The Dispatch Podcast - Donald Trump’s Soul | Interview: Olivia Nuzzi

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

This interview was recorded prior to the apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Olivia Nuzzi, Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, joins Jamie to discuss her recent profile of Donald Trump, “I Examined Donald Trump's Ear — and His Soul. ”The Agenda: —Trump after the July 13 assassination attempt —Behind the iconic photo —How does Trump view himself? —Trump’s childhood home —Trump’s presidential portrait —Nuzzi’s profile of Joe Biden —“Humanizing” Donald Trump —Would Nuzzi profile anyone? The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Conditions apply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. While other money managers are holding, Dynamic is hunting. Seeing past the horizon, investing beyond the benchmark, because your money can't grow if it doesn't move. Learn more at dynamic.ca slash active. Hello and welcome to the dispatch podcast. This is Adam, and I'm recording this on the evening of September 15th. News has been coming out that Donald Trump may have been the target of a second assassination.

attempt today. This episode, however, was recorded on Friday. So any mention in this episode of an assassination attempt is in reference to the July 13th incident. The dispatch will, of course, cover the latest attempt as more information comes out. And with that in mind, here's our interview with Olivia Nausee. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, Olivia Nuzzi. She is also the host of the Bloomberg TV show Working Capital, where she interviews prominent political figures. And the author of the recently released New York Magazine article,

I examined Donald Trump's ear and Seoul at Mar-a-Lago, which was an extended interview with the former president at Mar-a-Lago. She has interviewed Donald Trump many times since entering political life. She is a well-known political profiler and friend of mine, and perhaps best friend of my wife, or at least one of her best friends. And we talk about a lot of different things in this podcast, including her interview

with Donald Trump, trying to get to who he is at his essence, but also questions of who should people like her profile, is there limits to humanizing political figures? And her piece a few months ago on Joe Biden and his mental state, which helped push the former president out of the job in many ways. we get into whether he is fit to be president now.

We talk about a lot of these issues and many more. I think you're going to enjoy this episode. So without further ado, I give you Olivia Nuzi. Olivia Nuzi, welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. Thanks for having me. Well, I want to begin with your recent piece in New York Magazine. You've interviewed Trump many times. This was the first time you've interviewed him since the assassination attempt.

How was he different, if at all? He was really in, like, cell mode, you know? I think he's not getting the type of media coverage that he wants right now, by which I don't mean, like, positive press, but just he's not getting like the kind of breathless coverage of his every utterance that he typically has received in his previous campaigns and in the White House. And so he was very preoccupied with like

whether or not he could influence me to make this a positive piece. So I sort of filter all of his behavior through that. But he was like, for him, thoughtful and like spoke in a, in a semi-human way. I mean, he just wasn't doing like the normal Trumpian thing. You know, so it was interesting to, ask him a question

and instead of having him like, you know, jump down my throat and like take a sheet with the phrasing or like take insult at the way I said something he would just sort of think

for a minute and then answer, you know, earnestly. It was interesting. She's much slower but which I don't mean like adult and,

you know, declining. But he just was like, he seemed to be thinking before he spoke, which is not something that I really encountered that much of him. There's a famous Winston Churchill quote

that nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. There was a sense reading your piece that this wasn't, I mean, it was a tragedy, obviously, because he almost was killed and there were people injured and killed there. But he almost seemed happy to have the experience if that makes sense that he's here telling you the tale.

I mean, did I grasp that wrong? I mean, he definitely seems happy to be alive and not, you know, shone the head, that's for sure. He seems disturbed by what happened, though. And I think, like, I know, there's something, I didn't get into this in the feast because I just, like, I couldn't figure out how to phrase this in a way that wasn't just going to get everyone mad at me.

But, I don't know, there's something interesting to me about the fact that, like, he has sort of created this national trauma for a decade. And everyone is processing his exonerated. and the implications for their existence because of his existence. And then he had something traumatic happened to him and the world just moved on, like, very quickly. You know, it's easy to forget that that even happened.

I know some of his supporters are angry about that, that, you know, we're not all talking about the shooting all the time. But, yeah, he seemed happy to have survived this shooting for sure. And it seems, you know, he was really, really unwilling. to admit that he'd been like screwed up by it in any way or that I think he's been asked a lot by friends and interviewers if he has any sort of PTSD and he views that as like utter weakness and will not allow that he's been, you know, traumatized in any way. But he clearly has been. I mean, anyone would be, you know.

Well, no, but I mean, that's an interesting question, though. I mean, I've seen him, I forget which biography of his when he was interviewed, said he doesn't dwell on the past, doesn't dwell on things, he doesn't really think about it, and therefore it's hard to be traumatized by things you don't think about. Is this something different? Is he actually contemplating that moment, how things could have been different? He talks about it a lot. I guess I don't know if talking is the same as thinking. Like, if you ruminating or is he talking as a way to sort of not think about it. Like, I kind of think it might be that. It's, you know, at the RNC, he got up on stage and he said, like, I'm going to talk about what happened in Butler tonight,

And then I'm not going to talk about it again because it's to whatever his phrase was that he wanted to move on. And in the room, I remember like looking at the other reporters and we were all like, oh, sure, you know, of course he's going to be talking about this for the rest of his life. And if he's still talking about the 2015 primary, like, of course he's going to talk about getting shot for a really long time. But it seems like he's almost talking about it to avoid having to sit still with it and really think about it in a way, if that makes any sense. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it does. I guess what I wonder, I mean, there was a lot of talk after the attempt of assassination that you're going to see a new Trump, you know, it's going to be a very different Trump than you've

seen before. But even in that speech at the RNC, like you got the first half of this new Trump. And then the second half is like, oh, the crowd still wants the old Trump. They want him to play the classics. And he's been playing the classics for a while now. I'm still grasping whether there is anything essentially changed after that traumatic moment. I mean, he refuses to admit that there is. And he doesn't want it to be the case that there is because I think he views change

as like an admission that there was something that should have been changed and as an ambition of failure and weakness. And so like for him to say, I'm different now because of this, I don't know, it's too vulnerable, I think, and he doesn't want to like live in that space and think about those things.

And, you know, he jokes about, it in his speeches that, you know, people said it's going to be a different Trump. It's going to be a new Trump. And I believe, I think he says, like, I believe that for about eight hours. And then I realized that these people wanted to put me in jail for doing nothing wrong. And so, never mind. And I don't know. It's like, it depends. In conversation, he seems different. But then, you know, last Friday, I went to Trump Tower for his press conference. And he stood up there for what felt like three hours, but I think it was like an hour and a half, going over various allegations of rape or sexual misconduct that had been, you know, blopped at him and

insulting the women and saying that they were, quote, not the chosen one, not the women that he by which I think he meant not the women that he would have chosen to sexually assault, not not that they were not Jewish. And, you know, with like any old Trump up there, that press conference to have taken place at any time in the last 10 years. And, you know, you couldn't have told the difference. So I think that he has, it has prompted him to acknowledge that maybe he is not the most powerful force in the universe and that maybe he's part of this human race that he's heard about before. But I don't think it is, you know, it's certainly not changing his political messaging or his approach to politics. Well, I want to talk about the iconic picture. And I'm going to bring in

An interview you also gave with a substacker named Jessica Reed Cross, which was really interesting. You talk about how that iconic photo, you had a friend text to you that is the coolest photo that's, you know, someone who didn't like Trump. I have to admit this is like the coolest photo ever. You know, for years, specifically with people that didn't like Trump, which is, you know, at least half the country, you know, he was seen and I think for a good reason as a fake tough guy, you know, he talks tough, but there really isn't any examples of actually, him being tough. And then when he ran, I think it was 2016 campaign, there was like a balloon pop or someone ran towards the stage and the Secret Service just rushed him off. Look, weakness.

There was obviously the White House when there was protests there. There was the stories of him being taken to the bunker, which he didn't like. But in this moment, in this moment where he was able to show genuine toughness to even people that disliked him. And I wonder if you were talking to him about this moment. Was there a moment where, you know, he knows that he almost was killed, he knows he was hit, but he's not in dire pain

where he knows he has this moment to kind of turn the tables and create this image? Because you talk about in this piece how he's an artist almost. What is he thinking in this moment where he's creating this iconic picture? What's going through his mind, do you think?

In his show, you know, I asked him about whether or not he was thinking about image making at that moment. And, you know, whether obviously he knows he's being photographed, he knows he's being filmed. He's always thinking about optics. He's always, I mean, remember when he came back to the White House after being at Walter Reed when he had COVID, and he did a fist bump. And there was some talk with his advisors that he was going to wear a Superman t-shirt underneath his dress shirt and rip it off, which he did not do, unfortunately, in the end.

But, you know, he went up on the balcony like Ava Peron and, like, give his little wave. he's always thinking about how to you sort of project strength and project the image that he wants in the world so I figured that that was behind the fight fight fist bump moment in Butler he was adamant that it was really

like for that like he was making eye contact with people in the crowd and that he saw how worried people were in the crowd and that everyone was sort of holding their breath and he thought that they thought that he was dead And he said that Secret Service was convinced that he had been hit in the chest or in the head, but that he had this remarkable clarity in the moment where he was very clear about he had been shot in the ear. It hurt, but it wasn't like dire, dire pain.

He said it was like a slap, which I didn't ask this, but I should have asked, like, when was the last time you were slapped? You know, like how constant instead of that. that feeling. And he said that he did it for the people in the crowd to like confirm to them that he was not dead

and that he was sort of fighting with Secret Service where they were saying you were hitting the chest you were hitting the head and he was like, no I wasn't, I was just hit in the air.

I don't think that I believe that. I think that he was certainly thinking about the cameras as well and thinking about how this would look to the world. But it's a very short period of time. You know, if you go back and you watch that tape,

it's all, all happens in a matter of seconds. And I don't know, he's sort of the best performer in the world. He's the best performer living today. And I think it was like this brilliant moment of performance. Well, you also examined his ear and you write in the piece. If you were the kind of person inclined to make such declarations, which Donald Trump is, you might call it the greatest ear of all time.

Now, knowing Trump the way I know Trump, not personally, but very, but very, you know, observing him for many years and interviewing a couple times during the 2015 campaign, 16 campaign. Did he circle that and send you like, thank you, Olivia, this is one of the wonderful. I mean, this seems like a moment he would circle. And forget what the other piece said. This alone would make him very happy. I actually haven't heard from him yet.

I heard from his campaign, but I haven't heard from him yet. He called me the Friday that we were going to print. And he wanted to know if it was going to be. be a nice story. But then I have not heard from him yet. I texted him the article, but he has an answer to yes. So wait, you texted him the article. Does he respond to you on text?

He, in the past, you'd call. He's one of those people who responds to a text with the phone call. But I heard that he texts. I just haven't received any. And how often, how often does he respond to you? I mean, I happen like once or twice. Yeah. Yeah, he calls you during the, so some of the interviews,

calls and some of it is at Mar-a-Lago. Do you ever, are you ever at a restaurant and you get a call from... I was at Michael's on... The most overrated restaurant in New York. Yeah, well, you know, it's like I was sitting at Michaels and I miss with Maggie Hibberman and Caitlin Collins. And I was like, you know, sir, I'm at Michaels with Maggie and everyone and Caitlin Collins. Did you put it on speaker?

Did you all three talk about? No, she gets too loud in Michaels, yeah. And also, Michael's like the worst place in the world to be a member of the media having any type of sensitive phone call, you know. One of the other things that I would imagine Trump hates about this campaign right now is them trying to portray him as weird, him and J.D. Vance. And you asked him about this. He brought it up. He actually didn't even ask him about it. He just brought it up.

Like, that's how angry he is about this. It's just front of blind. Well, let me read what he says to you. He says, I mean, they call me weird. I'm not weird. I'm the most not weird person. You go on to write. asked if he would agree that he is an extraordinary unusual person. Unusual, but not weird.

I think a very solid person. I mean, a solid person, he said. How do you think he sees himself as unusual? And how do you think other people see him as unusual? I mean, it's funny to talk to him about words because he really does care about words and their usage. And like, he's also the only person besides me or maybe the editor in chief of my magazine who like cares about print media that month. You know, he's like one of the last holdouts who thinks that, uh, print is super important. I mean, in my mind, unusual is not like an expressly bad thing, right? Unusual means special, unique, extraordinary, if you're being really generous. Weird is like creepy. It's strange. It's a negative, unusual quality. And yeah, he didn't, he didn't mind the phrase

unusual because unusual is like appealing to his ego. I think it's like, of course, I'm one of a kind, right? Well, let me follow up with what you said to in your substack interview with Jessica Reed Krause. He said, I don't think he's ever quite considered himself part of the human race, perhaps until the shooting when it seemed to occur to him. He is a particular and extraordinary and unlike anyone else that he very much agrees with. I think it gets to something deeper, though. How does Trump view himself? I mean, does he view himself as a historic figure in a play? I mean, how does he view?

I mean, does he have an inner self? What is that inner self telling him? I don't know. You know, I worked with a reporter for a long time named Mike Daley is like a New York tabloid legend. He works at the Daily Beast. And he happened to have jury duty

with Donald Trump in 2016. And he came back to the Daily Beast office. And I'll never forget, he was like, he sat there like a bag of cement. He just shut off completely. It was like he wasn't being activated. And so the lights were just turned off. He was just, like, sitting there.

And you saw that, where I saw that in court, where, you know, when he was falling asleep, et cetera, but he just, when he's not being activated, and people aren't talking to him and, like, keeping him on or he doesn't have to perform. He just sort of isn't, the wheels don't seem to be turning very much. I don't know about his interior life. I don't think it's something that he thinks about all that,

much. I feel like sometimes I'll be asking him a question and I'll have this, you know, out of body thing while I'm asking it where I just think like, I've thought so much more about you than you've thought about you. You know, like it's like this weird imbalance where I've analyzed him so much and I don't think he's done that much self-analysis. But it was interesting. I happen to see his childhood home in Jamaica Estates, Queens a few months ago. And I'd never seen it before. And I don't know what I was expecting, but I guess I was expecting it to be like bigger. Like it's smaller than Ronald Reagan's childhood at home if you've ever been to Reagan's child of a home.

It's a nice house, but it just looks like, you know, every other house in Queens that I've ever seen. And I brought this up to him. I said, you know, I saw your child at home. You know, I think I said I was starting how modest it was. I was trying out to be rude. And he still seemed insecure about having been from Queens,

I thought, when I brought that up. Like, he seemed like almost a little embarrassed, but I had seen the place where he grew up. And I brought it up as a sort of like final question, softball, let him talk about his legacy. You know, like I wanted to hear how he would narrate by his legacy. And I asked you what he thought, you know, when he considered his journey from that house to where he is.

And I was expecting to talk about maybe his dad, his real estate business, all that he'd accomplished. And instead he went on like, I don't know, maybe like a three-minute long riff about how, everyone talks about him all the time and it's the most extraordinary thing in the world and nobody's ever been talked about like this. And every single day on television at the DNC, on MSDNC, on CNN, doesn't matter where he is being talked about. And even when he's not directly being talked about indirectly, they are talking about Trump and he was talking the third person like he's known to do.

But it was just just extraordinary. Like, I was like, oh, right, like, that's all that matters to him. It is the number one thing that matters to him is being talked about that, being talked about and, like, that is accomplishment in his mind. Let me take it one step further. And it is also from your interview when Substack, when you were asked about Trump's friendships. You say, I guess it depends on how you define friendship. The sentiment has been communicated to me over the years by several people who are publicly identified as Trump's friends.

And what they mean when they say he doesn't really have friends, is that his friendships do not resemble traditional friendships as they have experienced them. He has a transactional relationship. He might share a meal or gossip. He might even do you a favor. But he is unknowable, more than most people are unknowable. That last part really caught me. And it's kind of interesting he's been on the world stage for, or at least the American stage for 30 or 40 years, the world stage for at least since he started running for president, if not longer.

but he's still in a way unknowable. And I think one of the questions I have still is, is that by design? Is that like Roy Cohn telling him back in the 70s, like you get power if you're unknowable? Or is this just, I mean, how did he become this figure that is so unknowable? I mean, is it by design or is it by something else? I think he's not that deep. I think he's not that deep. I think, you know, a lot of times I'll, you know, spend time analyzing Donald Trump

And then I realized that, you know, like, he is a puddle. He's very interesting puddle. There is a lot to look at. He reflects the world in a really fascinating way, and you can spend a long time peering into this puddle. But it's just not that deep. And I think, I mean, I've heard about how I view him as an animal or the most men are animals.

And I didn't mean it as an insult. But it's true, like, he is operating powered by his senses. and he's sort of wild and, like, fear all in a way. And I don't think it's all sort of surface level with him. Like, I don't think that there is a rich interior life. I don't think that he's philosophizing about the meaning of his life or the meaning of life in general or I don't think that he's keeping a lot of secrets about himself.

I think that he is just, everything is sort of external with him. And it makes sense when you think about it. And his whole life is about projection, right? He's building buildings or putting his name on buildings. Say he claims that he built. He's branding, right? He is projecting outwards. That's his entire existence.

It has been for a long time. I also think, I can't remember who said this, but someone's harder than I am once said that you stop maturing at the age that you become famous. And I wonder if there's something to that with him where it's like he's sort of, I don't know, cast in Amber in a way and like hasn't really evolved all that much beyond. who he was when he first became a public figure in, you know, the late 70s. That's interesting. Why do you think he does interviews with you?

I mean, you, not all the pieces are friendly. He even mentioned this. Yeah. No, but I mean, I mean, it's interesting. Why do you think he does interviews, interviews with you? And also, I mean, New York Magazine is a great magazine, but not exactly like the type of magazine if you're trying to get the unpersuadables. I mean, it's probably not his audience there.

No. persuade. Why do you think you keep sitting down with you? All of our readers are like, why are you? Why did you do this? I don't know. I mean, I think, I think pre-media really matters to him. Being a magazine covers really matters to him. New York really matters to him. And New York, like, elite society really matters to him. And so I think he still craves, like, the approval of a certain faction of, like, the media. Yeah. He's also so nostalgic for, I remember once being in the Oval and I was getting up to leave, but he wasn't done talking, but his aides were like, please stop, please stop talking to her. And he called out to me as I was leaving and he was like, you know, I used to, my office used to be by New York Magazine's old offices. And I was like, yeah, like, I know where Trump Tower is, you know, like, of course, sir, there were Trump Tower. He's, you know, He was like, yeah, I knew, I knew that your founder, Clay Falker.

And, like, he just wanted to, like, think back on that era of media. And it was almost like he missed that, especially being, you know, Wisconsin in the White House in this unfamiliar place. Does he miss his old life? I think so. I mean, the 21 club? I, you know, I brought, yeah, I think he misses, I think he misses the 80s. I think he misses the 90s.

I think he misses the 70s. I think he misses New York. and I think he misses like how simple life was comparatively back then and how I think he also just misses being young and I think there's something to you know I went to Marlago for the central interview for this piece with an artist in Isabel Browerman who painted Trump's portrait while I was doing the interview and he just seemed so happy to be like talking to two younger women from New York that he could like relate to you in a different way and he relates to like Susie Wiles

or any of the people around him in Palm Beach, you know? So I think it's like appealing to his ego. He loves to talk about himself. He loves people who like to talk about him. And at the end of the day, he either gets to influence the story for the better and end up on the magazine cover or if it's a bad story, a negative story,

so is every other story in his situation. So who cares? well you played right into my next question you as you mentioned you have this portrait artist who's painting while you're interviewing trump to me i i laughed out loud a little bit uh it seemed almost surreal a west anderson type uh interview uh did you find it funny in real time i mean were you laughing as as you were doing this that he allowed this to occur of course you allowed it though imagine like your trump and like it's so much better than being photographed too because it's like it's a novelty that's more unusual and um it was it was interesting the setup was he's in his

sort of typical chair which is like at the it's very low to the ground uh where he sort of looks like a child when he's sitting in it uh he sits with like his hands interlaced um in between his knees and um he looks sort of like a little kid who's in trouble and then i was sitting on the couch, maybe like two feet away from him. And then on the other side behind us, Isabelle had set up her easel and all of her supplies and was sort of looking onto this scene and painting him. So I wasn't looking directly at her, but we were all at different points conversing together. And when he wanted to talk about, I was trying to talk to him about God. And of course, he just made a conversation about his image and these iconic photos of him

taking that to him Butler. And so there were different points. when Isabel would be brought into the conversation, especially if it was about aesthetics. But I figured he would be, I thought that introducing an artist or just like introducing a photographer, he would be really preoccupied the whole time with how he looked and he would be like kind of sitting in like an official way, you know, doing his like Zoolander thing.

And an aide brought over a little handheld mirror for him, like, you know, one of those like sort of rectangular little ones and a little can of hairspray. And then he waved the aid off and didn't utilize it in our presence anyway. And then he sat there sort of like not not posing, not trying to look particularly strong or good in the way that I thought that he would. And she seems to have unbothered by it the whole time, which I thought was quite interesting. And then at the end, when he wanted to see what Isabel had painted, and he immediately,

the first thing that he said was like, does it have to. to have a double chin. And it was really, it was just, she was painting in a, uh, with an acrylic, I think, and, uh, hadn't yet, like, drawn in the collar of his shirt, but he thought that it was a double chin. He was like very upset about how he had, but he was like much more chill about the whole thing. I mean, it's a, it's a sort of, it's not as though it's like an official looking oil painting, right? Like, it's a pretty, uh, surrealist, um, unusual work. And like he saw a later version of a witness about return

tomorrow ago to do another session with him. She had made the decision to black out his eyes and not have eyes in the painting. And I think he's trying to be really cool the whole time in his feelings with both of us and like, I don't know what he actually thinks

about the painting, but he was like, yeah, that's cool. That works. I like that. You know, obviously you wrote maybe the most famous piece of Biden's mental decline, and I'll get to that at the end. But Do you have any sense from reporting on Trump or interviewing Trump that you see any mental decline either from the first time you interviewed him or from videos from 30 years ago when he

was doing interviews? I actually think he seems smarter now than the first time I interviewed him. Like, he knows more. He's seen more. He's seen more of the world. He certainly knows a lot more about how the world works. I don't, you know, he's conclusions. We can call on questions.

but on the information level, I think he definitely knows more than he knew back in 2014. I really don't, the liberals hate this when I say this and like people get so mad at me. I really don't seem to climb. Like he seemed a little older.

Like when he sits down, especially in like a super low to the ground chair, he kind of winks his little bit and, you know, he's an old guy. But he doesn't seem to really, he really doesn't seem like he'd lost a step. And, like, the comparisons with Joe Biden are laughable. I mean, it's just there's no question that Joe Biden is mentally impaired.

Whereas Trump has always just struck me as seeming kind of crazy, but not really seeming old. What do you make of, I guess, the big topic in the last few days is Laura Lumer in the orbit of Trump? I even saw a couple tweet from some random accounts that were sending my algorithm. They're suggesting that they have a ongoing relationship of some sort, which I find, unlikely. But what is what is Trump? Why is Trump have Laura Lumer in his orbit? What is the what is the point of this? I saw someone called them Caesar and Clay Patron. Well, I don't know. I mean, it's it really surprising. Like he hangs out. He's always surrounded himself with people of this all. I mean, like he rose to political prominence on the right promoting birtherism.

which, you know, is a racist conspiracy theory. I don't find it to be all that remarkable. I had no idea whether or not they, what the nature of their relationship is, but it doesn't surprise me at all that she's like hanging out around him. I guess it's not surprising. I mean, one of the tweets that people have focused on recently was, I guess, one from a few days ago where she said something particularly racist about Indians. and, of course, J.D. Vance's wife is Indian.

I mean, do you think that J.D. Vance just, you know, accepts the fact that Donald Trump is convorting with or hanging out with someone who's virulently anti-racist? You think he just, you know, puts his head down and defends it in some way? I mean, I have no special insight as to J.D. Vance. I think he is, you know, completely humiliating himself in a way that we'll all be unpacking for a long time after this election is over. I have no idea. But it's, I mean, for Marjorie Taylor-Grain to denounce you as a racist, it's like, you're probably pretty racist.

Another thing that struck me that Trump posted in the last 24 hours on Twitter, it was a video ad. I guess he's going to be unveiling for his children's venture, which is world liberty financial. It's a crypto, I guess, platform. It's almost like Fred Thompson's post political career where he's doing ads for some. random mutual company, reverse mortgages. Great actor. Yeah. Trump's running for president again.

Why would he be doing this in the middle of the campaign? I was supposed to say, Safrae Thompson, I think it was a time to kill on Broadway. He's fabulous. Yeah. He's dead now, right? Yeah, I think he passed away a few years ago. Why is Trump doing this? I don't know.

I have no idea, man. I couldn't tell you. I mean, I think that he's trying really hard to appeal to the kind of like crypto bro community. and, you know, he appeared at the Bitcoin conference that he changed his position or a lot related to crypto. But I have no special knowledge of why he posts anything at all,

and certainly not this. There was an interesting tweet from one Olivia Nuzi that said, a lot of critics have asked me why I would humanize Donald Trump. I see the search for Trump's humanity in an assessment of its limitations as a worthwhile exercise. If you're not interested, you don't have to read it.

Explain that. Explain kind of the journalistic mission, how it's sometimes meeting with good and bad people, however you define them, and trying to pull out who they actually are. Yeah, I mean, I do my job. Like, I don't work in a newspaper. I don't work at a wire service.

I'm not a television reporter. I write, you know, feature stories about human beings. and I view my job as humanizing people. Like, I think that's a good thing. I also think, like, if you look back at history, the details that we remember about people who are considered, you know, history's great villains, whether or not you think that Donald Trump will qualify,

are, we remember color. We remember humanizing little details. All that stuff that might seem trivial or, you know, surface level in the moment, I think is quite important. And I view my job as, like, to bear a witness. Like, you think some people are designated as witnesses, and I, one of them, and for whatever strange combination of, like, idiosyncrasies and qualities that I possess that make it so that I get invited into those spaces, or I can sit down with Donald Trump

over a period of years, my job is to bear witness for people who will not see him at that close the vantage point and to report back about what he's like and what he says or what he sounds like and what the room is like. That's my, that's, that's, that's the gig as far as I'm concerned that I don't feel all that conflicted about it. I know, I know in the comment sections, there's going to be some people listening on the dispatch who will see me and you laughing over certain idiosyncrasies of Donald Trump and things and say, you know, this, this person is a threat to democracy, as I do believe he is a threat to democracy. And I guess, expanding on that question,

is there ever a figure that is so bad that you wouldn't profile them or in the American system is it Donald Trump complicated? I see you shaking your head, no. So you would meet with anybody. Yeah, anybody.

But meeting, I think that this idea that platforming someone is bad and that talking to someone with whom you disagree or who is a threat to democracy which, of course, I agree Donald Trump is. I, the idea that that is bad and that he would just go away if he was not paid attention by people like me.

It's wrong. I think it's wrong. I think the results of this primary have proved that it was wrong. Before the Republican primary, it was very popular, certainly on the left or on the, you know, among the resistance. If you were covering Donald Trump for people to say, why are you doing that? Why are you going to one of his events? Why are you talking about what he said in this?

Why are you on the phone with him? Why are you interviewing him? And then the primary starts to wrap up and it's clear which way it's going. And it's, his rallies are not getting enough attention. People need to be covering what she's saying. We need to understand the stakes of this. I just think that sunlight is the best disinfectant. And both of those things as, you know, Donald Trump believes cure COVID. But I really think that exposure, getting people who are voting in this election, any election, as much. information as possible and they can do with that information what they want and interpret it how they see fit. That's my job. I don't think that I am giving him power by trying to understand him and trying to help other interested parties understand him. You know, reading your piece, it kind of struck me that in the, there's characteristics that he has that make him a fun and interesting TV character. But when you try, translate that into politics, it's understandable. I wonder if what those characteristics are, and I couldn't place them.

I mean, you read about him and he's a funny, weird, strange person, and when he's like hosting the apprentice, that's fine. But when applied to politics, it changes completely. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't like a great dealmaker in the White House, right? I mean, most days were sort of just, it's easy to forget now, but it was just like a sea of confusion every day, sort of wake up to, like, a tweet. that would change the course of that week. You couldn't really plan for anything.

It was very difficult for them to get anything done and very difficult for them to like formulate a plan about what they would do if they couldn't get anything done. All of that is because of his personality. You know, I think the personality of an executive defines what the environment is like for everyone who works under that executive. And I don't think he's any different. But I mean, it's interesting.

I think he's running in such an anti-conservative way in a way that's just so fascinating to me. I'd actually be curious to know what your thoughts on this are because he's running on expanding the government. He's, you know, he's running as like a big government president. And I think that's so fascinating to have that be the guy leading the Republican Party. Well, I mean, without expounding, I do think there is like now a new wing of industrial policy conservatives. I wouldn't call it conservative, but industrial policy Republicans. that believe that, you know, you should take over the government and put it in the direction that you like and no longer kind of the limited governor, Ronald Reagan, types.

Let me ask you this, though. You've written around about people that have gotten close to Trump and been burned by it. Rudy Giuliani comes to mind. Why do people accept that role? Okay, I guess I have a two-part question. Why do people accept that role, J.D. Vance, taking the vice presidency? And can you think of an example of someone who accepted a role like that and not get burned by it in the end? No, and off the top of my head.

I can't think of it off the top of my head. I mean, I'm sure there's stuff. So why do they do it? Why does J.D. Vance like sign up for something that is going to burn him almost certainly? I really, I wish I had insight into the J.J. Vance thing because it is fascinating. It's like there's also a case to me that like you shouldn't, if you're planning on having to govern as a Republican president, that, you know, taking a Republican. out of the Senate is not a great idea and that, like, he was part of a new generation

of up and coming leaders and they should have kept him there. I don't know. I guess, I mean, there is a case to be made it. I think January 6th actually did vindicate this theory. Everyone would always laugh or scoff when this was brought up during the Trump White House. But the idea was it was sort of a Jared Kushner argument

that if I'm not here, you have absolutely no idea what would be going on, right? that like if I weren't here monitoring who's going in and out of the Oval Office, it would be a lot worse and you have no idea the types of things that we prevent from happening on a daily basis. And it's only because people like me are here doing that, that that space isn't being filled with like a city Powell or a Sebastian Gorka or whoever. I always sort of rolled my eyes and thought, you know, you could, you could justify anything that way, right? You could justify any self-serving thing that's all about your personal

profit and your personal proximity to power your ego by saying, well, if I wasn't here, some crazy jerk would be here instead and then who knows? But on January 6th, I think that was sort of indicated, right? Where if Mike Pence had been Rudy Giuliani or someone like that, who knows what would have happened. What's interesting, though, I mean, in the beginning, people would have said Rudy Giuliani, he's got to, he's the normal guy who's going to save, you know, he would be the person who would be there to walk Trump back. You've covered him a lot. Sometimes you covered him, I think, when he was drinking, talking to you in some of the

stories. What happened? I've never got an explanation what happened between a guy who people thought as a 9-11 hero and then this guy who's next to Trump. I know the Newark Times did one story on it once. And I probably mischaracterizing it. but it was like the death of one advisor was the difference between pre-Trump Giuliani and the post-Trump Giuliani, which never made sense to me.

What happened? You're talking about his first deputy mayor powers? I forget who the name was, but the whole story was like this person was the guy that reined him in somehow. Yeah, it's interesting. If we're talking about the same thing, which I think that we are, the story that I was told was that it was less about him dying powers his deputy mayor and more about the fact

that at the time of his funeral it sort of marked the moment where a lot of people around Giuliani saw for the first time that there was something different about him that he got up and he gave this like eulogy that I can't remember what it was. It was like something screwed up in the eulogy

that was totally inappropriate for a eulogy about like maybe an affair or like a second wife or something that you shouldn't talk about in someone's eulogy. And there were some people that I spoke to her at this funeral who were like, that was the moment where I was like, oh, God, like, what has happened to Rudy? I mean, there are different theories. You know, Rudy, of course, maintains days not have a drinking problem,

though he did tell me that she's in a quote, partier. And he likes to have a scotch every now and then or the cigar. A lot of theories are just about some sort of like mental decline or dependence on alcohol. all. He certainly does party a lot in his words. But I don't really know. I also think guys got a lot of financial commitments related to his romantic heart, shall we say, and the pitfalls that accompany that. And he loves the spotlight. And Trump was like a way back to being relevant. I think it's just that simple. I think with a lot of these guys, it's like, it's just pretty simple. It's like, China sets like the motives for a murder. It's about like ego, jealousy, profit. That's it.

There are not a lot of things that drive someone to do something crazy like that. And there are not a lot of things that drive someone to do something crazy like throw in with the guy that's definitely going to screw them over. Well, let me, let me close with two questions, one on Biden and then one kind of fun question. You obviously wrote a famous piece about Biden's mental decline. Do you believe he is too infirm to even serve as president? I mean, he withdrew from running for president and led a lot of people to question, well, if you're not capable of running for president, are you capable to serve as president? Yeah, I think it's crazy. I think he's on vacation for what, like 19 days recently. I think it's absolutely crazy and I think

it needs to get more attention. And I think it's an utter failure of the White House press score that it's done, you know, something that they are harping on every day in briefings trying to get answers about. Final question. Who is out there that you would like to profile that you either tried and haven't been able to get or haven't tried but would be a dream profile anywhere in the world? I'm hoping to write something about Melania Trump coming up. I had worked for a long time on a profile of her that I never understood.

at publishing back in like 2019, I think, and I would like to go after that again. I don't know. I'm open to ideas. Well, let me just close actually on this then, because you reminded me, I knew I was missing a question and it was on Melania Trump. What is the deal with Melania and Donald? I mean, are they married but not married? I mean, you never see her on the campaign trail.

I don't want to, like, speculate about anyone's marriage. I certainly hear the same sort of gone. gossip that I'm sure that you hear about, you know, whether or not that's a real relationship, whether or not it's just a transactional relationship where, you know, she got a lot more than she bargained for and, you know, did not realize she was going to end up having to be the first lady. But I know, I've always viewed her. She's like a practical Eastern European woman, very Catholic. And I think the biggest sin that you can commit against someone like that is to humiliate them. And I think that, you know, if there isn't a, if you want to track, like, the

moments where she's really retreated from, from his political career and public life associated with that, it's been after she has been humiliated because of his alleged behaviors, right? And I think in that sense, it does strike me as sort of a real relationship. It would be realer that people think. Let me just press you. I mean, and correct me if I'm wrong, didn't she do an NFT as well? I mean, It seems like she's like willingly. Why is she doing these things? Does she have to like earn her own keep or something? It seems like she's humiliating herself.

I don't know. I mean, I've really done it. She's really closed herself off to like there used to be an inner circle around Melania, just like there is, you know, any principle, right? And if such a thing exists now, it's a complete mystery to me. She really got burned by a lot of people close to her, her alleged best friend who worked for her, you recorded their conversations, leaked to them, wrote a book, book about her. Her top aide, both of these women happen to be named Stephanie. Her top

aide, Stephanie Grisham, who is a great friend of mine whom I really love, but I think it's a fascinating, like, courageous person. She wrote a book as well. It was not like the same sort of betrayal, but I think from Malani Trump's perspective, it's like these people that I trusted who were close to me, who were working for me, turned out to be snakes. And I don't want anyone close to me anymore. And, you know, I mean, I view her retreat in the last year is probably being a little bit more complicated than just being about her husband. Her mother died as well pretty recently.

And she was really, really close to her mother. She's very family-oriented. I mean, she's another one who probably more than her husband is unknowable. Well, with that, Olivia Nuzzi, thank you for joining the Dispatch podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm going to be able to be.