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- [00:01]
A
Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@Bloomberg.com
- [00:18]
B
he has traded more in stocks and bonds than the stocks, than the total value of all the stocks and bonds traded by every member of Congress.
- [00:30]
C
It's just incredible. If I were a Republican candidate or a politician, I would just be irate at the way he steamrolled them.
- [00:38]
B
He's making out like a bandit. His net worth is reliably calculated, as we know by Forbes. In 2021, he was worth $2.4 billion. 2024, he'd managed to get that up to $4.3 billion. And right now Forbes puts them on $6.1 billion. Nobody in elected office has ever seen their net worth go up by such an amount in such a short time.
- [01:07]
C
Huey. Huey, I'm back.
- [01:11]
B
Joanna, you are back. We are all so delighted to see you. We are all so devastated by the loss of your mum and just so happy that you're back with us.
- [01:25]
C
Well, thank you. Thank you so much. And I've had such incredible notes from people. It's really been very moving. You know, we chatter out into the airwaves about what we think is going on and it's so nice to get such touching responses from people. And you realize this is something everybody goes through. The death of a parent or hopefully if the order of things. Because of course, a lot of people have written to me who've suffered the terrible death of a child, which is, you know, just God awful to think about. But this is normally one of the things that we all go through and it's just a devastating experience. So enormously buoyed up by comments from people. And one person said that this background, which is my background in my father's study in Yorkshire in the uk, it's a bit like a Chekhov play and you expect. Expecting someone to come through the door. So I will try. By the end of this podcast, I should actually summon my father in so he can make an appearance, but I should have someone make an appearance.
- [02:31]
B
Hopefully that's the only feature of a Chekhov play.
- [02:34]
C
Yes, I'm not planning, I'm not planning to have any scene with a gun, although I did actually, funnily enough. I asked a friend the other day who was talking about a relative they have who's depressed and I said, do they have access to guns? And he said, everybody in America has Access to guns, which was such a sobering response. But nevertheless, I'm looking forward to coming back this weekend. But what am I coming back to? A president who seems to have lost all perspective. I mean, we've always said government have won, but this feels like corruption on the most or grift on the most spectacular scale. I think watching from afar, it feels as if people have been very, very slow to understand quite how devastatingly corrupt this is. Am I wrong or am I missing something?
- [03:31]
B
Oh, no, I think you're absolutely right. Absolutely.
- [03:37]
C
Well, and you understand more than anyone the timeline of things like this. So can you take us through, through the timeline? Because it's just, it's crazy.
- [03:49]
B
I mean, I feel we should do sort of those. That sort of funny wooey sound effect music because this actually starts in 2015. And it starts in 2015 when Donald Trump first refused to publish his tax returns, which until then, every president and every candidate for the presidency of had routinely published since, of all people, Richard Nixon. So 2015, Donald Trump refused to publish his tax returns. 2016, he did the same. 2017, 2018, we all remember talking about it. And in 2019, there was a partial leak of those tax returns. And as you will remember, they were pretty jaw dropping. They showed how little tax he had paid. They showed ways that he had managed his tax burden is one way to put it. And there it seemed to rest. Back in 2022, somebody was actually arrested for this leak. And he had been a contractor for the irs and he had absolutely broken the rules to get access to these tax returns. And he admitted that he had broken the rules. And that person actually is still in prison for what he did. He also, he broke privacy laws, which quite rightly protect people like you or me from having our tax returns shown to the world. But these were the tax returns of somebody that we all thought we were going to see anyway. You might have thought that it would have died there. But at the beginning of this year, Donald Trump started a very daring court case in which he sued the IRS as a private person for $10 billion, saying he had been irreparably damaged by the leak of his tax returns. Now, you might say what damage was done to him. He's back being president, he's richer than ever. But that didn't stop him suing. And this case meant that Donald Trump, the private person, was suing Donald Trump, the president. That is absolutely crazy. And it went into a court in the south of Florida, where it was given, as these things are given, by random drawing in federal courts to an Obama appointed judge. And she quite rightly said how exactly does this work? And asked for briefings on how it was possible for the private person to sue the President and how this could not be a conflict of interest.
- [06:29]
C
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- [08:05]
B
Yes.
- [08:06]
C
I mean, you can't make it up. You cannot make this stuff up.
- [08:09]
B
You can't make this up. And who represents the government when the government is sued? The government is represented by the Department of Justice because they act as the government's lawyer. Pretty simple, pretty normal. That means that it's effectively under the control of the Attorney General. But the acting attorney general right now is Todd Blanche, and he was Donald Trump's personal lawyer. So wrapped inside this conflict of interest is another crazy conflict of interest. All that conflict of interest, however, came screeching to a denouement on Monday when the Department of Justice, acting on behalf of the irs, said that they were going to withdraw the case with the consent of Donald Trump, the aggrieved party. And there was what they said was a settlement. And I'm saying they said it was a settlement because we have to talk about this as well, about whether it was a settlement. But in this deal, they said they were setting up a fund with $1.7 billion of taxpayer money and it would go to people that they described as victims of weaponized justice. Now, that was Monday and we are still talking about this on Friday. And in fact, it has only got bigger because when it came down on Monday, we at the Daily Beast absolutely covered it. And, you know, we were going hammer and tongs at it. And our brilliant David Rothkoff wrote an absolutely searing condemnation of it. But let's just be honest, it has taken, it has been a slow burn because I think it is so jaw dropping. This $1.7 billion is available to people who include the worst of the worst of the January 6th insurrectionists, people who beat cops, people who stormed the Capitol. It's also available to people like Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro who went to jail for, for defying Congress, and who knows who else it's available to. In fact, there is a rush of MAGA types saying we are going to apply the names, get crazier by the day. One of them is Oan the MAGA News, and I use that word very loosely, News network. And there's even a Republican representative called Andy Clyde who said he's all in favor of this fund. If he was asked to vote on it, he would vote for it. And then he was asked any reason for that? I said, yeah, I might put in for it myself. So it's just this jaw dropping scale has only become apparent from Monday. It has grown. On Tuesday, it turned out that it included a secret basically pardon for any tax offences that Trump, his family and their companies might have committed. And who knows if they did because they also ended an audit into his taxes. So as this week has gone on, Joanna, it has got more and more obvious quite how jaw dropping this is. And finally on Thursday, it exploded into the open in Congress because Republican senators met Todd Blanche and they berated him. They did so a private lunch, but 25 of them, that's almost half of the Republican senators expressed their discontent at what had gone on. And some of them came out and said it in public. And that has really set this off as an explosion inside the Republican world.
- [11:46]
C
Well, it's hard to imagine that any sitting Republican who's up for reelection in the midterms so November this year thinks that this can be a good idea. Just setting aside the hypocrisy, the insanity of it all, how Is this a vote getter for Republicans? We know that people are anxious about ice. We know that the war in Iran is unpopular. And again, Trump decided to do the war without Congress's approval, which you should have. And they've now ridden roughshod through the 60 day deadline by which Congress is supposed to ratify such a decision. We have ice. We have the chaos in America, especially the economy, and people feeling prices are high, gas prices at the pump because of a war nobody understands and nobody wanted. How could this possibly be a vote winner for Republican congresspeople, senators, candidates? I mean, I just don't understand how this is anything other than than the President doing a grab that is terrible for his party and clearly he just doesn't give a f. You ever realize how many customers slip through the cracks, missed calls, follow ups that never happen? It adds up fast. That's why today's episode is brought to you by quo, spelled Q U O the business communication system built so you never miss a call. Your entire team team can handle calls and texts from one shared number, so no more mixed messages or dropped conversations. Everyone sees the full thread, replies are faster and customers actually feel taken care of. Quo works wherever you are, right from your phone or computer. Keep your existing number, add teammates in minutes, sync your CRM and let the call routing handle itself as you scale. It's easy. Calls, text, voicemail, transcripts and contact details all in one clean view so your team always has the full picture and can show up for every customer conversation, ensuring a seamless and more personalized experience. Money is on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com beast that's Q-U-O.com beast
- [14:25]
B
it's rare that I find myself quoting the words of Mitch McConnell, but he actually summed it up pretty well. He said it's either utterly stupid or morally wrong. Take your pick. And Thom Tillis, Republican senator from North Carolina, described it as stupid on stilts and a payout pot for punks. Both of those people, notably I should say, are leaving the Senate. But Tom Tillis said it's time for people who are still going to be it's time for the other Republicans to come out and say it in public and they have taken some measure of revenge. And I think this is going to become part of the story as well. The Republican senators were going to vote on a finance bill that would have moved forward funding for ice and some of the things that Trump sees as his priorities. And they simply said, do you know what? They're not voting on this anymore. And off they went, and they're not back until June. There are members of the House, among them, Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents a purple district, is doing it a favor. Actually voted for Harris last time. It's a suburban part of Philly. He has said that he is determined to stop this and he will do anything he can to. And there are going to be more and more people coming out because the members of the House have also been in D.C. this week. So they haven't actually come face to face with any of the people they represent. And this is just crazy. There is nothing that makes people say, I want to give 1.7 billion to people who literally include criminals.
- [16:12]
C
Yeah. I mean, I've seen, I think Senator Whitehouse from Rhode island called it a cop billion beating fund. I mean, it's quite breathtaking. And certainly when I was talking to Michael Wolff yesterday, he said Trump assumes now he's going to get heavily beaten in the midterms, and so he's doing a cash grab while he can. But if I were a Republican, I would be just gobsmacked by the derision with which he appears to hold the entire Republican House. I mean, the Congress, the House, the Senate, all of it. I mean, it's just he makes decisions without them. He and the minute. And it's all very well for Thom Tillis to say that. Now, he was very vigorous during the hearings, obviously, with Kristi Noem, but he was hardly a vociferous critic of Trump when he was actually in office. And it wasn't clear he decided to leave yet. So I applaud him, trying to coax or cajole or bully other Republicans into criticizing Trump. But it's a bit rich hearing from him at this point.
- [17:26]
B
Well, I think there are going to be plenty of people and Democrats are going to be going after exactly that point of, you might welcome the sinner who repenteth and all that sort of thing. But why wasn't this stopped? If why did anybody think when Trump sued for $10 billion, why did nobody speak out then? It's certainly people like Thom Tillis have definitely leaked to the party on this. Having said that, the reason to speak out now is the elections are much closer. That is absolutely going to focus people's minds. You can attack them as hypocrites. Absolutely. And Democrats absolutely will. But there is nothing that's going to focus their minds more than the imminent prospect of a blue wave sweeping over them.
- [18:26]
C
It's particularly ironic given how Donald Trump used to go after Nancy Pelosi, claiming that she was, you know, or that her husband in particular was buying stocks off information that obviously Congress would have ahead of other people. But also this, this sort of retrospective ban on anything that he's done up until this point. I mean, his sons must be be thrilled. I wonder if this extends to Jared Nivanka too. Cause it's basically members of his family, isn't it? So it must do, right?
- [19:04]
B
I mean, that appears to be the case even in the small print it says not limited to. So it would appear that Todd Blanche or whoever his successor is might be able to set the terms here. Should say as well, on the topic of this grift and this sort of extraordinary, you mentioned Nancy Pelosi, this 1.8 billion fund actually overshadowed the previous sleazy Trump story, which was the industrial scale at which he is trading stocks and bonds of companies which he is talking about and making decisions about and even talking up in public. Nancy Pelosi has long been a target for a lot of stock trading, and there are good reasons to say our elected representatives shouldn't be trading stocks. But Trump has made more than three and a half thousand trades in the course of this year. And the volume and the value of those trades is actually more than the total value of all the stock trading by every member of Congress at the same time put together. So the absolutely industrial scale on which.
- [20:25]
C
Hugh, just say that again, because that's the most remarkable statistic.
- [20:31]
B
So Trump, these three and a half thousand or so stock trades have a total value. Obviously, each stock trade adds up to value, that value. He has traded more in stocks and bonds than the stocks, than the total value of all the stocks and bonds traded by every member of Congress.
- [20:53]
C
It's just incredible.
- [20:54]
B
And obviously some members of Congress don't trade, but a lot, as we know, trade quite a lot. But that total value is, you know, it's extraordinary. It's actually hard to get your head around.
- [21:09]
C
Just remarkable. And I saw J.D. vance sort of brushing away criticism by saying, of course, Donald Trump's not sitting at the Cabinet table with his Robin Hood account open, you know, trading as if that were the accusation. I mean, the accusation is much deeper and much, much more troubling. If I were a Republican candidate or a politician, I would just be irate at the way he steamrolled them. I mean, there are reasons to be irate with the Democrats right now, but the Republicans must just feel like they are some kind of Paper, not even Tiger, but just pointless. I mean, pointless to be a Republican, either congressman or senator at this, unless they can actually offer something, offer something concrete. Because he's steamrollering over everybody.
- [22:00]
B
Well, he's steamrollering and he's making out like a bandit. His net worth is reliably calculated, as we know by Forbes, who always track the net worth of billionaires with great forensic precision. In 2021, just after he was turfed out of office the first time, he was worth $2.4 billion. That's a lot of money, I have to say. I think anybody listening to this, watching this wouldn't mind 2.4 billion in the bank, but 2.4 billion in 2021, 2024, he'd managed to get that up to $4.3 billion. And right now Forbes puts him on $6.1 billion. So it's, you know. Absolutely. If anybody has made out of being in elected office, this is it. Nobody in elected office has ever seen their net worth go up by such an amount in such a short time.
- [22:59]
C
And the contrast, of course, with Joe Biden is just actually, I mean, incredible. Incredible. The Daily Beast is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Here's something that should be on your radar. As America approaches its 250th anniversary, there's a growing effort to redefine what this country stands for. And it involves blurring the line between church and state. But historically, that line was intentional. This country began as a rebellion against monarchy and divine rule, and the founders replaced that with a secular constitution. No religious test, no state religion, a government accountable to the. That's part of what made the system work. The Freedom from Religion foundation is working to protect the First Amendment because it protects you. As we look ahead, the question isn't just what we celebrate, it's what we defend. Visit FFRF US Beast or text BEAST to 511511 to join or learn more, go to FFRF US BEAST or text BEAST to 511511 now, because the future of American freedom is still being written. Text BEAST to 511-511-today. Text fees may apply.
- [24:33]
B
Wow.
- [24:33]
C
Well, one person who obviously doesn't care if he shows up or not is this fascinating congressman from New Jersey, Tom Keene, who has been missing for 88 roll call votes. Apparently, he's ill, but I cannot think of another job where you don't show up for two full months. He's basically not been heard of for two full months. Nobody knows what's wrong with him. He said he's ill. Can you think of another job? Anybody out there listening to this now, please comment. If you can think of a job other than being a novelist where you do not have to turn up and no one is supposed to ask questions. He has someone apparently posting on his social media for him, but he has literally disappeared. They said, oh, he's got an illness. We're not going to tell you what it is. He'll be back eventually. It's not going to impact him doing his job. He has missed 88 roll call votes. This to me again, unfathomable. What is happening to America's politicians? What is happening to America's politicians? Why aren't his colleagues saying, where is he?
- [25:47]
B
He's been missing 88 votes, 75 days. I mean, Joanna, you are my boss. If I didn't turn up for 75 days, you're not there for five days.
- [25:55]
C
I don't know, 75 hours.
- [25:58]
B
All right, 75 minutes. 75 minutes. But he's not been there for 75 days. And it is, I mean, some ways we're laughing at this, but it's really serious. People are, you know, the people of his district in New Jersey voted for him. They actually voted for him for the first time in 2022. Should you say Tom Keene Jr? The junior is significant. His father was the governor of New Jersey. He is a fourth generation Republican member of the, you know, a member of the governing class, I should say they include another congressman and a senator. But he was voted in 2022 and then revoted in 2024. I mean, they have a job to do. There are people who depend on them. There's legislation that depends on them. 75 days he hasn't been seen. He finally surfaced on Thursday. Kind of surfaced, I'm saying surfaced. Nobody's actually seen him. He made a call to the New Jersey Globe, which is a Republican leading news website, and he said, I'm just going to quote that my doctors are confident in my recovery. But he didn't say what it was from. And even more strangely, it turned out that his wife and the dog haven't been seen at home for some amount of time, maybe weeks, maybe even 75 days either. And the neighbors can't even remember when they last saw the car. So this just is perplexing. One of the members of Republican leadership was asked about it and said, oh, I've heard he's coming back and was asked, well, what's up with him? He went, oh, I didn't ask him. I'm sorry, how is this possible?
- [27:45]
C
You could not do this in any other walk of life. You couldn't do it as a teacher, you couldn't do it as a nurse or a doctor. You definitely couldn't do it at the Daily Beast. I mean, this is remarkable. But politicians think they owe their voting public no explanation when they have disappeared for 75 days. And good luck to him if he's ill. We hope he has a speedy recovery. But people, if they have voted for you, deserve to know what is wrong with you and why you have disappeared.
- [28:18]
B
Yeah. And just to point out the obvious question, yes, he's still being paid.
- [28:25]
C
Of course he's still being paid. Of course he's still being paid. And he's a Nepo politician. I think it was his grandfather that was a senator. He's a nepo politician, his fourth generation politician, and he feels entitled to take 75 days off without telling anybody what's wrong with him.
- [28:43]
B
And just about, I think, most people's, most normal people's workplaces. I haven't actually checked our workplace, if one of us was, God forbid, off for 75 days, but I think we would actually be on disability, not on full pay. So does seem like something of a double standard.
- [29:00]
C
Well, if I was a voter in New Jersey, I would want to know what was going on. Just, again, extraordinary. But perhaps he's hiding from the polls because the polls are the lowest they've been. Even Fox News pollution, which I think came out today, has Trump at 61% disapproval rating for what he's doing, which is, again, I mean, every day it just feels like there's a new level of crazy. And this was before people fully understood what was going on with his slush fund. And the idea that an oath keeper can apply for financial compensation having been aggrieved or having had the Justice Department somehow weaponized against them for beating a policeman. This, the hall of mirrors. It's a hall of mirrors.
- [30:00]
B
And those, those poll ratings, it's not, you know, as, as you rightly say, Joanna, this is before people had begun to absorb the sleaze. It takes a few days, as we know, for polls to be conducted. So this poll would have started before the Monday revelation about the slush fund. And as we've been saying, it's been a slow burn. It's taken really until the end of the week for people to begin to get their heads around it. But the other numbers in it are really, really bad as well. 57% of people think that Trump's policies are, are in the long run, bad for America. 57% of people obviously includes his voters. 60% of people disapprove of his handling of Iran. The approval rating and Fox, and we should say Fox are known for actually very, very good and rigorous polling. And we know that it's good and rigorous because every time they publish it, Trump gets really angry about it. He's very upset that Fox is regularly upset that Fox are the people telling him bad news and particularly when they do their polling. But this poll puts him in a 39% approval rating and that's at the bottom of the Fox range. The approval rating in the New York Times Siena poll earlier this week, again really regarded as authoritative, was 37%. There's no argument that he has lost this swathe of independent and even Republican voters that put him in office. And he's down at 37%. And I think many people who watch these polls say it's only going one way after that.
- [31:47]
C
Well, he was up at 2 in the morning frantically manically truth socialing about Stephen Colbert's last evening, which was last night a bit of a victory for Trump in that he got rid of Stephen Colbert largely. But it wasn't the only exit from CBS this week.
- [32:12]
B
It was not. CBS has of course been bought by David Ellison. He is the son of Larry Ellison, the oracle, multi, multi multibillionaire. And Larry Ellison is a friend, a long associate of Donald Trump. And they've turned, we all know CBS in a more maga curious direction. One of the casualties of this has been Anderson Cooper. Anderson Cooper, best known of course as a CNN anchor. But for the last 20 years he has been a correspondent on 60 Minutes. And on Sunday night he left a valedictory message.
- [32:55]
D
I hope 60 minutes remains 60 minutes. There's very few things that have been around for as long as 60 Minutes has and maintain the quality that it has. And things can always evolve and change. And I think that's awesome. And things should evolve and change. But I hope the core of what 60 Minutes is always remains. I think the independence is of 60 Minutes has been critical. Congressman Steve Crawford from 60 Minutes.
- [33:21]
C
We're in southern Israel.
- [33:22]
D
I think also the variety of stories.
- [33:24]
C
Why did you decide to come to the United States?
- [33:27]
B
This Chinese boat rammed us intentionally.
- [33:29]
D
And I think the trust it has with viewers is critical to the success of 60 Minutes.
- [33:34]
B
As you can hear, Anderson Cooper says crucially that he believes in the independence of 60 minutes. So that has absolutely sent shockwaves through the top echelons at CBS and particularly Bari Weiss, she is the new head of CBS news overseas, ultimately 60 Minutes. But she has been involved in a war with 60 minutes that has been played out in public. And in fact, we now learned, thanks to Oliver Darcy and the Status newsletter, that she was blindsided and is really, really angry about what Anderson Cooper had to say.
- [34:15]
C
And, of course, Barry Weiss started her own newsletter, the Free Press, which David Ellison bought, put her in charge of CBS News, which was a big move for her because she has no television experience. So it's a little bit like taking someone who started a small dentistry practice and then saying, well, you can do dentistry, so you must be able to do cardiology. We're going to put you in charge of heart surgery because you know how the body works or you know about a little bit of the body. And so she seems to be being tripped up by a lot of her own correspondence. A lot of people who work at CBS who are enormously fed up that someone who doesn't understand, understand what they've been trying to do is now put in charge of them. Is 60 Minutes actually being compromised? Is its integrity actually being compromised by Bari Weiss, do you think?
- [35:17]
B
Well, I think this is going to be the big question that emerges over the next few months. There was a very, very public spat with Charlene Alfonsi, who is one of the 60 Minutes correspondents and an award winning, veteran, respected journalist. And she had put together a package on seacot, this crazy prison where Trump's immigration crackdown was sending people from the United States into this sort of dark site in El Salvador. And this became a bone of public contention. It was postponed by Bari Wise, and eventually it was broadcast. And eventually, in fact, it was acclaimed for its quality and had not been altered in the interim. So this was the one thing that was exploded out in public. And it appeared, as best we can tell, this season, Bari Weiss really did not have much impact on 60 Minutes. And in fact, it had very good ratings, better ratings this year than it did last year. But it seems, as best we can tell, that Charlene Afonsi is not having her contract renewed. There is a question over whether Bari Weiss may even remove the executive producer of the show. And it certainly seems that there are suggestions that she is going to be putting other people in that show, including Tony Ducopel, who's the anchor of the CBS Evening News and has been put in there by Barry Wise and proved himself pretty controversial. I think we all remember that he praised Marco Rubio, saying, marco Rubio, we salute you at the ultimate Florida Man. And he dropped a diss against Walter Cronkite of all people, saying he'd be more transparent than Cronkite. So the big question here is, is Anderson Cooper's departure, Sharwin Afonsi's apartment departure, is that going to enable Barry Weiss to have more control over 60 minutes? Perhaps make it more Maga coded as she has made the CBS Evening news? Or is there going enough fear of the impact that this would have on? Because the other thing about 60 minutes is it makes money in the business of news. It is very rare nowadays to be commercially successful. And that is absolutely what 60 Minutes is. People really do tune in. And is Bari Weiss going to change that and endanger this success? That's a big question. There's a lot of soap opera to play out here.
- [38:00]
C
Well, the other thing that's interesting too is that Anderson Cooper had this. Well, we heard him depart with a sense of foreboding, I think is perhaps the best word about what is going to happen at cbs. But of course, cnn, his regular base where he hosts a nightly News show at 8pm is in the process of being bought by the Ellisons as part of the Warner Brothers deal. Warner Brothers owns cnn. The Ellisons are now with Donald Trump having intervened, of course, on behalf of his friends. Because initially the deal was going to go to Netflix. Warner Brothers was going to go to Netflix. Donald Trump stepped in, it's now going to Paramount and the Ellison family, they will own cnn. So Anderson may be back at the beginning again and who knows what will happen at that point. Or perhaps like Don Lemon, he's making plans to work for himself at YouTube. I'm sure he would get a great following.
- [39:04]
B
Oh, he should come and join us, Joanna.
- [39:06]
C
He should.
- [39:06]
B
Yeah, he should come and join the Daily Beast.
- [39:09]
C
If you're listening, you're very welcome. You're very welcome to join the Daily Beast.
- [39:15]
B
And it's worth saying actually that Anderson Cooper also had a very, very public tribute to Stephen Colbert on his show last night as well. So he is not holding back.
- [39:30]
C
We've got Trump's Truth Social. I mean, again, extraordinary that a president would bother and become so obsessed with the late night comedians. We know he's gone after Jimmy Kimmel who remains on the air at abc, but going after Stephen Colbert. Colbert is finally finished at cbs. Amazing that he lasted so long. No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would have dubbed better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he's finally Gone. I mean, why does he care? Why does he care? He's got $6 billion, he's doubled his income since he came into office. He's scorched earth, his own Republican Party. Why does he care about Stephen Colbert? Stephen Colbert has obviously got under his skin in some way, but it's sort of tragic that this man's insecurities are so pathetic that he types them out at two in the morning.
- [40:35]
B
Two in the morning once again. And as you know, Joanna, we have discussed endlessly the health consequences and concerns you've got to have about somebody at 79 being up at 2 in the morning attached to their mobile phone screen, texting in rage. The other sort of. I do have a theory that what enraged him was that Stephen Colbert actually never used his name on that final show. And we know that Trump likes nothing better than watching television. I have no doubt that Trump watched every minute and I suspect that the absence of Trump's name may have been part of the rage here.
- [41:19]
C
And of course, he also had as a final guest Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney versus Kid Rock. Paul McCartney, Kid Rock. I think we know who most people prefer. Anyway, Hugh, it's very good to see you. I'm excited to get back to the office. I'm coming back this weekend and the door behind me still hasn't opened.
- [41:39]
B
I'm going to line up a Jennifer Hudson show style welcome for you in the office.
- [41:44]
C
Excellent, excellent. I look forward to that. If you have been. Thank you for joining us again. Thank you so much for your comments. Hugh, thank you for standing in so ably for me while I was away. I'm very excited to be back. And for anyone else who's lost a parent recently, my heart goes out to you. It's one of the hardest things any of us will deal with. And I'm very grateful that I had the time that I had with my mum. I've never spent so much time, I think, with my mum for 40 odd years. So I'm very grateful that I had that time which was allowed to me by very generous colleagues. So again, Hughie and your team, big thanks for allowing me that.
- [42:28]
B
Thank you. Joanna, we are all so sorry for yours
- [42:33]
C
and big thank you to our production team, Ryan, Rachel, Heather and Neil. And we've got a new producer starting next year week who I haven't even met yet, so that's exciting. But John, welcome to the Daily Beast team. So the good news is we have so many Beast tier members now there are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.