← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“Donald Trump’s World Cup photobomb”
00:42:24
July 20, 2026; 5pm: Nicolle Wallace and friends discuss Donald Trump stealing the spotlight from the World Cup victors, the Spain men’s national soccer team, when he would not leave the stage for the trophy-lifting.
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A
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B
Spain is a wasted cause. We don't want to do any trade business with Spain anymore. By the way, I'd like you to cut it up. Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don't participate, they don't pay. I don't want anything to do with Spain. They're hopeless, bad people because, you know, they have everybody else going and paying and working. In particular, Spain, there are a couple of others, but in particular Spain.
- [01:33]
C
The day when the American president called everyone in Spain, quote, bad people. Hi again, everyone. It's now 5 o' clock in the east in Donald Trump's world. One day you're calling an entire nation, an American ally, hopeless and full of, quote, bad people, and the next you're trying to squeeze into their spine as they celebrate the biggest prize in sports, winning the World Cup. At yesterday's final match, just 11 days after Donald Trump said those hideous things about Spain and NATO that do not represent the views of most Americans, Trump represented America again. This time to present them the winning Spanish team with the World cup trophy. He shook some players hands and then awkwardly refused to leave their stage. FIFA President Gianni Infantino had to rush over to him and push him off the stage, literally and physically, to let the Spanish team have their moment. Minutes earlier, Trump and Infantino had walked out to the field to a sustained chorus of boos. According to the White House press pool reporters, which described the ambient crowd noise level at 78 decibels, getting up to 84 with all the booing. The entire ordeal was classic Donald Trump an attempt to hog the spotlight at an event he had already unsuccessfully and unnecessarily inserted himself into a few weeks prior. Trump called Infantino after a player on the US Team, Flo Balgon, received a red card and a one game suspension, asking FIFA to review it. Trump said he didn't tell Infantino what to do, but FIFA did later rescind the suspension for the player. Baligun acknowledged after the United States defeat that the, quote, outside noise over the reversal made the next match, quote, difficult. So yesterday's moment on the World cup stage was also telling for what it showed about the people around Donald Trump, those who appease him. We've seen time and time and time again that anyone in any institution that bends the knee to Donald Trump ends up with a good amount of egg on their face. It's just a matter of time. Washington Post writes about Trump and Infantino this way. Quote, their relationship had been conspicuous for years. Infantino had repeatedly appeared with Trump. FIFA rented office space in Trump Tower and Trump has kept a model of the World cup trophy near the Resolute desk. The World cup draw was moved to Washington at Trump's urging, bringing one of the tournament's signature pre event ceremonies to the Kennedy Center. At that event, Infantino presented Donald Trump with FIFA's inaugural Peace Prize, an honor with a murky selection process that was derided by critics and human rights activists as another sign of FIFA's willingness to flatter the American president, whose government it needed as a partner. And what did the FIFA president end up with in return? Having to literally shoo a man off the stage at an event that he tried to make all about himself. Donald Trump's embarrassment of the United States of America on the World cup stage is where we begin the hour with Pulitzer Prize winning host of the podcast, Pablo Torre finds out. Contributor Pablo Torre. Also joining us, national sports columnist professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, Kevin Blackistone is here. Pablo, since you and I talked a little bit about the World cup, tell me your thoughts. What went through your head as you watched this yesterday?
- [05:03]
D
Yeah, I watched this live and replayed it a number of times. I will admit wondering if this was perhaps worthy of a generous interpretation. And that generosity would have led to some, I think, accusation of outright senility. This, if this is innocent, is something that you would have made fun of, Mr. President, with Joe Biden, right? You don't know where you are. You're lost somehow on the most grand stage on the planet. That's the generous read. The less generous Read is, I think, probably for better and for worse, more appropriate, which is this is somebody who did not care about whose moment this was. And the through line in Donald Trump, Nicole, is that it's always his moment. And so do you like this soccer? Do you like what the American experience has been when it came to the literal moment at which the gold trophy is lifted? Because, of course, all gold trophies belong to Donald Trump.
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C
Kevin, your thoughts as you watch this go down yesterday?
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E
Well, oddly, I thought it was befitting. Right. It bookended this particular World Cup. It started with Donald Trump's embarrassments and with Giano Infantino's embarrassments. As I said, corruption respects corruption, and it did it. And so this World cup, all in the middle, there were question marks about things that were going on. You mentioned Balagun getting the red card, Donald Trump making a phone call to Infantino, and miraculous, the red card goes away. England suffered the same with a defender. They didn't get to make a phone call, and their red card stayed intact. We've talked about what happened to so many of the people that wanted to come here to either work for FIFA as a referee who got turned away because of his nationality, the great fan for the Congo who wasn't allowed to come here and do his thing in the stands because this country wouldn't honor a visa for him, the fans that could no longer afford to go to a World cup in this country. And then you see the end where Donald Trump makes a mockery out of what should have been a great moment for Spain and a great moment for the people who love this particular game. The beautiful game was turned into an ugly game.
- [07:36]
C
You know, Pablo, it's not something we can measure for, but Spain is a proud country. They love. They love, love, love competition and sports. And 11 days ago, Trump called all the Spanish people, quote, bad people. What sort of intangible impact does an attack from an American president have on a country and how their sort of proudest sports team performs on the world stage?
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D
Yeah, I just think it's, you know, they call it in baseball, as, you know, Nicole, they call it bush league. It feels like minor league stuff. You know, it makes us look small. And I want to point this out because there was another piece of writing that I wanted to cite here, because it was in the Guardian over the last several days that the vice president of U.S. soccer put a name to it that I think I should just quote, because you raised the question that he provides an answer to. And he says, while the World cup will go down as a massive commercial success. No amount of revenue will ever erase the moral stain of blessing Trump's wars in the name of soccer. This was the vice president of U.S. soccer writing in the Guardian, someone who has been fed up watching the commandeering of his Sport and the U.S. national Team Program by a guy who does not actually care about the game. And so what does it mean for Spain to have been insulted on the world stage? And then to now around this, again, generously senile old man who was trying to be in, literally, the team photo? I think it's just embarrassing for us, you know, and that's what U.S. soccer's vice president there was basically referring to in so many words.
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C
Let me show you what the player we're talking about, Flo Baligan, said about Trump's intervention. My initial reaction was, you know, I was happy to be back in the
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E
team, but when I kind of started
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C
to reflect, I knew it was going to cause a lot of controversy. And I could almost see within my
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E
teammates a bit of nerves because it
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C
was something that's so unique.
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F
But the closer we got to the game, I tried to just focus as
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C
best as I could, but it was difficult.
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A
You know, a lot of outside noise, and that's.
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C
That's hard to avoid. Again, I'm not an expert. I'm just a Little league mom. But 99% of sports is what's happening between your ears, not your arms or your legs or, you know, they're all great, they're all excellent, they're all the best of the best. But if you mess with what's between an athlete's ears, it can be lights out. And I wonder your theory on Trump's intervention, Kevin?
- [10:35]
E
Well, once again, if you hear the player there, who, by the way, we must point out, is a birthright citizen in this country, which is why he was able to play for the United States men's team. You see that he's bothered by this. Trump became this overwhelming force over this entire game, not only his dealings with FIFA, but, in this particular instance, his actual impact on a player. And there were many people who wrote and said and argued when Baligun was returned to the team, when that red card was rescinded, that maybe the men's team should do the right thing and not allow him to play, to hold up the standards of soccer, the ethics of soccer. But once again, Donald Trump trampled on the ethics of a particular institution, and this gentleman suffered the consequences.
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C
Yeah, I mean, Trump didn't care about him. Right. He inserted himself without thinking about all these intangible nuances of how you get into a team's flow and an athlete standing on the team and what ends up happening on the field. I want to come back to your equivocation, if I will, that it's either senility or massive ego, and argue that in some ways it doesn't matter, right? Because Donald Trump represented all of us, the three of us, and every American yesterday. And here's how FIFA dealt with it. They literally cropped him out, the way a teenager crops out. Someone on their Instagram post. Let me show you the picture they posted. There you go. So Donald Trump, who we know from all the television footage, is everywhere, and he's either zapped out or cropped out. So this, to me, is a lot of things coming to a head here on this biggest of stages in sports and culture and global celebrations, and something that was really beautiful. But for Trump's presence there and the boos that he elicited, this is the story of human history where appeasement never works out for the appeaser. I mean, what is. What is sort of where does FIFA stand right now, having created this absolutely bogus peace prize to win over Donald Trump and then ending up with this image, one in which they had to either crop Trump out of it or zap him out of it with AI? Oh.
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D
I mean, let's just remember FIFA is a bit of the apex predator when it comes to corrupt sports governing bodies. So this, for them, I think, is almost literally the price of doing business. I do want to point out, to your larger point, that when you say, is there a difference between. Between senility and ego? It reminds me of the larger conversation you're alluding to, which is, is it malice or incompetence? And at a certain point, your incompetence becomes malice because you are the literal president, right? And so your responsibility obligates you to be competent. Now, the thing that's funny about all of this, as we look at the photo and imagine how does FIFA feel about it, I like to imagine how the athletes that Trump has publicly picked and rooted for have felt over the last year. Because we have seen the New York Knicks, Nicole, when he showed up to that game, lose the one playoff game in their entire magical run. That was the game that he attended. We have seen him mention that he played, I believe it was golf with England's Harry Kane. England loses, he mentions that he's going to pick Leo Messi in Argentina, and Argentina loses. It's just a bit of a running joke in Sports like Ted Cruz used to be the guy that used to show up at games, and it was like the grim reaper. And that was sort of a fun meme. But Donald Trump doing this with the most eyeballs available on the planet, once again picking a loser. It's also this metaphor that speaks to everything about what happens to the things he touches.
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C
You know, I like to think, Kevin, that this is bigger than an American president. I think it is that the enjoyment that people got in this country from having an education in soccer or watching their first World Cup. I mean, I know people who never watched or followed it, who were just totally taken away by the sport, watched every match, got to know players, that. That sort of outpaces Trump's involvement. But let me tell you why we live at this story. A lot of the analysis after 2024 was that Trump won the vibes. There are no vibes. Okay? We are done. There is no. There is no dominance. There's. There's nothing masculine about being edited out of an image or booed in the world. World's largest sports stage of the summer. And the idea and the notion that he has any standing or any place to be amid the world's, you know, most respected and elite athletes. I hope that conversation is over.
- [15:34]
E
Well, one would hope so. I mean, you know, Donald Trump is antithetical to what sports are supposed to be all about. And we're not. I'm not talking about politics here. I'm just talking about fairness. I'm talking about meritocracy. I'm talking about the fact that if you lose, you accept the arbitration that took place on the field of play, and you go home and you try and come back and be better. But instead, we saw him impose his personality, his disrespect for ethics in sports on this particular game. Right, by trying to. By literally trying to overturn a decision that was made in a particular game. So, you know, that's the kind of the way that I looked at it in terms of Donald Trump's approach to sports. And of course, we know that, you know, it's been written about how he. He cheats at the game he loves the most, golf. And so we've seen him try to cheat at this particular game. And I think it's got to be pointed out some other things about why he would choose Argentina over Spain. And we mentioned the NATO connection. But we also have to point out that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, right, is a socialist. And we have to point out that there's much opposition in Spain, particularly in Madrid to this country's involvement in Iran right now. And the young superstar for Spain, Lamine Yamal at the end of La Liga championship was in the championship parade waving a Palestinian flag. His father, of course, is Moroccan. And so there's a lot more that's gone into this.
- [17:22]
C
Yeah. And for Donald Trump, everything is reduced to his sort of personal political prerogatives. And that is just the antithesis of any great sporting event, but certainly this one. Pablo and Kevin, thank you so much for starting me off on pretty unfamiliar terrain. I benefit from both of your wisdom and expertise. Thank you so much. When we come back, a growing sense of incompetence on the part of Donald Trump and his administration. He's now admitting openly that his Qatar gifted luxury jet is not fit to be Air Force One, even as we're learning more about the extraordinary lengths his Justice Department is going through to target journalists who basically reported that fact and their relatives, all in an effort to disprove the story that they're essentially copying to Senator Lyssa. Slotkin will be our next guest on that. Plus, the incompetence isn't enough for you. There's all the corruption behind it. And Trump's own MAGA base is starting to sit up and take notice and say, no thank you. How the impossible to ignore headlines of the most corrupt president and family of a president ever are finally breaking through the MAGA information ecosystem. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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C
Donald Trump's ongoing war against the First Amendment and journalists who should be protected by it is further along than we previously knew. Brand new reporting in the New York Times reveals the unprecedented lengths to which Donald Trump's Department of Justice has gone to target journalists from the New York Times over their reporting on Trump's Qatari gifted jet. The Trump administration, quote, sought the phone records of several New York Times journalists and their relatives, including one reporter's mother, in its effort to unmask the confidential sources who have provided information for articles about the security capabilities of President Trump's new Air Force One jet. The New York Times adds this quote, the government's actions amount to an extraordinarily aggressive and unorthodox attempt by the Trump administration to unearth confidential sources of independent journalists whose reporting had angered the president. The additional subpoenas, which also sought information about calls and messages on the phones of two of the reporters spouses, were described in a motion filed on Saturday by lawyers for the New York Times, which is seeking to quash the requests. The motion was unsealed on Monday morning. In a letter to the court, outside counsel for the New York Times criticized the administration's moves, writing this these actions demonstrate abuse of the grand jury process, continued bad faith attacks on the journalists, violations of the department's own internal regulations, and disregard for the law in this circuit intended to protect critical First Amendment interests. In a statement, DOJ told the New York Times this quote, any subpoena issued by the Department of Justice is done so in full compliance with federal law and internal department policy. We also learned today that a judge has paused the subpoenas to phone providers, with arguments on all subpoenas except for Thursday. These alarming new details on the escalated campaign against journalists who published stories that Trump didn't like come after Donald Trump himself admitted this about his Qatari jet
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E
President this plane does not have anti.
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B
Well, it has. It has a lot, and you know, it has a lot of capability. But as I understand it, in about a month or so they're going to send it to have it be maxed out so they're going to be sending it and they'll have it be maxed out. It'll take about a month.
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C
I want to bring in our coverage of this Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan. She's a member of both the Homeland Security and Armed Services committees. I know you are hardwired to view the importance of protecting national defense information and state secrets and intelligence. But what the Times is arguing and what I think people that don't engage in journalism every day may not know is that the Department of Justice has some rigor in its own systems to sort of pursue journalists as a last resort. Do you think it met those standards in this instance?
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A
I mean, look, I have to see all the details, but it certainly sounds like yet another example of this administration weaponizing the Department of Justice and the legal channels that come with it against people they perceive as enemies. That is something that is very familiar to me. The president took me and others, you know, to the grand jury earlier this year, so that seems to be the playbook that he's using. I've been working in national security for over 20 years at this point. And there are channels, there are ways to protect sensitive information, to have engagement with media sources when you think they're about to leak something that threatens national security. I've seen that in my own time. It is not going to taking them to a grand jury using, going after their records, the records of their family members. So I think this is, again, just another example of weaponizing the Department of Justice against people the president doesn't like.
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C
You know, something that we learned only after the fact that the Trump administration was doing in Trump's first term, was this sort of narrow thing that the judge seemed to at least pause, which was to pursue the phone records and to tell the Trump administration they couldn't have them. If it was something that was more widespread than we knew in the first term. How widespread. And you talked about, I mean, they pursued you and five other lawmakers. I mean, how widespread? Should we be at least open to questioning those practices? Could they be?
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A
I mean, I think at this point, if you have a failure of imagination to think big about what this administration is willing to do, how they're willing to bend or break the law, that you're just not paying attention? Like, I can't help you if you have a failure of imagination at this point, because he's telling us what he believes, he's telling us what he thinks. He's not hiding it. So, you know, I think the. To me, I don't think that we Should. No. I think there's this kind of hesitation by some people to think beyond the box. But this president has just told us with his own words, over and over that he's more than willing, especially in his second term, to go outside that box. And we need to hear him on that.
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C
One of the things that we wanted to ask you about was this extraordinary performance, is the only word I can think of for it of Jay Clayton, who is Donald Trump's nominee to lead the office of the Director of National Intelligence, literally an office created after 9, 11 to protect America and to protect Americans. He was. Well, let me show you. Let me show you what he could and couldn't say.
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D
Answer the question.
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B
Who won the 2020 election?
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A
I have answered the question.
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D
Answer it. What is your answer?
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A
I've given you my answer.
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D
What is your answer? You refuse to answer a basic question
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B
about who won a presidential election, but
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D
you asked to lead America's intelligence community. Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the President's delusions?
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B
We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it?
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C
I think I gave you the answer. What is the currency that an intelligence official has when the cameras aren't rolling, when they sit down with allies or adversaries and have to deal with, in this sort of gray area of intelligence?
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A
I mean, look, I think, you know, I've worked at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. You know, was there when it was being set up because of intelligence failures. The most important thing when you're trying to protect the homeland against threats, all kinds of threats, is you have to be able to call something out when you see it, whether it makes the President happy or not. And all of us, I'm a former CIA officer, we've had the experience of taking a piece of intelligence to the President or to a cabinet level official and being like, look, I know you want to hear this, but this is what's going on in an allied nation, or here's what's going on with people we consider friends, or here's what's going on. You know, that's difficult and complicated, but we have to protect the American people in the dead of night, whether we like the threat or not. And I think when someone can't answer a basic question, an answer that should be easy for any person to answer, it really just says, like, how? Why would I think that this person would ever be independent and straightforward about real threats facing the Country. I put a piece of legislation in that says even if you're going to be the acting dni, you got to have some national security background. The guy's never had a security clearance. He's never handled classified information. So I think the whole episode, I think one day, you know, historians will look back at this moment and the answer is that so many of these nominees, theoretically very smart people, accomplished people, some of them who came onto the stage of their confirmation hearing, and because of one viewer, you know, the President watching from the Oval Office, they were unable to say basic information. And it will be a real time of shame and humiliation for us as a country. And the fear that they are living through and as demonstrated by not being able to answer the question is just so amazing and visible to the whole world. It's like the emperor has no clothes. And these guys are like, yeah, yeah, he's wearing full clothes. And so I just, I think historians will study his answer and other nominees who have said the same.
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C
Do you think it'll change the way people share sensitive classified information with the United States of America?
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A
I think we're already seeing that. I think that intelligence agencies who have long worked alongside the United States, who have shared information with us, who have considered us the gold standard, are now hedging their bets. I mean, they're basically saying, okay, we'll still cooperate with the United States, but we better have our own channels, we better have our own, like, kind of trust but verify policies on what the Americans pass us, and we better be really, really careful on what we pass the Americans, because something can be used, manipulated explosives. And I think it is part of this sort of astonishment that's going on across the world of what has happened to the United States and our security relationships.
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C
I mean, on that front, Trump has engaged in an all out war on voting and election integrity. I know you've been on top of the effort to limit people's access to and right to vote by mail. What is your sense of how successful Trump will be in his effort to use the United States Postal Service in his election suppression campaign?
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A
Yeah, he tweeted about me last night about, you know, my sort of concerns that the Postal Service was going to curb mail in voting. But it's part of a much bigger story. And I think we need to be honest, especially after the primetime address that the President did this week. The President is using an authoritarian playbook that I have seen tons of times abroad where he's sowing misinformation and disinformation about our Elections because he thinks his team's going to lose. The man has basically said, including at the State of the Union, if my team loses. The system was rigged. When, when he wins, the elections were great, but when he loses, they're all fake. And he's building a case. And part of that is what he's doing with the U.S. postal Service, trying to limit who can send in mail and ballots. He's giving these addresses, he's gutting the vra, he's doing all of these things. And I think what it tends to culminate in this authoritarian playbook, it culminates in him creating a security incident that requires uniform military or federal law enforcement to go to the polls, to surround polls, to collect ballots, ballot machine or voting machines. And I think we need to be clear eyed about that, that he is laying out this playbook ahead of November. And so we don't need to pick on each little thing that he does. We need to stand back at 40,000ft and see what's happening.
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C
Just quickly. I mean, his, his story, his bigger story would have his base of voters believe that Presidents Obama and Biden ran fair and secure elections and he didn't. Do you think that slows the effort or do you think that turbocharges it because it's so audacious?
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A
I think that honestly he's, I think sometimes right now he counts on the American people somehow being dumb and they're not right. That primetime address that he gave last week was one, the economy is the best it's ever been. Gas prices are coming down. It's all great. Well, the average American is not dumb. They know their own pocketbook, they know what they spend, they know what they save. And then he talked obsessively about the elections and how they're going to be rigged basically if he doesn't win. The American people aren't stupid and he's, he's talking to them like they don't know their own country, especially in our 250th year. So I don't know what makes his case stronger or worse. I just know that he is treating the American public like they're dumb. And they are not dumb.
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C
I'm hoping you are correct. I believe you are. Senator Lissa Slotkin, thank you so much for your time on all these topics today. We're grateful.
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A
Thank you.
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C
When we come back, our political panel joins us amid all of this new evidence that Trump and his administration are simply not up to the job, why the I word competence is roaring back into this news Cycle. That's next
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home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Psaki and more voices you know and trust. Ms. NOW is your source for news, opinion and the world. Learn more at Ms. Now.
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C
Members of the Trump administration are proving over and over and over again through careening crises that you cannot take anything that any of them say at face value. There was the admission from Donald Trump yesterday as we covered, that his Qatari jet will actually get the security improvements it needs and that it actually needs them, despite the intimidation campaign being waged against the journalists who reported on its security deficiencies. And yet again proving the Trump administration's incompetence over the weekend was the fact that the Food and Drug Administration was forced to admit a massive error about who they said was the culprit of the now widespread Cyclospora parasite outbreak. They announced yesterday that their finding that the outbreak stems from Taylor Farms lettuce from Mexico was actually a false positive. The fda, however, did not back away from its conclusion that Taylor Farms does remain somehow linked to the outbreak. I want to bring in Charlie Sykes. He's the author of the to the Contrary newsletter. Also joining us, Princeton University professor, political analyst Eddie Glaud. Charlie, this is where the story isn't sort of for us pundits and political watchers and democracy hawks or, you know, whatever you want to call those of us who consume the news around the clock. This is where everyone in their lives is talking about the Trump administration's failures.
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B
Well, it shouldn't come as a tremendous shock because, you know, if the big lie was that he won the 2020 election, the big myth was that Donald Trump was competent or was, or was an efficient businessman. I mean, let' just step back from, you know, this is one of the very, very few men in America who's managed to run a failed casino, run a failed university. Trump steaks, Trump vodka. Trump the game. Trump with a Trump detour, Detour De Trump, you know, he has touched so many things that have gone belly up, that have, have failed. And so, you know, that's the background. You know, the Donald Trump's entire image of being a competent manager has been a myth. And now, of course, he is purging the government of expertise. He has surrounded himself with yes men. And this is the Achilles heel of all authoritarians, right? They push out the people who can get the job done. They bring in the people who are willing to kiss the emperor's toes and then they shield the emperor from ever being told, by the way, this is wrong. This is a failure. So you're having these cascading failures. You mentioned the jet. Of course, there's the reflecting pond. And then, of course, we have the issues involving public. And I think this is just the tip of the iceberg as you begin to destroy the public health infrastructure and the science infrastructure of the country at the hands of Donald Trump and his lackeys.
- [35:50]
C
You know, Eddie, it's where you see all this evidence that the corruption story is starting to resonate. It's because behind every failure, behind every story of incompetence, behind every story of a corrupted federal agency destroyed either by incompetence or corruption or both, is a Trump donor, is a Trump business interest, is a fat government contract, is a crony. The reflecting pool was done by some. The shoddy work was done by someone with an association with Donald Trump. I wonder what you make of, not the idea of remorse or regret, but revelations. You know, that this is all fully public and available information for anyone paying attention.
- [36:33]
F
Well, first of all, it's great to see you, Nicole. I think, you know, it leads me to at least hope, at least hope that maybe Earth 1 and Earth 2 in the Venn diagram, that they're overlapping in some way or some form or fashion.
- [36:45]
C
Yeah.
- [36:46]
F
I think it's really important for us to underline the things that Charlie said there. Of course, there's of course, the incompetence of Donald Trump, but then there's the engineered incompetence, as Ruth Ben Guy has taught us, that is critical, a critical part of the authoritarian playbook. And then there's the consequence. The consequence, of course, is that folk are put in harm's way. 7,000Americans are experiencing the effects of this assault on the public health infrastructure. But there's also a generation of distrust. So folk aren't even trusting the revision. Right. Because we think that a donor is behind the revision. Right. So there's a sense in which there's the kind of conscious assaults on the system and structures, and then there is the unconscious kind of generation of generalized distrust of those systems that then have an impact on how they function as well. So we're in this deep, deep crisis across the board, it seems to me.
- [37:44]
C
Yeah. And you're right to describe them as cascading. Right. So that the incompetence leads to increased distrust where people don't know whether to believe the conclusion or the walking away from the conclusion or the doubling down on the false conclusion. And then you've got the story right alongside of the business relationship. Between the company in question and their donations. All right, no one's going anywhere. We'll turn to that other piece of this, the corruption side of the incompetence story. That's next.
- [38:19]
A
I don't feel great about our leaders. I'm not going to lie. I'm like, I'm disappointed with some aspects of the Trump presidency for sure. I'm not going to lie. It's grifty. You know, the Trump family is grifty. There's been like, story after story about all the money that his sons are making off of the government, these government contracts they're getting, all that. I can't stand that stuff. I didn't like it when Hunter Biden was doing it, and I don't like it when the Trumps are doing it.
- [38:49]
C
Don't fall for sad, Megan. There was never even a wild accusation about Hunter Biden that comes close to approximating what Trump and his family are doing. But it is an interesting political moment where the MAGA base just cannot wander any more of Trump's brazen corruption. They appear to want to align themselves with voters in the center and on the left who have a big problem with the Trump family's egregious corruption and grip, all at the expense of competent leadership and US national security. Again, for Megyn Kelly's lame attempt at any comparison, as the free press puts it, quote, for all the condemnation of the so called Biden crime family by Republicans, it pales in comparison to what's happening in this presidency. There is no modern parallel for the scale and shamelessness with which Trump has enriched himself while in power. We're back with Charlie and Eddie. Charlie Trump was largely a failure in business. He was rich, but he inherited it from that great reporting. I think he's suing the Times reporters over about the size of his inheritance and how much he lost because he wasn't a particularly great business person. But the richest he's ever been, the most money he's ever made, are the 15 months he's been back in office as America's president. He's made $2 billion.
- [40:08]
F
Yeah.
- [40:09]
B
If only Megyn Kelly had been warned about all of this. And, you know, earlier we were discussing the US Supreme Court decision immunizing him. I mean, Donald Trump is basically acting as someone who will never face accountability. But, you know, when Eddie talking about, you know, in the last segment was talking about, you know, the attack on truth, I was reminded of Gary Kasparov's quote, You know, the point of modern propaganda is not only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust our critical thinking, to annihilate truth. What Trump is also doing is annihilating a sense of ethical norms. The sense that everybody does it, that he is the grift is so outrageous, it is so in public. And basically he's shrugging his shoulders when he said, you know, I found out that nobody actually cared about this is what he is doing. He is not only feeding the distrust of all institutions, feeding the distrust of all information, but feeding this sense of distrust that there are any ethical standards, any morality that we ought to hold the President to. And so the grift is out there. It is who he is. I agree with you that it is breaking through. This is one of those moments where the voters have to ask themselves, is he on your side? Is he looking out for you, or is he looking out for himself? And every single day we are seeing exactly what Donald Trump is most concerned about, which is self dealing.
- [41:40]
C
Yeah, I mean, Eddie, I wondered. I spent an inordinate amount of time wondering why the corruption of the first term didn't bother people so much. And I'm not sure I've come much closer to figuring it out. But the truth is, it is one, registering two, coinciding with a period of near historic economic despair, anxiety and bad feelings about people's personal economies and the cost of everyday items. And Trump's indifference is sort of the third piece of that three ring circus. How do you see this playing out in our politics?
- [42:13]
F
Well, you know, I don't quite know how it's going to play out in our politics. We've been talking about for a while now, Nicole, the various components of Donald Trump's coalition. We talked about the Bannon side and the Musk side and how the populist wing would call into question the billionaire class, the oligarchs. And there's, it seems to me that that populist wing is, is, is rearing its head. I mean, I don't know. You know, I won't use the word grifty to describe what Donald Trump is doing. I mean, it's outright theft in so many ways. But what we're seeing are the kind of fraying edges of that coalition. Now the question will become, how does that manifest itself politically? There are, there's a lot of ways in which our political identities are baked in to how we understand ourselves existentially. So it doesn't mean that they're going to critique Donald Trump's grift and suddenly they're going to vote for Democrats, they might just simply opt out of the process. And so I don't know what to translate as politically, but I do know this, that the populist wing of Trump's coalition is on the way to being in full revolt, given what they're seeing and witnessing.
- [43:22]
C
Yeah. I mean, and that's the X factor, because the members of that wing are largely up for grabs. They were. The people that were sort of of that stripe are also against the Forever wars, and they have been betrayed over and over, made fools of. So it's. It's a real test of what they do in the midterms and the next presidential. Charlie Sykes. Eddie, glad we didn't have enough time. Thank you. Your time today. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. My guest on this week's episode of the Best People podcast is the ever insightful, completely delightful Heather Cox Richardson. She is the most popular human being on Substack for a reason. She's a perfect person to turn to about this moment in the current state of the Trump presidency. Take a listen to this part of our conversation.
- [44:13]
A
What we are struggling over going forward into the midterm elections, but also beyond that is which side looks to the American people like a winner. And I'm watching the many things that the administration is doing right now to try and assert their dominance. And it just feels like you're watching one of those cartoons where the claws are going down the side of the cliff.
- [44:34]
C
And I'm not saying they're not dangerous. Yeah. And it's sliding down the glass. That's perfect.
- [44:39]
A
I'm not saying they're not still incredibly dangerous. They're. But the minute the American people turn and say, why don't you just shut up? That's the minute all the momentum in the country changes.
- [44:55]
C
To listen to the entire conversation, just scan the QR code on your screen or download the Best People wherever you get your podcasts. She's brilliant. You don't want to miss a word of what she has to say. As always, please be sure to let me know what you think. Do it on Instagram or bluesky. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes tonight. We are grateful.
- [45:19]
F
Simone Sanders Townsend and I have known each other for more than a decade, tussling over politics and policy when she worked in the White House and I reported on it.
- [45:28]
A
And now we're friends and colleagues. And on our podcast, Clock it, we are positioning ourselves at the intersection of culture and politics.
- [45:36]
F
Clock it is where we talk about what we see and hear in the news. So you can start to clock it, too.
- [45:41]
D
Clock it with Simone and Eugene.
- [45:44]
B
All episodes available now.