The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump Is Using a Moron to Run His 'War': Wolff

Episode Date: December 7, 2025

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to dissect a president who never asks the hard questions, leaving aides scrambling to explain what he refuses to understand. They dig into the Venezuela-bombed boats debacle and Pete Hegseth’s role, tracing how the story spiraled into Hegseth’s emerging SignalGate scandal. Wolff charts the frustration, chaos, and quiet panic inside Trumpworld, while Joanna presses on the larger pattern: a leader whose curiosity stops at the surface, imperiling both policy and loyalty. The two ask: What happens when those closest to Trump can’t keep up with—or contain—his blind spots? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

These guys, Hegsseth and Trump, are not engaging in the extremely complex combat decisions related to, for instance, Ukraine. I mean, that is a difficult situation, a situation which requires some attention of these attention deficit guys. Whereas bombing an unarmed small boat in the middle of the city, in which nothing is at stake other than the lives of some of some purported drug carriers. I mean, this is just shameful. Michael. Joanna. Michael, so many comments commenting on your spiciness.

People saying, I love Michael when he's spicy. What does spicy mean do you think? I think it means that you're kind of, You know, I think it means we're getting into it. But spicy was the word. Does it mean prickly or does it mean funny? I think it means spicy as in a spicy pepper or chili flakes on your pizza. I get that.

I'm just trying to translate that into human behavior and not food. We're looking to. I think it means on the cusp of possibly throwing a hissy fit. To at you. At me. Yes, totally. I've been on that custer years and years and years. I've done over.

I've done over that cusp. You've certainly gone over that. You've certainly gone over that over the years. I know. I wish I kept better diaries because, as we've mentioned before, do you keep any diaries? I keep, I keep intermittent diaries. I keep notes on things.

And I have thousands of thousands and thousands of notes. But I wish I had more notes on our feuds. They may be subpoenaed. There may be subpoenaed. I think that I might have notes on a feud we have. I think over, we had an argument about who was the best tailor on Saville Row. Is that possible? That was some other person, some other podcaster you were having that discussion.

No, I think it was you. I think it was you. Anyway, it doesn't matter so much to get to. If you need a vaccine, you should run out and get it today because they may no longer be available. Michael's friend, RFK Jr., who he went canvassing with, or you were writing a about him. He was desperately canvassing for his uncle in 1980. He's out there trying to deny people access to vaccines. No, this becomes increasingly disturbing, but increasingly a stranger and stranger story. So let's come back to that. All right, we'll come back to it because we also

want to talk about the changing of the architects. No surprise there on the East Wing, which people actually liked your description of the East Wing looking like Gaza, just a pile of rubble. It really is vivid, that whole thing. I mean, it just hangs out there, all those wires that concrete, the everything broken, which is actually what a building looks like when it has sustained a direct,

a direct hit from a missile. Or from an enemy, from an enemy, a missile, and yet the enemy is, within very possibly. So, yes, the physical manifestation of the Trump administration's chaos. It couldn't be a better metaphor. Well, and destructiveness. I mean, I think that's, that's, I mean, that's the, that's the thing that we are seeing. I think on an increasingly basis, let's just, you know, just, you know, fuck it and blow it up. Yeah. And then nothing to follow. promises of what's to follow and yet nothing arriving.

That will be the interesting thing, actually, if they do ever get something built, because it is also not impossible at all that this will be, like many construction projects, stalled for all kinds of reasons. Remember, the premise here, the Donald Trump premise is, I can do anything. I can do this. This is my property. I own this. We can do it.

There are no regulations. well, we'll see. We will see. But should we start with another scene of chaos, the Caribbean and these little boats? Although, let me see. You sent me a comment from a commenter who criticized me saying, we'll see. That's right. Which I had somewhat of a difficulty comprehending because we will see.

We don't know. I mean, that's we look at. these events of the moment, and it is impossible to tell. Will this ballroom be built? Will it be built? Yeah, I could go either way. There are many ways that you could criticize us, but you saying we'll see doesn't feel like the right thing. I mean, it seems like, I mean, actually, people are always saying what's going to happen. I think you should say, well, we have no idea what's going to happen. This is the world of, this is the world of Donald Trump. This is a world in which everything changes every day.

Every day. The only thing we can promise is that we're paying attention to it and we are going to discuss it and you're going to bring your specific experience, writing and thinking about it. My spiciness. Your spiciness to the Trump chaos that's going on. All right. Shall we start with the developments? We're recording this on Friday morning, the developments yesterday,

where the Armed Services Committee sat around and watched the video. The video I'm talking about of the blowing up of the boat, of the two survivors. The video of the moment. And I mean, I think the context here is kind of elemental, which is that we have always considered that the military would be run by men of a certain disposition and point of view who needed to be restrained. You know, essentially they were warriors. And there were all kinds of reasons not to go to war.

There's all kinds of reasons that if you saw the grander picture to restrain that instinct. You want people who can go to war if you need to go to war, but the last thing you want to do is always go to a war. So therefore, you had a civilian authority that was in charge of these, of these, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, people and that instinct to always pull the trigger. But, and I think it has seldom been contemplated that that balance would be wholly turned around, that you would have the military as rules bound, experts, highly skilled in, in, in what they do, what they do, very knowledgeable

about the, and attentive to the nuances of, of these kinds of very combustible situations. And them being run by people who are just,

you know, off the beam who have no comprehension of what's at stake here, who are just the macho guys, who want to do the macho war, you know, I'm a, you know, I'm a big guy kind of, kind of thing. And playing it all for the cameras, too. And this sort of, the thing I find extraordinary is this sort of posing around going,

we've got Admiral Bradley's back, as if somehow he's the one that's made the error, but they're going to support him anyway. when we know that this was Hexeth's command, don't leave anybody floating in the water. And clearly, I mean, it's also distressing how, I guess, inevitably, the reaction fell down party lines. So the Democrats said this was one of the worst things they'd ever seen these tragic figures floating around, clutching to bits of wreckage in the sea, unclear how they were going to get out of the situation. And then Tom Cotton, the Republican, just saying, you know, these are drug dealers, they're terrible people, get rid of them. Instead of their pathetic drug meals trying to supplement a meager fishing income.

Well, well, that may or may not be true. Well, the truth is we don't know, right? We didn't bother to find out. They are in the drug business. So I don't, we don't necessarily have to suddenly romanticize them. And, but, you know, and Tom Cotton is just saying what he would. what again has to say to keep his job. So we're in this, that's a, that's a fixed situation. But I think the broader context here is what really bears some attention. And, you know, in other words, these, these guys, Hegsteth and Trump are not engaging in the extremely complex combat decisions related to, for instance, Ukraine.

I mean, that's a, that is a difficult situation, a situation which, which requires some attention of these attention deficit guys. Whereas, you know, bombing, bombing a boat with an unarmed boat, an unarmed small boat in the middle of the sea, in which nothing is at stake other than the lives of some. of some purported drug carriers. I mean, this is a, this is, this is just shameful. Well, there is something at stake because it turns out Admiral Bradley's career may be at stake here. I mean, in theory, you don't think anything is going to be in state, but these things always have knock on impact, right?

Yes, no, from a strategic, there is nothing from a strategic stake. There is from a political stake. Right. And there is from, for these guys. And that is the next step of. this is to understand that what Hegsith and Trump are doing is undermining the military's trust in them. For good reasons.

I mean, these guys very clearly have no fucking idea what they are doing. And what they are doing, I mean, and stop, let's understand this. I don't care what Tom Cotton is saying, because everybody knows that what they are doing, Hegsith and Trump is creating a situation which is going to mean all of these guys are going to be hauled before Congress, if not dragged off to the Hague. This is not good for anybody's careers in the military, certainly. So, I mean, the curse of these guys, these guys who have worked their careers risen through the ranks to assume command positions. And they have worked hard for these jobs. These jobs are, you know, most people don't get them.

And to find yourself having gotten this job in Donald Trump's army is, I guess is ironic, but it really is tragic. No, it is tragic. I was just actually speaking with someone who was very senior in the military. who'd worked with Admiral Bradley and said that he very much hoped, and he thought it was unlikely that he would have bombed the boat twice because he would know that was wrong. It looks like Pete Hegzeth gave that order, and you must be in a very difficult position

when you've got the second most important person in the U.S. telling you to do something. Yeah, no, and just again, the context, what we know of Pete Hagsif. He's an alcoholic. He's a lightweight. He has no relevant experience to this job, no management experience whatsoever in any field of endeavor.

And on top of that, he's famously just a dope. Yeah. I mean, the person I was talking to said that within the military, they regard him as, to use your word, an absolute moron,

an absolute moron. No, back to the moronocracy, completely. And also, he did a podcast this week with his wife, which seems to be the new thing that they're doing now after Mike Johnson and his wife did one. Pete Higgseth did one with his wife. And he was asked the question, what most surprised you about becoming the defense, you know, the Secretary of War, I should say, as he calls himself now. And he said, oh, it was sort of the budget. It was figuring out there was a budget and that there was sort of limitations on spending. And you just thought, really, that's what surprised you?

You're taking over the biggest military department in the world. And he was surprised there was a budget. And this is a man who's failed to manage a budget at two veteran organizations he worked for. It would be really interesting and it will be. I mean, this won't happen immediately, but in the, when all of this passes, it will to actually get a candid picture of what the, what the leadership thinks of what the experience of being in the leadership and having to deal with Pete Hagsith is. I'm going to wait for that one. And to deal with Donald Trump. I mean, you know, I have seen these things.

And I remember Bannon would describe this with great mirth that when the generals would come in in front of Trump and begin a PowerPoint presentation that Trump would last top 90 seconds. Couldn't do it. Couldn't do the details. I remember you saying that. And the person I was talking to said, actually, that when you accept. explained the life and death nature to Trump. He would actually take it quite seriously. There was a life and death decision.

He would sort of listen with his head cocked on one side. But clearly there have been many shameful episodes in the military over the, you know, certainly Abu Ghraib and various things that happened in Iraq. And this feels like another one to add to the list. Yeah, I'm trying to think if that is on that list. Because I think what is unique about this is that it is so one-sided. It is a series of one-sided decisions coming from the civilian authority that are patently wrong, that everyone can see are wrong. This is not the fog of war, as Pete Hague said.

Pete Hager. No, it seems so excited to say that. The fog of war, the fog of war. And you're like, hey, we're not at war. This isn't war. This is a demonstration of something. We're going to kill these people to show that we can kill these people. It's also not a movie.

I mean, the fog of war is the kind of line that Gene Hackman would say, and you would think to yourself the fog of war, how awful. But Pete Heggseth saying it just sounds like a terrible excuse for an ill-thought-out policy that has absolutely no rhyme or reason. You know, it was also a weird, a weird cover because, because again, there is no war. I mean, this was a, this wasn't a situation in which there are conflicting issues in which there wasn't even really an enemy. It wasn't as if you were confronting another force that you had to, you had to deal with in

split second decision. I mean, you're just with a drone bombing an unarmed, let's get an unarmed small craft. It's crazy. All right. Also crazy to withdraw hepatitis B vaccines from babies. Yeah, extraordinary. And, you know, what has begun here in what RFK Jr. is doing is,

dismantling, you know, essentially the foundation of modern health. Mm-hmm. With no scientific logic whatsoever. You know, obviously with no scientific. I mean, this is, I mean, we know where the science is. We know where the, we know what, what advances modern medicine has produced. We know that our children are safe and protected because of this. And so we are removing this why.

And there are a couple of reasons. And they all mostly go to RFK himself, although understanding that there is a strange anti-science movement in this country which has a political, which has intersected with a lot of, a lot of politics. Okay, put that to its side. That exists. You know, and there are, there are a lot of bad politics that, that, that exists. And if you go down that, that, that, that, that, well, you know, we hope that there are,

it's like, it's like with, with, with, with the military. You don't want to go down the, the root of extremes. So suddenly we have a guy who is with enormous power, enormous power, who is committed to extremes. And I think a question is, what's going on here?

How did this come to happen? And it came to happen because his name is Kennedy. He is personally really crazy. crazy, off the beam. So it's a crazy person named Kennedy who also thinks that he can be president of the United States. And the way for him to be the president of the United States is to solidify this MAGA base, the anti-vax base, which for whatever reasons has become, and partly because, of his efforts has become a very pronounced, I don't want to say powerful, because I'm not sure it is powerful except for RFK Jr. But certainly a pronounced strain in American political

life. So I've got so many questions about him. I mean, in terms of Hexeth, Joni Ernst was the sort of swing vote. Was she going to vote for Hegseth? or not, she was very doubtful and then for some reason that we're not sure about, she finally agreed to go with Hexeth and J.D. Vance cast the deciding vote. Similarly, with RFK Jr., we have Bill Cassidy, the senator from Louisiana, who is a doctor who spent his life trying to help liver patients, who also was very reluctant to confirm RFK Jr., but they met. and the Kennedy charm or whatever persuaded him that he should give him a chance? I don't think that that's correct.

What they were persuaded of what both Ernst and Cassidy were persuaded by is essentially they were given a choice. You can have this career. You can stay in the Senate or it is very likely you will not be able to stay in the Senate. Right. You'll get primaried. You just have a choice. You got to make it.

Do you want to go down on this? And I think in hindsight, they may both say now, yeah, we should have gone down on this. But without hindsight, you say, well, maybe it won't be so bad. I mean, there's all kinds of ways you can rationalize, rationalize this. But they had literally no choice. That was it. So you could, I mean, the interesting thing is why would the Trump administration have gone to the mat for these guys? Right, right.

But I think that's, as soon as I ask it, that's the wrong question. Because as soon as they have put up these ridiculous figures, they had to defend them. Otherwise, it would be clear they were ridiculous figures that they had put up. Now, they are ridiculous figures, and we are we are reaping the results of these ridiculous figures. So, Michael, what's going on inside Donald Trump's head when he hears that RFK-J, Jr. is going to pull hepatitis B vaccines from babies. Trump, we know, has his kids vaccinated. He's crazy, but he's not that crazy. No, no, but he's, but he has a profound lack of interest in things that don't interest him. And, you know, from, I mean, he's not interested. I mean, vaccines

don't, don't really come into his, his personal sphere of, of, of concern. Plus, plus the fact that, You know, he's got this guy. I mean, he got, why is Bobby Kennedy Jr. in this position? Because his name is Kennedy. So it does nothing to do with with vaccines. So from Donald Trump's point of view, I have this Kennedy. And this is even more sort of complex because it's like I have this guy named Kennedy.

I own the name Kennedy. At the same time, all the other. Kennedys are saying what a horrible person I am. So fuck them because I have a Kennedy. And my Kennedy is now more powerful than all of the other Kennedys. So I can give you to this is exactly how Donald Trump thinks. Oh my goodness. It's just crazy. And the fact that there are vaccines, you know, I mean, that has an added benefit because these MAGA people are crazy on the subject. And he has to keep them happy. And to what extent is this also because Bobby Kennedy has been in the news because of his digital affair with Olivia Nutsi, whose book we discussed

American Canto is out this week. Do you think he's in any way trying to shift the narrative away from himself in that regard? Well, I don't, I mean, this was all scheduled beforehand. So, you know, I'm not, I'm not sure. But how he gets away with that, you know, I guess you get away with it because it built into the understanding of this guy is that he's crazy. So a crazy man will do crazy things. Now, but we do have this other thing, which will be interested as interesting, is that his wife, Cheryl Hines's book, is coming out shortly. So, you know, in the way of scandals, you know, scandals are, you know, really, really come about through a strange combustion. will we have that combustion here, two memoirs by two Kennedy lovers, wives, whatever, at the same time?

But again, I don't think so because it's baked in. It's Bobby Kennedy Jr., a drug addict, a womanizer, womanizer, you know, just a compulsive, you know, over the top. philanderer and fucker. So this is all evidence. Everybody knows this. So therefore, it's not as if you're telling anyone anything new. Right. One of the things that did sound interesting, either I read through Olivia's an interview she'd done or perhaps it was in an excerpt of the book, was this sort of frenzy he had to

how does one put this? A sexual frenzy he had, a compulsion clearly to climax. And then immediately that had happened, this wash of Catholic guilt, which he then blamed on her and said, you made me do this. You know, you're a bad person and a very, very strange relationship with sex. Oh, that's juicy. It's also a sort of Catholic interpretation of sex that you want something. and then the minute you've had it, you feel terrible about yourself,

and he had this sort of weird remorse, which he then blamed on her, that she was the wicked woman who tried to seduce him, and he'd fallen and been weak. Let me ask, this was digital sex. I think it was FaceTime sex. This was not in person. My understanding of it is,

and perhaps I even read this in Ryan Liz's thing, the whole, the ex-foyonzo of Olivia Nuzzi, who's got his own version of this bizarre story going on his substack. Maybe that's where I read it and he'd taken it from Olivia's diaries or whatever. But, I mean, bizarre. And he used to refer to his sexual proclivities and activities, which he chronicled in a book, which actually I've seen a copy of the sex diary as his muddings. And that he was sort of demonized by sex, which is something that you had pointed out. when you were on the campaign trail with him,

that he would disappear and have sex and then come back and join the crowd. I mean, there's all kinds of ways I think you can take pity on this guy. I mean, this is a life who, which no one would want. The, I mean, the thing that we are however left with

is that, is that this, this, you know, this clear sense that he has of unmet expectations, that he has to, somehow deliver this thing, that he is being forced. It's like sex, probably. He's being forced into sex because of the compulsion. He's now being forced to be something, something which he failed at or was denied for his entire life.

Remember, Bobby Kennedy Jr. is 72 years old. Up until basically two years ago, he hasn't done, he has achieved nothing in life and certainly nothing against the expectations, but basically nothing anyway, you know. And so, and so with this weird conjunction of this anti-vax thing that he, that he, that he came to, the only thing that really ever got him attention, public attention, other than his own drug addiction, the confluence of that with Donald Trump in the summer of 2024 is the thing that just has now transformed him into one of the most powerful people in American lives today. So this is all, again, completely, it completely makes no sense.

There is no logic here except, except caprice happenstance. Nothing. This is how we live now. You don't know what's going to happen. So Mr. We'll see. We will see because we cannot predict this. You could not possibly in any, in any imagination, have predicted the rise of Bobby Kennedy Jr. Ridiculous.

And Michael, quick toss to our. sponsors. And we are back inside Trump's head. I like to go back to his financier in his campaign to be president, because, you know, as we remember, he actually ran to be president himself. And he was financed by a woman called Nicole Shanahan, who is herself very skeptical about vaccines, whose money came from her divorce from Sergei Brin. Herself, who is very skeptical. I thought you were going to say who her herself is very sketchy, which also would be true. And her money, nearly a billion dollars, as we understand it, came from her divorce settlement,

from a brief marriage to Sergey Brin. And why did the marriage break up? Because of an alleged affair with Elon Musk. I mean, again, these characters all swirling in their own chaos. I mean, it's just bizarre. And she met Sergey Brin when she, she was on a bachelorette weekend about to get married. She gets married.

Her marriage lasts, I think, 27 days. She walks away with a Toyota Prius from the wedding. That's the settlement from the wedding because her husband discovers she's been having an affair with Sergey Brin. She gets married to Sergey. Sergei Brin was the, she was having an affair with him during her first marriage. Her 27-day marriage. And so she then marries Sergei Brin, the co-founder of Google, whose motto was do no evil. And with her divorce settlement from Sergei Brin, because he's discovered that she's become friendly with Elon Musk,

she then finances a man who's going to end up taking vaccines out of American life. And do we think that she had an affair with him? With Elon Musk? No, with Bobby Kennedy Jr. We have no reason to believe that. No one is saying that. Absolutely. I've no idea.

I've no idea. And what he had promised her was that she would be his vice president, which was apparently a deal struck up while when he and Cheryl. Yes, but that's an interesting, an interesting thing because obviously even even even for a sketchy person, she would know that was not going to happen. So what else was she getting out of that? I don't think she did know that was what was going to happen. It's not possible.

I understand it's not possible. It's not possible that she would think that Bobby Kennedy, Jr., a third-party candidate in a country that has never elected a third-party candidate, was in this one with limited financing and limited anything against Donald Trump of all people and Joe Biden, who was then thought to be fairly a strong candidate, and it was going to be the actually get to be president. So she could not have thought that. But I think it's absolutely plausible that she financed him thought with the Kennedy name that he could just become the president and she would be vice president. because partly, you know, they live in a bubble.

They live in a bubble. Of course it's highly unlikely. Nobody could live in that much of a bubble. I think she was in that much of a bubble. I have no idea if they were having an affair. What I do know is that at a dinner with Cheryl Hines, Nicole Shanahan and her then boyfriend, it was the boyfriend, I think, fiancé, who suggested that she would be a good vice president.

At any rate, where we are and how we have gotten here defies all natural logic and cause and effect. But the result is, and the result, because there is no logic and there is no cause and effect, is that something is being done that is, that defies all reason, which is to curtail vaccines, which have demonstrably transformed the nature of modern life for the better. Well, Senator Bill Cassidy, shame on you for being seduced by Kennedy and thinking that your career in the Senate was more important than the lives of American children. I'm thinking how to respond to that because I always want to push back against these kind of... You always want to push back against me.

Yeah, of course. Well, you're the only person I have to push back against. Well, that's a good thing, then. I have lots of people I have to push back against. You know, I mean, I'm thinking, you know, what would anyone, what would I do if I had been in Bill Cassidy's shoes? You would have walked away. You would have walked away. You know, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure you would. you actually are in these jobs, you think that you're going to be able to do something. You think, you know, a lot of these guys, I mean, some of these guys are obviously completely cynical, but Bill Cassidy does not seem to be one of those people. He thinks, I can do some good here. But the terms of doing good is that you have to stay in your job. And the terms of staying in your job is that you have to have to, you have to negotiate what you do with Donald Trump. Now, obviously, I agree that this is all a catastrophe. And, uh, but just thinking personally what one, what one would do. So the issue, and this goes to the whole construct of the, of the, of the, of the Trump regime. It, um, you,

it undermines everyone, including in this instance, Bill Cassidy for, you, you know, for reasons that were not entirely terrible. Hmm. That's my defense of Bill Cassidy. Okay, and I think, you know, Bill, I mean, there's no Senate equivalent of the Hippocratic oath, is there? Do you swear allegiance to the Constitution? Politics, you know, you're always making tradeoffs.

You know, that person's going to die to save these people or something like that. Well, it'd have been better off going to try and run the CDC or something. or something. But and also, I mean, what kind of a politician doesn't have confidence that they can withstand being primaried by, you know, crazy far right people? It's Donald Trump. You know, I mean, what politician does not have confidence that he can withstand the extremes and craziness of Donald Trump? Well, I'll tell you what kind of politician, all of them, certainly all of the Republicans, every last one of them. That is the nature of the nature of the current state of American democracy. We've elected this guy who will stop at nothing. Boom. How do you deal with that?

You hope that it will pass. Well, we know it will pass. Well, we don't know it will pass. We know, I mean, Donald Trump will pass. He will, um, um, um, um, you know, he will exit. But what does he leave in his wake? What kind of, what kind of, what kind of, chaos in his wake, right? And he leaves this broken stuff. Yeah.

So all of the assumptions that once we counted on are now up for grabs. Okay, this is such a cheerful conversation to be having. All right. Do we want to discuss the fact that James McCrary, the architect of the East Wing, who is supposed to be involved in rebuilding it seems to have, as the phrases these days, stepped back from the project, much in the way that Larry Summers has stepped back from his duties at Harvard. He has literally left the building, although the building is no longer there.

The building's no longer there. And as we said before, what a metaphor for the chaos of Trump's administration, a pile of rubble that looks like a war zone? Yeah, so the question is, is this? is, you know, Donald Trump, who went into this project as he goes into so many, saying, I can do anything I want, because I'm the President of the United States and I'm Donald Trump and fuck you. Is the worm turning there? Are there people saying, you know, hold on? And there are ways that we can slow this down? And there are ways that we can, make trouble for Donald Trump. And, you know, I mean, I think one of the things that has clearly gone on here is this has become quite a symbol, kind of an unavoidable symbol for the American public. He's destroyed the White House.

Hello. And who wants that on their resume, except apparently Donald Trump. Trump. The plans haven't been approved. We don't even know what the plans are. The thing is changing. It's gone from being a ballroom that seated, I think, 700 people to now he wants it to seat 300 people. 65,000, yes. Yeah, exactly. They want to have Trump convention centers at the White House and they'll sell merch. No, you know, I think that he was, I saw something in which he was talking about having the, you know, the political conventions at the, at the, you know, white house. And also the inauguration, right, that he wants it big enough to have the inauguration because he probably knows it'll never get another crowd. Who is the new architect? James McCrary Associates has been replaced by Shalom Baranis Associates, which does a lot of government work, has worked with the GSA. Okay, so let's, let's, everybody should get in touch with Charon Soron, Shalom Barronus. And tell him that he's a, uh, a Trump, uh, a Trump

Patsy and does he really want to have the wreck of the White House on his resume? But let's call him up and ask him. What people could do is also reach out and say what they would like to happen to the White House because it is the people's house. I mean, I think one of the things that's so irritated people about this project is Donald Trump is, A, as you pointed out, telling people he can do anything. But this is not his property. This is not private property.

It is the property of the American people. Ring Shalom Barronis. and give them directions of what you would like the White House to look like. Do we have an email for the Barronis brothers? We have Barronis brothers. We don't know that they're brothers. Inquiries, as Americans say, inquiries, as I say, I-N-Q-U-I-R-I-E-S at S-Beran-S.com.

So that's S-B-A-R-A-N-E-S dot com. And then we, We should try and have him on the podcast. I think people should be, I mean, I've always thought that architects should be responsible for the buildings that they put up. Bad men make bad buildings. Bad buildings make bad men. So let's... Did you just come up with that?

Did you just suddenly invent that for isn't? No, that's famous. Oh, it is. Okay. It's famous. Famous to you. I'd not heard that, but it's a good one. And what about good men?

Good men make good buildings. and good buildings make good men. Exactly. Right. We have to focus on the positive. And it's possible that Shalombor owners may come up with a fabulous building, which fits perfectly with the scale. But he won't because he is really, he is just the lackey and the patsy here.

Donald Trump is the architect. This is Donald Trump's moment of grandiosity. I mean, we know, I mean, he's building a Trump building. This is not, we have seen many. And if you live in New York, you know the curse of Trump buildings. Okay, Michael, Michael, be quiet. We're going to take a break for our advertisers. And we are back.

It's also such an angry gesture just to demolish the East Wing and so symbolic because that's, of course, where your friend Melania Trump had her office. And it's just the rubble of it is so disturbing. even as a metaphor, it's disturbing. But also just functionally, it is disturbing. They're going to put up, I mean, the White House is what it is. And it exists that way because for history has made it exist that way. For better or worse, in Donald Trump's view, for worse.

You know, when he came into the White House in 2017, you know, he spent the first year stamping around and saying, what a dump. That is what American history has wanted it to be. And now to assume that you can upend that, denude, that, destroy that is not just arrogance, but some, you know, I think some, we can say it's profoundly anti-American. Profoundly anti-American. Okay. there will be comments saying that all I do is repeat what you say, but that's a very important line given what's going on.

So, Michael, we come to that part of the podcast where we have some questions for you. Do you want to remind people? Yeah, and just the background. This is the Ask Melania segment, and we are asking Melania things because I am in litigation with the First Lady. and I have, she threatened to sue me, but before she could do that, I have sued her. And actually, I think next week we will have my lawyers tell me we will have some pertinent information, pertinent developments in the case. So stay tuned to that. But at any rate, we are also soliciting questions, which I will be able to ask the first lady under,

oath in a deposition. So fire away. I'm eager to hear the questions we have for today, but everybody else keep them coming. Okay. So here's a question from Leslie Evans. Question for Melania. How did she get direct access to Putin and describe every single interaction she has had with the Russians? Good. That's a good question. And I think, and I think curiously, this may go back. for some time and there may be something here. Thanks. Good. Okay. Here is a question. Does Donald speak any Czech or Slovene? If so, how did they talk communicate when even now the First Lady is far from fluent in English and has an atrocious accent making it hard to understand her? You know, my understanding is that he does not and was often irritated when she spoke.

with her parents, with whom she has lived in the United States for many years. Okay, that was from Hugo Green. And I think she and Barron speak in Slovenian, don't they? I don't know this for a fact, but yes, I've heard that. I've heard that too. And I don't know if it's fair to say she has an atrocious accent, because it's not atrocious, not my accent, not atrocious, be best, be best accent.

It's just a foreign accent. All right. It's noon in Amagansit. Is that what that noise is? Yes. So what is that? Is there a ship's on? It sounds like a huge naval, you know, aircraft carrier is coming into the bay.

It does, but it is less romantic. It is just the fire at the, at the firehouse. Small town America, Michael, small town America where you walk around. People, by the way, commented in the hundreds about your refusal to learn to drive. They very much like the fact that you live in a place where you can stroll to the coffee shop. Speaking of anti-American, yes, I seem to be. That's very anti-American, but at least you can walk to the bus stop.

Okay, Susie Kew would like you to ask Melania how she really feels about Jared and Ivanka. Susie Q? Susie Q. Seriously, Susie Q1-170. She wants to know how Melania feels about Jared and Ivanka. So you could ask her about their relationship. Yes, we will have to rephrase that question slightly, but yes. And then a cheeky question here that you may not want to ask, but it's from Irene Perkins. I have a question for Melania about mushroom statistics.

was stormy accurate. You may not want to ask Malania that. Be best mushroom, be best mushroom. Okay, well, we'll consider. I can see my lawyer's already blushing. And then this is from Minta Elder. What does Melania do with all her time and is Baron living at the White House?

There's certainly a mystery about where Barron's living. No, we've discussed that question before. It is, it is, there's some curious transaction behind the scenes here. He was in school in New York. He's not in school in New York. Now he's in school in Washington, but we don't know exactly what school. Well, I think he stayed at NYU, didn't he? And NYU has a D.C. campus.

And he's supposed to be there. but he hasn't been spotted. Do they have a DC? What does that mean? Do they have a DC campus? Perhaps he's working remotely. Yeah, I don't know. But that's just, they've heard this at the DC camp.

They have a DC campus. Well, they have campuses in Shanghai. They have campuses in Dubai. I mean, they have campuses everywhere. Well, let's not go overboard with the word campus. Well, I think he's working from a back bedroom in the White House somewhere on Zoom. It does seem that he is not going to school where he was going to school. Well, it's odd that we haven't seen videos of him on the D.C. campus from other students, because we did see that at NYU.

And I'm saying because, I mean, where is this D.C. campus of NYU? Absolutely no idea. Okay. So Sandy Farros has sent us an out saying most of them are allowing your questions are irrelevant and will be struck down. What? What a party pooper. I know, total party pooper. And then Leonard, 2779, says, I cannot even begin to say how excited I am at the thought of a beast watch party for the Melania Netflix doc. Actually, it's an Amazon doc. Please do whatever you need to do to make this happen. So we have to figure out, we're going to ask our producers how we can do that. So we can switch on the moment it drops and have a commenter.

Or we can do a live. We should do a YouTube live the moment it drops commenting on it. We could certainly do that. Yeah, can we? No, no. Yeah, we're going to, anyway, we have to figure this out.

We'll figure it out. But we will do something. It's the end of January. It's the end of January. Very exciting. I will cancel all travel to make sure that I'm available to comment live on the Melania

documentary. And Brett Rattner's great work. Brett Brattner, gearing up for number four, Fast and Furious or whatever he does. Is it the Fast and Furious? No, it's something else, but. Rush hour, is it? Rush hour. Is it rush hour?

It is. Very good. I think it involves a car chase. Brett Ratner, good for you for coming out of your Me Too period. So, shame on Bill Cassidy and shame on Joni Ernst. Joni Ernst is now stepping back. She's no longer going to run for re-election. So it wouldn't have mattered if she was primary denials.

way and Joni Ernst is the person that gave us Pete Hexeth. So thanks, Joni. Thanks for that. I'm not defending her. Okay. Well, I could. I could rouse myself. You could defend her, but, you know, disappointing. Disappointing. What are you doing for the weekend? You know, in our small town, there are a relentless pace of Christmas, pre-Christmas activities. So, So I will be grumpily participating in some of them. What are they? Like little candlelit processions? Yes, exactly.

Things get lit. There is the tractor lighting. What you say is the tractor lighting? Well, there's a long lineup of tractors on the nearby farm, which they then they light. They light them. They're covered with lights. and they actually haven't, when it's dark, there's an outline of a tractor. It's kind of, it's kind of inexplicable, actually.

It's kind of fabulous. I think you're going to get asked to put on a red hat and a beard and be the Santa, and you'll have to sit on the, there's always a fire, isn't there a fire truck parade near Christmas? You know, they don't ask Jews to do that, thank God. When I moved to New York, Richard Dreyfus, the actor, lived in the apartment above us, and there was always a lobby Christmas party, and Richard would play Santa, and the children would sit on his knee,

and he'd say to them, have you ever seen a Jewish Santa before? And the children would look bewildered at him, and he would go, ho, ho, ho, and scratch his beard, and then they would skip off. Yes, well, that's what happens to out-of-work actors. Well, he had two Oscars. I would think to my children,

you're very lucky that the Santa in our lobby Christmas party has two Oscars. That's the fun of moving to New York. have two Oscars and still be out of work. I think he was doing it voluntarily. It wasn't a job. It wasn't like we'd hired it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I know. I know. I get it. All right. All right. Okay. You're verging on irascible. So it's time to go.

It's time for more coffee. Don't forget if you would like to come and see Michael and me live will be at the 92nd Street Y on January the 21st. I think we have very few tickets left, actually. The day after the first. anniversary of the second Trump administration. Good ad, good ad. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Peace podcast.

We are almost at 500,000 subscribers, which is an incredible achievement. So help push us over the edge. Join the Bee Beast tier of our community and get all sorts of extra access to Michael. Perhaps he will even take you on the tractor lighting tour in the Hamptons. What else, Michael? Leave a comment on YouTube. And I'm going to give a shout out

to our BB tier members. Sandra Clark, Meethinks, travels with Carl, Andrew Beaver, Cappinator, Harry Clark, Dawn McCarthy, Daniel Doglover, M. Griner,

Fulvia Orlando, Herbie, Andrew Meller, Las Condé, Bonzo, Val La Francisco, Heidi, Riley, Karen White, Connie Rutherford,

Charram, Chippley, Bococ, D.C. And Andrea, What else? I think you have to thank our production, do you? Oh, you know, they just went out of my head entirely. Thank you, Devin, Anna, and Jesse without him.

Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcast. as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.