The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Melania Trump Is Hiding From Me: Wolff

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles with a story Trump World would rather bury: his legal pursuit of Melania Trump after she threatened a $1 billion libel suit over his reporting on her ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Wolff details the surreal effort to serve the First Lady—lawyers refusing papers, process servers turned away, Trump Tower staff claiming she lives there while she avoids being found—and explains why he sued first under New York’s anti-intimidation law. The legal farce opens onto something larger: a family operating in secrecy and fear, a president trying to “serve” his wife even as control slips, and a White House where avoidance has become strategy. As Trump’s foreign policy grows more erratic and Europe edges toward war, the question lingers: is Melania’s disappearance just legal gamesmanship—or another sign of a presidency retreating from accountability? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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per month in Shopify. coms bar records. Melania Trump is hiding from me. No, she's avoiding you. Yes, yes, yes. And how do you know that?

You begin with the fact that no one, it's quite unclear how to sue the First Lady of the United States. There's not a lot of models for this. And then, obviously, it's quite unclear how you serve a subpoena on someone who has one of the most elaborate security details in the world. Michael. I know. I wish people could have seen you come into the office this. morning dressed as Nanook of the North? Well, you know, it was very, very cold when I left at before, never the last. Nevertheless. You looked like someone from Alaska. I mean, you could

raise your leg to show people your snow boots, which I couldn't stop laughing at, and you had a hat on, and then you had a kind of bare skin of a coat. Yeah, no, no, it's, it's, I'm ready. I'm, I'm addressed for all possibilities, all occasions. Just tell me I got the wardrobe for it. Okay, well, there's a lot of occasions coming at us today because we've got the Melania premiere and we need to know the update of what's happening with you in Melania.

We've got the Epstein files this week, which we need to talk about. We've got Mark Bennett pleading with Donald Trump not to drop his address in the middle of the Survivor finale. In other words, because we've got... have the president's address, which is key that comes before the drop of the Epstein files. Right. And the kick, so distraction, distraction, distraction, distraction, the kickoff of the midterms, essentially. We've got two engagements to celebrate. And we've got potential war in

Europe. So we have a lot to get through. And we have a cratering economy. Cratering economy. And everything feels expensive. You have a daughter. How many doles are you buying her? Between 2 and 30, where are you? Well, alas, my daughter is 10. So that you enter a new phase in which it's not good enough to buy dolls anymore. You have to buy technology. Oh, you have to buy technology. I was thinking at 10, you would be peak doll.

No, I think peak doll was like 8. And now it's we're into, we're moving into preteen. Oh, my gosh, she's going to need a phone. And then she's going to find out what you do for a living. She's going to be searching for you. Ah, yeah. Alas, that already happens. Scary stuff.

She has a watch. Oh, she has an Apple watch? Yes, because that's in lieu of a phone. Wow. At 10. You would not be allowed to be apparent in Australia. Does... They've banned social media for anyone under the age of 16.

No, I know, but does that include an Apple watch? You know, there are so many backdoors to this thing. Good luck, all sees. Okay. We're already off track. Let us focus on the trailer has dropped for Melania's video. And it is quite extraordinary. Well, extraordinary is exactly what we would have expected.

Well, go on. It's Melania. It's Melania as Melania. She is the personality. She is the wondrous life of Melania and keen wit. And keen wit. Yes. Well, the wittiest thing she says is when Donald calls her and says, did he see it?

Did he see it? Because, hello, Mr. President. No, I will watch on news. Yes. So, so, which immediately, does she call him, Mr. President? I think she does when she's winding him up. Well, he probably likes that, right? Or more to the point with Brett Ratner behind the camera there.

This is entirely a setup. Oh, okay. Let's do this. Let's do a little routine here. I mean, she is, remember, an actress. I mean, not a successful one, but she was a model. Well, she was a model with a hope and dream of becoming an actress. And she has played several completely irrelevant parts.

And now she's playing the part of First Lady. Yes. But it was. Sometimes. Sometimes. Absentee first lady. but this movie is making it as if she's actually our first lady. And I suspect it will make us,

it will make her out to be the biggest first lady who has ever been the first lady. The biggest first lady. So big, so big, huge first lady. I'm not, I'm not very good at doing Donald Trump, but I couldn't resist that. And very passive aggressive to say when he says, did you see it?

She goes, no, I will watch on television. No, I think this is going to be very much about her separate from him. Right. Well, and we know she's got $40 million. So that's good to start the divorce. $40 million plus 70% of the back end, plus 100% of the $10 million sponsorship hits she's selling. I will say that on YouTube, she had less viewers watching the trailer than we have when we drop a new episode. I'm very mindful of the numbers, and I was surprised that it was as low as it was given how much. When did it drop? Do you know?

Yeah, it dropped this morning. We're recording this on a Wednesday. It dropped this morning. Okay, we'll keep track of that. And she had 4,000 views in the first hour. The other thing that should be an interesting note from this trailer is that this opens in theaters. I mean, this is, remember, this is an Amazon project. So it's a streamers project.

But unlike most streaming projects, it's not opening on the streaming platform. It's opening in theaters worldwide. Worldwide. I wonder how many theaters, and obviously we're going to organize a trip from the office, but the minute it drops on Amazon, we have to have a watch party. In fact, we should probably go and see it together the minute it opens and give as quick a review as we possibly can. I think we should interview people on the movie line. That's a good idea.

You think it will be around the block several times? Oh, for sure, for sure. Yeah, especially in New York. We're going to meet her biggest fans. Her biggest fans. It's almost hard to imagine her fans in Manhattan. Maybe the ladies who lunch. The ladies who, I think there are a lot of Melania's friends here because we know that she's.

Well, yes, those are the people who would. who would be lining up, because I don't think that there's other First Lady fans who don't know her. But maybe, I'm wrong. Well, we're going to get to know her much better, obviously, in this movie. And Brett Ratner, who's out from beneath the crushing me-toism of his 2017 days. Brett Ratner, back in business. Back in business. And Paramount, we can wind this in.

So Paramount, which is... Oh, my God, what if they've had to commission fast and furious? Are those his movies? He's always a rush hour. Rush hour. It's rush hour. What if they've had to commission rush hour for unnecessarily? Because their bidders fallen apart for Warner Brothers, or at least Warner Brothers has rejected it.

Yeah, no, no. They have still, this is their plan. They have this, you know, an audience of one, the president of the United States, can essentially give them this deal. And again, so Paramount and Netflix are. are both bidding for Warner Discovery. Right. And Warner's favors Netflix and has approved that deal. Paramount, which is owned by Larry Ellison.

It's run by, financed by Larry Ellison, the second richest man in the world or some such, and run by his son, David. And they have made a hostile bid for Warner. So they go directly to the shareholders and say, our bid is better than the Netflix bid, vote for us. And part of the rationale is the Netflix bid is never going to get through because Trump and the FCC are going to block it. But they will approve our deal because they like us better because we are supporters of the president. And on top of that, we have given Brett Ratner the first lady's filmographer.

What should we call him? I mean, he's a director. But even so, it seems like he is in her service. So it's interesting. I haven't put this together before. But the first richest man in the world, Elon Musk, obviously, Rand Doge. second richest man in the world at the moment, who I think is Larry Ellison, is scrambling to get TikTok and Paramount. Third richest man in the world, I think at the moment, is Jeff Bezos doing the Melania documentary.

Yeah, no, no. And we should do a whole, we should do a separate thing, Trump and the billionaires. Yep. I mean, very key. I mean, it is certainly a underlying theme, and it may be an overriding theme of the Trump administration. It is an administration for billionaires. And serviced by billionaires. Yes, including Donald Trump, who if he wasn't a billionaire before,

there was always doubt about that, certainly has become one now since he has come into the White House for his second time around. Okay, so Melania, Melania, Melania, tell us where you are with your page. So I am as viewers of this podcast. perhaps no, suing Melania. I am suing her because she threatened to sue me for a billion dollars because I talked about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which is the last thing she wants to have talked about, especially because this documentary project is coming up, which she has so much money at stake here. And I dare say we are not in this

documentary going to hear the name Jeffrey Epstein. But let me evoke the name Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. And so when she sued, when she threatened to sue me for discussing her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the three of them together. Before she could file that. suit, I suit her because in New York State it is illegal to use libel laws to intimidate someone. In other words, to file a suit which you have no chance of winning or threaten a suit, which you have no chance even of filing just to get someone to shut up. So we have filed a suit. We filed that suit on October 22nd. So when you sue someone, you have to serve them. You have to officially notify them that they are being sued. And it's a very formal process. And if you get your service wrong, your suit can be thrown out on that basis. So, which is why often people who know they're going to be sued hide from the process servers.

So this is, someone actually physically turns up and gives you an envelope. Yes, you have to. I mean, yes, I've had that happen to me. I mean, there's a very, very clear procedures for this of how you have to do it. Who does it? I mean, it's kind of ritualistic, but at the same time, it's they hold you to it. You got to do this. It would appear that Melania Trump is hiding for.

from me. No, she's avoiding you. Yes, yes, yes. And how do you know that? How do you try to serve? Yes. So we have, you know, the first, I mean, first thing you begin with the fact that no one is quite unclear how to sue the first lady of the United States. Well, it's the first time it happened. Yes, there's not a lot of models for this. And then obviously it's quite unclear how you serve a subpoena on someone who has one of the most elaborate security details in the world. Right. Okay. Two impediments here. But you would think that there would be a kind of, okay, this is going to happen and eventually will happen or you go to court and explain what you've done to the court. And then the court says, yeah, you've made every effort here. So let's consider this. And you can't serve her lawyer. You can't. Well, no, you can. You should be able to. In fact, in that original threat letter from her lawyer, a man by the name. name of Alejandra Brico. Brito. Brito.

Brito. Yes, in Coral Gables, Florida, said, you know, please direct all your communications to Melania Trump through this office, through me. So, okay, great. So we went to his office to serve him. And he said, no, I'm not accepting service. And that's interesting. In other words, you don't know, it may well have been that he's just been handling,

and he's handling the other Trump libel suits against the BBC, against the New York Times, Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal. So it may be that he just got the libel portfolio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You deal with all this stuff. And then suddenly and unexpectedly, he finds him, he finds that what he's done has caused the First Lady now to be sued, which let's imagine she's not too happy about.

And remember, because... I'm not happy about being sued. Because having been sued, we can now subpoena her to come in and testify about what she knows about Jeffrey Epstein. Be best sued. Yes. Be best sued. So it may be that he's in trouble about this.

So anyway, so he said, no, I'm not accepting service. So therefore... Can you send it to the White House? Can you serve the White House? Well, then, I mean, the White House is probably the hardest place to serve. And those, that guard post on Pennsylvania Avenue, I mean, actually, I know those guys. They're always very nice guys, but I'm sure that they're like, I don't know. But she doesn't live there.

She doesn't live at the White House. So therefore, therefore, we took the next law. step, which is to serve her at Trump Tower in New York. So we got the server company, the subpoena guys. You know, we said, you know, we need you to serve papers on someone in Trump Tower. And they were like, okay, yeah, no problem. I suspect that a lot of people in Trump Tower get served subpoenas. It's a whole building of dubious characters.

So anyway, they took the service and then after they accepted this, began. And somewhere sort of as though midway in this, we got a call and they were saying, hey, you're trying to serve the first lady. We're not doing that. Who called you? The subpoena guy, the subpoena people. So, you know, they're like, no way, no way are we serving the First Lady of the United States. And you get a sense, I mean, I mean, that sense that this is totally unfamiliar territory. So then we got another service, service company who, and this was just yesterday.

They went to Trump Tower and two interesting things. They were, the guys at Trump Tower said, we're just going to throw that in the garbage. We're not taking that. But to the question of whether or not Melania Trump resides here, they said yes. So she has, so we now have specific testimony by people who would be, would certainly know that Melania Trump lives at Trump Tower. She does not live in the White House, although she's been spending, seems to have been spending somewhat more time in the White House recently. And maybe that's actually to hide from me. So Melania Trump is hiding from you.

And in fact, it turns out she lives after all in Trump Tower. Indeed. So at any rate, she's... But it still leaves you with papers to serve. No, still. So we will, and I believe this is happening on Friday. we go into court and explain what we've done. And then the court, and this is pro forma.

I mean, you're just filing, you're essentially just filing papers. I mean, the court is going to say, yes, you have, you have. What made all the possible efforts that you can. So why they, so, yes, so why they would be hiding, why they would be putting up this, this effort is unclear. But anyway, she will be served by the end of the. this week. But isn't this what Trump always does? Always. Delay. Always. Yes. Yes. Just the Trump. So she'll be served on the day. You'll go to court on the day the Epstein files are in theory

released, whatever they contain. Yes. This is very exciting. So two days after her trailer drops, she'll be the first lady to be sued officially in court or the next stage of the case will go ahead. Yes. And she will have to testify. and she will have to answer questions about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And perhaps we will do that, schedule that for the day the documentary opens. The day the music died. Oh, Melania. Melania.

Melania. Melania. Well, well, well. Oh, my goodness. O to be the first lady. But let me just say, said that I have an account of this, and I must say an amusing account. Oh, you mean you're writing it, isn't you? Is this going to be your next book?

No, this is just a dispatch, a Melania dispatch on my substack page. Delicious, delicious. All right, so Donald Trump is addressing the nation this evening, and Mark Burnett, his old producer from The Apprentice, has called called the White House. This is because this evening is the... It's the finale of Survivor. It's the finale of Survivor, right?

The finale of Survivor. So this is a big... If you're the producer of a television show, and especially if you're Mark Burnett, who gets the lion's share of the revenues from this television show, you're really unhappy, if anything, comes around to disrupt that. How out of touch are you as a president or the team around the president

to not know it's the finale of Survivor? Because also the president's going to want good ratings for this. And that's not going to help. My money's on Survivor. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that he doesn't, I mean, first thing, I'm not sure that that's true. This is going to be, I'm assuming all three networks are going to carry this. So, he's not going to be competing with with survivors. Survivor is either pushed off the air at that moment in time or delayed. I mean, I don't know how they, how they. Or interrupted it.

Yes. Right. But he has all three networks. This is as though the old days. Well, four if you count Fox News. Yeah. Well, that's not a. Oh, it's cable.

Yes. I'm sure it would be carried by MSNBC and see, you know, it's all. Nevertheless, it's wall to wall. You're going to get the President of the United States because he's called up the television world and said, here I come. Now, that's interesting in itself because given all of the competition in the television world over the last quite some time now, and certainly the last the Biden presidency and the Obama presidency, when they called. up the networks, the networks have said, maybe not. And this didn't used to be true in the old days when the president called everybody preempted, yes. But now with cable and what that, why do we

have to do this? So it's interesting that he seems to have gotten that traditional regard. And that may have come about because he threatens all these networks. You know, if you're, You're not his friend. You're his enemy. And he goes after you. So everybody is, everybody's like, okay, sure. Well, and ABC and CBS have already had big settlements with him, $15 million, $16 million. No.

So, and of course, in the old days, you called up the networks because you had something important to say. It might appear now that he has nothing important to say. Of course, we don't know this because it hasn't happened yet. But all indications are that he has commandeered the networks to tell the country what a great job he's done. I was thinking it might be a pronouncement about Venezuela, but according to the hill, it's an up sum of the year and how great the year has gone. and then looking forward to an even greater year for 2026. No, I think that you can, one of the ways you can read this as the launch of the midterm campaign.

I mean, depending upon how you see this year, this year has certainly been a dramatic year. But whether or not you see it as a great year or an utterly failed year is, well, partly what the next election will be about. about. But isn't this also about just the Epstein files are due to arrive on Friday? Yes. Well, that is the other, the other, yes, coincident of this. He's got the Epstein files, which will land on Friday. Nobody knows what the reaction, nobody knows what's in those files. He probably doesn't know really what's in those files. And his chief of staff in that Vanity Fair interview has already corrected his version of what's in these files. So you're referring to Chris Whipple's piece on Susie Wiles?

Yes. Many interviews with Susie Wiles. Right. In which he said, you know, it's, you know, Clinton, it's bad for Clinton. And she says, oh, yeah, it's not, it's not bad for Clinton at all. Right. And she says Clinton never went to the island. Yes, yes. Bill Clinton, Clinton.

Who's also been summoned to speak before the Oversight Committee this week. I mean, actually, he's due to speak tomorrow, or they've requested him to speak tomorrow, but he's been, you know, trying to push that off. Right. Which I'm assuming he'll succeed in. But maybe not. Yeah. All right.

So distraction, distraction, distraction. Epstein, Epstein. And then some happy news. Two engagements, not one, but two. Don Jr. to Bettina Anderson. Well, you know, I kind of miss Kimberly Guilfoyle. Well, she's in Greece now. You can have to go to Athens to see him.

I mean, Kimberly Guilfoyle, to me, is one of the great Trump personalities. Just to remind people, she was Don Jr.'s previous girlfriend. Fiance. Fiance. Okay. Having amazingly been married to Gavin Newsom when he was mayor of San Francisco. How she crossed the aisle, I do not know. Well, she crossed the aisle. She came from, she was a prosecutor in San Francisco.

Right. But she wanted to be on television. And she did a lot of local television. And then she got the call to come to Fox News. And that was what Roger Ailes always liked. He liked two things. women who looked a certain way and who were prosecutors. It's just a weird mix there. Megan Pally was a prosecutor. Yes, weird, weird, weird. But anyway, she came, she went to work for Fox News

and changed her politics utterly. Well, she changed the politics. She changed her face. She changed her hair. I mean, she went full maga. Do you remember when she did that yelling at the RNC, the best is yes to, yes. to come. I do. And then she got a series of higher and higher profile boyfriends. And including, you know,

remember the 11 days, I mean, he's a friend of yours and he's sometimes a friend of mine, the 11 days of Anthony Scaramucci. Well, that was a... She went out with Anthony Scaramucci. Didn't you know this? I didn't know that. I didn't know that. But I do remember me. She was sitting her at a dinner in Connecticut when she was with a guy, a boyfriend. It was post-Gavin Newsom. And I said, oh, hi, what do you do to him?

And she said he's the best Porsche salesman on the whole of the northeast coast. And a word from our sponsors. And Michael Wolf and I are back. Where else inside Trump's head? Now, I attended Roger Ailes' funeral in Palm Beach. memorably caught in your book, The Fall. Yes. And this was in the spring of 2017.

This was when Charlotte Annerty wouldn't let Laura Ingram, was it Laura Ingram? Laura Ingram. Wouldn't let Laura Ingram on his plane because she was so drunk, he was right, and she was going to vomit. Yes, exactly. These are the sort of details we like from you, Michael. Well, I have another detail that Kimberly Guilfoylew was. on this, this flight, and she was in widow's weeds. And as my wife, who was on the flight, observed,

and in widows, weeds without underwear. Commando. What do you mean she was without underwear? Well, command, you know, she was, what can I say? She was basic instinct. Yes, yes, exactly. that Victoria noticed this and not you because otherwise that would be very difficult. No, and actually I have the exact opposite reaction around Kimberly Guilfoyle.

It's really to look away. I mean, there's something so overly. Well, it's such pick-mey energy. It's screaming for attention. It's shrieking for attention. And now she's been dispatched. Anyway, anyway, then she went on to be Don Jr.'s girlfriend. And I'll say, and this is in some, she got in trouble with Don Jr.'s father, the president of the United States.

She's going to be better off in Greece because her hair can go full Medusa. Yeah, no, I think it's a great, it's a good gig to be the ambassador of Greece. There's a lot of Dolmados coming away. That's all I can say. A lot of dolmados. But then, but she did, you know, I mean, this was, you know, she was a complete, they owned the house together in Palm Beach. And then a long-combed Tina. It was, I know, and it was a $10 million house because there was a big blow-up at Mar-a-Lago between Don Jr. and his father about where that $10 million came from. So the new, the new fiancé.

Yeah. Is a woman, a Palm Beach. I think what they always describe as a socialite. Right. When you don't know what anyone does. And you don't know. Well, if they don't, yes, yes. If they do nothing and you don't exactly know where the money comes from,

but there is clearly money, then they are a socialite. Okay, so she's a socialite, Bettina Anderson. Yes. Now, curiously, her father was once in business with Jeffrey Epstein. What kind of business? Monkey business, I suppose. Monkey business. Okay. Interesting. Interesting.

Yeah, no. It's... I mean, this is a world in the end... It's Palm Beach. It's Palm Beach. Probably everybody was in business with Jeffrey Epstein. Perhaps you told me that Donald Trump isn't... Isn't wild about Bettina? So when they had the party where they announced... Someone else told you that.

I don't know that for a fact. Okay, well, I read somewhere, someone told me that he's not wild about her. I'm still in the Kimberly Guilfoyle. Yeah, no, no, I see she's occupying a lot of space inside your head. I'm just thinking of what's happening to Kimberly's hair in Greece. Is it humid in Greece or is it dry heat? It's dry heat.

The islands is a... Yes, I think it's dry heat. It's just a lot of heat. She's just going to have to control that. that main. Anyway, I'm just saying it's a good job to be the ambassador to Greece. Baclava, dolmades, green salad, Shafthalia. It's going to be great. She's going to have a great time. And lots of very attractive young men on the beach. She's going to have a blast. And if I go there, I'm going to go and try and get my passport stamped personally by her. But I digress because

Trump senior is said to not love the idea of Bettina, maybe because he knows her father hung out with Jeffrey Epstein actually. Now I'm making that connection. So she at the party where they announced their engagements, thanked Donald Trump, and then said, these decorations, right? And she was referring to Melania's effort with the Christmas trees. Was she complimenting these? Yes. Yes. Trump is saying, goodness, these decorations, am I right? Yeah.

It's that kind of a... You know, I also think that Trump senior, I mean, he's been through, this will be at least the third. I mean, there was one wife, one fiancé, now another fiancé. Vanessa was the wife, right? He's now going out with Tiger Woods. Really? Yeah, Vanessa Trump is now with Tiger Woods. So upgrade.

There are 300 people. in the world. There were 300 people. But if I were the father and the prospective father-in-law, I would be a little cool until the deal was done. Why? Is that what you were with your daughters? Well, I don't.

You know, in my case, you know, sometimes, you know, these daughters bring home boys. You get attached to them and then they're gone. Right. Right. Have you found that? I have liked all my son's girlfriends. And then when they depart, aren't you? I've liked some more than others, if I'm being truthful, some more than others.

They've all departed. They've been dispatched or they've dispatched my sons. Anyway, I try and be neutral and just jolly enthusiastic about anybody that comes to the house. And remember, Donald Trump is always, always believes that any, everybody and anybody is trying to get something from him. Right. And I would say that that's not an entirely unfair supposition when you consider the women his sons marry.

What about Lara? Lara, Trump, who's married to Eric. Lara is a singer. She wants to be a singer. She's part of the RNC. She wanted to be senator for one of the Carolina. I think that this is, I'm not sure we should, I think we should save this.

Well, we should do a special episode. Yes, we should do a whole episode. A whole episode. A whole episode, okay. On the Trump family. All right, fine. So I'm going to put that aside. We'll come back to Lara and her fledgling singing career.

Because I'd like to play some examples of her songs for our viewers. I think they would enjoy that. Did you see that there was a video going around about the surgery, the MAGA women have had, the before and after? I'm obsessed by that stuff. It was extraordinary. We should show that too. That might be another separate episode.

Yeah, no. I mean, Laura Trump, especially, because it was, you know, a very, you know, quite a striking, a striking woman, a very good looking woman. And now it's, she's like a hideous creature, having been transformed in this mega way. I mean, everything becomes, I mean, I think the biggest transformation is Kimberly Gilfoyle, which we've really. which we've written about in The Beast, where she went from a natural elf in beauty when she was married to Gavin Newsom to being, well, what some cruelly describe as drag queen light.

Yeah, no, no, when we were on this, this Sean Hannity's plane, and my wife, who's kind of outside of all of this, didn't know who she was and thought she was a trans person until she saw the evidence that she was. not. I want to move on to our next celebration, which is the engagement of

Brian Glenn, who he, you may ask. Brian Glenn posted on his social media, she said yes. Who is the she? Who is the she? MTG. Oh yes, of course. Marjorie Taylor Green has got. I try to block Marjorie Taylor Green.

Well, no, you shouldn't block her now. She's very hard to block. She's hard to block. She forces herself back in there. She's supposed to herself back in there. Listen, she is speaking Maga. She's speaking Maga. I mean, she is one of the most prominent political figures in the United States at this point in time. Yes, she is. I mean, from a backwater town in Georgia. Let's remember, she got elected on a Q&on, white supremacist, 9-11 denier platform. Right. You know what she reminds me of? She reminds me of one of the witches in Macbeth when they are warning Macbeth about what's to come. That's exactly the role that she's now playing. And, you know, the witches start the play. It's not good. And she's saying, you know, prices are up, stop gaslighting people about the economy and wait for the health care. Well, but let's, I mean, the transition, the transformation, she is the, she goes from the absolute most wackyish person to the president of the United States. I mean, his, his, there is no supporter in Congress who supports him as much as Marjorie Taylor Green.

She also claims that she spent. In a comic book way. Well, she also claims she spent millions of dollars of her own money when she was running for the seat. right to support him to do she actually mean that or does she mean money that she raised well i don't know then there's a whole other thing about how much how she has profited on right on on on this um and that's a whole well that's probably an episode on that's a black episode honestly we should have a special episode but now she has become from his most loyal supporter to his most implacable antagonist right go figure what does that mean she's going to run

No, it just is go figure what is the nature of these people. How does that happen? I mean, it doesn't happen, actually. I mean, yes, you know, people have, in politics, you begin, you, you have disagreements and you might distance yourself from someone who you otherwise have supported. But the incidence of people going, of going from absolute support to implacable opposition. are few. Well, I think that's called a reverse J.D. Vance. If you think about J.D. Vance calling Trump the new Hitler, and then, as Susie Wiles said in her interview in Vanity Fair, that she thought his move to Trump was essentially political. And you raised the point earlier today when we were talking that, in fact, Susie Wiles used to.

Well, that's, I mean, yes. So what no one has pointed. out, I mean, is, I mean, people have sort of pointed out that this, this probably indicates a partiality on her, on her part to Marco Rubio. Right, because she works with him. But she, nobody has pointed that fact out that she was on the Marco Rubio payroll. She was a political consultant in Florida. Marco Rubio was one of her clients.

And right up until the decision was made, and that was made, in flight on the way to Cincinnati for the Republican Convention. Right up until that point, she was the key supporter of Marco Rubio for the vice presidential slot. Oh, interesting. Well, she's clearly, I mean, she talks about Marco Rubio in a much more, well, she says that he absolutely had to answer questions in his soul about supporting Donald Trump, Whereas J.D. Vance, she sort of drives by with an insult just saying, well, it was a political decision, which tells you a lot about how she may be positioning herself in terms of her own support post-2020. Yeah, no, I mean, I think she is very loyal to Marco Rubio.

And I'm sure she's working that account. Well, and also what's interesting is they all came out to support her after this, after what appeared to be a straight. strangely frank series of interviews where perhaps, I mean, she claims that she thought he was very unfair. Chris Whipple was unfair, but he's like, I've got it all on tape. So either she let her guard down or she wants people to know all this stuff. Well, you don't, I mean, or both. Or both. You know, I mean, it is in these long interviews.

That's kind of what we do. and that is the advantage of a long interview. And a series of interviews where you get to know people over time. Yeah, I mean, you get to know them and they do. They start to want to tell you what they think you want to hear. I mean, it's an interesting relationship. Many such relationships I have been part of. Sure, sure.

All right, so now we come to war in Europe. it's this sort of drumbeat in the background. Well, I think it's an extraordinary moment. Yeah, I agree. You now have the head of NATO saying war is coming. And you have the head of MI6, the British intelligence agency, saying the same thing, saying that Europe has not been in as perilous a moment since, you know, effectively since the 1930s.

So, I mean, it's kind of extraordinary. And, I mean, the emphasis here should be on, on, that we're in this situation because of Donald Trump, because of his, well, his refusal to make face down Russia and Vladimir Putin and to name Vladimir Putin as the enemy and to and his failure to recognize that that Ukraine is a is a first step. I mean, that's what the Europeans are now seeing, seeing the invasion of Ukraine as the first step in a broader incursion to use it, perhaps, overly euphemistic word on the rest of Europe. So I thought one of the strange contradictions in the Susie Wiles interviews

was her saying that one of the ways in which Trump is most understood is that he is a man of peace and he's, you know, in theory solved all these wars, wars he's never even heard of. And yet he's single-handedly by saying he's not going to back Europe, put the world in the most perilous position for 80 years. Well, yes. And I mean. With no understanding, really, of the complexity of what he's done, I think. Well, that's safe to say.

I mean, complexity and Trump in the same sentence. But we have a lot of, we have things converging here. I mean, there is the MAGA position. You know, it's a fundamentally 1930s, 1920s, isolationist position. America first. It's America first and who cares about the rest of the world. It just doesn't involve us.

And why should? I mean, Tucker Carlson is a pillar of this point of view now. Why should we spend our resources and the lives of our citizens on issues and places and issues that don't have any real direct impact? on our lives. And Trump has grown up in, I mean, politically grown up in that, in that point of view. J.D. Vance, too, I think. Completely. And, and so the thing is, why are we, why are we in, why are we supporting Ukraine? Why are we spending all this money in, in Ukraine? Nothing to do with us. And so, I mean, I think, I mean, that is a genuinely, you know, a genuine MAGA position.

Now, on the other hand, you know, he's also supported, I mean, the war in Israel's war in Gaza. Hello, $40 billion to Argentina. Yeah, in Argentina. So that's, so he has this other thing going, the MAGA people are furious about this. I mean, utterly, completely. Well, I'm sending a quarter of the U.S. Navy's fleet to hang around outside Venezuela and now blockade their oil tank. Right. So the man of peace whose isolationism is going to cause a war in Europe is one thing. But then there's these other wars that he is actively engaged in. So, where is what's the, you know, most presidents try to have a coherent foreign policy.

I mean, it's usually spelled out in, you know, in a way that lets people, let's people around the world know, know where you stand. And everything, thing, both strategically and tactically and thematically feeds into. that view. Now, there was recently a, you know, a Trump administration statement kind of about its foreign policy, which was basically we are against immigration in Europe. Well, and also saying that European civilization had stalled. Stalled because of immigration. So, you know, so we want nothing to do. We don't, we don't want to defend, you know, Europe is now a brownish continent, so we're less interested in that. And much more. more interested in Russia, which is still a white continent.

This is like, I mean, we are so far off the path of post-war, the post-war view of how to organize the world, how to maintain peace in the world, how to, how to, how to usher in a you know a basic liberal view of of rights and behavior. And the right vote and democracy.

We're all lost at this point. Well, and it's partly because there's not coherent at any point. Well, I was also going to say that his foreign policy seems to be put together by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Steve Whitkoff, the real estate developer and his golf buddy. I mean, it seems to be also done on the hoof, frankly.

Yeah, and Whitkoff and Kushner, I don't know how much they have to do with this foreign policy. I mean, I see the foreign policy is coming from, you know, the Heritage Foundation and the MAGA people. I see Whitkoff and Kushner as parachuting into, to make some money. I mean, in their view is very clearly, we can rationalize this from a transactional standpoint. And Jared Kushner certainly knows that his father-in-law is not coherent, is not informed, is not to be trusted, is out to lunch on this.

And who doesn't really care about this. And Kushner, Kushner's view is that he's a, you know, I'm the ultimate realist. And I'm going to, I can arrive anywhere and I can get a good deal for, theoretically for the United States, but also for Jared Kushner. Right. Let's take a commercial break. And I'm here with Michael Wolfe scrambling around inside Trump's head. So one question. know that it's been hard work for Putin to do what he's done in Ukraine. Do we realistically think

he can roll into Poland and other Eastern European countries and on up the continent, given how he's taking a, you know, in theory he's taking a beating at home because so many Russian lives have now been lost. People don't understand why they're at war with Ukraine, even given the Russian media? Well, people have VPNs now. There's much more Western media getting into Russia. You know, yeah, I mean, I think it's totally, totally valid. But does he, you know, the fact that he would have thought that he could do this in Ukraine and seems to brush off the fact that it may cost him a million lives would seem to indicate that, that a rational view of this is not top of mind for him. Right, and they've certainly been sending over drones.

They've been sending flyovers over European states to start unnerving them. I mean, I think that he looks at this as a long, as a war of attrition. As a war of attrition. Well, it may end up, ironically, as Donald Trump craves the Nobel Peace Prize, be his actual legacy war in Europe. And, you know, as more and more right-wing governments come to the fore and right-wing political movements in Europe, and those are basically aligned with, more and more, aligned with Russia.

So this is a bit of a gloomy note. What about more emails, please, to Shalom Baronez, the new architect of the East Wing, who it looks like may have been given the go-ahead to get cracking? I didn't read it as that way. What did you read it? I read it as though they could continue some construction activity on this. You know, I'm sure they went in and said to the judge, if we don't do this, it's, you know,

the winter is coming, I don't know. But there is still, I mean, I think there are a whole set of impediments before they're going to be able to go ahead with this monstrous project. Okay. Well, it's the people's house. if you want to make your thoughts known, the email is inquiries, or I say inquiries, but you say inquiries, spelt with an eye, whereas I would have spelt it with an E. Is that just an English spelling? Yeah. Oh, it is? Okay. That's when I get wrong all the time then. Sorry. Inquiries with an eye at Esperanis.com.

S-B-B-A-R-A-N-E-S dot com. Make your thoughts known. And this is, to be clear, the new architect for the ballroom or convention center that is going to be attached and going to overwhelm the White House. The first architect has, it was nowhere to be found. He has run from this project. I think James McClary has, as the terminology is these days, stepped back from the project, much in the way that last. Harry Summers stepped back from various duties, his boardwork at OpenAI and his Harvard teaching. And now I see today two female students who videotaped him saying how difficult it was for him to address the classroom that he was addressing, but he would be continuing to teach.

They leaked that video to various media sources. Now Harvard has launched an inquiry into them. which seems to me all wrong. Really, why? I think it's interesting that Larry Summers sat there and said this is very difficult for me to sit here and address the class. Yeah, what's... Well, it's not all about Larry. You know, this is some guerrilla action by a couple of students who are not students,

who were not supposed to be in the class. I mean, the whole set of rules that they seem to have violated. Well, I'm looking forward to hard. Harvard's own inquiry into Larry Summers, but as Nell Scavell wrote, never had an economist so clearly brought his discipline to bear as his decision not to buy his girlfriend or the woman of his affections a gift unless she was going to put out. He wasn't going to buy her a gift if she wasn't going to come with benefits. The ROI was not going to be good, was his point. The ROI was not going to be good. Jeffrey counseled him. It's a transactional world. No, I'm just thinking if there

is in this address to the nation by the president. And it's a funny thing because, you know, I mean, I'm of an age. I have sat through many addresses by the presidents to the nation, sitting in the Oval Office, that kind of formality. And every time I see Donald Trump, I see Donald Trump, attempt to be to step into this role it's kind of flabbergasting so he must love it he must it's the peak for trump isn't it of sitting behind the desk addressing the nation with all those flags yeah and you know and we've talked about this before when I've been I mean I've seen this many times in the Oval office he sits in the Oval Office and the Oval Office is filled with enormous number of people. I mean, really bus station-like. And he sits behind the resolute desk talking and

talking and talking. Everybody is trying to look at their phone. There's not be caught looking at their phone. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So now this is this is to the nation. Do you think Milani will be watching? Did you watch me? Did you watch me? No, I will see on news. I will see on B-Best News. I'm sure that she will not be watching. And also, you know, I mean, these addresses to the nation are usually quite brief. Well, I was going to say his press conferences are often very long. Yes, no, he can't stop talking.

I mean, it is, it is, it's actually the people around him, you know, in when they, on the whole issue of his age and senility, they say, but he can talk for hours. Well, in fact, whenever you go to visit a relative in an old person's care home, there is always someone in the corner talking, right? And think of the poor Cubans who used to have to listen to Fidel Castro, who could talk for seven hours. He would get up and talk nonstop for seven hours. Yeah, and need I recall, the chancellor. The German Chancellor. Yeah, I thought you were going to refer. I thought that's who you were.

Yes, who was famous. And Stalin. famous for going on. Yes. And, you know, when Stalin went on and on and on and on, they wanted him to continue to go on and on and on because that meant you were still alive. This is not how we were expecting to end.

Michael Wolfe. Oh, my goodness. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast. Leave us a comment. Don't forget to email Esperanus.com about the White House developments. Well, we'll be back to dissect

the president's speech to the nation if indeed it means anything. And of course, we'll be back to dissect the Epstein files. Dropping on Friday. I will see you then. Okay, well, let's thank our special inner circle of...

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