The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump's Goons are Fleeing West Wing From Hell

Episode Date: August 15, 2026

Joanna Coles and Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty break down the growing turmoil inside the Trump White House, starting with Karoline Leavitt’s sudden departure and what it reveals about the pressures facing the administration as the midterms approach. They discuss who could replace Leavitt, why Trump’s most loyal spokespeople may have limited options outside conservative media, and the increasingly bitter fight over who actually has control inside the West Wing. They also look at the departures of other senior officials, Susie Wiles’ slipping grip on the administration, and the extraordinary backdoor maneuver that put a new ICE chief in position while she was away at her daughter’s wedding. As more senior figures head for the exits and subpoenas loom, Joanna and Hugh consider what the accelerating West Wing exodus says about the future of Trump’s presidency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a West Wing exodus. They only get worse. We're not even at September. The midterms are coming, and we are all eyes on who's next out of the West Wing. Caroline Levitt was not enjoying herself. We are inside the 90-day stretch to the midterms. It's once we tick past Labor Day, then really the whole country is going to be focused on what happens on November 3rd. If the Democrats get the House, if the Democrats get the Senate,

You're bombarded as a West Wing employee by subpoena after subpoena after subpoena. There is this wide institutional problem that those who are in the West Wing are facing. And that's why Caroline Levitt is not alone and leaving. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And look who's here. It's Friday. It's Hugh Docty. Prized out of the newsroom. You can see in his shirt sleeves where he's been bossing around.

the newsroom we've spent all week wading through the news so you don't have to and this is the perfect summary of the news and all the stuff you might want to talk to your friends about over the weekend and argue about like is Susie Wiles losing control as the chief of staff what is Mark Wayne doing or not doing what is Donald Trump doing what's happened to machine gun lips why is she actually leaving who's going to replace her and as White House press spokesperson. Hugh, there's a lot going on. There's tons. Joanna, I'm delighted to be back here. I do have to begin this week with an apology for something I did last week. Oh, no. I know, I know. Oh, no. What did you do? I mistakenly described the Sun King as Louis

the 16th. It is, of course, Louis the 14th. Louis the 16th, better known for having his head removed. So if you do not mind, don't send a tumbril for me for this offence. Which is the one that was married to Marianne Twinnett? That was 16, right? Because she also had a head chopped off. Yes. Kind of bad ending for that French monarchy. Bad ending, but fun up until then. Going was great until the guillotine came down. Right. Yes. Yes. Anyway. Lots of cakes and lots of sheep and, you know, good times until the blade of the guillotine. Okay. Luckily, that does not happen.

anymore and especially not in the West Wing. Definitely not in the West Wing. But machine gun lips levitt, Trump's favourite, I think it's fair to say, probably White House press spokesperson in all his press spokespeople, is leaving. Yes. This is a really dramatic development. Everybody obviously has heard about this departure. It is a biggie. It is actually unexpected And more unexpected than just, oh, that's a surprise. This completely upends what we thought was going to happen. Caroline Levitt was so central to the second Trump presidency. And she was, you know, she just came back from maternity leave.

She had been off for a month after having her second child, her daughter. And she'd come back. She told Lara Trump how grateful she was to have a boss who allows her to have it all. And within the space of, I think, 10 days since that Lara Trump interview, she suddenly changed her mind and said she has to leave to be a mother to those two young children. I am sure Caroline Levitt is absolutely exhausted. And also we should remind people that after her first baby, she came back after a matter of days.

Her bosses, I think, were encouraging her to take more time. she came back actually on the day of Butler, Pennsylvania. I mean, coincidentally. But having had two children myself, I remember the first one, it's all so exciting. You think you can do everything. You rush back to work. I was in the middle of finishing a book. You're sort of high on adrenaline.

With the second one, you are exhausted because you've still got the first one. Ladies, am I right? Gentlemen, am I right? And so I think to come back. deal with a boss like Trump, who I am told was yelling at her because he's yelling at everybody. We had the mooch, Anthony Scaramucci on the podcast on Sunday, and he said it's widely known among Trump's AIDS that Trump is just meaner. You can see it. He's more unpleasant to deal with. He yells at people. He's always yelled at people, but he's yelling louder and for longer.

And I'm sure Caroline Levitt, who, you know, by all appearances, has a nice marriage, has a husband who's wealthy enough that she doesn't need to work, thought, what am I doing with my life? I had these two adorable little babies at home. Why do I need to come to work and get shouted at? And I've been shouted at when I could go to Fox, make more money and be just as famous. Yeah. There's two elements to this story. There's the personal and there's, I think, if you want to call it, the institutional. And it's no doubt about the personal here. Caroline Levitt was not enjoying herself. You will remember that when she came back, Trump almost immediately went off to Turkey on this trip, which has become overshadowed, of course, by the bizarre switch into another plane through the catering truck,

all of which I know you discussed at great length with Michael Wolfe. But Caroline Leavitt wasn't on that trip, and that kind of raised a few eyebrows with people that she had come back after just a month, and people kind of assumed she would be on this trip. She wasn't. A bit of a, you know, people were raising eyebrows about that. Well, I'm sure she didn't want to go on the trip because she's probably nursing the baby. Yeah. So she's like, I don't want to be away for three days from my, you know, month old daughter. Yeah. And, you know, who would, you know, but then there was, there's only been two press briefings. And there were, it felt like there was a notable diminution of interest,

that there was just less of the energy from her. And what was quite clear was that behind the scenes, she had been repeatedly phoned by Trump during that month that he was off. And the phone calls didn't get any, you know, the loads did not get any lighter for her when she came back. It got worse. So the personal here is really important. But there's also the institutional. And look at the timing of this. We are inside the 90-day stretch to the midterms.

It's when, once we tick past Labor Day, then really the whole country is going to be focused on what happens on November the 3rd. and we know what's going to happen if the polls are right, it's going to be a blue wave. That's going to be so unpleasant. If you are in the West Wing, if you are Caroline Levitt, if you are the other people who are leaving that we want to talk about as well, you don't want to be there. First of all, he's probably going to be throwing things, you know, and there's a lot of gold that can come off those walls. No, no, it's super glued, Hugh. I think you'll find it's there. That's true. That's true. Crazy glue. Crazy glue.

I think those do-dads, the gold do-dads, and we have some. on our door to the studio. Those are really secure. There's very secure. I think they're stuck on with double-sided tape. But the internal atmosphere of a waist wing where there has been a defeat, obviously is unpleasant. But let's just look at the other things outside the West Wing. If the Democrats get the House, if the Democrats get the Senate. And this morning, it is so close as to whether the polls say that the Democrats can get the Senate,

that there's two prediction markets, and they've got different predictions. So if you have that scenario, you are bombarded as a West Wing employee by subpoena after subpoena after subpoena. You are told to go and give evidence. You spend your time with lawyers. It's not very rewarding. And if you're Caroline Levitt, all the questions coming at you are about those investigations. And just think about what the Democrats want to investigate. They want to investigate Epstein.

They've even talked about investigating Baron Trump's links to those... The Tape brothers. They want to investigate the grift. None of that. Do you want to be the person up there answering those questions? So there's the personal and there is this wide institutional problem that those who are in the West Wing are facing. And that's why Caroline Levitt is not alone in leaving.

Well, just before we get on to that, I thought another moment that made it look like she wanted to leave was when she was sitting up and the dais with him at the White House Correspondence dinner. Trump gave a ridiculous speech and she'd said, oh, it's going to be vicious, but it's going to be unifying. What it was was deeply, deeply unfunny in a room where humor actually is the currency of the day. And previous presidents have been hilarious and joined in, even George W. Bush, you know, at the height of the Iraq war, was able to come and sort of take incoming. And it's just part of the currency of Washington.

And he was terrible. And he knew he was terrible because he's a man who can read a room. And he kept saying, who wrote this? Who wrote this? Oh, this isn't very good joke. So he was distancing himself mid-speech from his own speech. And you could see her thinking, what am I doing here? She was just back.

She looked miserable. You could not mistake the body language when they were on this stage, dais, whatever you want to call it, this raised platform. And the cameras were on Trump. then they were on the wider shot, it was on Caroline, she didn't look happy. There's no point in, you know, you can't spin this. And just, I think we should talk about, you know,

her relationship with those reporters who went into that room. And let's put aside the rights and wrongs of being there. I'll just say that the Daily Beast, we'd sent one reporter to report on this event, not to take part in the celebrations. Our Farah Thomasin was there and did a brilliant job of detailing the crazy atmosphere, the failing speech, the unfunny joke.

And the long and failing speech. I mean, you know, he didn't even do that thing that comedians do when they know they're bombing, which is to wrap it up, wrap it up, wrap it up. He did the opposite. Yeah, no, he went on and on. What was quite obvious is Caroline Leavitt actually has behind the scenes good personal relationships with a lot of people in there. She is on camera.

There's, you know, this sort of machine gun lips, unstoppable persona. But she does engage with people. She does speak to people. maintained friendly relations with White House reporters. And she's sitting up there and can see what's happening in front of her. She knows what that does. She knows the atmosphere that that creates. This decision, people don't make decisions for one reason.

Right. Unless there's, you know, there are people make decisions for personal catastrophic reasons. There's no catastrophic reason here. There is a series of incoming events that make clear that the balance of whether you want to do your job, or not, that judgment has shifted because of all the things that say, this is not a great job. Well, and also, if you're Caroline Levitt, and she's the first, well, she's the youngest, White House Press spokesperson. So she's got a lot of road ahead of her. She already tried to be a congresswoman and she's a failed candidate in New Hampshire, which doesn't mean she's given up

on her expectations of getting into some kind of elected role. She's now seen it more up close. Maybe she wants to be president. Who knows she's been, you know, in the Oval Office enough that she might think I could do this job better than Donald Trump. And Caroline, you might be right. Sarah Huckabee Sanders flipped this job. Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Yeah, lost, what did she lose?

60 pounds and she became Arkansas governor. And I earlier said Caroline might go off to Fox, which is where I'm assuming she might go, because Kaley McNameney is there. You go further back. Harry Fleischer is still on Fox. what's different for Carolevin? Harry Fleischer was George W. Bush's

person and Kaylee was a previous Trump one. The last Trump one spokesperson. So what is different about these press secretaries now is there was for a while a conveyor belt that you could be the press secretary and off you would go to the corporate world and make a lot of money and maybe you would go and work for a big blue chip company.

I like Jay Carney who works for, for Obama, who's probably the most recent, very good example of this, who went off to Amazon as their corporate spokes. Josh Ernest, the last Obama press secretary, United Airlines, there have been people who've gone to Airbnb, there's been a whole, you know, selection of people have gone to places. Others have set up their own big lobbying, stroke, PR agencies and done very well, like Joe Lockhart from Clinton years. The Trump press secretary don't have that opportunity open to them of this corporate

world because they are devise of figures and however good their advice may be, it's not what you want in your boardroom because you are going to be associated with the Trump brand. So you keep them at a distance. So Fox is obviously a place that she will be looking. Well, I remember Hope Hicks had this issue actually and she wasn't a press spokesperson, but she was someone that worked for Donald Trump and became very associated with him and she'd been chosen because she did PR for Ivanka Trump, became a very close advisor to Trump and then got caught up in all the investigations. And when she went out into the market looking for a job, I was on a kind of circuit of people that she was interviewing with.

She was absolutely terrific in the room, incredible hair that she kept playing with. I mean, a very attractive, interesting young woman, but not someone that we wanted to take the risk at Hearst of hiring because I had staffs of young women who were just going to say, know we're not going to work with her. And she ended up, I mean, I talked to other people. I talked to people from HBO where she interviewed. She ended up at Fox. Yes. It was just the natural bedfellow. Then she came back into the White House. And I think she's now

back at Fox. No, she's back advising. She's been advising Republican candidates. Okay. So essentially she's gotten stuck in a political kind of bolthole. Because corporate America is too sensitive to their employees, I think, at this point. I had this argument with Michael Wolfe this week who was like, oh, they all go into tech, blah, blah, blah. It's not an issue that they've worked for Trump. But I think it's an issue for a lot of the staff. I think if you were to hire Caroline Levitt as a spokesperson at Alphabet or one of the Google companies, the Google staff would have an absolute freak out. Well, I think there are, we know there are, you know, Republican operatives who have gone into the tech world.

And, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, for example, has won it as, you know, as a right-hand figure. in the form of David McCormick, the senator David McCormick's wife, Dina Powell McCormick. Who was a Deputy National Security Advisor under Trump One. Yes, Trump One. But also has had a corporate life of her own Goldman Sachs. But also, I think the point is not a household name. Right. And that's the real thing here.

Caroline Levitt is one of the most famous women in America. And at 28th, that's quite a thing. but it clearly has a limit about where she can go in her career. So, sure, Fox is probably, you know, probably on her bucket list. We don't know. One thing that we do know

is that Trump is going to be trying to keep her on as some sort of advisor, as some sort of, you know, kitchen cabinet member, I think they used to be called because he really, really wants her inside the camp, not because she's going to be disloyal, but to make it easier when these subpoenas

come flooding in to say, Oh, you've got privilege. You can access executive branch legal advice. You can avoid these questions. Because it is almost inevitable that she is going to get subpoenaed time after time after time. And if she has some sort of advisory role to the Trump White House, then that appears as a bit better legal cover to not answer those questions.

So she'll be protected by privilege if she stays within a closed... They will make that argument that she is protected. by privilege. And of course, that's a complicated question. And we saw in the first Trump White House that they desperately tried to avoid. But ultimately, they had to give some ground sometimes. And Caroline knows a lot of secrets. She has been right there in the Oval Office. She knows the size of his cancels. And she knows if they're big or they're little today, depending on what's happening with his chronic venous insufficiency. But this is, you know, this goes back on the health front, she has been the one person who has spoken about his health. Jamie Raskin, the Democrat,

has a plan to have a proper investigation into his health and set up a committee, which is something that's in the 25th Amendment, to monitor the president's health. So who would you subpoena? Absolutely you'd subpoena Caroline Leavitt. Does she want that? I don't think she does. Well, and I'm sure her husband is saying, goodness, why do you need all this? We've got plenty of money. He's a businessman. You've got. two little children, do you really need the hassle? Because I'm sure she comes home every evening and she's like, oh, her hair's on fire, that beautifully coiffed hair.

But she's probably like, he's probably saying to her, like a lot of couples do after you've had two children, you know, how can we make this work for all of us? Memorably, of course. You really need this right now. Yeah, and memorably, her husband is 60. So, you know, he's 32 years older than she is. So he's probably, you know, feeling exhausted, having to monitor two children all day. But all of this, all of this talks about West Wing that's got, it's got people leaving, and then, even more excitingly, who's coming in?

Who's coming in to address the press? Final note on Caroline Levitt, I bet the press were furious with her over being uninformed about the planes. This has been, yeah, and this switch in the plane, we know that the press were lied to. And there is a, you know, let's be clear about this. You get on Air Force One as a journalist. I've never had, I don't think, have you? I've never been on Air Force One, long to go on Air Force One, then not with this. Yes, but, you know, I've many colleagues who have, we have a team who report from D.C. You know, we know what goes on on Air Force One.

There are a handful of journalists go on. There are lots and lots of military personnel and staff who are not Trump appointees. These are people who are serving their country. They were all used as decoys in this scheme. The only people really who can speak up are the press. And yes, the White House press feels very, very angry about this. They have made representations to the White House. And if you're Caroline, this is a point where those people that you've caught,

you have decent personal relations with are saying to you, you lie to us. And by the way, it appears you were happy to let us die as decoys. That's not something that you're going to enjoy. if you're Caroline Leavitt. No, and she may, you know, who knows, she may actually have some kind of anxieties about it. She may actually have advised against it.

She may well have advised against it, yes. You need to take a couple of press into your, because we know, and this has happened before. It's certainly the famous Pakistan Clinton trip. And Joe Lockhart, who I happened to mention, was Clinton's press secretary at the time of this time that they did a switcher-roo. They went and briefed the head of the White House Correspondents Association

at the time that they were going do this and they didn't put journalists on the plane that appeared to be the most likely to be targeted. So this is not... This is not standard operating procedure. What you normally do, yeah. No, it's an exception and I'm sure Caroline Levitt didn't have to want to explain it to people. No, I... Because it was sort of inexplicable. Yes. But... But who's coming in, Hugh? Who's coming in to replace machine gun? Well, Joanna, I know that you, you've already discussed this with Michael Woolf the previous day. This is a fairly fast-moving situation. Scott Jennings was absolutely the initial frontrunner. He is a fanatical Trump loyalist on television.

Well, he's been auditioning for the job on CNN, where he is a consultant to Trump. He was in fact asked on CNN, and he dodged, he obfuscated, and he dodged some more. So, Scott, if you're listening, give us a call. And Scott, if you are listening, A, give us a call. And, Scott, if you are listening, a, give us a call, and B, where's Mitch McConnell? Where's Mitch McConnell? I know you were talking to him for 20 minutes, but where is he now? How's he doing?

Two months today, Joanna? Two months. Two months. Today since Mitch McConnell was in evidence. So if you're from Kentucky and you feel you haven't been represented, don't call us. Call Mitch McConnell's office.

We should get the number actually and put it up. Absolutely. Can call. Ask after the senator. Give him your best wishes and then demand to know. who's representing you in the Senate? So, yes, Scott Jennings, initial frontrunner, the prediction market.

How do we think? I don't think, although Michael immediately hit back at me with this, I don't think Donald Trump likes beards. I know J.D. Vance has a beard. Scott Jennings has recently grown a beard. Scott Jennings has been trying out new looks. He has to be a lot. I'm a very close follower of Scott Jennings. I watch far too much. much CNN, clearly. But Scott Jennings has either been on an extremely vigorous and incredibly disciplined food and exercise regime, or he's been taking a GLP 1 because he's dramatically lost weight. He's now got a beard. And I don't know if Trump likes beard. I bet the condition of the job might be that he has to lose the facial hair. Maybe that's why he's grown it.

interesting that's an amazing analysis maybe he doesn't want to do the job I'm pretty confident that there has not been a press secretary with a beard in recent times I'm not going to make any projection further back in history as you know I don't know my French kings so let's not go too back and far back on press secretaries but yeah Trump not a big beard fan J.D. stands out as having one

his son Don Jr. usually has won not always Eric has sported them occasionally But Donald Trump's never had a beard We know Donald Trump's never had a beard Many men have never had beards Joanna, just pointing out But it's something that Scott has done recently So he's been playing with his appearance

He's been essentially auditioning for the role Ever since he's been on CNN No doubt about that Do you want that job? I think those people that wake up Those senators waking up and say good morning Mr. President in the mirror. I think we know what Scott Jennings says. Good morning, Mr. Press Secretary, in the mirror. But he's not the only one that is in the running, in the field of interest.

Interestingly, Anna Kelly, who's already in the White House, one of Caroline's deputies, she's now ahead on the prediction markets. Now, can we trust these prediction markets? Also in the running, Alina Haba, who was briefly the United States Attorney for New York. Jersey and then turned out wasn't legally appointed. Oops. It's mentioned in one of Michael Wolf's books on Donald Trump, one of his four books, because she was selected to be a lawyer for one of Donald Trump's many cases in that kind of interim period between presidencies. And he met her at Bedminster, where she is a member of his club. And she was wearing a bikini and lying on the edge of the pool and he thought she would be a great member of his defense team. And as he's

said to Michael, I may not have the best lawyers, but I have the hottest lawyers. Well, it's one way to select your legal team. We'll see how hot they are when the subpoenas come in, Mr. President. Also on the list, Monica Crowley, a name from the past, she's been around for a long time in Trump world. She, her best known weirdly for her close alliance with Richard Nixon, bit niche. She also seems old to do that job because that job is very much a front-facing job. of the White House. Which is why I think Anna Kelly is an interesting choice. Is she even younger than Caroline?

She's about the same age. I think she might actually be a year older. She's certainly been giving a lot of statements recently. The last six months, she's become more front and central. Monica Crowley should say, by the way, age for any normal world, she would absolutely be in the running. She's very prominent. She does well on television.

she's an articulator of the MAGA position but this is Trump he has consistently picked after Sean Spicer, young woman younger women and mostly well Arkansas lady and Sarah had to be sorry

yeah and Stephanie Grisham as well also dark but who never did a she never did a briefing but in general there is a type and she's not in it and then after that really everybody is going off in different directions

and suggesting different names Katie Miller has been floated, we are very sure there is no possibility of Katie Miller becoming the White House press secretary. Did she float her name, Katie? Did Katie Miller float Katie Miller? I don't think we can roll that out. Stephen Miller may have floated it. Katie, I can recommend your searing interview with the Secretary of State and his wife this week. I watch that with great curiosity. If you would like to know more about the Rubio's marriage, I suggest you watch Katie, Katie's podcast. Does you go to double her views there Joanna? I might double her views. I noticed it hadn't had a wild audience.

I'm looking forward to the comments about us recommending Katie Mell's podcast, purely anthropological people. All I can say is that Mrs. Rubio, well, Mr. Rubio does most of the talking. Mrs. Rubio sits there looking deeply uncomfortable, deeply uncomfortable, and I'm not talking about the chairs. Well, he, of course, knows about deeply uncomfortable chairs because he was sinking into that sofa and that started the meme. Poor Marco Rubio. He knew what he was getting into. And he gets house out of this on a military base, as he was talking about, with Pete Hegsteth as his neighbour.

And who would not want that? Pete Hagseth as his neighbour. And Pete Higgs' cat. Very bizarre. May hegseth has a cat. Yes, it's a very bizarre life. Well, he has seven children, so cats are not going to make any difference. No, well.

But just to go back to this, who's coming? Although Sean Duffy has nine children. This is, we should do. We've never done an audit of the cabinet's children and we should. Is this the cabinet with the most young children? I think it might be. Do you know what? I think it might be.

It's possible. We're going to have to put somebody on that for some deep research because they have to go back a long way to work that out. Well, our audit of Melania and how much time Melania has spent in First Lady duties was extremely revealing because it turns out she's done fewer. First Lady duties than any recent First Lady and certainly any First Lady this century. And she has not been seen now since July the 19th. So she and Mitch McConnell might be away together. Is that possible? Is that an unlikely alliance? Scott Jennings, you will know. Yes, Scott. They're both missing here. She's been missing for half of Mitch McConnell,

if that is now a unit of time. I think, well, if the mooch can be, if the Scaramucci can be Although the thing about the Scaramucci is it's got an end point and Mitch McConnell is still missing. So this is an expanding unit of time. We need Stephen Hawking here to tell us how that works. Black hole. We're in black hole. However, let's talk about the black hole in the West Wing. And the black hole in the West Wing is people are leaving.

We've spoken at length about Caroline Leavitt because what an amazing story. But she's one of four people to vanish just in August. And these are not nobodies. This is not junior people who are out the door. The White House General Counsel. David Warrington. Yeah, the White House Council, the Deputy National Security Advisor, Andy Baker.

And by the way, there is not a real National Security Advisor. It's Marco Rubio. It's one of his 203 jobs. But this guy, Andy Baker, was J.D. Vance's National Security Advisor. He is the Deputy National Security Advisor. This is one of the most important roles. And we have a war.

and he's leaving. He's off. Leaving. And also the general council is leaving in the middle of the war. And yeah, the White House council leaving, there's an obvious reason for this and it's all about those subpoenas flying in. He doesn't want that. What lawyer wants to be like, oh, God, what am I going to do? Oh,

I'm going to answer this pile of subpoenas and then just as it's gone down, oh, it's back up again. Jamie Raskin's been in touch. It's not pleasant. What is important here is it's coming in this ratat-tat-tat of departures and that's bad this is a west wing exodus a west wing exodus yes and the thing about

exodus exodus they only get worse so here we are we're not even at september the midterms are coming and we are all eyes on who's next out of the west wing so it's rats leaving a sinking ship And you've said after the midterms, you know, it could be an absolute nightmare being in the White House because it's going to feel even more under siege than it feels now. But the anticipation of that, I think, is also really gloomy to work in. And a lot of these people right now have the opportunity to go. David Warrington, I'm sure he's going to a white show. Go and make some money.

Go and make some money. And also get out from this incredible presence of the president. Oh, right. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, among those other ones who are leaving, Abigail Jackson, who was one of Caroline Levitt's deputies was out the door beforehand, quite nakedly to go and make money. She's gone to work for a PR and lobbying firm. So it's, would you want to be in there when things are going bad? Well, I think also the other person who's sort of missing, although she hasn't left, is Susie Wilde. Yes. We know she's having treatment for breast cancer. We have a story on the Daily Beast website today by talking. Tom Lacham in his punch-up substack, which reports on how Mark Wayne Mullen, who was brought in as the

replacement for Christy Noem at Homeland Security, managed to circumvent the usual procedures to get his number two in the job. Now, normally Susie Wiles would end up having a vote on this, so would Stephen Miller. But what Mark Wayne Mullen did, which is something, something that Christy Noem did, advised by Corey Lowndowski, who's one of Trump's advisors and a very close friend of Christy Noem and spend a lot of time flying around in the Homeland Security jet. He managed to get to Trump on a Saturday night when there was no one else there and said, hey, I'm bringing this fantastic guy and to be my number two. He's going to be the head of ice, very important agency right now, especially as they've been

loose with the bullets in ice. And we all remember the two terrible deaths in Minnesota of Alex Prattie and Renee Nicole Good. This has led to extreme concern with those around Trump, because we've now got to form a highway patrolman who was part of Mark Wayne's, Mark Wayne Mullin's security detail, in charge of ice. There's two amazing stories here wrapped into one. Mark Wayne Mullen takes over at Homeland Security. He needs somebody to run ICE. They have to be confirmed by the Senate. Susie Wiles is of course the Chief of Staff.

She's the gatekeeper. She decides about key appointments. Ultimately, Trump decides, but Susie Wiles says yes or no. Well, and I think she can sort of filter the shortlist, right? So only the candidates that she likes get in front of Trump. It had been very clear that she was not in favour of this Lance Schroyer, who was. from the Oklahoma Highway Patrolman who had become the head of...

So he's the guy, let's just remind people. He's the guy patrolling the highways. Yes. Right? So he comes to, if you've pulled over with a flat tire, he's the guy that pulls up and says, are you okay? Have you called, you know, recovery?

Or maybe he puts his lights on if he sees someone driving badly. Yes. He then became the head of Mark Wayne Mullen's security detail. And no... Which might be kind of... fun because Mark Wayne Mullen is a former fighter. I mean, he might have, he might be a fun guy to be on patrol. Right. And, you know, I'm not sure quite how high profile the security threats are to Mark

Wayne Mullen. I don't think this is, you know. They're probably higher now than they were. Well, I think they are now, yes. But Mark Wayne Mullen was not getting him past on the short list. He was not getting this guy past the short list. Susie Wiles went to go to her daughter's wedding. And her daughter, was getting married, of course, at the Trump vineyard, the Trump winery in Charlottesville. I don't know if you've ever had the wine from there, Joanna. It's slightly sweet, just telling you. I've never had the wine.

I've never had Trump wine. I didn't know Trump wine was still going. Trump wine is still going, and you can go in. If you've got a wedding coming up and you're in the Trump inner circle, that is the place to go. I'm looking forward to being dispatched to schools, you know, across the country as a new obligatory drink for children. I mean, come on. How can Linda McMahon not have organised that for Donald Trump?

So, you know, Susie Wiles was very busy celebrating her daughter Caroline's marriage, as you would be. And Mark Wayne Mullen got to Trump, said, this is the guy, and got Trump to put out a truth social saying, this is the guy, you need to confirm him to the Senate. Imagine being Susie Wiles. You're at your daughter's wedding. Susie Wiles. You're relaxing. You've been ill. how wonderful your daughter is getting married. She's happy. You're at Trump's vineyard.

It's all going out. The wine's sweet. And then you go to Truth Social. Up it pops on your phone. The Truth Social. Yes. Right. The Highway Patrolman has been put into a house.

We've got ourselves a convoy. So this, you know, what does this tell us? What it tells us, first of all, is, yes, this is a chaotic West Wing. Yes, this. Which we knew. Which we kind of knew. But, Susie, we know. But Susie Wiles had got that under control.

And now it's back away. It's not under her control. It's chaotic. And not only that, she's angry. We have a quote from a senior official in the White House who obviously has familiarity with what the atmosphere is. And this person describes Mark Wayne Mullen and others who try to do end runs around Susie Wiles as bad actors. Now, briefing about bad actors in public, that doesn't say that Susie Wiles has got this under control. It says our grip is slipping.

Now, there is a weird subplot to this. Susie Wiles' daughter was getting married to a young man who, as it happens, is a businessman. And his business is what is known as gas station marijuana candy. I have not partaken. I don't know about you, Joanna. Gas station marijuana candy. What does that mean that you sell candy that's... It means like gummies, a gas station.

Yes, if you've ever stopped and seen behind... Sounds like a job for a highway patrol man. Well, a very high highway patrol man. Things that are called things, they're branded things like train wreck. And they contain a low-level intoxicating hemp products. The reason I mention this... You can't make this up. Is...

cannot make it up. This new in-law, contains THC. This new in-law, Brett Worley, has been pushing, that's his business. He sells these products. He sells vapes as well. He sells gummies. They are sold very, very widely. I hope not to children. Well, obviously, no, I mean, there's no question. This is a legal business. But they're sold very widely. At particular gas stations, the Senate has been trying to regulate hemp, particularly intoxicating hemp. And you may remember in recent weeks, it was an erupt. in the Senate because the White House was trying to stop these new enforcement measures. And again, this goes to Susie Wiles' grip slipping.

Because Republican senators came out in public and said, we are really unhappy about this attempt to stop this, and suggested that it was related to Susie Wiles. So, son-in-laws. Family's business interests. And this is all about the grip is weakening. This West Wing, her grip is weakening. There is an exodus.

Where are we looking for a departure? You know, first of all, people are lined up to depart, but Susie Wiles, everybody is wondering, is this the moment where she says, I've also had enough. Because she's lost this control, she's lost this gatekeeper function. There are people on Capitol Hill asking questions. And by the way, just to go back to this hemp issue, guess who's going to get more subpoenas about that, Susie Wiles? Well, Michael Wulf has always maintained that Susie Wiles would leave at the midterms. I wonder if she leaves earlier. And we know that, you know, Malani is basically left. Right. Ivanka and Jarrah didn't even join Trump to.

He's an isolated... This is a much more isolated presidency than we've ever seen with Trump. And Trump doesn't work through isolation. He's not a lonely figure. As, you know, Obama was sometimes portrayed as somebody who was very alone and aloof. And I think, you know, you met Obama repeatedly, Joanne. And I think many people say that's not true, but that was a perception. But Trump, he loves yucking it up with other people.

He loves an altarage. He needs people around him. Well, and the other thing that Obama had was he had a wife and children in the White House with him. So he had a semblance of normal life. I mean, you know, and many people argued that actually he shouldn't have been having dinner as often as he did with his kids and he would have been better meeting politicians across the aisle. Putting that on one side, what he did have was a family to ground him. Donald Trump only has television to wind him up.

So we know he goes to his bedroom and watches himself on television. Is he dominating the news cycle? Is it all about him? And if it's not, he's furious and then starts truth socialing to create more drama around himself and drive the narrative forward. Yes. And I think, first of all, again, this goes back to Caroline Levitt. That's how he's driving the narrative forward. You've got to defend that.

that becomes more and more difficult, the more and more that Trump is isolated from other people and the more of those decisions are problematic. The Lance Schroier appoint endorsement or sort of demand that he be confirmed as ICE director, that's kind of difficult to defend. When Caroline Levitt goes to Susie Wiles and says, how can I defend this?

Susie Wiles isn't exactly going to go, oh, well, I was totally behind this because we all know it was done behind her back while her daughter was getting married. Well, and also the other thing that people have consistently said about Donald Trump is that if you're the last person

to whisper in his ear, that's when you have your maximum effectiveness. I mean, Bill Clinton was supposed to be the same. David Rothkopf said this on Monday that if you could get to Bill Clinton just before he was about to make a speech and whisper something, it would probably get fed into the speech somehow.

But Donald Trump, clearly, you know, he clearly appears to have a fairly short-term memory at this point too. Well, last person to talk to him is the person that gets the, whatever, the worm, whatever this is a sort of relatable thing that anybody who's had a boss will say, you know, people always say that about bosses and then people become bosses and then think, that's not true at all. And then it turns out it is. But it's very relatable. It's a very normal thing. He's 80. He's increasingly old. He's increasingly obsessed. by certain things, but he's the president, and those around him have to want to be there and have

to want to govern and have to pull the levers of government to make these things happen in an atmosphere in which it's increasingly difficult. Why would you, you know, I think the question for many people now in the West Wing is not, why would you leave, which it had been for some time, is why would you stay? Why would you stay? How incredibly damaging. Do we think Mark Wayne Mullen stays? Do we think Trump gets rid of him? Do we think that Trump has let loose on him? Well, you know, Mark Wayne Mullen has had a rocky few weeks. And also when people are leaking about you, you know that the, you know, that's not good to wake up and find a leak in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times saying the skids are under

you. Yeah, it's not enjoyable. I think I think the thing is that Trump doesn't want to give away a weakness before the midterms, how long is that sustainable for? We don't know. There are other cabinet secretaries who have problems. Pete Hegeseth has a floating crisis in the USS Lincoln. But I think the thing we should talk about is, where's Trump's mind? Well, Pete Hegzeth also has a problem in that they've started leaking that Pete Hegzeth is the one that was persuading Trump, that a war was a good idea with Iran, that it would be over quickly, that he very much sided with the Israel. In terms of you can do this, take out the leadership, the people of Iran will revolt,

and it will be easy and you'll be viewed as a conquering hero. In fact, none of that has happened. He's backed into a corner. And there's no obvious solution to a war that was completely unnecessary that other presidents had chosen not to do and that Trump has been bamboozled into by both the Israelis and by Pete Hexeth. Well, here's the other argument on this, Joanna. is, does Trump really mind?

Because we've got a good idea of what Trump is really obsessed about. And it's actually not immigration, and it's not the war. It's definitely not the economy. In fact, what I think we should do is play a clip from Caitlin Collins, who Trump is obsessed with, by the way, smile more Caitlin, remember. But we've got a clip from Caitlin Collins that says what he's obsessed by. And it's a really good summary of what he's obsessed by. Now, the president's focus has not just been on the Kennedy Center.

in terms of his broader push to remake Washington. It's also his pension for branding everything in his name. That includes the gold coins, the Trump passports, the National Park Passes, the Palm Beach Airport, I'm Not Done, the banner at the Justice Department, the new class of battleships. There are many things, not just in Washington, but all across the nation now bearing the Trump name.

He's obsessed about the Kennedy Center, about having his name on things, And that's another aspect of this West Wing. That's what he's shouting about. That's what he's interested in. That's what he's obsessed by. And again, why would you stay? You've got to navigate that.

You've got to keep his name on the Kennedy Centre. Well, and also the voters, his MAGA base, aren't interested in where Trump puts his name. They just want, you know, they want better prices at the pump. They don't want boys and girls' sports, which is not actually a thing. But MAGA had whipped to. become, yes. And they want, you know, they want what everybody wants, which is a kind of safe job,

access to your friends and family, and a sense of stability, I think. Yeah, and they are not dialed in on monumentalising. Is that a word? Donald Trump. I like it, monumentalizing Donald Trump. Yeah, and also, one of our colleagues, one of our younger colleagues used a trendy term described it as Trump maxing. Trump maxing. That's very good. Thank you. Or it is Bezito for that. Laura, that's an excellent term Trump maxing. He's Trump maxing Washington. Yeah, he's Trump maxing.

But his base doesn't live in Washington and doesn't see this. And doesn't care about the gold statues. Right. But that is what occupies his time and his focus. And also the interesting thing is that the Trump maxing, were it to be effective, might be a win for him. But we know that the ballroom is a total debacle. We know the reflective.

pool is a total debacle. In fact, when they arrested the Olympian Davy Hearn, Olympian kayaker for what they claimed was vandalizing the reflecting pool, it was Trump's own U.S. attorney in D.C., Janine Piro, Judge Janine from Fox News, who actually is a real lawyer, amazingly, who said, no, no, no, this was shoddy contract work. This is not a former Olympian ripping up the bottom of the reflecting pool, which was supposed to be American flag blue for the 250th anniversary. This is shoddy contract work given on a no-bid contract by the Department of Interiors. And of course, I don't think anybody can feel any sympathy here for Judge Janine. This is not a victim's story. But this week, she's back contorting herself to try to see if she

can get the prosecution back in action against David Herne. And we know. how that will end, it's going to earn in humiliation. There's no, there is no way on earth that she can get David Herne banged up for 10 years as a vandal, because none of it's true, and she's already undercut her case. And what's more, our colleague in DC, Farah Thomason, is revealing today, there's going to be an ethics complaint made against her. And she is a lawyer, Joanna. There is no more embarrassing thing, I think, for a lawyer, particularly one, I don't mean this uncharitably, but Judge Nune was towards the end of her career. She's 75. To end your career with this kind of... Right. It's a personal humiliation. She's undergoing it to save her job from Donald Trump,

who publicly said, oh, I don't know if she's going to stay in it. So, again, a reason to stay? Not really. A reason to go. Absolutely. Well, she's used to public humiliation. I mean, when she was a DA in Westchester. I know you are a close follower. It's a remarkable. I've lived in New York City for 30 years and I was always fascinated by Judge Janine because she was a DA in Westchester and her husband went to jail for tax offenses.

Yes. I mean, I couldn't believe it. Yes. Albert Piro got pardoned, of course, by Donald Trump. By one Donald Trump. But it just shows you. First of all, we've talked about people in Exodus and people going. There are some people who are really determined to stay, and Judge Chenin clearly is really determined to stay.

So Donald Trump can pardon people right now, right? He can pardon us tomorrow, Joanna. Not that we've done anything. Not that we've done anything or need a pardon. But yeah, Donald Trump can pardon anybody on federal offences. So can pardon people ahead of the subpoenas coming in? Well, I would have said before. Until recently, I'd have said maybe he'd try that.

But the slight flaw is his own MAGA Republicans in Congress, who, as you will remember, dragged Anthony Fauci, the distinguished public servant, the doctor who led the country through COVID, in front of a Senate panel. He had already been pardoned by Joe Biden. He took the Fifth Amendment, and they said, we're going to try to prosecute you for contempt.

and they're in the process of trying to do that. So unfortunately, sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander might apply here. And it may be that you can't be pardoned from a congressional subpoena anyway, but it may be that the protections that are available to the executive branch have been accidentally weakened by Rand Paul and his collective. So there are a lot of Trump is one of those presidents who has opened so many Pandora's boxes. about constitutional law, about relations with Congress,

about what happens to people who are, you know, in his family, about ethics, about any number of constitutional questions. And it looks like it's probably another one here about subpoenas and about how contempt of Congress works. We will wait and find out, I guess. But in the meantime, there's a lot of people who don't want subpoenas in any form. Well, we don't want subpoenas, Huey. we don't want subpoenas. So it's August. Normally we see a lot of the president. We actually haven't

seen him since Tuesday. Do you think he has any health issues going on? Well, we wouldn't know, would we? Because we haven't seen him. And Caroline Levitt doesn't answer health questions, except to say things like, this president is the sharpest of the most energetic president there has ever been. But we did see him on Tuesday night. He was at the Patriot Games in Geneva, in Ohio. This is part of the 250th anniversary. Celebrations of America. A slightly strange event.

It kind of looked a bit like American gladiators and then a sort of mix up of all those game shows where people have to climb and jump and maybe a bit of survivor and I don't know, Big Brother. Sort of obstacle courses. No egg and spoon race for any British viewers. That's what we do.

Honestly, this is what we did. school. This was our sport at school. We had to put an egg on a spoon and run as fast as you could. That's British sport. That's British fun. That's Patriot games in Britain. Yes. Egg and spoon. But instead, this was much flashier. This was an incredible spectacle. There were lights. There were fireworks. It was like a Charlie Kirk funeral. And at the end, how did it end? It ended, of course, with a Trump dance. Of course, it did. And I'm doing my best. That is very good. Well, I've seen it.

Who has not seen it? I mean, you can't escape the Trump dance. Right. Trump with these two athletes from each state, some people pass comment that these children were, these young people were surprisingly monoracial, all very white. They had competed, but also been cast and had to do videos expressing their interest in America to get these prizes. And I'll just say one of the things.

that Maga and the Republicans have for years railed against is, of course, participation trophies and everybody having prizes. It was very noticeable. Everybody had a medal. Everybody had a medal. Did the President have a medal? Because we know that he likes prizes.

You know, this is the first time I've seen them. He cannot access the Nobel Peace Prize. That is true, but he's got one on his wall anyway, because he stole Machado from Venezuela. He's got the Venezuelan oil, he's got the Venezuelan gold, he's got the Venezuelan Peace Prize. But yeah, that was the last time we saw him

was, I'm not going to do that again. Why hasn't someone, or perhaps they have? I haven't found it. In fact, after this, I'm going to go and look on Amazon for a dancing doll that does the Trump YMCA. Oh. There must be one, right? Well, you just press it and it does YMCA.

There's no way this product doesn't exist. Right. If this product doesn't exist, we're registering the IP right now. Yes, we are. We are. We're going to sell it with Daily Beast membership. So you can be a B-Bee's tier member. to the Daily Beast podcast and get a free Trump dancing.

And you can send it to your enemies. You don't have to keep it. Right. Or you could keep it and just play it when people call and try and sell you stuff on the phone. Scam texters, we have the answers. Scam texters, yes. But I like the idea of Trump maxing.

Trump maxing is brilliant, Laura. Well done. So the other thing that we should discuss is Luigi Mangione. Luigi Mangione, the hot alleged assassin, he has been in court this week. We're recording this on Friday morning. He's due back in court today. Do we have a sense of what we think will happen? Well, we are hearing that he is going to take a plea in federal court. Luigi Mangione is charged both in state and in federal court, which is very unusual. He allegedly committed this murder on the streets of New York City. And normally, that would be... Let's just remind people of the CEO, Brian Thompson, a father of two little children, and unbelievable video of an assassin coming up behind him and just shooting him in the back.

So there's obviously very little question that he did this. The question here is really about what happens next. And unusually, this happened on the streets of New York City. And normally that should just be prosecuted as a murder by, the local authority by the district attorney. And Luigi Mangione has been charged in New York State and faces a trial in New York State. But in the era of Trump,

Trump was determined to get in on the action and he demanded that there'd be federal charges against Luigi Mangione and he demanded the death penalty. Now, death penalty is not available in New York State, but it is available federally. Any state anywhere, the federal government can try to bring a death penalty case. They tried this. That collapsed because of procedural mistakes by people who work for the then-itone General Pam Bondi. And they were left with trying to prosecute him for an offence,

which obviously would mean life without parole. Now, this gets more complicated because you have to get a jury to convict somebody who denies that they committed a murder. And Liji Manjione had entered a not guilty plea. There is genuine... Was it not guilty on the grounds of diminished responsibility or sort of mental? There hasn't been any clarity about how exactly this would be litigated inside the courtroom, whether they go for something mental. But I think the fundamental worry that people have raised about this prosecution is you need 12 people to convict here. And Ligieg Maggioni had become this incredibly popular figure because of people discontent about the healthcare industry.

Yeah, he's like a folk hero in terms of the response to... You as a prosecutor have to get 12 people and you have to find... You don't... You can't... Do you want to take the risk of one of those people saying, do you know what? This healthcare company and whatever healthcare company it is was really horrible about my mother, about my father, about myself.

And you can try to screen that out. But who among us has not been impacted by the health system in some way? and they think, you know, they have got to be thinking as a possibility that you could get a not, you could not get a not guilty verdict here because people, one person could sympathise enough to say, I'm not convicting, it's called jury nullification. And before Trump, we hadn't seen this much. Jury nullification is really unusual.

Janine Piro, it keeps happening to her. It keeps happening to Trump prosecutors. They go to a grand jury, and the grand jury goes, know what? No, no, I'm not doing this. This is absurd. Right. It was a case in Chicago where they tried to prosecute anti-ice protesters and a grand juror was recorded as saying this is a crock of shit. So there is a problem in prosecuting Luigi Mangione in a federal court that do you want to risk that you lose the case entirely? So taking a plea here... And he walks free. He walks free. So...

Then you'd have to contort yourself to find some other thing to prosecute. prosecute him on. And, you know, it's a mess. So I think the thinking here is take a clean result, take a plea. You know that he is not facing a death penalty because you already messed that up. Just walk away as quietly as you can. Leave it to the state. And the state prosecution, and we don't know what the nature of this plea deal is as we are sitting here talking about it. But the state prosecution does not appear engaged in this yet. He could then face life without parole in New York. But it's all because Trump inserted himself into this that we are having this weird spectacle in the federal courtroom

in the southern district of New York in Manhattan. And of course the biggest irony of all would be Trump inserting himself into this. There being a federal case, there being one juror who, as you say, decides, you know what, my granny died because I didn't get, or we didn't get health insurance for this particular treatment that she needed. Exactly. People feel incredible attachment, incredible emotion. And we've all had.

And those letters that say we've been, you know, we're turning you down for your treatment. You can take this up on appeal. And you're like, oh, this is going to be another six weeks of missed calls. The whole thing is a nightmare. Everybody feels frustrated dealing with their health care insurers. And that is not a reason to say it's okay to kill people. No, of course. But this is not.

We're not in any way sanctioning it or condoning it. But a jury is 12 people and a federal jury, they are basically anonymous. they've in fact been given an anonymity. So those people can, in the privacy of the jury room, could well, one of them could just say, you know what, I'm not doing this. And prosecutors would not want to take that gamble if they don't have to.

And it appears that we have a plea of some form that is going to allow them to avoid that gamble. When will we know the results of that? This is going on as we speak, Joanna. So stay tuned todailybeast.com. We will be updating this story. And we're updating every story. We will reveal the,

the latest frontrunner as well in the race to be the new caroline levitt and we of course have an eagle eye on departures from the west wing and where's mitch we still got an eagle eye on where mitch is two months on we are still investigating here what is the name of Mitch mcconnell's advisor the one that earns quarter of a million dollars Terry carmack his chief of staff 226,000 a year joanna tell us release the video man just release a video of your boss saying, well, thanking everybody for their best wishes and telling us when he's likely to be back. That's a good question. Terry, if you're out there. Or Scott, Scott could tell us as well. Scott, you could tell us. And who knows where you'll be in a week's time? Maybe you'll be

pointing to people from the podium, the White House Press Secretary's podium. The place of power. Well, Scott has got an interesting weekend ahead. I hope you do. I hope you're getting some time off. You're taking any time off. He works 24. as does our news desk. We'll be back next Friday. I don't care about your weekend plans. I want you working 24-7. Well, it was out of the guillotine, so I don't know.

It looks like I've won. We'll be back tomorrow with Inside Trump's head. Michael Wolf is cooking up some interesting stuff. We'll be back next Friday to talk about the week that was. Thank you, Joanna. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Pissaro,

and Neil Rosenhaus. So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support.