, and plenty that isn't, going to red carpet. and private screenings, and talking to the stars for The Daily Beast. Everyone from Merrill Street to Mariah Carey to Andy Cohen and my best friends. And by that, of course, I mean the Real Housewives. Jennifer Lopez even once posted one of my reviews on her Instagram, which is a sentence that will be on my tombstone.

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