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- [00:00]
Joanna
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- [00:32]
Michael
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- [02:18]
Joanna
Michael. Joanna, we have crawled to the end of the week. I feel as if I am bobbing on the Strait of Hormuz and can't get through the bottleneck because I just don't understand what's going on at this point.
- [02:33]
Michael
Bobbing is better than being sunk in the Strait of Hormuz, which you would probably be true.
- [02:40]
Joanna
The only well, where do we begin, I mean, there's so much going on. Who would you rather be? Pam Bondi, Christy Noem or Pete Hegseth?
- [02:51]
Michael
Well, actually, I want to make a broader point which I think has a well known point but perhaps has gotten lost here, which is that everybody, I want to say this very slowly and very emphatically. Everybody in Trump world gets screwed. Yep, 100%. Everybody who we are looking at now who seems not on the firing line, it doesn't matter, they are going to get screwed. So just to give a context, the Pam Bondi thing. Okay, Pam, it's not unusual for a cabinet secretary to be pushed out. And that happens in usually quite a prescribed, formal, courteous way. I mean, unless you've done something terrible or been involved in a scandal or whatever. But if you're just no longer the person the president wants in that job, they make an arrangement, they tell you you have X amount of days, there's a certain kind of, of pretense that you're leaving on your own terms. And it's all, these are people who are going to work together. You know, everybody's in this club here and they accommodate everybody. There's no reason not to. There's no downside in being courteous except when you're Donald Trump. Everybody who gets fired, everybody who gets removed, even if they've been involved in no scandal, done nothing specifically that is egregious or against the policies and practices of the administration, get gets, is taken down. They are the ones blamed. He needs to humiliate people. So in the Pam Bondi issue, I mean, she barely knew she was going, then he does it publicly. Then he, you know, it's, you're to blame. Get out. You're humiliated.
- [05:29]
Joanna
Right? So total humiliation. I just have to point out, Michael, we've been doing this for almost 180 and when we started, the books in your bookcase behind you, and for those listening and not watching this on YouTube, Michael sits in front of a glorious bookshelf, the sort of bookshelf that is in HBO shows about academics. And when we started, the books were all sort of organized. And now even the books themselves seem to be leaning to one side and there are gaps. And it just looks like the bookcase itself is weary of this world we're in.
- [06:08]
Michael
But of course, no, no, I'm gonna push back. It's a bookcase of people who read books, unlike your own bookcase who is just static there. And I'm sure you've never touched one of those books. Actually, they're not even real books that you have there.
- [06:22]
Joanna
So they're totally real books. They're totally real books. And actually, this is my little nook where I record the podcast from on a Saturday when we're doing it from.
- [06:32]
Michael
Okay, okay.
- [06:33]
Joanna
And my other bookcase is over there with. I can assure you there are piles of books and I do occasionally pick. But you're right about his defensive.
- [06:41]
Michael
Defensive. At any rate, welcome to a bookcase in which books come in and out at a free time.
- [06:50]
Joanna
At a clip, I think. Yeah, at a clip. Anyway, it's just funny because it looks like some of them are just leaning wearily against each other as this administration goes on. But of course, you're right. The humiliation is part of it. And apparently he told Pam Bondi in the Beast as they were driving to the Supreme Court, she had hoped to hang on for longer. And he was, no, this is it. You're done. We have to let you go. And perhaps he was, you know, on a. Coming down off the high of firing Kristi Noem. But anyway, Pam Bundy is gone, and now there is a sort of bake off for the job.
- [07:29]
Michael
Totally. And we should get to that. But I just want to make this other point, and it's a point I am extending to the rest of the administration. You will be humiliated. You will not make it to the end. You will not come out of this with your dignity. Actually, you will not come out of this alive. So it doesn't matter who you are. And we can go down the list here, just begin to check them off. They will be. They will suffer for their relationship to Donald Trump. That's it.
- [08:02]
Joanna
And you'll have your security clearance revoked. You'll have your security staff revoked. You will be out there on your own, and it will be hard to get a job. Job. Do you think that Pam Bondi. I mean, there was sort of dual messaging coming out. On the one hand, Pam Bondi is thrilled because she's got an exciting new job in the private sector. And yet we know that she was still pleading for her job with Trump and thought she had longer to go. So is her exciting job in the private sector, Pam Bondi associates a little shingle that she'll be having somewhere in Florida.
- [08:36]
Michael
I'm sure she has. Yeah, I'm sure she has no job in the private sector. That's, that's, that's totally. Yeah, that's bogus.
- [08:48]
Joanna
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- [10:11]
Michael
No, I mean, a very good question. I mean, that I've been puzzling about for years and years. But the other reverse side of that is that he's constantly offering jobs to everyone. So actually, you don't know if you've been offered a job because, well, he just offered me a job. Is that real or will I ever hear from him again? Was that just. Was just that just. Was he just blowing smoke? Did he. Does he even realize what he. What the implications of what he has said? I mean, it's often, hey, why, why don't you be the Attorney General? You.
- [10:56]
Joanna
You would look.
- [10:57]
Michael
And then it's like, okay, I have
- [11:01]
Joanna
to say, I can't remember if I've ever told you this. I was actually offered a job in the Trump 1 administration right at the very beginning, after Trump had won the election. And I think they, as you pointed out, actually in Fire and Fury, he was as surprised as anybody, couldn't quite believe it. He was incredulous that he'd won the election. But there was a moment when Ivanka was going to run the East Wing because it didn't look like Melania wanted to. And so she wanted someone to go down and run her office and approached me and asked me if I would like to go. And I knew Ivanka. We'd talked during the campaign. You know, she was a woman. About time at town. At the time I was editing Cosmo I think. And it was one of those really bizarre requests. And I thought, well, I couldn't possibly go and work for Donald Trump. And I wasn't quite sure what to do. So I called a few people and everybody was like, absolutely not. He's a really bad guy. You would be nuts to go and work for him. But I was sort of. I had it at the back of my head, and I thought, I'll take. I'll sleep. And then that evening, he came out and said 5 million illegals had voted for Hillary Clinton. I just thought, I can't possibly go and do this. I called and said, no, no, I'm sorry, it's not the right time for me. Good luck, blah, blah, blah. And then about two weeks later, they called me back and said, are you absolutely sure you don't want to come? It's going to be really interesting. The East Wing is going to be reinvented. The office of the First Lady, Ivanka is going to be reinvented. And I said, no. And so I've always been puzzled why people can't say no. And I've often arguments with people who say, oh, my goodness, if the President calls, you must go. You are being called to serve your country. And you think, actually, you're not. And I know now, I know I would have come out utterly slimed, completely outmaneuvered, because I don't have that level of sort of Machiavellian abilities to deal with someone like that. But it was an interesting moment for me, actually.
- [13:01]
Michael
No, Well, I think actually the answer to why people take this job is because they can't get any other job. I mean, I don't know if that.
- [13:16]
Joanna
Is that strictly true? It's certainly true in the case of Pete Hegseth.
- [13:20]
Michael
Yeah, it is. I mean, if you go down the list of people here, why is this a cabinet of utter mediocrities? Actually, mediocrities is kind of.
- [13:31]
Joanna
I was gonna say mediocri is flattering.
- [13:34]
Michael
Yes. A cabinet of complete nobodies and failures. And the reason is they don't have other opportunities. I mean, this is it. You have to be grateful for being offered this job, which also becomes an adjunct to what he demands, this incredible loyalty. So not only why would you take this job, but why would you be so abject and on your belly? Because you need the job.
- [14:09]
Joanna
That's right. I suppose that you realize as well, the more abject and the more loyal people are to him, the more he treats them with disdain and despises them. And it's a weird. I mean, it's his own weird psyche that we're all caught up in at the moment. But I just. It's just weird when it's so naked to see.
- [14:32]
Michael
But people need a job. I mean, there's a bottom line there. Everybody needs a job. And in your own mind, I can't get a job. My career is stalled. I'd have nowhere to go. Now the White House is offering me a job. And so you get fooled into taking that without calling me up so that I can remind you that you will be humiliated in the end.
- [14:58]
Joanna
There's no way.
- [15:00]
Michael
There is no way out of this.
- [15:02]
Joanna
Well, and look what happened to Mike Pence. I mean, Mike Pence humiliated throughout his four years as vice president and as vice president. And then at the end, there were calls to hang Mike Pence. I mean, just a remarkable story, but you're right. So who would you rather be this week, Kristi Noem or Pam Bondi? Pam Bondi fired Kristi Noemi husband has turned out to be looning Megyn Kelly, who I know we don't like, but I'm just mentioning her. Had a theory this week that Kristi Noem put out the story herself about her husband looning.
- [15:38]
Michael
Well, I have no basis in that theory, but I like it. Why not?
- [15:47]
Joanna
Why not? Well, I guess because she wants sympathy.
- [15:51]
Michael
Yeah, I suppose. Kristi Noem is just one more of these characters who it's impossible to understand. What game is that that she believes that she's playing to have her entire face remade in the Donald Trump image. Her relationship with Corey Lewandowski, who is not a nice guy. I mean, who is. I mean, anyone who would have a relationship with Corey Lewandowski, you would have to ask, what is going here?
- [16:23]
Joanna
And do you think that now that now that she's leaving the Trump orbit, she's gonna demagger? What happens? Do the lips go down to the breasts go down? Does the hair get shorter? Because when she.
- [16:37]
Michael
No, no, no, no, no. Quite the opposite. Which is another effect of this. It's not as if any of these people say, you know, okay, you know, that was a bad situation. I shouldn't have gotten myself into it. And Donald Trump is really a prick. And I'm out of here. Close that chapter. They don't do that. They hang out on the sidelines trying to reinforce their maga ness in the hope that they will be called back once again. And they often are.
- [17:19]
Joanna
Yeah.
- [17:20]
Michael
Corey Lewandowski, in point of fact. So Corey Lewandowski has been in the Trump Orbit since.
- [17:31]
Joanna
Well, certainly since Trump.
- [17:33]
Michael
Well, either late 2015 or early 2016, I can't quite remember. And he has been. How many times? 1, 2, 3, 4. I think maybe as many as four times thrown out and called back. And he's just as there. That's his reason for being, to wait for the call to come back. So, I mean, he has no other life. And he has, I mean, first thing he has, I mean, I mean, Corey Lewandowski, when he came into the Trump, into the Trump orbit, was a nobody, a third, fourth rate, a Republican political consultant of no consequence whatsoever. And in fact, the measure of that would be that he went to work for Donald Trump in 2015 or 2016, early 2016, when there was no possibility that Donald Trump was going to be anything more than a joke. So Corey Lewandowski agreed to go work for a joke because he had no other or you know what, what else he needed. He needed a job. And there he has stayed in this, not moving outside of this orbit at all.
- [18:54]
Joanna
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- [19:17]
Michael
Risk the hard way.
- [19:19]
Joanna
Talk to your doctor or pharmacist today. Sponsored by gsk. Michael, how does he get paid? Does he get paid for introductions to Donald Trump? I mean, I'm always fascinated by how do these people make a living?
- [19:32]
Michael
Yeah, I mean everybody is, is on the. Yeah. Is on the grift. In some, in some way you're being paid and there's all a myriad ways to be paid for your own proximity to this administration.
- [19:50]
Joanna
Okay, my, just. So my cat has popped up again. Lots of comments about the cat and some comments that you said that you didn't think I was an animal person and then inquiries about whether or not you had a pet. Michael, do you have a pet?
- [20:03]
Michael
No, I hate pets. Pets, not interested in pets at all. Well, let me in my defense for the pet lovers, I have had many pets. I have just passed that point in my life where I want anything to do with pets.
- [20:21]
Joanna
I think if you had a pet, you would have a tortoise and they would spend six of them, six months of the year asleep.
- [20:28]
Michael
But children, I have many children.
- [20:32]
Joanna
I know you have many more children. You've got a 10 year old and a 5 year old. God bless You. So it's all good. Anyway, so the. Well, what's Kristi Noem going to do? Does she go back to South Dakota? Does she set up a D.C. sort of office? Is she now? Yeah, they never on the grift now.
- [20:51]
Michael
They never go back to South Dakota. So, yeah, no, I'm sure she'll set up in Washington and I'm sure she maintains, you know, remember, the executive branch is. It's interesting. I mean, I've sort of seen how this works. Even if you're thrown out, You're still enmeshed in this. What would 1.
- [21:21]
Joanna
Is it like a support network?
- [21:24]
Michael
Well, it's not so much a support that seems more. More reasonable than it is. It's enormous numbers of people who have had this same experience and continue to have this experience and continue to have relationships with other people who have this experience. And so. It's like an ecosystem of dysfunction that everybody is plugged into and getting paid for. I mean, because this is, you know, moving this government in, even in increments, is worth an enormous amounts of money to so many people.
- [22:11]
Joanna
Right. And I wonder if Christine Ohm called Pam Bondi and said, you know, hey girl, let's get martinis and discuss it, or whether or not they have no connection. I mean, I'm just sort of fascinated in the sort of collegiality of it or lack of collegiality because they all seem paranoid and as you're always saying, they actually all hate each other because they're competitive for his attention.
- [22:36]
Michael
That doesn't mean you can't have a martini with someone you hate.
- [22:42]
Joanna
Good point. Well, it'd be interesting to see Kristi Noem's physical development and if perhaps like Kimberly Guilfoyle, who we remember was once married to Gavin Newsom and looked very San Francisco natural. And we're constantly running pictures of what she used to look like.
- [22:58]
Michael
Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was once Kimberly Guilfoyle. But where is she now? Utterly disappeared.
- [23:04]
Joanna
No, she's in Athens. She's having a great time. She's the ambassador to Greece, where I'm sure she's getting ready for summer, where she'll spend a lot of time on the beach or perhaps she's stamping people's visas. If you lose.
- [23:17]
Michael
Of course, we don't know if she's having a great time and she may have been this Greece may be a bitter pill for her. Remember, she really thought that she was going to be a future first lady of the United States either. Either married to Gavin Newsom or married
- [23:36]
Joanna
to Donald Trump Jr. And Donald Trump Jr. Is now apparently getting married to Bettina Anderson, the girlfriend that he left. Kimberly Guilfoyle, 4. And they were planning to get married in the ballroom at the White House. But of course, the ballroom, well, that's been stopped for now. So I think Bettina apparently is having her shower at Mar a Lago, but they're trying to figure out where to have the wedding. And they may have to have it in the White House. I'm amused by the fact that if they do get married in the White House, they'll have to sort of shoot it with the East Wing cut out of the picture. Cause it will still be a demolition site. Because we know Judge Leon stopped the ballroom from going ahead this way week. Will anybody stop Alcatraz from being reopened? What do you think about that story? Donald Trump has asked for $150 million to reopen Alcatraz and put bad guys back in there.
- [24:34]
Michael
Well, I think this is extraordinary and I think it prompts a couple of questions. The first question is this. Donald Trump's keen and acute perception of where Alcatraz exists in the mental firmament of at least a remaining. It can't be couple of generations, it's been so long, but at least a generation of Americans, his generation of Americans. And so his call to do that is somehow ties in with law and order, somehow ties in with making America great again, all of these things. And it's possible that that is what is on his mind. And by the way, this will never happen. So this is wholly symbolic or is it something else? Is it that Donald Trump and I would probably go with this is Donald Trump a complete, complete moron? And I think that that is it. I mean, there's no way. Alcatraz has been out of business for 63 years. It's an important tourist site in San Francisco. The rebuilding of it would cost an immense amount of money. It didn't particularly work when it was in business, which is why they got rid of. It was way too expensive to maintain among. Among other reasons. So he's talking about this just because it came into his head. Alcatraz. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember Alcatraz? That would be a good idea. Oh, yeah.
- [26:23]
Joanna
Was that an impression of Donald Trump, Michael?
- [26:26]
Michael
It's an impression of a moron. And I wanna. And I think that's important not to distinguish Donald Trump for being Donald Trump, even as a moron, but to just put him in the camp of all morons. He's a stupid guy, which is always under, misunderstood, misinterpreted or something, something that you can't, you can't come to terms with on a civic level that the President of the United States is. And because he has protested this, I think we can say that it is probably true. A real low IQ guy. I mean, he has no idea. I mean, it just is Alcatraz stuck in his head from a movie he saw long ago. And that's a good idea. That's a good idea. We need good ideas around here. What's a good idea? How about reopening Alcatraz? I mean, it is, I think it's
- [27:29]
Joanna
more Freudian than that. I think Trump's fear is ending up in jail. And what is the jail that would most haunt him because of his age? Cause he's 79 and he's got, as we are constantly chronicling in the Daily Beast, cankles and nasty bruising and a horrid rash at the back of his neck. I think Alcatraz is the place that he conjures up when he thinks, what would it like to be put in prison for various misdeeds if I were to be found guilty of them? So I actually think it's a sort of Freudian projection of his.
- [28:05]
Michael
Well, that may be true, but just because it's a Freudian projection does not mean he's not a moron.
- [28:11]
Joanna
No, no, of course not. Of course not. But I'm just saying I think that's why Alcatraz looms large, because it's actually the very thing that he's afraid of.
- [28:20]
Michael
And remember, it did have a place in the movies. In the movies of a certain time. And he falls back on that. You know, he's the 79 year old man whose formative years were the 1950s and 1960s. And that's where he is. He doesn't really much move off of that period in time.
- [28:40]
Joanna
Yeah, Alcatraz is his equivalent to his fantasy lawyer, who is Perry Mason, as you kept saying when he was, you know, in and out of court in New York before he was reelected. All right, so, Peter, thing, I think
- [28:55]
Michael
I just want to emphasize this and go, that this is. Let's reopen Alcatraz hasn't been opened, hasn't operated in 63 years, didn't work when it did operate, is now an important tourist attraction in San Francisco. So San Francisco and the state of California is not going to give this up so easily and would cost infinitely more to maintain than other prisons. So, A, this is not going to happen. B, this should not happen. C. There is no logic to even suggesting that we reconsider this proposition anyway. That's Donald Trump.
- [29:39]
Joanna
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- [30:24]
Michael
He is very clearly alienating the, the, the ranking military. So why would you do that? Well, you know, I mean, actually they kind of are at war with these, with these guys. These guys, these guys are, are a different kind of general than they want. Remember, the modern hierarchy of, of the military is populated by technocrats, guys who would be as home in McKinsey as they are in the Pentagon and in the military. They are a kind of elite, I suppose. And these guys are against anybody who's an elite because that indicates some kind of merocratic level of achievement. They're good at their jobs. They have. They have. They're not just people who came along and just made it up. They know what they know. They have learned their craft. Unlike Pete Hagseth, the co host of a weekend television show who's nevertheless brought
- [31:48]
Joanna
his warrior ethos to the Pentagon. I say warrior ethos and inverted commas, obviously. And I'm sure there was lots of fury within the Pentagon that he had instructed his broker at Morgan Stanley, according to a report in the Financial Times, to buy into defense manufacturers and defense contractors before. Just before the war began.
- [32:11]
Michael
Yeah, I mean, Hegseth is another. Let's just go the moronocracy here. Hegseth is not only a lifelong drunk, but also stupid.
- [32:27]
Joanna
Can we say he's a lifelong drunk? Hasn't he promised that he won't drink on this job? No. Promises to what he'll do afterwards. But wasn't what he said at his confirmation hearing.
- [32:36]
Michael
Yes, but that's clearly ridiculous. How do you go from a lifelong drunk to stop, I'm going to take this job. I'm not going to drink. Yeah. And again, I think we've said anybody who has seen Pete Hegseth with a martini, please let us know.
- [32:54]
Joanna
Well, and also, let's not forget that his own mother wrote a note to him just saying he was an abuser of women and he needed to get his act together, something she later recanted once he got hired by Donald Trump. But she could not have been more critical. And for a mother to write a son a note like that must have taken some terrible behavior.
- [33:15]
Michael
Yes. And I knew, you know, his boss, the person who hired him at Fox was Roger Ailes, who was somebody who I've spent a lot of time speaking to in the past. He is, of course, dead. And Roger was. Let's see, how can I characterize this? He would get very jolly when he would talk about Pete Hegse's stupidity.
- [33:47]
Joanna
Really? I mean, the guy went to Princeton. Isn't that a sign? How did he get into Princeton if he's really stupid?
- [33:53]
Michael
No, I have no idea. Within the Trump world, Pete Hegseth was always regarded as a joke because he was so abject in his. In his desire to suck up to Trump.
- [34:10]
Joanna
Well, and who can forget that he refused to let reporters in there. There was that incredible image of all the reporters leaving the Pentagon because Hegseth had basically kicked them out. They all walked out with their boxes. And then of course, the judge overruled him and said, no, that's against the First Amendment, one of the supposed great sacred cows of the MAGA movement. And so now people go on.
- [34:38]
Michael
No, I just add to that this week that he has been reprimanded by the Pope.
- [34:45]
Joanna
Oh, yes, let us not forget that because of his insanely vicious language about bombing people, he said that Trump untied. What's great about Donald Trump and being the Secretary of defense under Donald Trump is that Trump unties his hands so that they can destroy the enemy as viciously as possible. And of course, you've got the ridiculous named Operation Epic Fury. It's awful because it makes you want to root against them, which means you're rooting against America. And you never want to root against America. Of course not, but these guys make it very difficult.
- [35:22]
Michael
Well, the American. The American Pope has taken exception to the American Secretary of Defense.
- [35:30]
Joanna
I'm letting the Pope. I'm letting the Pope do it for us.
- [35:33]
Michael
Just let me continue this to say about Pete Hegseth that he will. He's not coming out of this alive. He will be humiliated in this, as they all will. But let's just reserve a place right now for Pete Heggs humiliation.
- [35:48]
Joanna
Of course. And Trump has already maneuvered to make it clear that this was Pete's idea. Right. He keeps saying, oh, it was. Pete was first to suggest that we go in and bomb Iran. And Pete wants to keep on going. I wasn't sure. You know, I'm happy to reach a settlement. But Pete and Dan Cain, Raisin Cain, who's leading the military operations, you know, so they want to keep on going. They don't want to settle. Pete was disappointed when I suggested we settle. So separating himself from his defense secretary and then Hegsworth trying to throw it back on Trump by saying, trump unties our hands. He just says, go after them viciously. So they're sort of already beginning to blame each other because we know at some point the reckoning is coming.
- [36:33]
Michael
Well, I think the reckoning is coming very soon. And I think we're. We're at week. What are we week six now?
- [36:41]
Joanna
Yeah, literally six weeks. Today we woke up and discovered we'd started bombing Iran.
- [36:46]
Michael
And so I think that there is a new clarity in which people see that the war is really only about one thing, is win or lose. On the issue of the Strait of Hormuz, that's it. If Donald Trump, and he keeps pushing this off now, you solve that problem, you solve that problem, it's your oil. Forgetting the fact that oil is a global commodity and the price is set on a global standard, you solved the problem of the Strait of Hormuz, which would seem to indicate he has no idea how to solve this problem. Problem.
- [37:30]
Joanna
We have spent six weeks bombing Iran, and all we've got for it is the Strait of Hormuz, which nobody had heard of, almost nobody had heard of before we started bombing. Iran is now in contention. Nobody knows what to do with it.
- [37:48]
Michael
Well, so what it will be, the winner of this war will be the party or parties who control the Strait of Hormuz. What we have kind of new clarity about at the six weeks mark is that this war will be won or lost according to who controls the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, that is it. If at the end of the day, the Iranians still control the Strait of Hormuz, and no one at this point seems to have any idea how to get them to not control the Strait of Hormuz. They win, we lose.
- [38:35]
Joanna
Something which Donald Trump doesn't seem to have anticipated at all in the planning. Surely the military planners must have thought about this scenario. I mean, it does seem incredible that we are here. They knew about the Strait of Hormuz. They knew that 20% of the world's oil flows through there or gets carried through there on enormous cargo ships. How did no one anticipate this?
- [39:04]
Michael
I can't answer that. It seems certainly like someone should have anticipated this.
- [39:11]
Joanna
Yeah, it's just an incredible situation, but it hasn't find itself.
- [39:16]
Michael
Yeah, but it now comes down to this one. I mean, it has, you know, so all of these issues that Donald Trump has talked about and somehow dismissed and somehow rationalized, and let's assume that they are dismissible and rationalizable, but except for this one, and this one has real profound consequences to the world. Not speculative consequences. Yes. Were the Iranians to have a nuclear capability or to be in sight of a nuclear capability, that would be. That would be not good. But that is still speculative. How would that have happened? But this is very, this is clear. The Iranians now control a central point of access in the world economy. They can shut it down.
- [40:15]
Joanna
Right. And that was not the case before we started bombing. Correct.
- [40:21]
Michael
It was not the case. Nor actually the Iranians now claim this as Iranian territory. That was not the case before. So we have just, we have pushed the Iranians into, into, not only into understanding and then to executing on the fact that they have this choke point.
- [40:49]
Joanna
Okay, so you're now inside Donald Trump's head, where we go three times a week, week. What is he thinking? Is he thinking someone else can sort out straight of Hormuz, I'm bored, I'm moving on? Is he thinking, who else am I going to find?
- [41:02]
Michael
No, no. Well, yeah, I mean, he's. I think in terms of the Strait of Hormuz, it's gonna. I'm gonna blame somebody else. This is not my problem. This is, this is the European's problem, or this is the Chinese problem, or it's somebody else's problem, let them have it. Without quite being able to, to fathom, acknowledge or express to himself the fact that the price of oil, our oil, may not have to go through the Straits of Hormuz, but the cost of our oil is the same as anyone else's oil. And the cost of oil is of course, the central point that we're now dealing with. Are you stuck staring at your W2? Are tax refund worries holding you back? You probably have FOMO. The fear of messing up the fix using TurboTax on Intuit credit Karma. They find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve or your money back. It's time to overcome your fear of messing up and get your taxes done right. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app.
- [42:27]
Joanna
Right. So we've got more blowback from SCOTUS this week for Trump too. It's really been a very bad week for him. He stalked out of the Supreme Court, which you said was largely performative, but nevertheless, the arguments that he'd put forward to revoke the 14th amendment, the birthright citizenship, appeared to be being torn to shreds by his very own justices that he had appointed, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Comey Barrett. And then we learned that the most conservative of the justices, Samuel Alito, was in fact hospitalized last month. Samuel Elito is in his 70s. He, he's definitely one of the older justices, which then, I mean, in a sense is this significant because he would just, were he to be re hospitalized and it turns out that he's got some terrible disease or were it that he suddenly thought, okay, what am I doing here? I want to enjoy my last few years caught free. And he decides to resign. It doesn't really make much difference, does it? Because Trump will just appoint another a judge and that will mean he'll have four justices on the Supreme Court.
- [43:44]
Michael
It's a choke point. So the Strait of Hormuz is a choke point. Justice Alito is a choke point. And what that the choke point is if Alito, if a Democrat is elected president in 2028, the likelihood is that they will be able to replace justice Alito. He's 77 years old. There's a good case on that. So the Democrats could claw back a conservative seat. I mean, this is a pill. This actually. I mean, if you think about this, this may be one of the, this is the pivot, certainly a pivotal point of a prospective Democratic administration, the ability to make that appointment. If Alito, however, leaves the court soon, that would give Trump the ability to make an appointment, you know, that could, a 2025 year possible appointment. So again, a choke point now. So right now, on a strategic political basis, if the Democrats are successful in the midterms, that would inhibit Trump's ability to make an appointment.
- [45:25]
Joanna
So, so just so I understand the Supreme Court justices get confirmed by the Senate, correct?
- [45:36]
Michael
They do, yes.
- [45:37]
Joanna
So it would take the Democrats winning the Senate in the midterms to hold off another conservative judge. Were Alito to decide to resign before, before the midterms would be the only opportunity that Trump might have have confidently to replace.
- [45:57]
Michael
If, if they lose the, if the Republicans lose the Senate. Yeah, then they're, I mean, they're, then they're going to be screwed on that. But even if they don't lose the Senate, if they whittle that majority, I mean, it's going to become more difficult. And remember, during the Obama administration, the Republicans held up the Obama appointment of Merrick Garland. Exactly. So there's now precedent for that. And that is certainly what the Democrats would try to do. So. Yeah, I mean, Alito has got to go like soon. So that'll be interesting to see.
- [46:46]
Joanna
It will. And as we know, we mentioned earlier that Pam Bondi was fired in the car on the way to the two of them attending the Supreme Court. And it was the first time that a sitting president had actually attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court. And you can only imagine his hulking presence on the front row of the public gallery, which is where he sat, although the justices seemed unintimidated by him as far as we could tell. Who replaces Pam Bondi at the moment, it's our friend Todd Blanche who's the interim attorney general. And I say our friend because we spent some time reading through the transcripts of his famous interview with Ghislaine Maxwell in Tallahassee last summer before she was swiftly moved after praising the president and claiming that she'd never seen any untoward behavior with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And she was whisked to Camp Brian in Texas, where she has a much nicer life. And happily, she has an emotional support puppy, which I know you wouldn't need cause you're not a pet guy. But I think if you were in jail, it's probably quite helpful to have one. So Todd Blanche, do we think he is? And I'm also told he may have put the last knife into Pam Bondi's chest or back possibly. But he's up for contention, as is apparently another FOX News host star, Jeanine Pirro.
- [48:20]
Michael
Yeah, I think that that's just, you know, you put out Jeanine Pirro's name because that makes anybody else sound better. That is not going to happen, not in a million years.
- [48:35]
Joanna
Are you. How do you know? How do you know? I mean, even more bizarre things have happened. We didn't think that Pete Hegseth would be made secretary of defense. Is it more absurd to think of Jeanine Pirro sitting astride the Trump Justice Department? I mean, her own husband went to jail for tax evasion. Trump would probably like that.
- [48:55]
Michael
No. Well, I can say that I, you know, I have, I have I told you about my, my evening at the Hay Adams Hotel in which Jeanine Pirro got as drunk as anyone. I have Ever seen get drunk? I mean, a drunk kind of situation in which I was like, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do with her?
- [49:21]
Joanna
Was it just the two of you having a drink? How were you having a drink with Jeanine Pirro?
- [49:25]
Michael
No, it was one other person and it was the three of us. And with the other person I was like, what are we gonna do? What do you do? I mean, this was so, I mean, she was, you know, she couldn't move and I mean, eventually this was handled and the other person actually at least knew where she had to go. And she was kind of loaded into a car, but. Oh my God.
- [49:59]
Joanna
Okay, so Jeanine Pirro would have to swear off drinking for the job, one hopes.
- [50:05]
Michael
But anyway, I think the politics of this, of the Attorney General are as follows. Todd Blanche is very close to Boris Epstein. Boris Epstein is the President's fundamental legal advisor, that he is the person behind the curtain. And in that Trump way, he doesn't work for, for the executive branch. So he's in a position of being able to profit off of this incredible influence and maintain this influence. So he's as influential as if he were, say, for instance, the Attorney General, but has the freedom of being outside of the executive branch, but he is the go to person. What do I do? Who do I appoint? Okay, that's a question that Trump will turn to Boris Epstein. And he will do this partly because Boris is always on the phone with Trump constantly. So Boris has played Trump kind of masterfully over quite a number of years and he has done this by being always on the phone with the President, with Trump. And I mean, during the campaign it was sort of a joke. And he's also a person who's gifted at saying exactly what Trump wants to here. And during the campaign, Boris would call and I mean, he would call Trump 10 times a day, 15 times a day, almost without limit. And then, and Trump would then make fun of him. He would hold up the phone, Boris would say, Boris Epstein, but his name was spelled wrong. And, and he said, oh, it's Boris. He's calling to tell me how great it is and what a political advantage it is that I've been indicted again. So one of those kind of weird things in which some Trump might seem to have some self awareness, except of course that he really likes the fact that Boris is always calling him and always telling him him what he wants to hear. Boris is the person who brought Todd Blanche into the Trump orbit. And Todd has always been Boris's person. So I would say the likelihood is that Todd Blanche is on a fast track to be the Attorney General. The problem is that Todd Blanche has spent most of his life as a Democrat.
- [53:14]
Joanna
That.
- [53:15]
Michael
So that is worrisome, if not alarming to your hardcore, your hardest core MAGA people.
- [53:26]
Joanna
When you say a Democrat, do you mean was he actively involved in the Democratic Party, or he's just given money to Democratic candidates, or he was just essentially, you know, a Democrat in his head, as was Trump? I mean, Trump was a Democrat until he decided, having looked at the Bernie Sanders route and decided, no, I don't want to go left of Bernie, I might as well go right over here. I mean, this is all expedience.
- [53:50]
Michael
Yes, yes, of course. But Trump's conversion has been reflected in the full range of MAGA policies. Todd Blanche is a lawyer. He's not a. Not a political person. He doesn't have a. I mean, other. Other than supporting Trump in the Justice Department. We don't know. We don't know. I mean, what's Todd Blanche's. Has Todd Blanche disavowed abortion? Has he disavowed. We don't really know those things. I'm sure he would disavow them. But these MAGA guys are rightly suspicious, not least of all probably because of Donald Trump. But now, that doesn't mean that he won't get the job. I think that he probably will get the job. And as I say, he's on the fast track. That's an issue. The Democrat having been a Democrat, well, that's an issue. But they will probably overcome that and he will probably be the guy. But having said that, he too, if he becomes the Attorney General, will be, in turn, humiliated.
- [55:03]
Joanna
Oh, Michael. Well, we are still looking for suggestions of how to celebrate our hundredth episode of Inside Trump's Head, which is the week after next. We started this in August and we thought, well, let's see how long we can go. And in fact, it's only gotten the torrent of news and the Zone is being reflooded on an hourly, almost minute by minute basis. We have some rather good limericks this week. I meant to read them on Thursday and I forgot, so I thought we would have a couple now. And we're still up for all suggestions in terms of how we should celebrate. Celebrate our 100th anniversary or perhaps commiserate. Okay, we've got one from Paul Watson this time. 8809. Trump isn't much of a reader. He's more of a mouthy mouth breather with so little Merit. How did he inherit his role as our supreme leader? Then we have one from Cold Cream Kitty, which has a very good first line regarding the Strait of Hormuz. Iran says he's gonna lose. What about us stuck with this fuss? We're trumped by domestic abuse. I thought that was rather good. And then we have one that's not quite a limerick. It's not quite a high cue. I'm not quite sure what it is. And it's by someone called Boomer, Dragon Cat. Michael and Joanna's podcast leaves Trump feeling like an outcast. He humps and he grumps and harrumps and even galumps, but he'll never be able to outlast. So perhaps that means we've got another hundred episodes to go.
- [56:52]
Michael
If we go the distance to the end of this administration, we should do that math. But maybe I can't face that.
- [57:00]
Joanna
Actually, we don't need to do the math. I think let's just keep trying to monitor them flooding the zone. And I was heartened to hear that Carolyn Levitt, who, as we know is the press spokesman and White House press spokesperson and also being rumored to lose her job as Trump loses yet more control of the narrative, was on a panel this week where she talked about how wonderful it was to walk in the door and see her children, because her children immediately grounded her and she stopped caring about what the rest of the world said. And she said, when I see my children and I'm grounded and I'm back at home, I think, who cares what the Daily Beast says? And I thought, well, you know, who cares, Caroline? The voters care. Voters care. Actually, people are onto you and they see you standing up there with your machine gum lips. So I'm very glad that we're living in her head.
- [57:53]
Michael
Well, one would hope the voters care, but I'm never sure of that. But the more important point is that she clearly cares.
- [58:02]
Joanna
We're inside Trump's head and we're under Caroline's skin. If you haven't, please subscribe to the JDB's podcast. We just hit 600 1,000 subscribers. We're thrilled. Thank you so much. And if you haven't subscribed, do. We're independent media, so we really appreciate your support. So the good news is we have so many bebeast tier members now, there are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support. Thanks to our production team. Devon Rogerino, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro, Neil Rosenhaus to Covis is the
- [58:38]
Michael
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