The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Even Trump Is Annoyed at Melania's Doc: Wolff

Episode Date: February 1, 2026

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles step inside Donald Trump’s head at a moment when spectacle, grievance, and power collide. They unpack what Melania’s glossy new documentary really reveals about her marriage, money, and leverage. Wolff explains why the newly released Epstein files are reopening uncomfortable truths inside Trump World. They then discuss how the federal response in Minneapolis offers a stark window into how Trump understands authority and force. As these threads converge, Wolff and Coles wonder: is Trump tightening his grip on power—or revealing the fractures that could define what comes next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everybody in the family is at some point has to get their due. That's part of what keeps the piece here. And now this is very clearly, and everybody understands this, Malania's turn. He is always then left with the feeling that everybody is mooching off of him. It's not really to single out her. Literally everybody in the family is profiting off of him, which is really the way he sees sees this. You have, whatever you have comes to you because of me.

Michael. Joanna. I went so you didn't have to. Is that a popcorn? This is the merch popcorn that was available at the Regal on Union Square yesterday, 1299. Anyway, I bought it. I didn't eat the popcorn because it was available. It had too much butter.

But I'm keeping this. I'm going to put something in it. I don't know what I'm going to put in it. Maybe it's a little trash bucket, but it's kind of just showing it to you. Well, what did you think? Since I did not see the movie, because the Hamptons are a Melania Free Zone,

doesn't play anywhere in the Hamptons. Well, it'll soon be coming to an Amazon Prime account. So the whole nation. Actually, when does it start to show? stream. Do we know that? All we know it's in 2000 movies across the United States. Two thousand screens, yes. And apparently the estimates keep going, getting lower. It started at a $5 million estimate for the weekend. I think somebody told me we're now down to, you know, 2.1 or something like that. We're down to two point. And someone told me that in Australia, only one ticket was bought in the

entire country. There was a kind of national boycott of this movie. But I will say, having sat through it, that it's not quite as bad as people are saying. I found it extremely watchable. It's like watching a Mulani commercial. And it's revealing in all sorts of ways that I don't think they intended, actually. And first of all, the music is fantastic. It opens with the Rolling Stones, give me shelter, which oddly isn't credited at the end of the credits. All the other music is, but it's not. It's got Michael Jackson. It's got tears for fears.

That great song, everybody wants to rule the world. All the music comes from the 80s, and it very much has an 80s vibe to it. Brett Ratner, as we know, brought out of retirement after being metered by at least six women. Retirement, I would say boroughed out of exile. Well, okay. out of exile, yes, self-inforced retirement because no one would work with him. He may have done this for free to get back into the world of moviemaking. But it's like a cross between an ad and a 1980s music video.

There's a lot of Melania getting in and out of a black SUV. And then the black SUVs and the motorcade coming out. And there are definitely references to, if, 50 Shades of Grey. In 50 Shades of Gray, there's an amazing shot where the helicopter takes off from the top of a skyscraper, and this is supposed to sort of... You've seen 50 Shades of Gray? Of course I saw 50 Shades of Gray. I think I was at Cosmo, editing Cosmo, when it came out, so it was part of the job, Michael.

As this is. As this is. But there's an iconic scene in that movie where a helicopter takes off. from the top of a Manhattan skyscraper, and Ellie Goulding is thumping over the music track. And it's a very sort of sexy scene. And what you have here is it's the sort of, it's power porn and it's Washington porn. And she looks inscrutable and completely separate from her husband.

And it's very clear they have completely separate lives. She's not interested in the election. She doesn't bother to watch the end. election. He's calling desperate for her approval. She doesn't really give it. She's like, yes, yes, I will see it on news. And just let me point out, because I think it's very important. She is not just the subject of this film. She is effectively the director or effectively she has control. So everything in this film is there because she's approved of it. Yeah, she's the producer. So it's basically it's a self-release, if you like. It's how she wants to be seen. So she is seen constantly as

sort of posing for the camera. As we know, she moved from Slovenia to be a model in the 80s. And it's basically her modelling being first lady. So there's almost no interaction with Donald Trump at all, apart from the dinner before inauguration day, where hilariously they have a golden egg with caviar. And you see Elon Musk, you see Jeff Bezos, you see the sponsors. And she says this is all for the sponsors. This is all about the sponsors. And what she claims is that she's interested in the details and the style of the White House.

And that's her job as First Lady. But actually all she's doing is pretending to approve decisions that have already been made by a host of stylists and then David Mon, the event planner for the inauguration. And he says things like, well, it's all white and gold because you're so white and gold. And sort of, and she remains, as you have always said about her, completely unknowable from this. Well, actually, I have a question about that, which is, which is, so there's, what does this run for a hundred some odd minutes, 140, I think I saw. Yeah, it's almost two hours.

It's almost two hours. But I felt it went past very quickly. I mean, it's literally like watching a well-produced VH-1. Do we learn anything new about her? Well, you don't learn about her ambition. What you learn about is that she loves wearing clothes that she's had specially tailored for her. She doesn't seem to be particularly knowledgeable about the clothes. We've known that.

She's a... Well, you see it. You see it. There's a lot of show. there's absolutely no tell. It's all about image making. It's sort of Melania Gander, if you like. And you learn that she seems pretty pleased with her life

and that she turns up when Donald needs her to. And then it struck me how odd it is that adult couples hold hands. So the holding of the hands is clearly very performative. We've seen her constantly slapping. hand away of the years. But I was thinking about the queen never held Prince Phillips hand. It's such an odd thing as an adult to do. Holding hands is something that children do as they're skipping along. Yes. I mean, when was the last time, well, you haven't been married in a few years,

but prior to that, when was the last time you held your husband's hand? But it's such a strange thing for people who are supposed to be in power. You know, he's supposed to be the president of the United States and yet actually he seems to want to hold her hand. She's holding his hands to hold him up quite possibly. Yes. I think that's true. I think that's true.

And at the end of the inauguration day, after we've seen her, you know, with the dress and the hamburga hat and her making, frankly, tiny cosmetic changes to it, and the designer of A. Pierre and Adam Lippus, they both say, oh, well, because she was a model, she knows how to talk to designers about what she's wearing. And literally, she's saying things like, can you make this a bit bigger or color more up? So it's not as if she's saying actually very technical, you know, fashion terms. It's just like make it tighter or make it bigger. At the end of the inauguration day, she and Trump go there separate.

ways. They go up into the White House, the sort of personal quarters, and then he goes off one way and she goes off another. And she very clearly is signaling to us, the viewer, they're not in the same bedroom. And she doesn't want us to think that they are. That came across extremely clearly. She wants us to know she is extremely separate from this man. And she turns up when she has to, when they need public appearance. Let me, I have some background here, because I have some background here, because I've seen. spoken to a couple of people yesterday in the circle, in the Trump circle. And a couple of points were made, which is that she does not give him control over this. I mean, this is he, in this situation, he's kind of long suffering. For instance, when she wrote the book, he didn't see this before it was, or too long before it was published. And it was already, it was already a fait accompli

by the time he saw it and by the time anyone in the White House saw it. And I, you know, I don't think she saw the book before it was probably quite possibly. And, you know, so and I asked, well, what's his, what's his mood about this? And this person said, you know, it's, it's, it's okay. He's, he's, he's vaguely irritated. They said, I said, oh, what does that mean? And this person said, well, you know, it's, it's everybody, Everybody in the family is at some point has to get their due.

They all believe that they're owed and they all believe he has to deliver. And that's sort of what keeps, that's part of what keeps the piece here. And now this is very clearly, and everybody understands this, Malani's turn. She gets the money. She gets the attention. and that's part of the overall deal. He is always then, this person explained, and I've heard this before,

left with the feeling that everybody is mooching off of him. He believes that his family, basically his family is a family of moochers. And that's the transaction, which he's forced to accept. But, you know, in the end, he is certainly does. doesn't really, he doesn't really like it.

So basically what you're hearing is that Donald Trump understands that Melania, his wife, is mooching off him with this movie. Yes. And as everyone in the family, so it's not really to single out her, literally everybody in the family is, is profiting off of him, which is really the way he sees this. You have, whatever you have comes to you because of me. Well, it's very clear that she wants us to understand she is a separate being, that she is not tied to him. She keeps talking about the immigrant dream.

Everybody that she appears to work with is an immigrant. All her designers, apart from David Mon, the event planner, everybody else in it is, I think, an immigrant. and one or two of them talk about their journey. One of the stylist talks about how she came from Laos at the age of two and now working for the First Lady. She is an example of the American dream. So there's a lot of that. There's the enforced cooperation of Brigitte Macron and Queen Rainier.

And there's a hilarious scene where they're basically being competitive about who's doing the most work for children. And at one point, Queen Rainier comes to Mara Lago and Melania sits with her and she says, I have been fostering future with my be best. And I have, when I was not in the White House, I created foundation. And Queen Rainier goes, yeah, yeah, I've got a foundation. I created a foundation. It's like impeacing foundations.

And then Brigitte Macron is sort of seen on Zoom. speaking in French, and then we know that Melania is supposed to speak. I think more languages than her husband has stopped wars, actually. Anyway, she jots down a note in English as Brigitte Macron is speaking in French, which I think is to indicate to us, the audience, that she really does speak another language. But we never see her speaking French, and Brigitte just chats in generalities. But what's also interesting about it is that Melania never actually. speaks to us the viewer. We see endless photos of her posing and looking inscrutable with that slightly

kind of her eyes slightly, you know, squinting. And then there is a voiceover which she reads, which has clearly largely been written by AI. There are no specificities in it. And she says things like, I work with global initiatives. I've helped foster future. But there's nothing in it. So the whole thing is really like watching a 1980s music video with Melania as the star, very much addicted to love Robert Palmer vibe. And I am astonished that the, and I would love to know how this works, that the bands gave permission for the music to be used. And I don't know if they didn't know what it was being used for. I don't know if Brett Ratner, how he licensed the songs, but I'm very surprised that

tears for fears allowed it to go ahead and very surprised that it's band out ballet, any of these people whose songs were involved, allowed it to go ahead. Well, there's a question for you. Yeah. And there's also... I have another larger question, though. How does this play with the Maga bass? Well, I don't think the Maga Base are going to see documentaries.

As it happened, I ran into a friend. Yeah, yeah, but they have to. do this. I mean, they're going to have to deal with the issue of, you know, this is, this is, and I actually spoke to somebody who saw the, who saw the film in Manhattan and it was filled with MAGA people. Now, that's anecdotal, of course. But nevertheless, you know, there is this thing. There is the president's wife is just a, has made a glamour video. How does that play with a populist crowd? Well, I ran into a friend at the cinema.

The cinema was largely empty, the one I went to, a 4-15 showing. You possibly mean a movie theater. A movie theater, sorry, a movie theater. And I ran into a friend who'd grown up in Alabama, whose family are all MAGA. And I said, well, what are your family going to think of this? Are they going to see it? And she said, my family aren't going to go and see a documentary. They barely know what a documentary is.

they would never go and see something. Well, apparently no one is going to see this document. Well, that's true. But then at the end of it, I sat with a friend I'd gone with and we were sitting talking and two women came up to us. And in very, they were Russian and they said, you enjoy a movie. And I said, yeah, very much enjoyed it. Because I did quite enjoy it. I mean, with understanding what it is, I enjoyed it.

It's very watchable. And they went, very good movie. Very good movie. And when they left, my friend was like, oh my God, they're Russian agents. They're Russian agents. But I think they were just two women who'd come to see someone from Eastern Europe, who's lived the crazy immigrant dream to, I mean, what an extraordinary story. And of course, none of that story is actually told in the movie.

It's literally about the 20 days where she has to decide some outfits and approve David Mon's already tasteful plan for the inauguration dinner. So you don't see anything that's actually interesting. And you see one moment where they're getting ready for Jimmy Carter's funeral. Jimmy Carter's funeral is the same day as her mother died. So it's a year's anniversary. And so there's a scene where she goes to St. Patrick's Cathedral to light a candle. And what's fascinating there is the excitement among all the clergy who's sort of flocking around her.

Let me clarify this because there's something I didn't know that Melania is a wrong. Catholic? Yeah, yeah. Or at least her mother was a Roman Catholic, but she goes to light a candle as and Patrick's Cathedral, the Roman Catholic Cathedral in New York. And, of course, celibate priests, one of whom is quite hot, come bustling up to her

and immediately offer her a blessing. And they're like, can I give you a blessing, Malania? And she's like, oh, yes, please. And then they can't do all this stuff. And none of it looks remotely authentic. she's just looking like she's playing the role. The whole thing is just modelling, but it's like a very good extended Robert Palmer video.

Okay, I don't know what to make of this. And they definitely live separately. Oh, and there were a couple of other things that I noted. A couple of shots of Barron. There's a wonderful conversation that she has with Donald where she's flown in from Mar-a-Lago to meet him in D.C. for the Carter's, Jimmy Carter's funeral. And they're talking.

Donald Trump says, oh my God, you look like a movie. You look like a movie star, you look like a movie star, which she does, coming down the stairs with a big glasses on which she wears all the time. And then she says, have you spoken to Baran? And he goes, we have conversations, we have cute conversations, cute conversations. You're I talk to him. And then she goes, I love him. He's an incredible mind.

And then it's as if they didn't even know that the other one was in touch with their joint son. So that was a sort of interesting inkling. And then there's a moment where they're talking about whether or not they're going to bring the inauguration indoors, which of course they end up doing, partly because he wants to avoid the anxiety around crowd sizes and partly because it's very cold. And I was in D.C. that day and I can confirm it was very cold. But she is anxious about whether or not they're going to get out of the car. And the secret service say, you're going to be absolutely fine. don't worry. And she says, well, it's going to be clear where we're getting out of the car.

Are you sure, given what's happened over the previous year, i.e. the assassination attempt. You know, I'm anxious about this. And then she goes, and Baron won't get out of the car. I know that Baron will not get out of the car and be seen in public. So that was a sort of interesting moment too. Anyway, if when it comes on Amazon, I think it's worth a watch into the synthetic relationship that becomes clear they have. So, and what's the takeaway from that? Do people understand that?

I mean, we're still, remember, the perception, certainly the MAGA perception is that Donald Trump is, is, has a very happy marriage to a very glamorous and attractive woman. I think what, what you come away with is she's a team player when she needs to be. she's obviously mooching of him with the opportunity to do this movie. There's a wonderful moment where actually the camera lingers on the inauguration. If you remember the Democrats, the previous presidents come in. Obama comes in on his own. The Bushes are there.

The Clintons are there. Joe Biden's there. Carmala and Doug Emhoffer there. And there's a moment which actually I haven't seen before where Joe Biden and Kamala are standing next to each other. And there is an iceberg between them. It's worth seeing it just for that footage that they look absolutely furious with each other. And then you also see there's a moment where Joe Biden greets Donald Trump. And you can almost see his vindication in the greeting. See, I told you, if I didn't run, you'd get Donald Trump and here he is.

And you can actually see it playing out when he greets Trump. There's a moment of vindication there. And there is in the movie, let me assume, no mention of Melania's relationship with Gislane Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. Surprisingly, no mention of Jeffrey Epstein, no mention of Gillen Maxwell. And I think on that note, perhaps I should just read the note that came out from the Epstein files yesterday. as we know, the same day that Melania released a movie about herself, the Justice Department released three million emails and pieces of paper or whatever files, about the Epstein files. I still find the timing.

I still think that timing is passive-aggressive against Melania's movie. Well, you know, if the people I have been speaking to in the White House are correct about this in their estimation of Donald Trump's feelings about the mooches in his family. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it makes sense for him to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, release it today. Yeah, I can't help thinking that.

So on the one hand, here she is modeling what she's pretending to be. And he knows that she's not the first lady in the sense, the traditional sense of the first lady, right? Because he lives with it. His lived experience is Melania is not in the White House, so he knows that. So I think this is his way of passively, aggressively, trying to squash her thing. And it reminds me of that quote from Gour Vidal. You know, it's not

enough to fly first class. Others must fly coach. And there is a sense of that with Donald Trump, that it's not enough for him to have everything. Others must have less. Yeah, no, that whole idea of everyone in his family profiting off of him, which by the way they are. Right. Totally. She would never get this movie made otherwise. And so is Brett Ratner. And Brett Ratner makes little cameos in the movie too, which is obviously his way of trying to get back. I wanted to add one other line, because what struck me about the release of the Epstein files and all the redactions in it, is that Melania's dress, which was designed by Irvay Pierre, for the inauguration balls, is as if parts of her body have been redacted. So you may remember it's a white tube of a dress.

but it's got black sort of zigzags across the front. And they literally go across her breasts down and then sort of across the lower part of her body. And it's as if those parts of her body have been redacted. And I think they have been redacted from Donald Trump. It's like the dress is signaling, I have been redacted from you. I have redacted myself from you. and a word from our sponsors.

And we're back inside Trump's head. For those of you trawling like us through the Epstein files, you might have missed this one, which is a note from Melania to Gilles, written on the 23rd of October 2002. Dear G, how are you? Nice story about GE in NYMAG. You look great on the picture.

I know you are very busy flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down. Give me a call when you are back in NYU. Have a great time! Exclamation point. Love, Melania. And just let's point out again that the background to my little spat with Melania is her threatening to sue me for a billion dollars

because I linked her to specifically Jeffrey Epstein's social circle. So I guess we can all just go home and case closed and proved. Case closed and proved. All right. So what else is there in the Epstein files? We should read that other very telling email. I think we don't know who sent it. Somebody sent it to Jeffrey Epstein and describing Donald Trump and Melania

on the first weekend they spent together. Do we have that email? I do. Funnily enough, I do have that email. I've prepared it earlier. So we have no idea who this is from. It's sent on Wednesday, November the 9th, 2016, so the day after the election.

And it became clear very quickly, as you will remember, that Trump was going to win and Hillary was going to lose. And it's sent Jeffrey Epstein. we don't know who it's from and it goes, I simply cannot believe this victory. No one called it. We all thought she would win. You must be happy, though.

I don't know why he would be happy that Donald Trump, that Donald Trump has won. Well, the only thing that I might surmise is that Jeffrey Epstein was one of the few people who consistently predicted that Donald Trump would win. And everybody else said, oh, you're crazy. This is ridiculous.

This was, he was kind of making little bets with people. Oh, okay. All right. And then it's, so the person writing, and I'm assuming it's a man, says, you must be happy, though. I remember flying back with Donald on his plane. The first weekend I went to visit you in Florida was the weekend he met Melania, and he kept on coming out of the bedroom saying,

wow, what a hot piece of ass. Nuts. Anyway, hope you're enjoying Saudi. Any idea who wrote that? I have no idea. But Saudi, this was the period in which Epstein was spending a lot of time in Riyadh as an advisor to MBS. Okay, interesting. Well, what else have we learned from the release of the Epstein file so far?

I mean, there's three million of them. Impossible to search through them this quickly. But what's your impression of the dump so far? I think one of the things that we've learned is all of these people, obviously, including Donald Trump, who have tried to indicate in every way that if they knew Epstein, they barely knew him. They passed them on the street once, that kind of thing. But it turns out that all of them, all of these people who we have heard from, who have denied having any kind of significant relationship with,

with Epstein from from from from Bill Gates to Elon Musk to Howard Lutnik had extensive relationships. They were good friends is what we're learning. They they they sought to spend time with each other. They were there's there's enormous numbers of emails about scheduling. How can we get together? How can we? I can meet you fly in. Everybody has private planes. So that's the other thing that we're seeing, the life of the life of the private plane set. But again, it's these people spent time with Jeffrey Epstein because they wanted to spend time with Jeffrey. And they appeared to enjoy the time they spent with Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, there's a fascinating one by Howard Lucknick.

Now, you will remember that Howard Lucknick lived next door to Jeffrey Epstein and said that he'd only ever once really talk to him. He'd gone to his house. Jeffrey Epstein had showed him at her massage bed, and Lutnik and his wife had been sort of repulsed by this and decided not to ever go back again. And in fact, it turns out that there's a letter that's in the journal this morning. This is according to Lutnik that they saw this. They were repulsed. They would say, oh, yes, this is beyond the pale. Exactly. But in fact, lo and behold, there's a letter sent on December the 19th, 2012, so four years after Epstein's being held in jail with his sort of strange, that strange deal he did with Alex Acosta in Florida. And it goes, hi, Jeff, we're landing in St.

Thomas early Saturday afternoon and planning to head over to St. Bart's Anguia on Monday at some point. Where are you located? What is the exact location for my captain? Does Sunday evening for dinner sound good? I have a. another couple, Michael and Marcy Lerman with me on my boat, and each of us has four children. Two-16s, two-14s, a 13, a 12, and 11, and a 7-year-old. Thanks, Howard. So incredible that he happens to be taking. So the whole family is going to.

Yes. Well, not just his family, but the Lermans. And he's taking four teenagers. I don't know what gender they are that might be. of particular interest to Jeffrey Epstein. So Mr. Lutnik must have conveniently forgotten that six years ago he was hustling to get to Jeffries for lunch. These things are intriguing.

These things are intriguing, as is Elon Musk trying to get there to spend Christmas or New Year's there? Yeah, no, I mean, again, I mean, what we see here is this port. portrait of this circle of very good friends, very good billionaire friends. I mean, that is the circle. You're not really in the circle unless you can get there by private plane. Well, you talk about the plane, but the other thing that people got excited about was the fact the guy owns an island, right?

Because there are many people that have planes. There aren't that many people that own an island. The other point about this is that there is so much here. This is obviously an example of flooding the zone. So there is too much for any one person to focus on. And there's a lot here. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that it's like, whoa. And weirdly, they included and then removed a schedule of tips.

that came into the FBI hotline. And there seems like there are scores of them with people identifying exactly the situation in which Trump raped them or raped somebody they knew. I mean, it's kind of like, I mean, I mean, it's obviously tapped into a whole world in which people have projected their fantasies onto this story. I mean, this could not possibly be true unless it is.

Is fantasy the right? Unless it is, of course, true. I'm not sure that I'm not, I've seen some of those and I'm not sure the fantasies is the world I would use. I mean, I'm sure there are some kind of political opponents who have been set up to trying to frame him. That's different to a fantasy, I think. Well, if that, I read it different. I mean, there, There's enough there that you can't tell what the motivations are, but a lot of it reads to me as literally as paranoid fantasies of people actually believing this idea that there is a circle of evil in which is occupied by these powerful men who are pulling strings and and who are raping and murdering, by the way. Trump, in many of these things, Trump has murdered several people, burying them in in peculiar places. I mean, it's, it is a, it's certainly a down the rabbit hole picture of,

of down the rabbit hole interpretation of the Jeffrey Epstein story, which is already down the rabbit hole. Right. I mean, how much further can, we go, we're going to come out in Australia. Yes, we've found the way to go further now. But there is, it's like the ultimate, you see that the FBI must have rolled their eyes a lot of this stuff coming in because it's the most Q and on of Q and on conspiracies. But actually, the friend I ran into in Alabama was saying yesterday that a lot of her MAGA school friends believe all this because they grew up thinking that they might be raptured every time they want to the mall.

So if you grew up, if you grew up thinking that, that, you know, you're going to the mall, it's a Saturday, but it could be the end of the world and you will be part of the rapture, actually believing that there is a conspiracy of men murdering children is not that big a leap. In fact, it's not a leap at all. Well, it's a leap of sanity, frankly. I don't know. There are a lot of insane people, but we don't elevate them to reasonableness. So I would challenge this.

Yes, people are crazy and they believe totally ridiculous things. But we don't have to accept those as a, a possible version of reality. No, no, I mean, you look at some of this and you think the FBI must have seen this complaint come in and just roll their eyes and thought, oh, nut job. This is total nut job. No. Now, the interesting thing, though, is why they would have included that in this release of data

and then actually taking it back. So, I mean, I can only read this by saying, think that they said, okay, let's just throw it. You know, they want everything. let's include everything. And this is just going to confuse things even more. But then somebody from the White House called up and said, what are you doing?

They're saying that Donald Trump murdered people and buried the bodies. So are you crazy? Who's paying attention to this stuff? But also, I'm always mindful that you say, everybody in the White House hates everybody else. And of course, people hate Donald Trump, even when they're working for him and sucking up to him. So I'm sure a lot of them want this stuff out there in the same way that they want to release the files to spoil his wife's movie. Yeah, I think it's more complicated than that. Remember, if they don't want to lose their jobs and they don't want a, the last thing that everybody wants is a story.

alarming, raging Donald Trump. That is truly unpleasant. Once more, a commercial break. And Michael Wolfen I are back inside Trump's head. I must say the Daily Beast did a fantastic story this week of Christy Noem in one of the cabinet meetings. He called out absolutely everybody else apart from Christy Noem. And she's just sitting there giving the side eye to another cabinet minister as she's talking. And it's just, you just see her being increasingly isolated. There are three things, three things that are going on at this moment in Trump world, which is Melani of the film, Melania of the movie, the release of the Epstein files, and Minneapolis, which they cannot escape. I mean, Minneapolis has become, well, it has become like the Epstein files, the thing that might well pull down this administration. And they don't know how to cope with it. I mean, clearly.

And there's a set of mixed signals. You know, Trump is saying Trump was suddenly pulling back from this and we're going to have an investigation and we're going to do this. But then yesterday he seemed to double down domestic terrorists, the same thing. Now, I mean, one of the interesting things is. What is there any kind of method here? And I think part of the method is the standard Trump, the standard Trump book, which is, is we go, we go in, we go in heavy. We get a lot of pushback and we retreat from that. But even the place that we retreat is so much.

much beyond where Americans would have expected anyone to be. I mean, essentially we have created a formula for martial law. Michael, you made a good point to me this week. You said that Trump White House governs on the basis of what it can get away with, which I thought was a really good line to explain their policies and their ambitions. They go as far as the possibly can. And then as you say, And if they get away with it, then they push further on. And then they get to the point where it is too much and then they scale it back, but they were, but they are yet beyond where they otherwise would have been. I mean, so we've basically normalized the situation in which we put federally controlled troops into American cities,

blue cities, by the way, and with authorities to supersede the, the local police and local politicians. Yeah, and I read one fact today which said that the local police in Minneapolis, there are 600 of them and there are 3,000 ICE agents there at the moment. The local police force there have already spent their overtime budget that was put aside for the entire year in January alone trying to monitor situations. and now people are calling them and saying, oh, there's a car in the road. I don't know where it's from.

I'm worried ice agents are going to come and get me. It's just a terrible situation. And let's call this what it is. I mean, the Trump administration calls this immigration enforcement. But this is martial law. I mean, this is what martial law looks like in every way, shape, and form. Right. Masked man, unaccountable, pepper-spraying people,

shooting people in cold blood and the local police force and the local. Yeah, and even on a structural basis, the idea that a federal, a federal police force, which is what this is, an internal federal police force takes over your city. You don't, the city no longer has the ability to police itself. No longer has the right, apparently. Meanwhile, three weeks ago, we had Venezuela. Last week we had Greenland. Again, this sense of the news cycle moving so fast that nothing matters anymore, nothing sticks. Don Lemon arrested. Now he's out. They're charging him. And the process of that is the punishment, I think. I mean, nobody thinks that Don Lemon is seriously going to be found guilty and end up going to jail. But this is just harassed. process of it. Yeah, it's harassment. It's annoying to have to deal with. He's going to have to pay a lawyer. It's distraction. Yeah. No, and again, that's like in my situation of them threatening to sue me for a billion dollars. I mean, what is that other than harassment? Now, of course, I can turn around and give them. And I have turned around and I am making life more difficult for them, thank God. Meanwhile, the world is viewing America more and more as a pariah state. I mean, you're Or Kirstama, the Prime Minister of Britain, went to China to have his first conversations with the Chinese for, I think, eight years, seven years.

Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, now organizing his own trade deals with China. So people are just going to circumvent America. This is such a home goal. Yeah, no, no. And at great cost, I mean, the dollar is the sanctity of the dollar slips or becomes weaker every day. the costs of borrowing go up, where we are creating this idea. And this is kind of an old idea,

1920's idea, an idea completely discredited on so many levels that a nation can live alone. And that means that there's a whole kind of range of things that Donald Trump is, you know, international bodies, global understandings, the idea of any kind of global cooperation is anathema to him. That is what he is trying to break. He doesn't believe in this. He's not comfortable with this. He thinks it's somehow at our expense, rather than, as every other indicator would. would show not only not at our expense, but has been a foundation of our success.

Well, to go full circle, not only does he think Melania and his family are mooching off him, but the world is mooching off America. So we've pulled out of the World Health Organization, we've pulled out of the Paris Climate Treaty because he doesn't believe in goodwill and he doesn't believe in, you know, clearly he doesn't believe in a changing climate and he doesn't believe. leave in in cooperation on health issues? No, there was a story possibly in the Times or the Washington Post that in the financial community, the byword now is sell America.

So essentially, if you can find an investment that sells short on the American future, take it. Well, we're not selling short on the American future, Michael. I'm never going to sell short in America. I'm a huge believer in America. That's why I moved here. So you think America, you think that invests, your bullish on American investment strategy is the right one.

I think we're going through blip right now. And I think that great things will happen after the midterms. But in the great things will happen after the midterms, really. Well, I refuse to believe that Donald Trump is going to destroy America. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the midterm question is, I mean, it's a question that we should be focused on, obviously, because this is the midterm year.

But then the further question is even if the midterms, go in the Democrats' direction, what does that mean for, does that denude Donald Trump? Does that neutralize Donald Trump? Or does that set up a greater conflict for Donald Trump to prosper off of? Well, I do think it will, well, let's hope, but assuming the Democrats win back the House of Representatives, I'm assuming that Congress, will become more robust. Congress has basically been absent without leave for the last year. And I am very encouraged by the new generation of political leaders in the Democratic Party that I have been interviewing for The Daily Beast. I'm really energized by them. Graham Platner in Maine, if he manages to scrape through, will I think take down Susan Collins?

You are more, you are much more optimistic than I see. certainly am about these Democrats or any Democrats, but more power to you. Well, I think we just have to, we have to deal with what we have. And I do think there is a new, very energized generation of young leader that is looking for power and looking to use it and is not going to be schumering away. We haven't even talked about the potential shutdown. There is a weekend's shutdown just by because of overlapping schedules. But the Democrats, again, have sold out this position. I mean, in which they have basically said,

so let's be very specific about this. We will remove the issue from the overall funding, which was the thing that gave us leverage. We will, so the issue of funding Homeland Security will stand on its own, and we haven't resolved it. All we have agreed to do and all the White House has agreed to do is negotiate about Homeland Security funding on a separate basis. They haven't agreed to anything. And so fundamentally what's happening is the Democrats are saying,

we're going to trust you on this. Well, that's a mistake. Don't they have two weeks to discuss it? They have two weeks to discuss it, yes, to negotiate. And what happens at the end of those two weeks? I mean, remember, the leverage was the government, funding the government. They no longer have that leverage. They've given that up. All right, Michael. So I'm not sure there is an easy out of today's conversation, but Garfried, our in-house laureate, a Limerick laureate, has come up with a couple of rather good ones, which I thought I would read us out on.

There once was a White House in shambles run daily by AIDS in a scramble. Morons, they'd say, while dodging the blame, just trying to keep Trump pre-handled. As Melania cashed in her fame, with 40 million riding her name, the movie, went bust, the ethics went dust, and DHS played soldierly games. What more can you say? Garfried, thank you. And we'll be back on Tuesday for more inside Trump's head. Yvette Johnson, me thanks, Betsy O'Farrell, Mills and Linz, Chelby, Max Cupid, David Shari, Thomas Moore, Maria Voltaine, D. Kujer Watts, Sien Lund,

Sine Lund, okay, John H. Overracker, Deb K. Ostronder, Sandra Clark, travels with Carl, Andrew Beaver, Cappanator, Harry Clark, Dawn McCarthy, Daniel Dogglover, M. Griner, D. Stone, Fulvia Orlando, Herbie, Andrew Mellor, Tatnell, Val Love Francesco, Will Hutchinson, Andrea Hodel, Bocock, D.C., Sharon Shipley, Connie Rutherford, Karen White, and Heidi Riley. Thank you all. Do you want to thank our team? Devin, Ryan, Rachel, Heather, Neal. Want more great listens?

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