The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump's Year From Hell Has Only Just Begun

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

The Daily Beast’s must-read columnist David Rothkopf joins Joanna Coles to dissect Trump’s mounting political peril. As dissent grows within his own party—over foreign aid, tariffs, and radical Senate moves—Rothkopf warns that Trump is “staring death,” with his political survival hanging by a thread. This episode explores the stakes of a president confronting resistance from his base and the chilling question: how far will he go to stay relevant? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

That's the other thing that Trump saw. He saw death. He saw his own mortality. He realizes there is no future for him. The Republican part, he looks in the eyes of Republicans, and he sees they know he's old. And there is going to come a moment. And I don't know when that moment is. Because what Trump cares about more than anything else, even more than money, is being relevant.

And it's going to be really, and he's going to make this desperate play. David Rothkopf is here with us in the studio, which is so exciting because normally you are on the Potomac, in Potomac. It's very exciting for me too, because I wanted to come and see the billionaires leaving Manhattan. Oh, yes. That's a thing people do know. Yeah, did you spot them on the way out? Everybody's sitting at the by the Lincoln Tunnel waiting for Bill Ackman to go by.

Come and help them. Go by with a U-Haul trailer. Where is he going, by the way? Well, they'll all go down to Mar-a-Lago, West Palm Beach. Okay. That's where they go. Where will Elon be? Elon, I don't know.

I think he may buy France. Oh, he's going to buy France? Can you can buy a country now? You can, with a trillion dollars? You could get a pretty good-sized country for a trillion dollars. Where would you? In the Caribbean? Oh, that's too down market for him.

Right, so he wants Europe. He wants part of Europe. Yeah, no. You want something that's got a little history. Okay, Italy. Italy would do. Italy would do. I mean, I don't know if you can get all of Italy, but he could get Sicily. Well, we had a huge response to your column why the Democratic triumph is only Act 1 of Trump's end.

Please explain. Please explain. What's going on? What's happening, David? Well, I just think, I mean, there's a lot of things happening at once and none of them are good for Trump, right? And so the economy, you know, this was the big issue in the elections. 61% of Republicans said Trump's doing a bad job with the economy. Well, is it going to get better or is it going to get worse? Yes, go on. Well, if you talk to economists, they're worried about a bubble in the market, AI-driven bubble or some other kind of bubble.

Talk to people in the housing market. There's 500,000 more houses on the market than there are buyers right now. There's a real crisis in the housing market. Labor this week, we saw new data about job losses. at the worst levels in 20 years or something like that. It's just getting worse. Inflation, the only thing Trump knows how to do is put on tariffs, and that's pushing up prices, so inflation is going to go up.

To be fair, is that the only thing Trump knows what to – I mean, come on, he had the Gatsby party. He can throw a party. No, no, he does. And that's another part of this, right? So on the one hand, the economy is getting worse and worse. Meanwhile, what's Trump doing? The Gatsby party in his mind.

He probably thinks he looks like Leonardo DiCaprio, right? No, no, no. That's much too modern a reference. It's got to be Robert Redford. The Robert Redford Mia Farrow version, right? That was a pretty crappy Gatsby. Come on. Robert Redford looked fantastic in those green clothes.

Oh, my God. He looks amazing. My wife feels to say, you know, I wrote something for you when Redford died because he was a friend of ours, right? But he was a friend of ours, and my wife, who's kind of oblivious. She was like, oh, yeah, no, I know this guy is a nice guy. You know, we're like God and visit his house and stuff like that. And I said, have you ever seen any of his movies? And she was like, no.

And so I said, well, let's watch the way we were. Let's watch the natural or let's watch Bush Cassidy. Or out of Africa, my favorite. And she was like, oh, my God. Right. Well, to be fair, yeah, well, that was a few years ago. But I think that Trump's reference is probably the Robert Redford version, not Leonardo DiCaprio.

Right. But the most important thing about Trump's reference is he's completely clueless to the fact that this book was written about the soulless lives of the rich who were celebrating while America was in the middle of a depression and suffering, right? Right. Careless people. And that's the theme. You know, the great Trumpy is the theme or, you know, let them meet ballrooms because you've got a lousy for all of us. Let them eat ballrooms. Let them eat ballroom.

Well, the prices of health care going up. People are getting notices now that the price of health care is going up. Well, not just going up, but in some cases doubling or even tripling. Yeah. So really bad, right? So what is our president doing? Well, he's got a great Gatsby party. That was just recently.

He's torn down the White House to build a ballroom, which, you know, for who? Who's going to the ballroom? Well, you might because you're fancy. I'm not going to get invited to the Trump ballroom. Well, maybe somebody else on the place. But the point is he's building the Versailles Hall of Mirrors while people literally are not getting their food aid. So Americans are starving, and he's doing Let the Meat Cake, right? And then on top of that, he's gilded the Oval Office.

It literally looks like Liberacee threw up in the place, right? everything is covered in gold. He's even got somebody printing out like white sheets of paper with gold type on it saying the Oval Office. Do you think that was because he didn't know where he was? I think they're starting to put little notes around. Which is what they advise you to do when you have an elderly relative, right? You put post-it notes saying this is the oven, don't touch. This is the fridge.

Always close the door. Right. It helps people. This is JD fans. don't turn your back on him. Right, you should have a huge post-it note on him. Right. That's very good.

And also, of course, he paved over Jackie Kennedy's rose garden. They paved over the rose garden so people, so ladies heels wouldn't, I don't know. He was some argument, but he's made it look like Mar-a-Lago. He's making everything look like Mar-a-Lago while people are starving. You know, and it's crazy. And now, you know, you had this one other thing that happened this week. So if the ballroom wasn't enough and the gilded throne room wasn't enough and the $5 billion he and his family have grifted in the course of this administration. And the $20 billion he sent to his friend in Argentina.

Well, but all of that. If that kind of largesse among the billionaires wasn't enough, his right-hand man from the beginning of the administration, whether he likes it or not, in everybody's mind, Elon Musk just got a trillion-dollar deal? a trillion dollars? And so, you know, to me, this is what Trump's going to be left with. We know. You know, it's like, if I ask you about the Tiananmen Square uprising in China, you'll say, oh, yeah, there was the guy and the tanks. There was one image that sticks in people's mind.

You know, there's a meme, right? And I think what with Trump is really let them meet ballrooms. He thinks that this is going to be a monument to his taste. and his ability as a builder. And everybody's going to look at this thing and go, yeah, he was building a gold-plated ballroom for billionaires. Well, we were starving, and my grandma had to move into the basement because she couldn't get health care. And I couldn't get help from the VA because he fired everybody from the VA. And I couldn't get home for Thanksgiving because he had the longest government shutdown in history, and they shut down the area.

And so it's the opposite of governance. It is kleptocracy, you know, writ large. And that's who Trump is right now. And he can't get away from it. And that's the message of the election, you know, because all these Republicans are kind of like, we better fix this. Well, you've got Marjorie Taylor Green turning up on the view and telling people that she's decided to be nice to people after a career of being vile to people. I mean, she's obviously, and the one thing she said, which I thought was interesting, was,

I go to the grocery store, which clearly Donald Trump doesn't do, and she sees prices are going up. So you can't tell people the prices are going down when they themselves go. They stand in the gas station and watch the little dial go up with the gas prices. But they also know, as a result, that Trump is full of shit. And so example this week, he says, oh, well, prices are going down. Walmart announced their Thanksgiving basket, and it's 25% cheaper than it was under Biden. And Walmart's a AAA company, he said, while he was saying this. I'm not sure what exactly he meant by that.

But I'm sure he's never, ever been in a Walmart. But what he didn't say was that because prices have gone up so much, the basket that Walmart is talking about was 21 items last year, and it's 15 items this year. What have they taken out? You know? I don't. But a lot of the items that were in the basket last year that were kind of brand name,

they're now Walmart brand items. They had to downsize it and downgrade it, down quality it, just so people could afford their Thanksgiving. And he thinks, oh, well, people will buy this. And, you know, he did the other thing, by the way, you know, who's living in Trump's head right now? Weirdly, Zoran Mamdani. Because what does he start talking about yesterday? Affordability. Right.

I noticed that. So he's taking at someone who he now realizes as a winner. And he's trying to adopt his tactics. The story of his life. It's the story of his life. You know, I'm in Queens and I'm rich. Everybody should like me. Oh, they don't? Well, maybe I need to move to Manhattan. Oh, that's not enough. Maybe I need, you know, a trophy wife or maybe I need, you know, a jet or maybe I need, you know, he's constantly trying to be, to win some kind of approval that clearly he didn't get from his parents. So if you're Donald Trump, what are you thinking given the results of Tuesday? Do you think he understands? He does. And there's a lot of talk about this within Republican circles, I know,

and I know there's even talk about it in the White House. They know that they're losing right now. You know, there were no. On Tuesday, there were zero good results for the Republicans. Absolutely zero. And the first thing he said was, we got to cheat more. You know, right? Well, the first thing he said, I think, was, well, I wasn't on the ballot.

Right. Well, that was part of it, right? But then he's like, we've got to do voting reform or electoral reform, right? Which is what does that mean? Well, it means gerrymandering. No voting for by mail. Gerrymandering, changing the laws, suing people, sending troops into the cities to scare people away from voting. And, you know, that's because he knows he can't win in a fair fight.

And so that's, you know, in some ways, you know, you've really put your finger on it. This is classic Trump. When things go wrong, his first reaction is not my fault. Right. Because he has no character, can accept no responsibility. And then his second reaction is, how can I cheat my way out of this? You know, how can I, you know, find the con, the inner game that's going to get me to win? Well, he's not going to.

You know, Texas goes and tries to gerrymander. California says, we see you, we raise you. You know, Indiana does it, or Kansas or Missouri. does it. And Virginia all of a sudden elects, you know, two-thirds of its House of Delegates are Democrats. And you have a Democrat governor, a Democrat lieutenant governor. And their first woman. And their first woman governor. In a 400 plus years. Right. In a government that hates DEI. Right. Well, but, you know, the Democrat, there is a lot there's a lot there to unpack. One of the things that really strikes me is for the past year, we've been listening to pundits

going, oh, the Democrats, you know, the big mistake they made was supporting trans people and woke is terrible. Everybody who got elected, you know, the centrist Democrats who got elected and the progressive Democrats that got elected, like the mayor in New York, but also the mayor in Boston and the mayor in Detroit. All of them embraced diversity, inclusion. All of, you know, Republicans ran hard against them and said, oh, they want trans athletes and they're going to operate on your kids in the school lunchroom and whatever.

And it didn't work. Well, because the successful ones ran on affordability, right? They ran on the thing that matters to people, which is cost of living. They cared about what people cared about. Right. It's not a priority pronouns. Trans athletes are not a priority. Right.

But there's all this bullshit. Like, you know, oh, you can't say trans or, you know, you can't be woke. And that this is the problem. And, you know, the Atlantic and you read all these articles in New York Times. And it's like, oh, yeah, Democrats, they can't be woke. And they need to get hardcore. And, you know, young men voted for Trump and, you know, they're assholes. And so what we need is more assholes.

How do you get more assholes under the Democratic Party? Right. That's so true. That's so true. What a mistake. Well, guess what happened? Not only did Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Cheryl and Zoranamamani get 80% of young women. They all got around 60, 65% of young men.

Young men actually did the right thing. Maybe they're not all the assholes. thought they were. Or maybe you didn't have to treat them like that. Maybe they didn't want to vote for Carmel and Tim Walts. Yeah, or maybe they thought Joe Biden was out of touch or who knows what it was. I think a lot of them just didn't show up because another thing you saw in New Jersey and in New York and in California with Prop 50 is huge turnout. People cared. And, you know, a lot of the arguments are, well, we have to win Trump voters in order to win. Well, that's not true, actually.

You have to get Democrats out. You have to get people to vote. And the key people to vote are young people. And, you know, that's the other thing that Trump saw. He saw death. He saw his own mortality. He realizes there is no future for him. The Republican part, he looks in the eyes of Republicans,

and he sees they know he's old and dying. They know that he doesn't have a few. And that's why he keeps talking about, oh, run again or whatever. That's just to seem relevant. But what does the Republican Party do? Because they've completely succumbed to him. The Republican Party is the Trump Party. Who even begins to think about a future for the Republican Party when they've been,

well, certainly his current cabinet have been, you know, cheek by jowl with him? Well, I think they're going to regret that. You know, I think they're tainted by that. I think foreign leaders who said, oh, I'm going to bubble with Trump, but I'm going to be all Trumpy. And then there's going to be a new administration in Washington, and they're going to go, oh. But haven't they all been doing that?

Well, a lot of them have been doing it, but I'm just saying, I just think the chickens are going to come home to roost for a lot of people. You know, the Republican Party and the people who supported Trump and the people that looked the other way, people that participated in the corruption, all these people. Well, Steve Bannon came out and said that they, needed to. What was his expression? Burned daylight because otherwise he was worried they would all go to jail, including himself. What kind of drugs is he taking now? What is, seriously, what is this burned daylight?

I mean, Steve, I mean, the fact that he's still alive, have you ever seen somebody who sweats more, looks more out of shape, looks dirtier at any given moment? I haven't spent a lot of time. Except for Stephen Chung, by the way. Well, Stephen Chung is now on the fat drugs, as Trump calls it. Oh, is he? Yes. Is that Why we have to finally get the reduction in the price of the fat drugs? Well, but it's, I mean, Michael Wolf was making the point that the reason Stephen Chung never made it to be White House press spokesperson was that Trump doesn't respond to the fact that he's obese. No, he doesn't. Trump, he only wants to hire attractive, you know, young blonde women and then Pete Hagseth, who's the equivalent, right? American Doll.

But Jabba the Hut, you know, is the White House Communications Director. Right. You know, he's. Didn't he single you out recently? You said that, but I didn't actually get the backstory. Well, he said you are less than nobody, I think. Less than nobody. Well, that's true. That's what my family thinks. But, well, you know, fuck him.

But the reality is that they all have a reckoning coming. And I think they will try their best to cheat their way out of this next election because they know that if the Democrats win the House, it's over. Trump is over. He will be 80. He will not have a future in the party. He will not get anything passed in the government ever again. And there will be an investigation into everything, into the Katari airplane, into the repaving the Rose Garden, into the ballroom, into, you know, every deal that the Trump family has made. So if you're a business and you've made a donation to the ballroom and We know that lots of businesses have from Apple to Google to Amazon.

What are you thinking now, given the strength of the reaction on Tuesday? Somebody, I hope, if you're a good business and you've got some kind of diversity of people left in your business, is saying to folks, you know, this particular chapter in American history is going to come to an end. And we've got to be prepared that it may not only go another way, but that the retributive, nasty, greedy Trump attitude is going to have burned some people. And if we're seen as being too close to them, we're going to pay a price. So are you going to see a pulling back, do you think? Are you going to see less fawning in public?

Typically, you may see less fawning in public. Typically, you know, Wall Street has always played this game the same way because they want to be in control. And frankly, they are in control. You know, but but the way is they give to both. You know, they have a group of people who give to one party, a group of people who give to another party. But Trump has demanded something extra of the big CEOs, right? Which is they gather around him. The cameras come in, which is unheard of.

Normally these dinners are held in private. And then they are expected to fall. I mean, we saw it with Tim Cook. We saw it with Bill Gates. We know that Bill Gates doesn't like Trump. But he was, thank you so much for gathering a. here together. Well, they're all, yeah.

You think Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, likes Trump? No, he doesn't like Trump. You know, these European leaders that go in there, you know, I think here Starrmer. No, of course. They're doing it because they know they have to do it, right? They just think this works, you know, with this guy. But I also think another thing's going to happen this year. The foreign leader that's going to get the most traction with Trump is the one that stood up to him.

And that's Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping said, no, we got cards to play. You know, you want to play hardball with us? We'll play hardball with you. And Trump will work harder to get a deal done with him than with anybody else. Because Trump, you know, he's like, you know, the dog at the dog park, and he's looking for the alpha dog. And he knows he's not the alpha dog. And so he's like sniffing everybody's butt.

And he is coming to the conclusion that the butt that needs to be kissed after it sniffed is Xi Jinping. thing. That's political announcement, by the way. I just want you to know. That's just technical. I've taught foreign policy at Columbia University for 20 years. This is your Columbia background, giving us the technical terms. And what does that look like in terms of tariffs? Well, the tariff thing is a complicated thing, and that's another thing that happened this week.

The Supreme Court did these hearings on the tariffs. and it looked like that five, six, or even seven members of the court were skeptical. Right, and they were calling them import taxes. No, the Chief Justice was the one who said, this is a tax. Yep. Which totally, you know, drives Trump crazy, although it's a tax, right? But Justice Barrett had her reasons for saying this law doesn't apply, and Justice Gorsuch had his constitutional concerns.

Well, if all of those people fall in line and they, to pull rain in Trump a little bit, you know, this would create a kind of a big question. Like, well, if these aren't legal, how do you do the refunds? And, you know, and that's super complicated. But the White House has already indicated that if that happens, they're then going to try and do it a different way. And the reason is Trump really, in his heart, believes the tariffs create revenue for the United States from someplace else.

Right. So he doesn't understand that the American people are paying. are paying them. It's an import tax on us. Right. It's a more expensive. Even his representative in the Supreme Court case, the solicitor general, Sauer, said, well, the studies we use show that 30 to 80% are paid by Americans, right? Well, the 30% study, that's baloney.

Right. Right. The point is that two thirds or 80% or whatever paid by Americans and the rest are paid by U.S. corporations that are passing it on in some kind of other way. So we're the one suffering from these things. Okay, it's time for break to hear from our advertisers. And I'm back with David Rothkopf and we're discussing, well, we're discussing the end of Trump, really. Why doesn't Trump understand that? Why is he so dug in over tariffs?

There are issues where Trump feels that anybody who offers a counter opinion is anti-Trump and that therefore he can't embrace. And no, this is people. Right. I remember talking to people, one of the books I wrote on sort of how Trump foreign policy worked. And, you know, John Bolton and Fiona Hill and all these people who were, you know, Vindman who were working. They learned they can't bring up Russia because he thinks anybody who brings up Russia is bringing up Russia, Russia, Russia, and is accusing him of something. Right. And so they, you know, they just laid off the issue.

And I think that's part of the issue. that's going on. You know, he's got a bunch of, first of all, he got rid of anybody who would, you know, give a counter opinion. He surrounded himself

with sick of hands. Well, and surrounded himself with people who have no political history themselves, right? Haven't worked in politics, apart from Marco Rubio,

maybe. Yeah. But, I mean, power to be the DOJ. But he had his spine surgically removed, apparently, because, you know,

he was once anti-Trump and now he's like, whatever he says. Well, and J.D. Vance once called him the new Hitler and here he is snuggled up to him. Well, I mean, J.D. Vance someday, you know, there'll be books, and this will be like, you know, what do you call somebody who's got no character?

And then you say, oh, J.D. Vance. So J.G. Vance will become like a hillbilly. Well, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's a nice analogy. But, yes, I mean, you know, there's this group of people, though, who are not correcting him. There's another group, Stephen Miller, you know, Peter Navarro and so forth that are egging him on and saying, oh, yeah, Yeah, lay those tariffs on there, buddy.

That's great. This is strong. You know, this is your winning. And they, you know, even in the Supreme Court, they said, this will produce $4 trillion in revenue. Not realizing, of course, that the Chief Justice will then say, well, so this is a revenue creation, which is supposed to be left to the Congress, right? But, you know, this is one of those issues where he won't take no for an answer. And so he's stuck. All right.

So one of the things we know Trump is really good at doing. is changing the conversation. We've had, I think it's now up to, up to 70 people killed in the Caribbean, right? And occasionally in the Pacific, right. And you mentioned before we started talking, there is an aircraft carrier on its way, or it's left the Mediterranean,

and as far as we know, it's headed to the Caribbean. Yeah, the Gerald R. Ford, a nuclear aircraft carrier, left the Mediterranean a couple days ago, and, you know, today, tomorrow, the next day is going to be off the coast of Venezuela. In fact, something like a seventh of the U.S. Navy's assets are going to be in the Caribbean and poised to do something off of Venezuela. Now, before we go further, I would like to remind you that we're not actually at war with Venezuela. Venezuela does not actually pose a threat to the United States.

Right. What could the possible reason be? He says drugs, but actually the drug issue at the moment is fentanyl. They are producing cocaine. But they don't, first of all, they, they. produce many drugs, right? They are way down the list in terms of that kind of thing. Secondly, the boats they're blowing up can't even make it to the United States.

Right. They don't have enough fuel on the world. So where are they going? Well, who knows? But, you know, thirdly, if they wanted to, they could stop the boat. Go to the people, say, hi, we're a destroyer. You don't want to, you know, major U.S. ship and say, stop, and, you know, we're going to go on board, and we're going to take your picture, and we're going to take a picture.

and we're going to take a picture of the drugs and we're going to find out who you were. But they don't do that. Is it more effective as a deterrent just to blow them up? Well, of course. I mean, sure, it's a deterrent. I mean, if you, like, shot every third person who walked into your apartment building,

fewer people are going to go to your apartment building. No, no, but I think that that's, you know, they say it's a deterrent. You know, Stephen Miller, who's like a vampire, I don't know if you've watched the depiction of him on South Park, but it's pretty good. You know, Stephen Miller's like, yeah, this will really show those people.

those weaklings who picked on me in the lunchroom or whoever he's, whatever has motivated him to do this. But I don't know what the real motivation is. You know, there's a lot of oil in Venezuela. You know, maybe he thinks he can, you know, put in somebody and then they'll do one of these weird deals where they, like, give us some of the oil. Or maybe he's got some friend who thinks, I can make some money off of this in some way. But for sure, it has nothing to do with U.S. National Security.

Right. You know, for sure. And that's why Trump is a little bit worried about, you know, some of the options he's being given. He's been presented with several options, what to do in Venezuela. Because if he sends troops into Venezuela and somebody actually gets killed, then he's really going to have to justify it. Well, and also he's now starting to do things which the MAGA base don't want him to do. We talked about Marjorie Taylor Green, but we know that they are America first. They don't want money going abroad.

I don't know how they've managed to squire. the circle sending $40 billion to Argentina? Well, they can't square the circle. And so, you know, for the first eight months of this year, seven months, there was no dissent. Now, there's a little Marjorie Taylor Green dissent. Then Trump says, we need to get, we need the nuclear option in the Senate. We need to get rid of the filibuster. And John Thune, who's definitely a go-along, get-along guy, says, nope, we're not doing that.

And on tariffs, you saw resolutions in the Senate in the past couple of weeks, blocking the tariffs on Brazil, blocking the tariffs on some of these countries as being wrong. So there's some people standing out on that. Clearly, there's some people who are off the reservation on Epstein and wanting to get those files. Thomas Massey. Right. And the three women, Nancy Mace, Lauren Boba, and Marjorie Taylor Green. And then you've got someone like Vivek Ramaswamy who's running for. Ohio governor saying we need to worry less about what's going on abroad and focus on affordability

at home. Right. But that's the point is, you know, you're going to have all this. So he's going to get some of, he's going to get resistance from his own team. Right. And that's part of what I meant when I said he's staring death in the face. His political mortality is right around the corner. And there is going to come a moment.

And I don't know when that moment is. But there is going to come a moment where the majority. of people in the Republican Party say he's a lame doc, who's next? This is going to be devastating because what Trump cares about more than anything else, even more than money, is being

relevant and it's going to be really and he's going to make this desperate play to say, no, I'm still relevant. Do your stories on me still. And, you know, you remember Joe Biden? Right? No, nobody remembers Joe Biden. Joe Biden was president

earlier this year. Right. Well, that's incredible. So think of it like that. So does this mean that Trump is going to be forced into saying he's running for a third term and enjoy all the stern and drang around that? I think he's going to have people saying it. You know, he says he's going to do it.

Then he says he's not going to do it. Then he says people say I should do it. And then the longer it's hanging out there, you know, it's just a desperate attempt to cling to relevance. It's, you know, it's the policy equivalent of a trophy. It makes him feel younger. All right. So, final question.

If you were to shortlist the people you thought could take over from him, who would they be? Who is circling the hardest? First of all, they're the usual suspects, the ones that everybody talks about. J.D. Vance, she's just so hungry for this. So thirsty. People say anything to anybody that they want to hear. I want my wife to convert to Christianity. Yeah, that was nice.

And, you know, and she was just like, okay, honey. Well, she wants the number one slot, too, right? Right, apparently. I mean, that's one of the analyses that's out there. People who are analyzing Ushah Vance's motivations. But that, you know. Well, who wants to be second lady? Nobody.

You want to be first lady. Well, okay. Fine. You know, Marco Rubio. Is Marco Rubio, you know, thinking it could be him? Sure. And Trump even refers to them. You know, well, J.D. would be good. Marko would be good.

Does Pete Hegseth think it could be him? Well, he's stupid enough to think anything, right? So, you know, I mean, he might. Are there other people out there? What about Sean Duffy, the hapless transport secretary? He's such an idiot. Wasn't he on like Survivor or something? Wasn't he on like some road rules or some stuff?

He was on the real world. The real world? Yeah. Some horrible things. The real world had lots of fans. My guess is that you're going to get something different. For example, Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, he is a Republican. He's from a red state.

Nobody's going to say he's not a conservative, but he's had his problems with Trump. And so he can say, well, I'm a different, I'm change, you know. And what do Americans want? You know, they want change. You know, Mamdani has changed. Mikey Sherrill was changed. Abigail Spanberger has changed. You know, Barack Obama was changed.

Donald Trump was change. And I just think that there's going to come a point, particularly if the midterm is really bad for Trump, where people are going to say, well, maybe not so mega. Joanna, hold that thought. I think people need a break. So let's hear from the advertisers. And I'm back with David Rothkopf, and we are discussing America post- Tuesday's election results. Does he lose the Senate as well as the House?

That's much, much harder to do. He might. I mean, you know, you can see scenarios where Maine goes one way or Alaska or some of these other places go. Joni Ernst's successor, you know, maybe. But winning the House, even with the gerrymandering, is much more in reach. and that would put the brakes on Trump. And I think there's going to be this thing. There's going to be this introspection.

You know, Trump's having introspection. He's going, well, I don't know if I'll get into heaven, which is weird. He talks about that a lot, right? So he'll go into Venezuela instead. Venezuela, heaven, you know, some, some, a dash on this black sea, whatever. Putin gets, who knows? But the Republican Party has to, you know, Trump's facing life after death. the Republican Party has to face life after Trump.

So you're going to have to live with the insult from the deputy White House press secretary. Anna Kelly, here's what she said when we called her to get reaction to your most recent column. This no-name nerd has never served anything except his own checkbook and no one except the layoff plagued daily beast cares what he has to say about the decorated combat veteran secretary Pete Hegseth or warrior. ethos. So you're a no-name nerd. I would put that on your signature. Yeah, well, frankly, it's pretty close to true. It's not, you know, I mean, I have a name, but not, you know, I've always felt my niche in Washington was that I was always on the outer edge of the inner circle. What a previous White House secretary said about you? Look, I mean, you know, I've been around for a while. I've been called a variety of things. Some of the

them have been very good. Some people have paid attention to what I've been saying. And when I agree with them, they tend to say nice things about me. When I don't, they tend to levy attacks like this. This is, after all, the White House where, you know, the response, you know, somebody asked them something the other

day about, you know, well, who said this? And their response was, your mama. Yeah. Right? I mean, these are a bunch of real children who are playing sandbox level games with communications. And I understand

why they're defensive about Pete Hegseth. He's the least qualified Secretary of Defense in history, and he's an imbecile. And, you know, being an imbecile and not being qualified, these are kind of things people hide. And he's decorated

the Department of War, as he calls it, with pictures of him and his wife. Well, yeah, but, you know, calling it the Department of War, that's like a little insecure, isn't it? You know, I mean, why are you doing that? With the whole warrior ethos, you know, I think the real telling thing is,

and I've done this, talk to some generals and admirals. Well, I think he did. See what they think of. I think he called the rules to get that. No, no, he gave a speech. And they all came out of that room, and they said, oh my God, what are we going through here? This guy is an embarrassment to us. You know, it was a couple weeks later that the commander of Southcom quit,

or got pushed, we don't know which, because he didn't want to play these games with blowing up speedboats in order to make Pete Hegseth feel like a warrior. You know, and he and Trump and J.D. Vance, these people are, this is a bunch of insecure men. Okay, stop, stop, because you've given us so much hopium here. You've given everybody opium that there is a post-Trump future

and now we're sinking low again. Well, we're not thinking low. We're telling the truth. The reason there is no post-Trump future is Trump's a bad president. And he's a bad person. And he has surrounded himself with bad people who are promoting bad policies badly. And the American people who are super tolerant and super hopeful are looking at all this and going, this isn't working. And, you know, in the best of times, they're fickle.

But in times like this, they want change. And that's why in Tuesday, Democrats want everything. And that's why next year, Democrats are going to do very well. And that's why in 2028, Democrats are going to do very well. And we're going to look back on this and we're going to say, oh, my God, our long national nightmare is finally over. David Rothschild, I'm stopping you right there, right there. Thank you very much for coming in.

And so much more fun to do this in person, isn't it? It's to insult me to my face. All right. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast. Leave us a comment. Your comments on David's thoughts, please. And you can watch the Deep State Radio podcast that we do or on YouTube.

I was just going to say, David has his own entire network of Deep State Radio podcasts. We do 15-17 podcasts a week. We do the New Republics podcast. That's 15-17 podcast. And you know what? The thing that really distinguishes our podcast, they're all big-name experts. They're all big-name experts. There's not no-name people.

But deep state radio and words matter and the deep state daily that we do. And, you know, people can find them on YouTube. They can find them on Instagram. They can find them on TikTok. And they can go and wherever they get podcasts. They can listen to the podcast there. And the last time I did one, one of your podcast. A lot of them did.

Good. So I'm real grateful. DSR, right? That's how you find it. DSR, Deep State Radio. The DSR network. So David Rothcob, thank you. Support the Daily Beast. We're independent media. We appreciate your support. You can subscribe to the Daily Beast.

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