transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] I mean, I've seen this too often that Trump is a moron, but I'm usually wrong about that, that somehow what he says, people appreciate this Trumpian bluster. But that now is paired with this other stuff that he can't escape. In the war, everybody sees the war. Everybody knows that this is pure incompetence. Everybody sees these people around Trump, and you understand these are his line up of fools. Joanna.

Speaker 2:
[00:35] Regular observers are going to notice you have a different backdrop.

Speaker 1:
[00:40] It's not only a different backdrop, but it's a different continent, a different city. I'm in Venice.

Speaker 2:
[00:47] You're in Venice, Italy.

Speaker 1:
[00:48] Yes, with my family, a family vacation.

Speaker 2:
[00:51] Excellent. Well, you deserve a vacation. You are prolific and we appreciate you talking to us on vacation.

Speaker 1:
[01:00] What choice did I have?

Speaker 2:
[01:02] Well, very limited choice, admittedly, actually. The one thing I should remind people to do is please subscribe to the podcast. The reason that we can bring you these long, rambling conversations with me and Michael is, and to be fair, usually bringing you pretty good info on what's happening inside the White House and definitely what's happening inside Trump's head. Please subscribe to the podcast. We're independent media and this is how we managed to make it work.

Speaker 1:
[01:33] Let me just reiterate that we are, that is the premise inside Trump's head. Everybody else, I believe, reports with their nose pressed to the glass, which I'm mixing the metaphors now, their nose pressed to the cranium. And in order to understand this time, this government, this moment in American history, it is necessary to get inside and to try to figure out what motivates this guy, because it's unlike any other motivations, I believe, in the history of American politics, and it has nothing to do with politics, and it has nothing to do with logic, and it has nothing to do, really, with issues. It has to do with. Whatever neurons have sluiced through his brain the night before or early this morning. And that's why we are in the Strait of Hormuz.

Speaker 2:
[02:45] In the Strait of Hormuz. And for those who don't know Michael and me, and you're joining for the first time, Michael has written not one, not two, but four books on Donald Trump and two books on Rupert Murdoch. And I have a title that Michael doesn't like, which is Chief Content Officer at The Daily Beast. But I have been a journalist for many, many years at this point, and Michael and I have known each other for a long time. So we are a bit like a sort of bad-tempered married couple at times, but it's because we're trying to thrash through ideas. We don't always agree, which is also fine. We try to show that it's okay not to agree. But we do agree that we are both in a war that, or America is in a war that Donald Trump seems unable to get out of at the moment. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 1:
[03:41] And again, we have extended another deadline. So we have a man who threatens Armageddon, literally threatens the end of a civilization, obliteration, and then extends the deadline for Armageddon. I mean, constantly. How many extension, on what extension are we at now? Actually, I don't even know. But it certainly feels like we're at half a dozen. So at this point, I think it is clear to all that this is a strategic bungle of the first order. I mean, there is, he evidently did not calculate that the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranians' ability to control it would be the central factor in this war. Now, and I think, you know, I was thinking about this, and I mean, what we have is war, the Iranian war. I think that we should, that there should be a movement to call this war, the war for the Strait of Hormuz, the Hormuz war. And then that then should begin to evoke a level of incompetence, bungling, arrogance, and then all of the characters associated with it, Trump, Hegsith, Kushner, Witkoff, Vance, too. This is the Hormuz gang, really. But all, you know, and some, it's important, it's fundamental, it's beyond important. It's fundamental that leaders should be held accountable for the wars that they start. It is the largest responsibility that they assume and the greatest harm that they can do. So if they screw it up, it should hang around their neck. Vietnam hung around Lyndon Johnson's neck, even the saint at Ronald Reagan. Nicaragua Contra hung around his neck. Or the Iraq War certainly hung around George Bush's neck, and Joe Biden's term was basically finished off because of the retreat from Afghanistan. Now, in Trump is going, I'm sure Trump knows this, and Trump is now going to do in Trumpian fashion, pay no attention, that didn't happen. War, there was no war. This is his war, and I think this perfectly sums up his capabilities, which is to say he doesn't have these capabilities, he doesn't have the ability to think this through. But for whatever reason, and he could be like any other president, to screw it up. But the point is, if you screw it up, you own it. He owns the Strait of Hormuz.

Speaker 2:
[07:02] The Hormuz gang, what a delightful avocation. Also, I think, the thing I find so curious and really repellent about him is the way he's so disdainful of the presidents who've gone before. So he's like, five presidents, they didn't have the balls to do this, I'm the only one. Of course, the reason they didn't do it is because they foresaw what could happen with the Strait of Hormuz, the energy shock that we are now all reverberating, that means reverberating around the world, the energy shock. His arrogance, as you say, to assume he can do this without any understanding of what's happening. Now we have the Navy secretary who's a business friend of his, who's been fired in the middle of it. Even if he's not of any great military import, it's terrible. It's terrible from a rock, it looks ridiculous.

Speaker 1:
[08:02] Well, it's also, I mean, it's Heggers going, I mean, Hegseth is-

Speaker 2:
[08:07] I love the fact you've just written a sign to calling him Heggers now. Heggers is exactly right for this man.

Speaker 1:
[08:15] He is on the spot and I think he's going to have to assume, I mean, he is going to be forced to assume enormous blame for this war. He's going to be the fall guy. So he's running around in the background, trying to distract from it, trying to deal with the internal politics in the Pentagon. And everybody in the Pentagon is going, oh my God, they did it again. They got us into a goddamn mess. And I would say this is certainly not to excuse Trump, but so many other presidents before have also made these fundamental errors. But the thing about Trump is that one of the reasons he was elected was saying, I'm not going to make these errors anymore. No more forever wars. And here we are once again.

Speaker 2:
[09:15] Well, and also he made the same mistake that Tony Blair did actually after Crossover and he went into Crossover and that seemed like a win and was probably the right decision, but then got mired in the Iraq war with the Americans. And Trump clearly thinking that the very quick extraction of Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela was somehow going to be a blueprint for Iran. I mean, they are completely different countries, different cultures and just a lack of understanding of that. Thinking that all foreign countries are the same, basically, and oh, we can just go in and take this lead route. And of course, they've taken a strong layer of leadership out in Iran, but it hasn't led to the regime change that they thought it would, or at least not yet.

Speaker 1:
[10:04] No, I mean, they've done this. I mean, they're looking at this, and I understand why this would be puzzling to them. They have essentially, Iran essentially has no military now because we've bombed it into smithereens or the Stone Age as they would prefer. And yet still, they have, they are, they hold, I think in military terms, very formally, the high ground. So the Strait of Hormuz is, I don't know, if I were in their position, I would be wringing my hands now. It's a kind of a checkmate situation right now.

Speaker 2:
[10:52] Well, and what's so fascinating is, and of course one doesn't want to root for Iran. It's a horrible regime. It's repressed its own people. And who couldn't have been failed to be moved by the efforts to overthrow the regime earlier this year and the terrible way they just mowed people down. But it's the sort of naked stupidity of what the Americans have been doing that makes it so... Well, we could have foreseen this. We could have foreseen this. And that's the real shame here.

Speaker 1:
[11:28] So we have this other deadline, yet another deadline coming up. May 1st, in which... That's the end of the 60-day period in which a president can essentially with some carte blanche wage war. And then at the end of 60 days, he has to, or he or she, in this instance, obviously, he has to go to Congress and get permission to continue the war. He can, however, ask for another extension, a 30-day extension.

Speaker 2:
[12:11] Oh, he can?

Speaker 1:
[12:12] Yes, he can. So, and I will expect Mr. Extension, Donald Extension to do just that. But he is, there is at some point soon going to be a reckoning. And then Republicans are going to have to stand up and they're gonna have to show which side they are on. And the war is gonna hang around their necks, as the Iraq war has hung around so many people's necks. I mean, it went on the Iraq war, which Hillary Clinton voted for, hung around her neck through two elections.

Speaker 2:
[12:58] And of course, the only president who hasn't gotten into wars was Barack Obama, who wasn't in favor of the Iraq war. And of course, then got criticized for not going to the aid of the Kurds in Syria.

Speaker 1:
[13:10] But I think again, and again, I'm going to come back to advocating that this should be the Hormuz war. And Hormuz should be a word like Suez. You know, Suez haunted a generation of British politicians. And Hormuz certainly ought to haunt Trump and the Trumpers.

Speaker 2:
[13:39] And Heggers, and Wichner, and Wyckoff, and Vance. I'm sure they are waking up.

Speaker 1:
[13:44] It's interesting that it's also going to be put around Vance's neck, should be put around Vance's neck.

Speaker 2:
[13:51] Yeah. Well, there was a fascinating sort of exchange over the weekend where Trump didn't know where Vance was, and Vance was going to Pakistan. He'd sent him to Pakistan for the talks, no, he wasn't. Vance's office said, well, actually, he's here, he hasn't left. Then he thought he was on the plane, then he turned up at the White House. So nobody knew what Vance was doing. And as you say, it's going to get hung around his neck too. Although at least he's made it clear, very clear that he didn't approve of the war. Whereas everybody else seems to have been gung-ho. We know that Heggers was gung-ho, we know Marco Rubio was a bit more gung-ho, and Vance is clearly busy trying to separate himself.

Speaker 1:
[14:36] And let's go into the Tucker of it all right now. Because I think that that's been extraordinarily interesting. I mean, in one of those, does this kind of thing really happen, in which a key supporter of Donald Trump, you know, certainly, and I would say, in importance, one of a handful, maybe certainly in the five most important supporters he has, I think you could probably fairly put Tucker Carlson there, a MAGA pillar. So, the other day, Tucker had, it was literally, I've had it. I regret my support of Donald Trump. I apologize for my support of Donald Trump. Donald Trump has betrayed everything that he supposedly stood for, everything that he promised, and I am having none of it anymore. I mean, he could not have been more categorical. There was a point in the Vietnam War that Johnson, that Walter Cronkite, in a far less categorical way, began to indicate that he had some doubts about the war in Vietnam. And Johnson, highly attuned to this, said, well, if I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost the nation. And I think that there's something similar here. If Donald Trump has lost Tucker Carlson in that kind of way, I think then there's really kind of questions about the loyalty of the MAGA nation to Donald Trump.

Speaker 2:
[16:36] But how real was Tucker's support? Because we remember in 2020 when it became clear that Trump had lost the election, when there was the Dominion case. So Tucker Carlson was the most important newscaster on Fox at nine o'clock and his in the evening. And his emails became available. They were part of the case and it was clear he hated them. He said, I hate Donald Trump. I'm really glad never have to mention him again. And then his head, Tucker Carlson's head, which you record in your book, The Fool, which is about Fox News and Fox News in a post Roger Ailes world. Roger Ailes being the co-founder of Fox News with obviously with Rupert Murdoch. They talk about the significance of having Tucker Carlson fired, that they want him to go, as well as the $750 million that Fox had to pay for wrongly saying that the Dominion voting machines didn't work. It was part of the conspiracy of the big lie. So did Tucker, I mean, I understand that Tucker is expedient. I understand he has his own media business. But to what extent was he actually a genuine supporter or thought Trump was a buffoon and that he could ride the Trump train?

Speaker 1:
[17:57] Well, I think probably all of that. Now, I mean, I know Tucker very well. I've known Tucker for 25 years. I wrote one of the first articles, one of the first national magazine articles, profiles about Tucker. I think Tucker was probably in his 20s then. I brought him to New York Magazine as a columnist. He was a disastrous columnist. But I've known him very well. I like Tucker a great deal. He's been a great source, incredibly insightful.

Speaker 2:
[18:36] But can you please tell people the anecdote of Tucker where you go to, or where DeSantis goes to his house, and Mrs. Carlson decides that she doesn't like DeSantis because DeSantis kicks one of the dogs under the table.

Speaker 1:
[18:51] Well, yes, this is a much disputed story because Tucker told me this, and then I think has walked it back. Then the DeSantis people tried to sue me about this. They settled for, I think we made a slight modification in the language in future editions of some book which I don't even know if we've gotten to those editions. But anyway.

Speaker 2:
[19:27] Well, I didn't know all that backstory, but it's a remarkable story. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[19:32] Yes. But I mean, Tucker also hates DeSantis. Tucker hates everybody, which is actually one of the reasons I like. I like Tucker, and he certainly has hated Donald Trump, and certainly has always consistently, I've found, been enormously insightful about Donald Trump. So I can say all that I've said in all the compliments that I've just given Tucker, because I give them to him with all sincerity. But at the same time, let me say, Tucker is one of the biggest opportunists I have ever met, which makes this more interesting, that his repudiation of Donald Trump, I mean, always look where the opportunists are going.

Speaker 2:
[20:30] Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[20:31] Because, and, but at the same time, I mean, Tucker has always, as long as I've known Tucker, his really consistent issue has been about wars. I mean, he felt that he got burned on the Iraq War when he was a George Bush supporting conservative. He believes that he has spent much of his life in Washington around these people, people who wage war, who he came to believe are incompetence and hypocrites. And that has been, I would say, very much his, his, one of his certainly defining issues, in one of the issues in which he has, he has made true common cause with Trump and with MAGA people. So this war is a betrayal on that, that level. And so that's the, that's Tucker in, in having a fight with his own conscience and deciding where he has to come out. But then when Tucker has a fight with his own conscience, and he does this regularly about a lot of issues, he almost always comes out on the side that is most opportunistic. So, and those are, that's one of those two things can be true at the same time. And so if he is now coming out against Donald Trump, it means Donald Trump is in serious trouble.

Speaker 2:
[22:05] Well, and Trump himself has responded by saying that Tucker Carlson is a loser, that nobody follows his channel, that he is a lot, his favorite himself for people, a low IQ person, which coming from Trump is pretty funny. So he's conscious of the fact that losing Tucker isn't good, that this is not helpful for him. And he must be inside that strange head of his. He must be desperately trying to figure out how on earth do you do this. And the Iranians have got his measure. They get that he gives them false deadlines. They get that he's full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Speaker 1:
[22:48] No, and I don't know how he gets out of that. I mean, this is the problem of forever wars, that people, presidents get into these wars. And then they, of course, all would like to get out of them. I mean, George Bush would certainly have liked to get out of Iraq. And then it becomes not, it's just not possible other than to say, we lose and we give up and we go home, which is also going to get you defeated. So it is the reason not to start these wars in the first place. So yes, you can go through the Iranian leadership is bad. The mullahs are bad. They've caused all kinds of terrible things. There you can go, they're the worst people on earth. And so therefore we have the biggest military on earth. So why don't we get rid of them? This is how the logic goes on this. And what no one understands is that that logic is faulty in which we're just seeing. It is just because you have the strongest military on earth does not mean you're going to win a war. Or you're going to be able to get out of a war. That's the, I mean, that's, that's the...

Speaker 2:
[24:14] Right.

Speaker 1:
[24:15] The, that's the problematic point. Hey, I like your new RAV4.

Speaker 2:
[24:22] Thanks, yours too. What does RAV stand for anyway? To me it's the remarkably advanced vehicle. Really?

Speaker 1:
[24:29] To me it's the runway approved vehicle for its amazing style.

Speaker 2:
[24:32] What about remarkably adaptable vehicle because of its versatile cargo space?

Speaker 1:
[24:36] Or really admired vehicle? Oh, or really awesome vehicle. It really is the recreational activity vehicle. The stylish 2026 Toyota RAV4 Limited.

Speaker 2:
[24:46] What's your RAV4? I sold my car in Carvana last night.

Speaker 1:
[24:52] Well, that's cool.

Speaker 2:
[24:53] No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.

Speaker 1:
[24:59] So what's the problem?

Speaker 2:
[25:00] That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

Speaker 1:
[25:08] Wow, you need to relax.

Speaker 2:
[25:09] I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood?

Speaker 1:
[25:11] Is this table wood? I think it's laminate.

Speaker 2:
[25:13] Okay. Yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch.

Speaker 1:
[25:16] Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up these may apply.

Speaker 2:
[25:20] Yeah, it's the crux of it. And also it's oddly, I mean, many wars are actually quite difficult to understand. They're complicated, they're nuanced. This one actually seems very straightforward. They're a bad actor. In theory, they were gathering nuclear weapons, so they could be a threat. We go and in theory have obliterated their nuclear facilities last summer. Then for whatever reason, partly because the Israelis have the intelligence that they can take out the leadership, we go into war, which hasn't been explained. Now there is a visual of the fact that despite the fact we've taken out at least 50 percent of Iran's military or Navy, that they have a very small ability, but nevertheless a vital ability to block the Strait of Hormuz, which impacts everybody. It impacts everybody around the globe. So it's not localized. The impact, the symptoms of this war, the ripple effect, is not localized. It's global, which is also, I think, something that Trump underestimated.

Speaker 1:
[26:34] Yes. I mean, I'll say. So in the Hormuz war, there is a fundamental, in all of these wars, there's always a fundamental strategic blunder. You know, we can, a conventional military is positioned to fight guerrilla armies. Or, you know, or we can go in and into situations in which there's centuries old religious dogmas at issue. I mean, again and again and again, these kinds of things. I mean, this is a simpler strategic situation. The Iranians can control this vital waterway. So unless we can think that through first, well, then you shouldn't have begun the war.

Speaker 2:
[27:42] Right. And weirdly, before the war, they weren't controlling the Strait of Hormuz. So what has the Hormuz war done? It's handed control of the Strait to the Iranians. Anyway, your friend, RFK Jr. was up in front of endless committees over the last week. Endless committees. I think he did seven of them.

Speaker 1:
[28:05] Extraordinary. I mean, I mean, this is for, again, for the, from the Trump point of view and from Trump looking at this, that's the worst look. It's almost as bad as the war itself. The one person you do not want out there in representing the Trump administration, and he did it seven times, is RFK Jr. I mean, because he stands for, he embodies, he is the poster boy for the one issue, the singularly, the most unpopular MAGA issue, which is vaccinations. It's an interesting thing how we've gotten here because the MAGA people actually came, partly came to power, partly came to building their own, the MAGA brand because they were anti-vax and through the COVID period, that became their issue. Without anyone quite understanding and putting two and two together, I mean, it's just amazing how stupid everybody is almost all of the time, that vaccinations in the United States of America are regarded as one of the great advances of one of the great American advances and one of the great advances of our time. And there's not a lot of controversy about this. Vaccinations are overwhelmingly popular.

Speaker 2:
[29:50] They're also remarkably effective cost-wise too. I mean, A, they eradicate diseases, but B, they're very cheap to make en masse, and they couldn't be more effective.

Speaker 1:
[30:03] You know, I think this is kind of a media issue and one of those believe in your own press issues. The media made this an issue of really great drama, that there was this anti-vax wave of opinion in the United States, and people started to believe this, and that made the MAGA people, gave them profile and position and status, and which RFK Jr. came to be deeply, deeply involved with, giving his career, his non-existent career, suddenly a major boost, without anyone really understanding that there was not support for this anti-vax position. So the media created the anti-vax as a potent movement in the United States without the media, or anyone seemingly in politics taking the measure of this. How popular was this anti-vax position? Turns out, duh, not popular at all. So now you have RFK Jr., a significant and he came, his brand and his position on the back of this anti-vax thing made him appear to be a significant political force. That brought him into the Trump administration, and now the Trump administration is stuck with this guy who everybody sees, and hears the voice, which you might do, and thinks only one thing, oh, that's the anti-vax guy. They don't even think of him anymore as a Kennedy, I think. It's really, that's how successful this branding has been. He's not a Kennedy, he's an anti-vaxxer.

Speaker 2:
[32:13] He's an anti-vaxxer. And also, do you remember that the reason I think it took off? I mean, it took off because there were a lot of influencer moms on Instagram who were, many of whom had children with symptoms of autism. The whole anti-vax movement came from the connection of the MMR vaccine to autism. And of course there is no connection. It started with a doctor called Peter Wakefield, I believe his name was, out of London actually, out of the Royal Free, with some dubious research, which was then completely disputed and negated. But nevertheless, RFK took up that mantle. And do you remember this time last year, he said, well, I have the causes of autism by September. And the only thing they got as a cause of autism was potentially dial and I'll don't take it. And then Donald Trump and RFK Jr. stood up and told women, especially pregnant women, not to tough it out. They had to, pregnant women should tough it out and not take Tylenol, because Tylenol was the likely cause of autism. Now, they're saying that MMR vaccines are not the cause of autism. They've rolled back. Having fired everybody on the CDC's vaccine committee and said that it's a matter of personal choice, whether or not you have the MMR vaccine, RFK Jr., perhaps as Susie Wiles, as one hope, applied pressure, is now saying that actually it is advisable for children to have MMR. So it's a complete 180.

Speaker 1:
[33:52] Well, there are two fallacies here. I mean, certainly the scientific fallacies about the efficacy of vaccines. But then this other fallacy, which I find almost more interesting, that the general belief that this was a popular view in the United States. And so both turn out to be, of course, the former has always been clear, that the science RFK and company were touting was completely ridiculous and made up and had no basis in science. But the other thing, which is the comic side of this now, of the Trump White House thinking this was a potent issue for their base. And it turns out that not even their base wants, and he wants to hear about this. But they are nevertheless stuck with RFK Jr., still junior at the age of 72, he said over and over, out there now seven times this week trying desperately to run from this, but nobody lets him run from this because he is so attached to it. Mr. Anti-vax. And then he has this other problem, him having to defend Trump's drug price math, which is hilarious. I mean, first thing is Donald Trump. Okay, he said we've lowered prices by a thousand percent or some ridiculous.

Speaker 2:
[35:43] Meaningless, meaningless.

Speaker 1:
[35:46] But then RFK Jr. is out there saying, well, 600 percent. And essentially, obviously, if you've lowered prices by 600 percent, then they're paying you.

Speaker 2:
[36:04] Yeah, exactly. They're free. They're free.

Speaker 1:
[36:06] Yes. And it's really like, even if it has been, even if you've lowered them dramatically, it's going to be by 90 something percent. So anyway, this is once again.

Speaker 2:
[36:21] Well, also the other thing that RFK Jr. does, I mean, he looks and he sounds so adult. I mean, someone said that he has the face of a raisin that's been left out in the sun. So not even just a regular raisin, but a raisin that has been baked by the sun. So he looks so peculiar. He's got his lips, his upper lips swollen because he's got his tobacco pouches out there, which he's always poking. And he does that thing where he sort of puts his hand over his mouth and then he's poking the tobacco pouches. And you're like, dude, we can all see you. You're on camera. You look absurd. But also he, when confronted by a congresswoman from California, I think it was from California, that he had suggested, he'd said very casually on a podcast that all black children were given Adderall, they were given Benzos, which is just his familiarity with these drugs.

Speaker 1:
[37:22] No, no, it really is. When he reels off these drugs, he sounds like, of course, like a drug addict.

Speaker 2:
[37:29] Which is what he was.

Speaker 1:
[37:31] That's the relationship here. He spent a life on the walking the wild side of pharmacology, and now he's become a pharmacologist as though.

Speaker 2:
[37:45] Right. Well, it's like that way when people are like, oh yeah, I've got, so I can give you Adderall. What do you need Vivence? I've got some of that. Oh my God. But he said that black children should be sent to farms and reparented and all their screens should be taken away. So when confronted with this comment that he'd made, he said, I didn't say that. What does that even mean? I would never say that. It doesn't mean anything. Then of course, everybody finds the tape of him saying just that. So again, this sort of people trying to adopt Trump's brazenness, which is what I think RFK Junior is doing, and just denying it, saying it never happened, and then they're presented with the evidence. It just makes them look foolish. Weirdly, Trump has been able to get away with that because he has a weird wink and because unbelievably, he is still president. But when other people do it, it doesn't work and it hasn't worked really for RFK Junior who as you say is probably the next to go. We haven't even discussed Laurie Chavez de Hameur being fired.

Speaker 1:
[38:55] That's because that seems so irrelevant at this point. It's just one more.

Speaker 2:
[38:59] It does, but it is three women that have been fired. Is there any significance to the fact that you think that the first three people to be fired from his cabinet are all women? Because there are many who are even less competent than Laurie Chavez de Hameur.

Speaker 1:
[39:15] I am not sure you could find someone less competent than her.

Speaker 2:
[39:18] Well, RFK Jr. RFK Jr. is less competent.

Speaker 1:
[39:22] Even RFK, I think it would be a toss-up. I mean, she's really the bottom of the barrel. I mean, he has fired three bottoms of the barrel. Now, this barrel is-

Speaker 2:
[39:39] It's a pretty low barrel.

Speaker 1:
[39:41] Yes. I mean, but I don't know. Yes, you could say, well, they're women, but they're certainly incompetent women. Yes, there are many. I don't know. I mean, it is so hard to parse this who is more strikingly incompetent, unfit, and ridiculous than the other. So I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[40:09] So there are two details that stuck out to me about this story. First of all, she was the first, I think, cabinet secretary to unfurl an enormous banner of Trump's head. You will remember from one of the first cabinet meetings that he started filming where she says, Mr. President, I hope you have seen the portrait of your beautiful face on the outside of the Department of Labor. Of course, Trump just goes, why am I giving him an Australian accent? I don't know. But he says, people said you'd be okay and you've turned out to be a gem. You're a gem. So he says that to her in the cabinet meeting. Then it turns out that not only has she had, as did Christy Noem, although Christy Noem denies it, but inappropriate relationship with her bodyguard, but her husband was banned from coming to the Department of Labor because he was accused of sexually harassing people working there. And her father, her father, so first her husband, and now her father has been reprimanded for sending her colleagues, shall we say, emails that would make an HR department spontaneously combust. So, who knows what's going on in that family, but it appears to be a family affair. And now they're going to have to take their attentions elsewhere. But as a working woman, to have your husband and your father banned from the building and banned from talking to your colleagues is really not a very good look at all.

Speaker 1:
[41:59] Well, let's just keep the tally here of how bad things are getting for Donald Trump. The war, the anti-vax poster boy in seven back-to-back congressional hearings, essentially touting one of the least popular issues in the United States, and attaching it again and again and again to Donald Trump. Then the gang of fools around Donald Trump, which is now becoming a consistent and constant issue for him. He can't escape it. So how many are we down? We're down four cabinet secretaries?

Speaker 2:
[42:55] Three. So you've got Christine Aime was the first, Pam Bondi and then Laurie.

Speaker 1:
[43:00] Right. And then you get to your favorite, Cash Patel.

Speaker 2:
[43:08] Cash Patel. Andy Borowitz had such a good line yesterday. He said, when thinking of people who are drunk, don't think of them as trashed or smashed, think of them as cashed. I mean, Cash Patel has gone full steam ahead. Claiming that he is now suing the Atlantic for saying that he is drunk on duty.

Speaker 1:
[43:32] And he's investigating the New York Times because it investigated his relationship with his girlfriend who he's been flying on government planes and providing government security and God knows what. And this is a separate issue, but a constant issue of the Trump administration. The media says something we don't like, let's sue. Now, again, and Wolff, I can't say this enough. This is something that has never happened in American politics. Senior officials in an administration don't sue the media. As a matter of fact, this is kind of one of those fundamental American things. It may be actually the thing, what's the America's contribution to history. This may be it, which is, if you're a person in power, we get to say anything we want about you. You have to take it. That's how power and freedom are balanced. You get to have your power. We get to say whatever. It literally doesn't matter what we say. You have to take it. And if you don't wanna take it, you can go home and nobody will care a whit about you. I mean, this is it. So the idea that we are in power, and this is obviously prevalent throughout the Trump administration, we are in power and we have the power to prevent you from saying these things is exactly the paradigm that the American experiment is designed to prevent. So here we are. Now, they consistently in court lose, and let's point out that I am in court now with one of the senior most members of this government, although not in an official capacity, but by marriage, the first lady who I am suing because she threatened to sue me for saying something about her. That, I mean, this is, this is again, this is how it works. You get to be in power. We get to say anything we damn well please about you. True, false, whatever. It doesn't matter. Suck it up, take it, take it, be a man about it, or go home. That is, I think that's about as good a definition of democracy and of our democracy as I can come up with.

Speaker 2:
[46:41] Well, and I think actually the first lady is an official role, isn't it? Isn't that why Trump sequestered the jet, the 737 from the Department of the Home Land of Seconds?

Speaker 1:
[46:51] Whatever you want to call it, she is certainly a high member of the Trump administration.

Speaker 2:
[46:58] But presumably, that's why he felt he was able to take a full plane, a 737, and give it to the first lady for her to ride around on, although she doesn't do very many official duties, but would be even hard to pass that off in America if it was just for your wife that didn't turn up. So also, the strange thing is that they threatened these lawsuits and Cash Patel has now sued the Atlantic. What does he think discovery is going to be like? The process of discovery for Cash Patel. Oh my God, totally. How does he think this is going to resolve? Here is what I predict will happen, which is he will settle. He will settle for nothing, unless he's already fired by then. Of course, the piece opens with an anecdote of him being unable to get into his system, his computer system and then being convinced he's been fired and having an absolute fit because he's been fired and nobody's told him, which will of course at some point happen.

Speaker 1:
[47:58] Also, he's suing the Atlantic for $250 million. One of the rationales for that number is he couldn't go to a billion dollars because that's the number that Trump and Trump's wife Melania sue at. So he could not sue for more than they sue for.

Speaker 2:
[48:20] So he sued for a quarter of their value. That's how he's valued himself. Well, I would love to be a fly on the wall as they pull together that case. Also, we've got the images of him clearly very drunk at the Olympic game, the men's finals in the hockey Olympics from Italy, where he's literally standing with the bottle, pouring down his face. We know that Donald Trump, who doesn't like public displays of drunkenness, or private displays of drunkenness for that matter, reamed him out after that. This is not a good look either. So I guess between the two, who would go first, Cash Patel or do you think RFK Junior?

Speaker 1:
[49:07] Again, it's how Trump wakes up in the morning. Who is he more aggravated about and who does he think, and if he thinks firing someone is a distraction that he needs and something that's going to solve other problems that he has. But it doesn't matter. It's really not relevant to the narrative, which now is he can't escape of these numbskulls around him. Now, I mean, this has been true from the day one of this administration, and almost everyone could have told you that, that these people are unfit. But because in that moment of Donald Trump won the presidency, you get to have and he has the Republican Senate with these Republicans being beholding to him, they were confirmed. So everybody knew as they confirm these people that these people were going to, were unfit and it was going to be a disaster. It now, that now has come to pass. And again, one of those things, Trump can't get out from under it, can't get out from under the war, can't get out from under the anti-vax thing, can't get out from under the fact that he has surrounded himself with fools, that it has become a comedy.

Speaker 2:
[50:40] It is a ship of fools. And also, as you have always pointed out, he cannot stop talking. So he just thinks that he can survive this by talking his way through it. And people, I think, increasingly sick of hearing from him. And people sort of understand that he's terrifying to be around for the people who are working with him, his cabinet. So they look diminished. They look foolish. They constantly have to call him out and praise him. And the whole thing seems less and less tenable.

Speaker 1:
[51:19] Yeah, you know, you know, I mean, I'm always, I mean, I've seen this too, too often that Trump is a moron and everything out of his mouth is gibberish and...

Speaker 2:
[51:31] Gibberish is such a good word.

Speaker 1:
[51:33] But, but I'm usually wrong about that, that somehow he, what he says is turns out to be a performance. I mean, I can't appreciate it. It's like a dog whistle, but somehow people appreciate this Trumpian bluster and drama and whatever it is that, that he's doing. But that now is paired with this other stuff that he can't escape. I mean, the war, everybody sees the war. Everybody knows that this is, that this is pure incompetence. Everybody wants their vaccines. And everybody sees these, these people around Trump and now sees them more as the one by one, they fall by the wayside. And you re, and you understand these are his people. This is what Donald Trump means, a lineup of fools.

Speaker 2:
[52:33] Well, he also reassured people that while gas prices were up now, they would go down. And then Chris Wright, the energy secretary came out and said, well, the gas prices may not go up much more, but they're definitely not going down. So he either undermines the people around him or they're trying to stick to, you know, what's actually happening, end up undermining him.

Speaker 1:
[53:00] No, and we've seen this. I mean, we have those two, I mean, two other issues, the economy, which he has failed to move in any positive fashion at all. And that was supposed to be, that was along with no forever more, no more forever wars, the economy was supposed to be his central issue. And obviously, that has not worked for him. And then there's the ICE thing, which is also as devastating and a refrain that he can't get away from, these guys with the masks out there, doing whatever dirty deeds they're constantly doing. So again, you know, and this theme that we are at the beginning, actually we're probably further into it than just the beginning of the end of Trump in America.

Speaker 2:
[54:05] Well, you must be looking forward to coming home then.

Speaker 1:
[54:07] Well, not quite yet, but I usually like to come home.

Speaker 2:
[54:11] So are you noticing in Italy a different reaction to Americans?

Speaker 1:
[54:19] No. I mean, you know, I mean, I think everybody is, I mean, nobody has pelted me with, with, you know, rotten something or other, um, figs, I guess. Um, but I'm in Venice where, you know, most everyone is a tourist and most, quite a number of people are Americans. So, but I do, the people I know here and I, and I've been coming, I know, um, a lot of Italians. In fact, I am in Venice because my, my, one of my lifelong friends is a Venetian and I come to see him at least once a year. Um, um, and, you know, and there is a confusion. I mean, I don't think anybody outside, anybody here can begin to, begin to explain what has happened, what is happening, what has happened. And I mean, I'm not sure I can explain it. So, um, but you know, the entire, the, the, the word, this is a global spectacle. Donald Trump is, is explaining Donald Trump. Um, I, I think it is the one question that everyone, the world over, everyone has in common. How can you explain this? How did this happen?

Speaker 2:
[55:45] Right. Well, we'll be trying to explain it again on Saturday. And actually we're doing a special on Saturday on the marriage, on Donald and Melania on their relationship.

Speaker 1:
[55:55] And explain that.

Speaker 2:
[55:57] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who cares about Brad and Angelina anymore? The prenup that you want to read is Melania Trump's prenup.

Speaker 1:
[56:06] Um, and, um, and that may be possible. Stay tuned.

Speaker 2:
[56:10] Stay tuned for your case. Well, if you have been, thank you very much for joining us. Please don't forget to press the subscription button. We'll be back on Saturday with our special on The Trump's Marriage. And Michael, have a very well-deserved few days in Italy.

Speaker 1:
[56:27] And I will see you next week in New York.

Speaker 2:
[56:29] I will see you on Tuesday for another episode of Where We Go Thrice Weekly Inside Trump's Head. Michael, do you want to thank our production team?

Speaker 1:
[56:42] Uh, thanks to our incredible team. Such an incredible team.

Speaker 2:
[56:47] They are an incredible team.

Speaker 1:
[56:49] Devon, Rachel, Ryan, Heather and Neil.

Speaker 2:
[56:54] Well done.