The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump's Worst Scandal Is About to Haunt Him

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

David Rothkopf speaks with Joanna Coles about Trump’s increasingly chaotic presidency as the midterms loom, from his bizarre claim that he has an IQ of 1,775 to the growing threat of election interference and Elon Musk’s renewed influence. They examine Pete Hegseth’s alarming vision for the Pentagon, the rise of autonomous weapons and the billions flowing to Trump allies, before looking ahead to the Republican Party’s fierce 2028 battle between billionaire oligarchs and white Christian nationalists. And with Trump once again defending men accused of sexual abuse, David explains why the Epstein scandal could come roaring back—and become a defining story of the next election. #ad If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can start your claim in just a click without having to leave your couch: https://ForThePeople.com/DAILYBEAST #ad Get 15% off OneSkin with the code BEAST at https://www.oneskin.co/BEAST #oneskinpod  #ad Unlock your best hair & skin with @iRestorelaser and HUGE savings on iRESTORE with code DAILYBEAST at https://irestore.com/DAILYBEAST ! #irestorepod  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I spend a lot of my day in conversations, some of them even with Michael Wolfe. And honestly, keeping track of everything that gets there can be a job in itself. You leave a meeting thinking you've got it all and then you realise you've lost a few important details. And suddenly you're carrying the mental load of trying to remember what was decided and what needs to happen next. Well, that's where plaud comes in. What's different is that it starts with hardware built to capture really. world conversations and turn them into useful insights, summaries and follow-ups. It bridges in-person meetings, phone calls and online meetings into one workflow.

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All states are now sending ballots to overseas voters. So if you want to vote this year, you should request your ballot right. away. Go to vote from abroad.org and click, request my ballot. Ask to receive it by email. Questions? Ask our support team directly. Don't miss this chance to shape the future. Don't delay. Vote fromabroad.org. The 2006 Chevrolet Equinox awarded the most dependable compact SUV in the U.S. by J.D. Power. It's designed for your everyday. And with available all-wheel drive, you can handle your to-do list with total confidence. Start your build at Chevrolet.ca.com.com. Details at J.D. Trump is the most dependably pro-sexual abuse president of America has ever had. Here is this Cornell case

where a bunch of privileged Cornell students, you know, sort of got off writing an essay as a way of getting out of attacking and abusing women. Trump actually believes that men should be able to abuse women, that that's the natural order of things. He believes that people in power should be able to take whatever they want. 28 days to go, it is going to be a wild ride. We have a kind of unhinged president who is only going to get more unhinged. There's going to be a lot of fighting about the outcome of the election, because remember what happened in 2020.

Buckle up and be prepared to fight for what you believe, because this is going to be a midterm election unlike any we have ever seen in American history. David Rothkopf. Joanna Coles. I don't even know where to begin, except that this is the Daily Beast podcast. And David Rothkopf is our chief global correspondent in D.C. Yeah, not just D.C. Not just D.C. Globals. Global. Global. You've got the globals.

But you're living in D.C. where it turns out local tour guides are saying that visitors to D.C. are down 50%. Some of them are saying they're business is down 50% because DC is such a mess now that Trump, who is a builder, and he's just he does it out of his back pocket, he says. His buildings aren't working. Anyway, we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about Natalie Harp, getting the president very confused with India and Brazil. Yes, they both have a lot of people. That's probably about all they have in common. We're very lucky he has the highest IQ. How do we know? Because he told us, we'll also be looking at his aspirin protocol, will be examining the most powerful women in Washington. Of course, First Lady snubbed by not having a picture of herself on it. Meanwhile, Natalie Harp gets an

enormous picture. What your Pentagon sources are saying about Pete and his State of the Nation speech last week, the State of the Force. And Laura Luma's back. David, I have been missing her a bit like the first lady. I have been missing her. And Laura Luma is back. And, well, it's just, it's endless. And there could be a plague coming out of Russia. So it's Monday morning and it's all good. It's all good in America. Yeah, there's a plague in Russia. The elections in 28 days. Remember the movie 28 days later? This is the movie 28 days before. And we could have a plague. And we could have a plague. And RFK Jr. will be there to protect us all. Oh, that's so good. When he's not making his cooking videos. Yeah, well, from Plymouth. He also made a nice little video about his anniversary with his wife.

Oh, that's nice. I mean, a nice little clip. It was very, it's very, it's very, very sweet. So there's a lot going on. It's, you know, Washington, you know, it's like 28 days to go. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You know, and I'm going to lose my job. My friend's going to lose their job. We're going to be in power. We're not going to be in power. Everybody, you know, you may think, oh, they're looking at it from the perspective of the future of America. They're not. Everybody in Washington is, am I going to be employed? Am I going to be in power? Am I going to have to work on K-Straight and go and be a lobbyist? Is Trump going to go berserk? It's very fraught here, even if it's a little bit calmer out there across America. And Marco Rubio is telling people

he's not going to run because he's got four children. He's been in politics for 15. 15 years and he needs to make some money. De Bois needs to make some money. Well, Marco, you're in the right place. Although it turns out your boss has made, what is it, $2.2 billion since he's been in office. So what have you been doing, sleeping at the wheel? Hey, the boss. I think Barron has made $150 million and he's still in college.

You're sleeping, Marco. Just off of crypto, yeah. But Marco will make a little bit of a little bit of money. And what did he have to give up for that? His soul, just his soul. Oh, the old Faustian pack. Yeah. So before we go any further, let me just remind people, please subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast.

Like this podcast. Share it with your friends. Share it with your colleagues. Share it with frenemies. Share it. You know what you could do. You could send it to people an hour before you all have dinner together and then you've got something to talk about. Anyway, we're independent media, so we appreciate your support.

We rely on your support. And one of the ways of expressing your support is to like. or share our podcast. Now, the good news about having Donald J. Trump for president, which David and I are always saying, is that he does have the highest IQ. How do we know that? Yes. Because he's out there rallying for Republicans who don't really want him there, but he's there anyway.

And he told us he had the highest IQ. Let's play the clip. I said, wow, nobody saw it, but me. I'm very proud. I was a very intelligent. I'm a high IQ person. unlike some other people I can tell you about, among the highest IQs anywhere in the world, 1775.

And I said, you know, if we can scrap up $1 more, we'll be at 1776, and that's what we did. What is he talking about? What is he talking about? I mean, 1775 is not an IQ score. What is he talking about? Well, it is for Donald Trump. If you're the smartest person out there and your uncle went to MIT, you could have any score you want.

No, you can't. Actually, to be specific, you can't have an IQ score above 160. The tests don't actually go above 160. So this is, you know, more than 10 times that. It's just insanity. It is insanity. And frankly, you know what the 1775 references to. Remember, they sent a check to people in the military for 1700. and $76. And it was his idea. He said instead of sending them 1775, we'll add a dollar, it'll be 1776.

But, you know, nothing, all the synapses in his brain, they know connect no more. And so, you know, what you've got is a guy who between his ears has like a bubbling cauldron of Campbell's, you know, of Campbell's cream of idiot soup. And you never know what it's going to bubble up, right? And so he's like out there saying he's super intelligent. By the way, he is the guy who gave us the term super intelligence. We are now obligated, well, we're not, but the government is obligated to call AI superintelligence. And that's another one of his great schemes, right?

Here is AI. Everybody doesn't like AI. And he knows that, you know, when people stop buying cereal, they say new and improved cereal. And so he says, wait a minute, why don't we call it superintelligence? He should have said super locale, super delicious, no sugar, added intelligence, because that's what, you know, he views everything as a branding challenge and nothing is actually a governing challenge. And that's a problem, of course, because, you know, he does run the government. So the other thing he gave us insight into, which we've had before, but he's back on it. So he's obviously thinking about it is his aspirin protocol.

Let's hear that again too Because the old ones are the good ones As he goes out on a rally He is like that old cat skills comedian Just trying material And falling back on the old ones When they serve him Let's hear that clip

I love bear aspirin. I take an aspirin a day I don't know if it works But psychologically I need it It thins a hell out of your blood, I guess I don't know if it works or not But I've been doing it for a long time

and here I am making speeches. Bear. He sounds as incredulous as we are that he's still here making speeches. Yeah, but he's also like, and sure in his brain is going, bear. Wait, Natalie, buy a thousand shares of bear. Yeah.

You know, it's like he's out there promoting another stock and of course he's talking about getting a dose of this aspirin, which is too much above one. Well, I think it's four times above. of the recommended dose, right? Yeah, but, you know, if that's what he's doing, I'm saying like more power to you, buddy. Well, I'm saying double the dose.

Double the dose. Take as much as you want. He's only taking one. He's only taking one. He should take the bottle. Why doesn't he take the bottle? What kind of man is he? Take the bottle. People have done that before.

If he were a manly man, if he were a high tea, Pete Hagseth, man, he'd take the whole bottle. But, you know, the other thing about it is that he, He sounds a little bit like a really bad AI bot, right? He's just hallucinating. It's just like it goes from one thing to another. It could be true. It might not be true.

I think that's why he takes to the AI people so well, you know, and they think, well, this must be intelligence where inventing it sounds a lot like the president because it's chaotic. It makes no sense. And, you know, he does that at these rallies. He stands up and he just rifts and rifts and rifts. It goes on and goes on. Although, interestingly, people start leaving.

Don't get applause. It's not the only rally gaffe over the weekend, by the way. I don't know if you saw the pick. Do you see Vivek Ramaswami trying to pick up a big kid at the rally? So keep going. Please explain. Well, he was at a rally. He's running for governor of Ohio.

He is, of course, a big Trump fan. And he thought, well, you know, I'm running for office. I had to pick up a kid. If your accountant said, I've never actually done taxes before, but I'm pretty good at math, you'd probably find someone who has done taxes because when something really matters, experience isn't a bonus, it's the whole point. That's why so many people turn to Morgan and Morgan, making it America's largest injury law firm. Morgan and Morgan has a proven track record of fighting for the people for over 35 years. With over 35 billion recovered for their clients, Morgan and Morgan knows a thing or two about fighting to get you the compensation you deserve. They've got more than 1,000 lawyers and 100 offices nationwide. So if your car gets totaled, you get hurt at work or somebody else's bad decision becomes your very expensive problem.

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But, you know, I'm sure this kid's parents want it. He picks up the kid and then he can't hold it up and he's like dropping the kid. And it's like, you know, one of the basic rules of politics. don't drop a baby. You know, just no. But, but, but, but so, you know, they're doing a lot. They're doing a lot out there on the campaign trail with this and with ads. You know, the Republicans are pumping tens of millions of dollars into campaign ads because

they have terrible candidates. They have no record to run on. The president's saying horrible things. And so they think they can just buy it with this money that they're getting from all these billionaires and millionaires because that's worked for them in the past. The problem, honestly, if we're going to be serious for one fleeting moment, is that, you know, if the election doesn't go their way, they've got Plan B, you know, and Plan B is going to be declaring the elections invalid, challenging them, you know, impounding voting machines, sending troops in, intimidating people. And the reason that they can do plan B is that they did this once before January 6, 2021, and they got away with it. They attacked the U.S. government.

They tried to seize the system. They attacked police officers. And not only did they get away with it, some of them got rewarded. They got jobs in the government. They got cash payouts and so forth. So they actually believe that intervening in an election in a way. that's completely illegal is okay. And that's why everything's so fraud at the moment. And all the polls show Democrats way ahead. The early voting polls, I just was looking at a bunch

of those just now. And early voting is an indication of where things are going. And there are more Democrats early voting than there were in 2024 and 2022. In 2020, in 2020, there are more Democrats, you know, doing better in polls and more states, I think they just switched, I think 10 more states are now considered, congressional races are now considered in place. So if you're a Democrat and you're looking at this, you're saying, hey, this looks pretty good. But if you're a Republican looking at this, you're saying, what can we do to stop this inevitable wave and we'll throw money at it? But if the money doesn't work, what else is there? And, everything else there is, frankly, kind of illegal and is going to produce a lot of battles

over the course of the next four weeks, probably over the next several months, because a lot of these things will be contested after the fact. Well, one of their secret or not so secret arrows in their quiver is, of course, Elon Musk, bottomless pocketbook and Twitter, or X formerly known as Twitter. Do you think he's going to be a factor in this election? I think he is because I think he was more of a factor in the 24 election than we know. I mean, he was the one working with local groups coming up with these payoffs for voters that were legal or were they not quite legal working. You know, he was the one telling people hours before the vote what he thought the vote outcome would be. There's a lot of speculation about, you know, what kind of shenanigans he was up to.

This got him in very good with Trump. And you remember, even though he had a falling out with Trump over Doge, last week he was invited back in to be one of three people in charge of a panel in charge of deciding how the Pentagon will deploy autonomous weapon systems, you know, like the ones in the Terminator movies. And we have Elon and Newt Gingrich and a business partner of Don Jr. who are now in charge of what could be the next weapons of mass destruction. And so he's, you know, he's there more. He was at the dinner with the Chinese president.

He's been in the White House plenty. And he's got the president's ear again. And I think that's primarily because the president thinks he was helpful in tipping the scales in the last election. Well, he is, of course, heartbroken, David. So it's possible that he's not 100% right now. And I only mention this because Chivon Zillis, who is the mother of various of his children and some twins in that mix, posted herself. I mean, it used to be that when one followed high profile romances and they broke up or they had issues, you didn't hear from the candidate. themselves. You didn't hear from them. You heard from their people or they just gave a sort of

we won't be talking about it. Please respect our privacy. Happily, Shivon does not want her privacy to be respected. So I'm going to read from her ex post that she put out. It's hard. It's hard, David, to go from In Love to let go in a week with no warning. But that's just how it is sometimes shruggy emoji. I feel happy that I got to show Elon how it feels. to be deeply understood, nurtured and peacefully loved with stability and gentleness, given the tumultuous nature of his early life, his often tortured soul, and how hard he fights for humanity? I wanted him to feel the deepest and most stable form of love this world can provide. My heart is full, knowing I got to do that, and I hope it leaves a lasting,

a good effect. We were always his safe space, a place, a place where, All of us were overjoyed to see him and one that was always full of happiness and love, not war, in contrast to his otherwise militant existence and he did break from the battlefield where he could recharge his heart and soul before heading back out. So, and then what I particularly liked, well, there's a little bit more, she says. I loved him more than life itself and he's taught me a hundred lifetimes of knowledge and made my cup overflow with life meaning. So there is a lot of loss, but luckily we created four beautiful little loves of my life, four heart emojis. I'm so beyond grateful for our children and they make every single day the best day of my life. Then she says, I do hope and pray he and I can be great friends and co-parents.

I'm just going to say that on the basis of what's gone before, especially with Grimes, I don't think that's likely. Sorry, Chavonne, I don't think that's likely, but what do I know? Oh. But then what I particularly love, and I hope we can show a clip of this, is her revealing the texts between Elon and herself and saying, I didn't realize that the she dinner included significant other, or I would have invited you. That's Elon. And then she goes, oh, that means so much to me. Thank you. Heart emoji.

So there you go, David. There you go. I mean, he's not top of his game. He's riding out to the battlefield without having any inner peace. Well, first of all, ketamine provides loads of inner peace, and I don't know that he's stopped with that. But secondly, you know, you were reading that as though it were a romantic nose or a coda on a longstanding relationship.

To me, it sounded like a request for cash. And to me, it sounds like, here I am. I'm not going to fuck up your life. I'm going to follow the rules that we played by. I'm going to say nice things about you. You're going to treat me well because I can be public if I want to be public. And if you don't, then we're going to have problems. So please keep those checks.

Please keep those checks coming. Right. And I would have thought she would have signed an NDA at this point. Who knows what she signed? Who knows how much of that is true? I mean, look, the woman was involved with Elon Musk in the game. him four children. She's obviously out of her own life. Everybody's giving him four children. Everybody gives him four children. Well, yeah, that's why he's got a giant ranch in Florida,

you know, full of, you know, herds of little Eli. Ms. Muskees, muscovites. Yeah, musk oxen. But the reality is that, you know, she's obviously a little crack to have fallen for this bullshit anyway. So you think this is a public shakedown? I think the whole thing's transactional. You know, I think, you know, I mean, she obviously was being used as a kind of a brood mayor by Elon. And she thought, well, okay, you know, if he's the richest guy in the world, I'm going to get something out of this. And the kids will get something out of this. And maybe she persuaded herself that there was some real emotion there.

But once you're out of the relationship or doing this kind of thing, you know, you have to ask really what their motives are in being public, as you were saying. You know, you don't have to go public. She didn't have to write something. Why did she do it? There always has to be a reason. And, you know, as my old professor taught me, you know, question number one is follow the money. You know, what's the financial reason behind it? What is the financial reason behind it indeed? One skin is nothing like your typical skincare brand, and that's why I keep coming back to the most anti-aging skincare is built to react to smooth over lines and wrinkles after they show up. One skin started somewhere different,

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Another person who is one of the odd balls in Trump's court is, of course, Ken Paxton. And Ken Paxton has been caught making yet another humiliating confession. So last week, it turned out that he was moaning that Trump's Trump-a-Paloosa had in fact hurt him and that the numbers had gone down since Trumpa-Palooza. Now he's made another confession that in fact, he's not allowed to have any control over his Senate campaign. And he said he was caught on another hot mic. I've never been in a race where I've felt less control over the campaign and like, what issues are going to matter? because it's all, you know, it's coming from D.C. I don't control my message or what we're doing. I don't know if we should be relieved by that or not relieved by that. But Ken Paxton's just, you know,

what is he at this point? He's a guy who's going to lose an election in four weeks. He's going to lose Texas for the Republicans for the first time in several decades. He's going to lose to James Tala Rico, who Trump decided to attack over the weekend by saying, well, you know, he's a vegan. Actually, he's a vegan vegan. You know, I don't know what that means, but I think it means he just eats lettuce. Well, I hope it's not lettuce that has, you know, that gives you that explosive, whatever it was called. Well, yeah, I mean, Trump lettuce is what we call that. It was cyclospora. It was the summer of cyclospora, but James Talarico is looking good on lettuce, if that's all he's eating.

Well, he's looking good. He's looking good in the polls. He's up, I think, 5% in the polls. He's up with just a couple, but he could win. He actually could win. This is not Beto O'Rourke. This is something where he could actually win. And part of it is because Paxton is the worst possible candidate, impeached, corrupt.

You know, the only person who seems to like Paxon, despite all of his misdeeds of every sort you can imagine is his wife who made us. statement over the week. And, well, you know, sometimes you have to vote for somebody because you're voting for the team, even if they're not the best possible candidate, not really a resounding endorsement. And Donald Trump put him in that seat as retribution for John Cornyn, the right-wing Republican who's represented Texas for the last few cycles. What did he do to piss off Trump? Can you remember? A couple of times he spoke out against Trump. And, you know, This is a rock-ribbed Republican who voted with Trump on almost every occasion.

But occasionally, he would show little signs of independence, and Trump wants 100% loyalty. And just like, you know, Hitler used to fire generals because they wouldn't follow a particular order, even though they had done a good job for him, that, you know, Trump is doing this. And he has pissed off the entire Republican Party. And if you go and talk to sort of mainstream Republicans right now, they feel this is, you know, Trump's giving. going to get his comeuppance. He invited this. Paxton's a terrible candidate. Cornyn would have won this pretty easily. And it's entirely on Trump because he thinks he's a mastermind because he has an IQ of 1775, which is the same IQ as 11 other human beings added up, right? It's just, it's too much. It's Monday, and I don't know where we're going. I don't

I don't know where we're going, except we are going to the list of the 300, normally it's a list of 10, 300 powerful women in Washington. Melania obviously is on there as the first lady, but there's no picture of her. There is, however, a large photo of Natalie Harp, also one of the most powerful women in Washington, possibly the most powerful woman, because she's the woman that dictates what Trump says on social media, what media he gets to respond to and what media he gets to read. Yeah, well, you know, maybe what's going on there's a little bit like that New York Times horrible list of the 100 best television shows, which was stupid, I mean, just a stupid list.

But, you know, they did not include on the 100 best television shows of the past 25 years, the Sopranos. And the reason they didn't was that it started in the 90s. And the reason Melania is not one of the 300 most powerful women in Washington, or is just Marjley on the list. It's because she's not in Washington. She doesn't live here. She doesn't live in the White House. I think when she's in the White House, she doesn't even live in the same floor as the

president. And so, you know, she has very little influence over him, whereas Natalie's with him all the time. And even if they have their little spats, there she is at his side, you know, and she's the one who feeds his delusions. And Trump is fed on delusioned. Trump is like a locomotive where you need an engineer up in the front, throwing coal into the engine. And the coal that keeps him going is bullshit.

You know, it's like, oh, yeah, you're doing great. Oh, yeah, you look great. Oh, yeah. Everybody loves you. Oh, yeah. And that's Natalie's job. She's scooping up the bullshit and shoveling it into the engine. And that, you know, is the most important job in Washington right now because absence his own delusions, what's Trump left with?

not a very pretty reality. And I don't think he could handle it. The one person he is left with, David, is, of course, his secretary of war. We haven't talked about the war. We've had a rather lighthearted start to the podcast. But Pete Higgsath made a remarkable speech, his state of the force. Well, I thought the global bubonic play or pneumonic play gap, that wasn't very light-hearted. But go on.

Well, you're right. You're right. But you talk to people in the Pentagon all the time. you talk to people in the defense and the intelligence industries, what did they make of Pete Heggseth speech? Well, I mean, you know, they had two kinds of reactions. And one is he's a joke, right? I mean, he comes out.

He does this kind of free verse about no weirdos and no beardos and this and that. He talks about high tea and so forth. And, you know, that's mockable because it's ridiculous. And then after that, it starts getting a little bit darker. You know, he starts saying, well, I'm going to have. the religious, you know, Office of Religious Affairs of the Pentagon report directly to me and it's going to, you know, and people start seeing, well, this is his white Christian nationalist agenda and other people of other face, which by the way make up the majority of the people in the

military, don't much like that. And then he's like, oh, going to fire 20 percent of the existing generals and admirals. And you start to see that, you know, it's darker and dark because the Pentagon that he is creating is one where the United States is less ready, more vulnerable. There is less respect for the troops. There is less respect for the people in command. There is less respect for the truth. There is less respect for the press.

There is less transparency. There is a ridiculous amount of money pouring into deals that don't have anything to do with our future. $1.5 trillion so we can have Trump battleships, even though nobody thinks battleships are of value, and they stopped thinking they were a value in roughly 1940, or the Golden Dome, which no expert thinks can actually work, or AI systems, which are going to be, or drone systems, which are going to be provided by companies that are owned by Don Jr. And so I think, you know, when I talk to people, and I talked to in the past week, several people,

or former flag officers, generals, and admirals, and other people who've been in senior positions in the Pentagon, they see him as destroying America's military. They see that the damage he is doing is going to take years and years to recover from. They see this as being profoundly dangerous to U.S. national security. So while they laugh at Hegseth and they call him a frat boy and a drunk and all this other kind of stuff, they also see a consequence. And, you know, I mean, you can see it in little actions. Over the weekend, it was announced that a third carrier battle group is being deployed to the Persian Gulf.

We don't have carrier battle group where we used to have one in the Pacific because of this. So we are less prepared there. When a carrier battle group goes out for a matter of months, it then has to go into, you know, dry dock and be updated and replenished. and that takes 18 months. So that means that the things he's doing now are going to make us less able to meet global challenges for years and years to come.

Similarly, the depletion of all of our munitions in this war, the same thing. But Trump is now making noises that he could escalate. He's now making noises like he's listening to Bibi Netanyahu and maybe this fly Dubai flight was the Iranians were behind it.

And if the Iranians were behind it, we're going to have to punish the Iranians. And Trump is saying, you know, this is going to go on through the election. And, you know, it's getting very close to the fact that, you know, this war was going to come up on its first anniversary pretty darn quick. And we are going to be spending tens of billions according to the administration, hundreds of billions, according to independent estimates, on a war, which has not made us any safer, has not reduced the risk of Iranian nuclear weapons, has not reduced Iran's control in the region, has actually restored Iran's influence over some proxy groups like the Houthis in Yemen, has made most of our allies

real uncomfortable with us and has done so in a way if there's upset anywhere else in the world, if there's a problem in Taiwan, if Putin makes a move on the Baltics, and then, you know, we're going to be less able to provide for that. But, you know, you go back to Hegseth and what's his response? Let's take more troops out of Euro. I did a podcast on my own network last week with several national security experts, and they all think the likelihood that Putin might strike elsewhere in Europe, not just the hybrid war that he's doing now with sabotage and drones and so forth, but that he might go into the Baltics or that he might. hit into Poland, is higher now than it has been at any time in the recent past. Think about that.

Think about how we would have reacted for any point in the past 50 years if somebody said, it is more likely now than ever before that Russia will attack Europe, except that we're on the side of Russia. We're not on the side of the Europeans. We're on the side of the aggressor, not on the side of democracy. Make it harder for Ukraine, blaming Ukraine for higher diesel prices when Russia and Trump are responsible for them. We're at a moment where our national security situation is, and I don't think this is an exaggeration, and I talk to these people all the time,

and this is what I write about mostly. We're in a national security crisis in the United States of America because of Trump, because of Pete Hegst, because of bad decisions, and it is going to take us years and years to undo the damage to our alliance. to replenish our stocks of weapons, to restore the priorities within the Pentagon, to get good leadership back in place regardless of whether they're women or people of color, and to be what

we were just a couple years ago. I don't think, I would argue that more damage has been done to the United States national security community during Trump's time in office than has been done to it in any of the any war that we have ever fought. If healthier looking hair and skin have been on your mind, this is the sign to stop putting it off. I receive the I Restore Elite and Illumina face mask, and what I love is how easily they fit into your routine.

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like the I Restore Elite Helmet and the Illumina Face Mask. Just head to I Restore. and use the code Daily Beast. That's DailyBeast at irisdore.com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Give your hair and skin the upgrade they deserve so you can feel confident and refreshed. Wow. Well, that's a very depressing analysis. There was one, I thought, possible ray of hope for Donald Trump in the New York Times yesterday.

There was a piece saying that the Iranian finance minister had said that the Iranian economy was on the verge of collapse. Did you see that? I did. The Iranian economy has been in bad shape for a long time. But here's the thing. In the United States, when the economy is in bad shape, voters go to the polls and they say, let's get rid of the people who put it in bad shape. In Iran, when the economy goes in bad shape, there is no election. It's not a democracy. They have, the leadership in Iran has been treating the people of Iran badly for a long time to come. Furthermore, Iran, has benefactors in this world that can help it out in a pinch. The Russians can help it out in a pinch.

The Chinese can help it out in a pinch. There are others who want access to Iranian oil and other products that can help them out in a pinch. And I think one of the reasons that he said this stuff is in order to put additional pressure, particularly on the Chinese, to be more helpful to them. And I think they're going to get that. They're going to survive. And, you know, that's the thing. The Iranians are in Iran. They're not leaving Iran. Donald Trump wants out of Iran. He doesn't want to stay there. This is what happens all the time in these wars. Even if they are in pain, they can wait it out because they are where they live. And we will not be able to wait it out. And it's just a question of time before Donald Trump ultimately sort of pulls up stakes and goes

home or settles in for a war that will continue throughout his presidency at a low grade level. Which seems to be the thinking from people that I've talked to that he can't get out of it and that Pete Higgsath and Marco Rubio are just sort of accepting that they're going to be stuck in this quagma through 2028. Yeah, the interesting thing is that Marco Rubio thinks, well, I can't run for president then because I'm going to own this mess. Whereas Pete Hegseth is going and campaigning on it because he's such a boob that he thinks people believe his bullshit and that, you know, if the military has higher testosterone, that's what matters. And if it's more Christian, and if it's more like him, then that's what matters. And he seems to think that the illusion

of strength is more important than actual strength. And, you know, I obviously, I mean, every morning I get up, I light a candle. I say, please let Pete have. Hegsteth be the Republican candidate in 2020. This could be the best thing that would ever happen for America because the Democrat could win by nearly unanimous vote. Let me ask you about this panel. So his speech creates six new departments, one of which amazingly is called Project Adjinkor, going back to the 1400s.

But you referred to the fact that he's put in Elon Musk. He's put in Palmer Lucky, who started the, Oculus, the VR glasses that Meta bought. And now he founded a company that he's running called Anderil, which is a modern, you know, military tech company. And then the 84-year-old, I believe is 84, Newt Gingrich, who's hitherto really been most recently famous for his sweaters that he wears with his wife, who is the ambassador in Switzerland. What What is Newt Gingrich doing there at 84 helping? This is the department that's supposed to autonomize warfare.

Well, I mean, he has no knowledge of how to deal with this thing. And, you know, I mean, but Trump doesn't have an unlimited group of people who will blow smoke up his ass. And Newt Gingrich is still one of those people. And so, you know, Trump says, well, he was Speaker of the House. He's a statesman. You know, that's good enough to me. That's, you know, that's like a brand name. him on this thing. Palmer Lucky is a business partner of Don Jr. Oh, isn't that a conflict of interest?

Well, that doesn't really matter, does it? Also a billionaire. Also a billionaire. Yeah, also a billionaire and also a super weird dude. And, you know, this is... I think the phrase, when you say super weird dude, I think what you mean is he's tismaxing. Wow. Wow. That's what I'm told it's referred to in the valley. Is it, is it, you are, you are following in the footsteps of clavicular and not, well, he was looks smacking, right? He was look smacking. And then I think he was sexual assault maxing, which is what was going on at Cornell. Yeah, well, could we speak about Cornell for a second, shall we? We can, but can we just finish with this, this group of people, Parma, Lucky Elon Musk and Newt Gindrich, who are supposed to reform.

the American military? Well, I mean, look, they're supposed to reform it. What they're supposed to do is help us enter the area of autonomous weapons platforms. Autonomous weapons platforms, for those of you who are not following this very closely, are exactly what you saw in the Terminator. There are little machines that fly around or crawl around in space, killing people on their own without human supervision, okay? that's the autonomous part.

And there are now drone systems that do this. And the idea of the future of warfare is that you could have a war in which tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of drones and robots and other kinds of machines could go and attack a country and devastate its people, devastate its economy, without putting human soldiers at risk. The problem with this, of course, is it makes war more likely, not less likely. Another problem is, of course, that autonomous systems do what their algorithms say they should do, and sometimes these things go haywire. Another problem with this is that they don't get a lot of morality built into them, particularly when people, like the characters you mentioned at Pete Hegesa,

who essentially was saying to the AI community, hey, look, come in, but no holds barred. We want to be, our emphasis is on lethality, you know, and he doesn't care about international law. He doesn't care about what is right or moral or what strengthens the U.S. or what, by extension, puts U.S. troops at risk. And so, you know, they're, you know, involved in this project. But, you know, Trump has got some AI bug in his brain and he thinks anything about AI is the future. And he thinks untrampled AI is the best flavor of AI. And so he's also got other initiatives led by his director of national intelligence, who doesn't know really anything about AI either, to go and shape how we're going to use it, what our

rules are going to be for it, and so forth. And it's all, you know, what is it at the end of the day? It's A, something that Trump makes him feel like he's strong and doing something. And B, is something that's going to produce giant contract. for companies owned by Trump Jr., Trump Jr.'s friends, Trump's friends, the companies that are donating to Trump. This is all about the cash at the end of the day. It's all about producing massive contracts, hundreds of billion-dollar contracts, to go and create these new systems without doing any of the thought about whether we need them or whether they're good, et cetera, et cetera. It's reckless.

It's dangerous, but it's also profoundly corrupt, and I don't think we should lose sight of it. Okay, well, the great news is that Laura Luma is back to keep the president on the straight and narrow. She really didn't like him meeting with Mayor Mammie. She thought that was a bad sign. And she's traveling with him on Marine One, and Trump said about her, she's a great Republican strategist, a great person, a killer, which is, I agree at you. a very terrible situation. Laura Luma, thank you, Laura. She's great. No one's ever seen anyone like her. Indeed, we have not. Indeed, we have not. What is, wasn't Laura Lumer like his kind

of his work wife for a while? Well, she was busy flying around with him. But how does Natalie get along with Laura Luma? I don't know. It's a very good question. I think that Laura Luma is a friend of Natalie, which is how she got access to the White House in the first place. Because Natalie, you know, figures out who's coming in and out. And Laura Luma got access through Natalie. Oh, that's interesting. Well, they all end up in a good place. You know, Caroline Levitt's going to Fox. Caroline Levitt is going to Fox News. Yes, I think we called that. That was my prediction. Well, that's a brilliant place. I thought so. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You really went out on a limb on that one. She's going to join Dana Perino. Dana Perino, of course, was also White House Press Secretary

under George W. Bush, and she's on Fox News now. And Pete Hexf came from Fox News. So it's a revolving door there. It is a revolving door. And that's where all these people expect to end up, you know. I mean, they just, they just hired, I don't know if you saw this. There was a story in the Guardian this morning about they have a new assistant press secretary in the White House who's coming in from some wacky right-wing outfews. that one run by this guy, Jack Posobiac, who, it turns out, was seen in 2021 posing in a fuck Joe Biden t-shirt holding a rifle. And this lovely woman is now part of the White House press down. Oh, they must be very proud. Remind people who Jack Posobiac is. He's just one of these crazy right-wing voices that got us Trump, you know, who stirred things up and whose track record is full of lies and deception and threats and so forth. And he's part of that right-wing ecosystem of talking heads that persuaded, you know, an audience that

was, I don't know what they were doing, you know, they were at the gym or the drive in a truck or in a bar or wherever they were listening to it, that, you know, the Democrats were the Satan and that what we needed was a, you know, somebody sent here by Jesus to save us, and that, of course, is Donald Trump IQ 1775. And as Pete Hexeth reminded people, our department is, as you might say, putting on the full armor of God, because while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle, David, is spiritual. And then he said...

Is against the Jews. And then he said... God is... Maybe it's the Muslims. It's against the Muslims. I know it's against everybody. It's against everybody, I think. And then he said, God is good.

Evil. You might be surprised by this, David. This is what he said, which is why I think AI helps him write his speech. Evil is bad. Evil is bad, David. Evil is bad. That's morality. Look, this dude has crusader tattoos on his chest, right?

He's got his, like, guru in all of the... this stuff is some crazy right-wing preacher who says women can't be in the military, that's not their role. And who thinks that our footing, you know, he mentioned Ajin'Corps. Well, you know, Agincourt was relatively recent when you compare it to the footing he likes, which is, you know, the Crusades. And, you know, he really feels that what we're engaged in is a global crusade against white Christian men and that he has to defend white Christian men. And the reason he wants to run for president is because there is a big group of people out there, some of them with money and so forth, who think that the next president of the United States

ought to be on the same wavelength there. And by the way, J.D. Vance and his affiliation with Turning Point, which agrees the same thing, is also part of this white Christian nationalist movement. And just as a parenthesis here, the elections in a month, let's assume for a moment that, well, all the shenanigans they try, they're not going to be able to undo the will of the American people completely and the Democrats take over the House or maybe the House and the Senate. At that point, Donald Trump becomes an even lame or a lame duck. And the entire conversation in the United States becomes, who's going to be the candidate in

2028? Where are we going after this? And there are going to be two competing forces within the Republican Party. One is the oligarchs, the people who went to the sea dinner, the people who Trump signed our new constitution about AI with the Bezos and Allison and Zuckerberg and Elon and Mark Andreson and Peter Thiel crowd who think, well, we're in charge now. We've got the billions. Each one of us is worth what a medium-sized country is worth. And we can use the United States to serve our purposes and we'll just find somebody and put enough money behind them that they'll

get elected. And they think they'll be able to pick a candidate. Meanwhile, as a subset of the Republican Party, you've also got this white Christian nationalist movement that thinks, well, hate worked for Trump. It can work for us. And, you know, we're getting closer and closer to 2043 the moment when the United States becomes a minority, majority country, and white people become the minority in the United States. And we want to be the backlash against that. And that's why J.D. Vance is going to be our candidate or whomever. And that's the battle that is forming within the Republican Party right now. And, you know, the story is going to change real damn fast from what does Donald Trump say or do to which one of these groups is going to win

and which one of these groups is going to be, you know, vying in just a couple of years to take this country into its next chapter. David, doesn't J.D. Vance answer both groups, though. Doesn't he provide an answer for both groups? That's what he thinks, right? Because he is the Peter Thiel candidate, and he thinks he, you know, he comes from that world, he comes from the financial world, and at the same time, he thinks he, you know, is, you know, appealing to the white Christian nationalist.

And honestly, who else? You know, I don't think Marco is going to be able to compete that way. I mean, the problem J.D. Vance has is that nobody likes him and nobody believes. leaves it. And he goes out and he says horrible racist things all the time. And so it's always possible that there will be some, I don't know, slightly saner, 10% more sane Republican candidate who comes along, who says, we don't have to hate everybody. And that may undermine Vance. And the other problem Vance has is he's the vice president to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump is and there's all sorts of corruption swirling around him, and there's the Iran conflict,

and there's the destruction of democracy in America, the destruction of our institutions and so on. And Vance kind of owns that, right? So he's got a leg up right now, but, you know, I wouldn't say it's a shoe in. A leg up, but not a shoe in. Trump came out over the weekend and said he felt sympathy for the seven young men involved in this, in this gang, alleged gang, Yeah, I just think, you know, Trump is the most dependably pro-sexual abuse president of America has ever hit. Every single time, he has the opportunity to speak out on behalf of people accused of sexual abuse. He does. And, you know, here is this Cornell case where a bunch of privileged Cornell students, you know, sort of got off writing an essay as a

way of getting out of attacking and abusing women. And Trump's like, oh, well, that's not fair. Because Trump actually, as we've said here before, believes that men should be able to abuse women, that that's the natural order of things. He believes that people in power should be able to take whatever they want. That's the natural order of things. And, you know, it's baked in his cake. I was thinking about it the other day because do you remember the Me Too movement?

Remember when we were like, oh yeah, there's this big movement. This is never going to happen again. And the response to the Me Too movement was not no more sexual harassment. The response of the United States of America to the Me Too movement was to elect Donald fucking Trump. Again, a second time, this pro-sexual abuse. you know, guy who's been found by a jury to be liable for violating, you know, a woman and has been accused by dozens of others of other misdeeds.

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who accuses him of sexually assaulting her as she lay unconscious at his New York townhouse three years ago. And interestingly, she used to hang out at Mara Lago a lot with her then boyfriend, Ross Schafeitz. He's a private equity guy. But his father, his billionaire father, actually, owns a condo in Chicago on the 87th floor of Trump Tower, which is probably only the 77th floor because doesn't Donald Trump do that thing where he starts at the 10th floor, so you automatically think you're higher than you actually are. Anyway, sad to have the person who introduced you to your husband be accused of allegedly drugging and raping someone 23 years, their junior. These really are the world's worst people, though.

They're the worst. Donald Trump, the people Donald Trump hangs out with the people that hang out at Mara Lago. They're not marginal people. They're not people we can look down on because we don't like what they do professionally. These are disgusting human people. The most disgusting. And it's like he's built a hive of disgusting human beings. And each one of them has a crime and each one of them has,

skeletons in the closet. And that allows them, you know, that was sort of the Epstein thing, you know, everybody has skeletons in the closet, so everybody keeps everybody else's secrets. Do you think the Epstein files and Jeffrey Epstein himself will be a theme in the election as we get closer? I don't know that there will be a theme in the election to the extent to which they're not already. In other words, I think there are a lot of people who see Trump as the leader or part of the Epstein class, sense the corruption, sense the violations of norms and values and morality, and are disgusted by it. And I think you'll see, you know, many more women voters moving across and voting for Democrats, many people who are disgusted by this movie across and voting for Democrats.

But here's what I do think. I think if the Democrats win and we start getting different kinds of investigations on Capitol Hill, the Epstein files will come back with a vengeance during the two years between now and the 2028 election. And I think revelations and things that we don't know about Epstein and the Epstein group and Trump and the Epstein group will be much, much bigger stories than they are now and will be stories in 2028. And otherwise, you know, why would the president have made as attorney general somebody whose primary job is to protect him from the Epstein files. And with that, we get to a certain place where maybe it is appropriate to end, which is all of this connects to Epstein. Donald Trump's defense of the Cornell kids is because the accusations

against him sound like the accusations against Trump that have been made in multiple cases, but are particularly still out there associated with the Epstein files. And no matter what Todd Blanche does to try to hide all this, no matter what Donald Trump tries to do, he can't turn the page in his own mind. He knows it's out there. He knows it will always be out there. He knows there are victims out there that are going to someday testify

in front of Congress in one situation or another. He knows that these accusations are going to come out again. He knows that he and Maloney, Melania, we're part of a demi-monde in the world of Jeffrey Epstein, which is repugnant to most Americans. And any time he has a chance to say, well, this is really a political thing, or this is unfair, or this is people abusing the law, he does it because he's laying the groundwork for his own ongoing defense in this Epstein thing, which will be at the center of everything.

David, thank you for analyzing the week for us. I guess what can one say 28 days to go? 28 days to go. 28 days to go. It is going to be a wild ride. I think we have a kind of unhinged president who is only going to get more unhinged. We've got an apparatus around him that will do what ever he says, which is going to put a lot of our laws at risk. And then after the election, there's going to be a lot of.

of fighting about the outcome of the election, because remember what happened in 2020. And so my main advice to everybody is listening to this is buckle up and be prepared to fight for what you believe, because this is going to be a midterm election unlike any we have ever seen in American history. Well, and as Donald Trump said he's recommending that people cheat like hell. You know, we get a lot of comments on this podcast, particularly from your fans. They're all like, we love David, we love David. They're so smart.

We get a lot from people living in Australia, people living in Europe, who cannot believe what's going on in America. They just cannot believe. I don't know if listeners have the same reaction. But I wake up days and it's like Donald Trump is really the president. This guy who's saying this crazy stuff thinks his IQ is 1775. is really the president of the United States who, you know, who's caught up in every form of crime and corruption we've ever seen and still has the ongoing support of people as the president

of the United States. And then you think, this happens all the time throughout history. Look at Brazil. They had an election over the weekend. And they put in, you know, the first place, it was a first ground election, the son of a guy who did. tried to destroy democracy in their country. Their memory extended back exactly like, you know, two years. And it's like, no, you know, and the whole south of Brazil voted for this guy. And it happens time and time again. It's just for some reason, I don't know, people aren't paying attention. They're caught up in their own. I don't know what it is. I don't, I just can't believe that we're going through all this stuff over and over again. It's,

It rattles my sense of what is real and what is not. Well, we'll be back rattling that sense next Monday, David, God willing, with the armor of God around us. Leave your comments for David. Are you also rattled by what's happening in America? Let us know, let us know how rattled you are. Yeah, and we'd say, you know, when you comment on the YouTube, we comment back. We get engaged with you. Yeah, we do.

It's so interesting. If you've got questions, you've got comments, you are rattled by something else, we're missing the point, we're getting the point, share it with us because we live in the age of interactive media and it's much better to be involved in a conversation with you guys than just one another. So please join us for that. David, I'll see you next Monday. See you next Monday.

Stay ruffled. Count on that. Many thanks if you have been for joining us and a big thanks to our production team, John Romero, Ryan Murray, Rachel Pasa, Heather Pissarro 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

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