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- [00:00]
A
I don't believe Melania Trump has credibility for anything in a normal world. I wish we could take the first lady at her word and say, okay, she's calling for a full investigation. What's above drop? What are they getting in front of? Why is the wife of the man who's mentioned over a million times in the Epstein files? Why is she bringing this up? I'm pretty shock proof. I have been so shocked at each and every individual drop of the Epstein files. Everything that has come out has been so shocking.
- [00:35]
B
I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. Who better to pick apart the week with than the co host of the I've had it podcast, Jen Welsh. Now, I have to warn you, Jen came into the studio, we spent an hour picking apart everything that's going on right now. And then just after she left, what did the first lady do? In her impeccable accent, she delivered a strange, convoluted, peculiar statement about how I never knew Jeffrey Epstein. So I thought I should call Jen and find out what she thinks about this. So it may seem a little bit disjointed, but we've got Jen and me talking about Melania as we get into it. And do listen for Jen's Melania accent, because truth told, I think it's better than mine, and especially the way she goes, well, bonifier. It's very good. And then we get into the rest of the week. And just before we get into it, don't forget to smash the subscribe button. Wherever you get your podcasts, it makes a huge difference to us. We are independent media. This is why we can bring you these conversations. So please subscribe, or as the first lady would have us say, join our bibist tier of membership. Okay, now let's get into it. So, Jen, yesterday we sat down and we had a wonderful conversation all about the war, what's going on. And then as you left the studio, of course, Melania Trump came out with her statement. So we are recording this afresh on Friday lunchtime so that we can get your thoughts on what is going on with Melania, who says that she's never been legally accused or convicted of a crime in connection with Epstein's sex trafficking, abuse of minor, and other repulsive behavior. So what did you think about this? First of all, let's talk about her delivery. What did you make of her delivery?
- [02:43]
A
Smug, sanctimonious, hypocritical. When she was talking about these lies and just how horrible they are, and she's talking about character and integrity and respect. And I'm like, who are you married to? Where do you live? Who are the people you hang out with all of the time? And when she said, these lies need to stop right now, I'm like, my listeners have been in the comment section saying, don't forget about the Epstein files. Make sure you keep it at the top of the news cycle. And much to my surprise, we all have a rather strange bedfellow in Melania Trump. Taking them right back up before the weekend for everyone to gnaw on all weekend. We why on earth has she dropped this bomb? And I think there's multiple scenarios. Number one, she doesn't like him. Her approval rating is the lowest ever recorded for a first lady. And now he has Todd Blanche, who is far more diabolical than Pam Bondi was. And does he say, okay, you go bring this back up again. Let's bring this up again so we don't have to talk about the failures of my war planning in Iran, which is nothing short of just utter impulsivity.
- [04:01]
B
So I totally agree with your first point. I mean, Anthony Scaramucci, who of course works for Trump, says that Melania hates Donald Trump. We know that they live separately and she lives in New York. We know that Trump oddly now refers to his wife as a movie star after they did that infomercial basically for Amazon, which seemed to be a way for Amazon to stay close to the President rather than anything else. And Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, distanced himself from the movie itself and said it wasn't really anything to do with him. It was a decision made at Amazon. Cause he's no longer running it as CEO. What do we make of her comments? I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors. She wants everybody to talk their truth. Is this significant? Is this a huge F you to her husband? Who of course was accused by various people in the Epstein files. We're not saying he's been found guilty of anything, but it's a huge F
- [05:17]
A
you to him to talk about getting justice for the victims. But also, I just don't trust these people. Words and statements don't mean anything to them. This is, these are the. This is the party that's, you know, Trump, I brought back Christmas. Everybody can say Merry Christmas again. And Melania's like, who gives a fuck about the Christmas? You know, so these people, nothing means anything to them. So whenever I apply my own personal logic or troubleshooting skills to Something, and I project that onto them. I'm always wrong because these are not normal people that operate under normal circumstances. So I genuinely am at an utter loss. I lean towards that. This presidency is wiped out. Her movie was a humiliating disaster. She thought in Trump 2.0, with her ensemble, that she was going to be the second coming of Jackie Kennedy. And it has been the face plant to end all face plants. A $70 million embarrassment and a disaster. But I think. Do. I think the two of them together are so insane that he could say, milani, I need for you to go do this press conference now. It's. And she would say, okay, you know, you are unifile.
- [06:35]
B
The unifier. Right, of course. The ridiculous idea that he was the unifier.
- [06:40]
A
The unifier. But then there's this hot tea that's kind of breaking online, Joanna, that we must discuss. And so there's a woman, her name is Amanda Ungaro, and she was placed in ICE custody and ultimately deported. An outcome that may well happen regardless of Mr. Zampoli's meddling. Mr. Zampoli is the man who says, I introduced Melania to Trump. He says he's the one that introduced.
- [07:10]
B
And he used to have a modeling company, like so many of Trump's friends. Trump had a modeling company. Jeffrey Epstein had a modeling company. Paolo Zampoli had a modeling company. And it's supposedly at his party that Melania says, at least in her very strange memoir, in which I like to point out, she acknowledges nobody and she thanks nobody, that they met there. That's where they met.
- [07:41]
A
Yeah. And so this woman, Amanda Ungaro, is the mother of. Of Zampoli's child. And he, like all of the people in Trump's orbit, are vindictive and petty. He contacts ice, uses his relationship with Trump to get access to ice, has this woman deported. She tweeted yesterday, responding to Melania, I will take legal action against you and your pedophile husband. I have known you for 20 years. You knew I was detained in ICE. You were present in my life every year on my son's birthday, even sending Secret Service and being the first to congratulate him back in 2016. Something was clearly wrong, but I am not part of any evil mission involving children. So what did you do, Melania? You tried to involve me, but you failed because I have character. This is stunning. I mean, this is. She's making some extraordinary claims there. And you combine this with this ambush of a weird press conference where the blinds are kind of going up and down in the back did you see that? It's like people are looking in. So I don't know if this is linked or not, but the problem with everything that Trump does is it leaves this huge vacuum where everybody's trying to fill in what is going on here. Julie K. Brown just retweeted an article about this via the New York Times. And she said this story has meat on the bones. And Julie K. Brown has been like the Woodward and Bernstein in this, this Epstein stuff. I believe that she's a very credible journalist. And when she nodded at this online, that this really has some meat on the bones, this is incredibly interesting.
- [09:30]
B
So Donald Trump said yesterday that he didn't know what Melania was going to talk about. Do you think that's true? Do you think she'd run it by him? I mean, she looked, I thought it was interesting. You said she looked smug. I thought she looked nervous. She was reading, obviously. And again, one is just mesmerized that she hasn't bothered to learn the language of the country that she represents as first lady. So there were several words, important words, that she actually got wrong. And of course, what's also interesting is that we know now and earlier this week we were interviewing Stacey Williams and Kerry Otis about the experience they had of abuse during the modeling years. And we know that Melania was a model. She came here from Eastern Europe as a model. A lot of these girls were very vulnerable. She wasn't a big model. She wasn't a supermodel. She was a catalog model. She did various sort of soft pawny shoots for gq. I wonder if she too feels, you know, why is she crying out for other women to give their stories to Congress?
- [10:46]
A
It's really fascinating because they show such disrespect for their supporters, the Trumps inherently. And Melania Trump, I think that she and also Ivanka have never really quite recovered from being so ostracized from New York society. And I think a lot of Donald Trump's moves in deep seated insecurity or the fact that real businessmen that didn't bankrupt casinos and inherit a trust fund that could choke a pool that really made wealth, they were dismissive of him. And these people have always had that. They want to be at the table, they want to be relevant. Well, what's really relevant right now? What has bipartisan attention, this Epstein stuff, but the COVID up of it, in my opinion, Joanna, is the biggest global cover up ever. I mean, it makes Watergate look somewhat quaint. And as for Melania not being able to speak English, Very well. I think one of the big lies that have come out of the Trump regime and the Republican Party at large, this trickle down economics, which we all know is just bullshit, is that Melania Trump speaks seven languages.
- [12:00]
B
All right, well, we can ask her. When we finally get through to it, we'll ask her. So let me ask you about this question, too. She says several prominent male executives resigned from their powerful positions after this matter became widely politicized. Of course, this doesn't amount to guilt, but we must still work openly and transparently to uncover the trut. So is she calling for more men to be taken down here?
- [12:31]
A
It sounds like it in my logical thing. I mean, is she calling for her husband to be taken down? Is she calling for Howard Lutnick? Are we talking about, you know, let's talk about the fact that Jeffrey Epstein had all the oligarchs who have gone to the humiliating show and tell trophy hour in the Oval Office, and he had them all at a dinner, took a picture of them all and emailed it to himself to make sure that he had this. And so it just seems to me, this whole Epstein thing, every single time I turn around like that first law firm that capitulated to Trump, I was like, what are they doing? Well, that guy is in the Epstein files, everybody in his cabinet, all the oligarchs that are humiliating themselves with these ridiculous trophies. And so I don't believe Melania Trump has credibility for anything. That's what makes this so bizarre. You know, that she's some advocate for children or an advocate for Christmas or an advocate for America. But in a normal world, I wish we could take the first lady at her word and say, okay, she's calling for a full investigation. But we know that Todd Blanche is now at the helm of this investigation. He controls all of the files. Who's Todd Blanche? Todd Blanche is the guy that went to prison, met with Ghislaine, she made assurances to him, such assurances that made him feel safe enough that now she's in a cream puff prison with a puppy. And nobody even talks about the wellbeing of this puppy, but I think about it all the time.
- [14:06]
B
Well, Jen, it's great to get your perspective on it. We'll obviously be watching this space to see what happens. I don't know about Amanda Ungaro, and that's an incredibly interesting that she's tweeting away having probably nothing to lose because she's been deported. And it did look like Melania was trying to get out ahead of something. Didn't it?
- [14:34]
A
That's the thing. My immediate thing is what's about to drop. What are they getting in front of? Why is she bringing this up? Why is the wife of the man who's mentioned over a million times in the Epstein files, why is she bringing this up? The first instinct is always some form of self preservation when people do something like this. So what she's talking about lies about her. When we've seen photographic evidence and an email that she and Ghislaine were really beyond acquaintances, were rather friendly. And so I think that's, it's really interesting. So we'll have to keep an eye on it because I don't know if that Amanda Ungaro thing has legs, but I know this, Joanne. I know that I have been. It takes a lot to shock me. I'm pretty shock proof. I have been so shocked at each and every individual drop of the Epstein files. Everything that has come out has been so shocking. Yeah.
- [15:30]
B
And your point about it just being, well, just extending incredibly widely. And often you hear about these stories and you think, well, the people, you've never heard of the people in these stories and you're like, oh, he hung out with important, important business people and you've never heard of the business people. We've heard of every single person that Jeffrey Epstein hung out with. That's what makes it so fascinating. And as we know, he was Donald Trump's best friend, closest friend for at least 10 years. So, Jen, we're now going to get on with the rest of the conversation that we have. But I've loved seeing you, so much fun to have you in the studio this week and, well, let's, let's get on with the rest of it. The wall. Tell me how it's going down with the MAGA base.
- [16:23]
A
You know, this is the time where I think he's going to have a little bit of problems. I think you're going to have like a core, probably less than 30% of MAGA voters that will just do whatever and go along with whatever. But you cannot spin gas prices. Everybody has to go to the tank and within 30 days, it's been the highest increase in the history of the country.
- [16:46]
B
Right.
- [16:46]
A
And that's impossible to spin as well. It's because of this or it's because of that. And that really hits people. So I think there is an unredeemable portion of his base that will just rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. But I do think you're going to have some triple Trumpers. That are jumping ship.
- [17:05]
B
Okay, now, for those who don't watch, I've had it. Your podcast. What are Triple Trumpers?
- [17:12]
A
Triple Trumpers are those fellow Americans of ours that live in this great country of ours that voted not once, not twice, but tripled down on Trump.
- [17:24]
B
Tripled down on Trump.
- [17:26]
A
Triple Trumper.
- [17:27]
B
And they're the people that you say should never have Mexican food.
- [17:30]
A
Correct.
- [17:31]
B
They should never have Ethiopian food.
- [17:32]
A
Correct.
- [17:33]
B
They should never have Italian food.
- [17:35]
A
And they can't watch NBA basketball.
- [17:37]
B
Right. Keep going. What other things shouldn't they be able to partake on in. Partake of in this country?
- [17:43]
A
No Beyonce concerts, Just no multiculturalism. Because I feel like this is a white nationalist movement shrouded in a lot of Christianity, a lot of otherizing, a lot of bigotry, a lot of racism. And honestly, the best thing about this country is, is multiculturalism. And they all enjoy it. You know, I went to a. When I was home in Oklahoma a few months ago, I went to a Mexican restaurant with my parents. There was a guy sitting in there with an alligator Alcatraz shirt on.
- [18:18]
B
He was. And it was sort of. What was it like? I support alligator Alcatraz.
- [18:23]
A
Just like alligator Alcatraz. My mother and I were horrified. And the family that owns this restaurant, they are an immigrant family. They have this fantastic. The Mexican food in Oklahoma is fantastic. And it's just so. I'm like, you know, you're the guy who's voting for all this mass deportation now. But of course he wants to go, you know, binge out on Mexican food.
- [18:45]
B
Right, Right. He wants a burrito for breakfast. Did you approach him? Did you say anything?
- [18:50]
A
No, because there is an open carry law in Oklahoma. You can take your gun anywhere, anytime. Okay, So I kept my mouth shut.
- [19:00]
B
Well done. And also, what does it leave us with? Where do we eat? Is it only cracker barrel and McDonald's that's left at the end of this if there's no immigrant culture left at all?
- [19:15]
A
I think this is the fool's errand of this movement, is the cognitive dissonance that they feast on Fox News that serves them a daily diet of cruelty and blame and scapegoating as to why their wages don't go up, why they have shitty health care, why they, you know, the highlight of their week is maybe watching Wheel of Fortune. And then Jesse Waters sleep, rinse, repeat. And then they have these little nuggets where if you live in Oklahoma, we have this amazing NBA basketball team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. They want to championship.
- [19:47]
B
Oh, I just saw them at msg, I saw them three weeks ago.
- [19:50]
A
They're incredible. And. And then they go to the Mexican restaurant, they go to these places and they never connect. Oh, this is what makes our country so cool. And so there's this cognitive dissonance where you have the portion of the cult, the triple Trumpers, die hard truth social posting, people that enjoy all of the things that they bitch about and vote against.
- [20:14]
B
So to what extent do you think they care about the Middle East?
- [20:19]
A
They don't at all. I mean, there's no experience in growing up in a flyover state where you are removed from a lot of multiculturalism and you have these wars going on where you even understand. I would even venture to say that if you showed people in Oklahoma or any state, show me where Iran or Iraq is, they couldn't, what are the differences in the two countries? They couldn't explain it.
- [20:53]
B
Well, I'm not sure half the cabinet could explain that either. In fact, probably most of the cabinet could, could not explain that.
- [21:01]
A
Yeah. So I would say that this is not a pressing issue. Now I will say this is where I think Trump might get himself in a pickle with even the cultiest of cultists because we remember the Iraq war and what a disaster, what a quagmire that was. It turns out it was all based on a lie. Colin Powell went, pitched it. You know, you remember it was horrible. Abu Ghraib and then George W. Bush's economy, like all Republican economies crash, recession, etc. And here we are again. It seems like all roads with the Republican Party, no matter how they're wrapped up or how they're packaged, lead to this idea of being a neocon. They cannot help themselves.
- [21:45]
B
Right.
- [21:46]
A
And so I don't know that there's a huge appetite for this type of thing. Like there was in the past a lot of people in flyover states because it's void of culture. They have two things that anchor them and one is their church and all of the activities spin from that. And other is being an American repatriates. And we have all of this, these movies and television, television shows that show how awesome our military is and these hot fighter pilots and they're doing cool shit, you know, and then they're like, yeah, I mean, we're the good guys, we're Americans. So I think initially George W. Bush, the smart one to George, George H.W. but the smart one, then to the dumb one, George W. These wars showing awesome military might, you can kind of get some people into it because it's kind of being an American. The military thing is kind of reflexive.
- [22:36]
B
It's kind of a part of our garnish. Right. It's masculine, it's macho, it's sexy. It's big machines going very, very fast.
- [22:44]
A
Yeah. And now I think in the, you know, it hasn't been that long since Iraq. I think that he is losing the Republican Party is losing a lot of their ability to manipulate the public to buy into this. Now there are people that I think would just go along with whatever he says, but he's changed his narrative and the regime, the Trump regime has changed their narrative. We're going to go liberate the Iranians now. We're going to wipe out their entire civilization. I mean, it's just whiplash out the wazoo with these people.
- [23:17]
B
So you mentioned the church as being absolutely central to a lot of these communities. And I remember that growing up in the UK it was very central to my community. Pete Hegseth is trying to, as far as I can see, sort of own God in this war. Right. He keeps saying, you know, he keeps sort of crying out to God as if God is personally directing every single one of America's bombs. Are people feeling that in the middle of the country, in Oklahoma, where you have spent so much time, are the churches on board for this? Are preachers coming out and talking about God wanting this almost holy war?
- [24:05]
A
Probably. They probably are. There is this rapture prepping in white evangelical mega church culture where it is, they believe in spiritual warfare. They believe in the end of times. And they believe there's going to be some major war in the Middle East. And Pete Hegseth and others in the Trump regime are Christian signaling. So the right accuses us of virtue signaling. And I think what's far more dangerous is Christian signaling. So if you listen to Pete Hegseth, he's constantly talking about in these military updates, God is good, God is guiding our shots. God, the whole thing is all of this crazy ass weaponized Christianity as though God is guiding US munitions to bomb little girls that are in school in Iran. It's, it's insane. And he is firing people that are black or are women.
- [25:05]
B
So in the army, in the military.
- [25:07]
A
And I think it's absolutely terrifying. There's been reports in the military of service members saying that generals are kind of proselyzing as they're doing their missions and in the military. So I'm very fearful that we've already seen Trump take over ICE and start weaponizing it against U.S. citizens. I'm very Terrified that the next step is the military so that he can realize his entire coup. So you see him escalating this war in Iran. If you go back over Trump's Twitter feed, when Obama was president, he's going to start a war in Iran so that he can win the election. There's all of this stuff that Trump says. And then if you remember at the beginning of this second term, Joanne, he says, yeah, what's so great about whether it's Putin or somebody else, they don't have elections or Netanyahu because they're at war.
- [26:02]
B
Right.
- [26:03]
A
And so I think he has no desire to pump the brakes on this thing. I think the Pentagon advised him, you cannot do this because the Strait of Hormuze will close and we will not have oil. And that's why he's spiraling out over the Strait of Hormuze. But then how do you keep the base involved in this? How do you keep that 25, 30% cultist Christian Signal? But much to my surprise, the biggest conspiracy theorists and all of the Christian signaling and all of the MAGA machinations, you know, manic episodes, Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson.
- [26:39]
B
Right.
- [26:40]
A
Candace Owens.
- [26:41]
B
Right.
- [26:42]
A
Were all calling for the 25th Amendment. And I was like, what?
- [26:46]
B
So why? How come they're doing that? Are they doing that just to create noise and attention? Are they doing it because they actually believe it? Because these people seem as cynical as they come? I don't believe for a moment that Candace Owens actually thinks Brigitte Macron is a man, but she's figured out, oh, that's how I get attention. I'm not sure she expected the lawsuit from them, but these are people who know how to get attention. They live by their podcast, they die by their podcast. They have to get growth somehow. It's almost like the more outlandish they are, they have to keep becoming even more outlandish. The tolerance grows. Right? It's like a drug.
- [27:26]
A
Totally.
- [27:27]
B
So do we believe them on the 25th Amendment?
- [27:31]
A
I kind of do, because I think all of them share something, and it's economic Darwinism. They're business people.
- [27:39]
B
They're business people, and they know that
- [27:42]
A
if he keeps going or if he nukes Iran, the economic calamity from that is beyond comprehension. I mean, it's just beyond comprehension what would happen. And as crazy as she is, you know, Candace Owen was able to. Conspiracy theories. You'll love this. She was able to link her two conspiracy theories together. So Bridget McCrone, she claims, is a man, and then she claims that Israel killed Charlie Kirk. In one episode, she put them both together and said the French legionnaires were in Utah in the audience at the request of Bridget Macron.
- [28:22]
B
Oh, no.
- [28:23]
A
Working.
- [28:23]
B
Yes.
- [28:24]
A
She put them all together. She put them all together, Joanne. But they know, all of them know that in order to create the outrage, chaos.
- [28:34]
B
What is going on there? Is she just a, you know, is she just trying to write novels via a podcast? Is this a new kind of art form?
- [28:43]
A
I don't know. It's really fascinating. She is a really fascinating case study. I think part of her must be kind of broken. And she starts going down these rabbit holes and she gets millions and millions of views.
- [28:57]
B
I know. And. But she's got four children. That's the other thing. I'm like, how does she manage this? Or maybe that's why she retreats behind her microphone, because she has four children.
- [29:07]
A
Right. I don't know. She's a special case. But, you know, Alex Jones is right there with her. He claimed the Sandy Hook.
- [29:13]
B
Yeah, Yeah. I can't, I can't cope with that. Alex Jones, except for. And he calls himself a truther. He's never spoken a word of truth about Sandy Hook. A truly egregious thing to lie about. Yeah. But on this particular thing, he has his youth.
- [29:28]
A
I just think that all of them, it's economic Darwinism, they know that to keep going. Okay, if we 25th amendment him, then they can start a new conspiracy theory. Did you know J.D. vance do it? And then it just keeps going. And it keeps going and the grift keeps going. Exploiting people, you know, throwing rage, bait, racism. But if, if Trump were to nuke Iran, it's, I mean, it's, we all know how devastating that would be.
- [29:55]
B
But Trump has started this war. He claimed that last summer we'd already obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities. Well, turns out clearly we haven't, we haven't got the enriched uranium that he said we were going to get. They still very much have it. £940 worth, apparently. And the Strait of Hormuz, which is actually always used as one of those choke points in. When you're red teaming a potential third world war, the Strait of Hormuz always comes up as this danger point. How come they didn't see that? How come he didn't understand this?
- [30:38]
A
Trump?
- [30:38]
B
Yeah. I mean, he started a war and handed the key to the Strait of Hormuz to the very people we were supposed to be taking out of the scenario.
- [30:47]
A
Because he's the easiest mfer on the Planet to manipulate on the planet. So now it's been reported that BB Is in the Situation Room sitting at the head of the table. Not Trump, but Bibi. And then you've got these dipshits, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who thinks they're diplomats. Joanne, big deal. Guys, you and I could do a better job.
- [31:12]
B
Honestly, I think we could. Truly, I truly think that we should offer. We should offer our services.
- [31:16]
A
I agree.
- [31:17]
B
Jen and Joanna. Joanna and Jen, we will come out and we'll sort out your diplomacy.
- [31:22]
A
We'll sort this out. The Pentagon is telling Trump don't do it. And then all of these sycophants. So he gets all of those people out of the room. He gets Bibi in. Who? Bibi's been trying to pitch this for
- [31:33]
B
40 years to various presidents.
- [31:36]
A
Every president has said no, no, no, no, no. And now he's got his make a wish president.
- [31:41]
B
Make a wish president. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:43]
A
You know, he has his make a wish president. They kick out the smart people out of the room and. Or Pete Hagseth is firing them because he's on a mission from God. If there was a movie about this, it would be so unbelievable. But it's real. All of this is really happening. And so why did Trump do it? Because he's the easiest m effort on the planet to dog walk. If he came in here right now, Joanna, we could have him licking out of the palm of our hands in five minutes. You know, you are pretty hot in person. You know, I do think you're a great president.
- [32:11]
B
Right?
- [32:12]
A
I bet your dick is bigger than Obama's. And before you know it, he would just. We would just be all chummy. So if we can figure this out, Mossad, all of these other, you know, the former KGB agent Vladimir Putin. This is. And the crazy thing is all of these people I know that have voted Republican their whole life, that believe in a strong national security. I believe in a strong national security. That's my foreign policy. We have the weakest man on the planet that is laser focused on his interior design and architecture projects, and he will just, you know, punt all of this, delegate this out to dipshits that have double dealings that are lining their own pockets. And these middle American people are paying for all of this, and they get nothing out of it. It's insane.
- [33:02]
B
Well, that is a truly depressing scenario. Do you think there's anybody competent around Trump? Anyone at all? I mean, Hegseth, we've talked about. What about Marco Rubio?
- [33:16]
A
You know, Marco Rubio, something happened to Marco Rubio. That's happened to so many men in Trump's orbit right now. J.D. vance called him Hitler at some point, had moral clarity. Maybe he was conservative and a Republican. J.D. vance, but he had at one point, this guy's a fascist and he's Hitler. Marco Rubio, I think he's broken. I think something happens when people capitulate to this type of moral rot. Something breaks in them. And being able to use deduction skills with moral clarity just are vacant. And so whether Marco Rubio is still intelligent or not is irrelevant because scholars of authoritarians tell us that they do not allow anyone to outshine the dictator. And if somebody does, then there is a humiliation ritual. Furthermore, we know from scholars that dictators do divide and rule. So you see that sometimes Trump will prop up J.D. sometimes he marks, he props up Rubio and so on. And I think JD Vance is really being pretty savvy right now because he's trying to be the anti war guy in the room. And you notice that story that the New York Times just did, Maggie Haberman, about BB being in there. Well, my theory is that JD Vance must have leaked it because there's a whole paragraph devoted to how JD Vance is so anti war, but everybody else gave, told Trump to go ahead and do it. Well, J.D. vance knows that Donald Duck, Donald Trump is a dementia duck. He's, you know, he's got dementia, he's a lame duck, and he knows he would be the heir apparent. So who's gonna win after all of this? We know from 08, the anti war candidate won Barack Obama in the face of Hillary, John Edwards, you know, McCain. And so I think that he's positioning himself to be the heir apparent to this.
- [35:07]
B
But Donald Trump has just sent him to Pakistan after his trip parading round rallies with Viktor Orban in Hungary, has just sent JD Vance to Pakistan and sort of said, you handle it, J.D. you do it. So that seems like a mission, a genuine mission impossible. I mean, I don't think he's going to come back like Tom Cruise swaggering on a motorbike. I think that is a hiding to nothing. Who is going to be able to get that deal done? I mean, One of the 10 points that the Iranians put forward to start negotiations was they control the Strait of Hormuz. That seems non negotiable in terms of the American position. So I agree with you that J.D. vance was clearly, clearly a source for the Haberman and Jonathan Swan book called Regime Change, which is coming out later this month. I think, or next month. But I wonder if Trump is onto him and in his feral way, understanding, understands who's gonna be opportunist here when he really hits his lame debt period after the midterms. And so he sent J.D. off to do the impossible, I think so.
- [36:22]
A
I think he probably hears because, you know, that work environment, Joanna, you know, it's toxic. Despite that, you know, I think they
- [36:29]
B
all hate each other, right?
- [36:30]
A
Of course they do. So, you know, Stephen Miller, somebody's like, oh, look at J.D. vance trying to act like he's so smug and he's so anti war. You should send him to Pakistan. And I think that's all it takes.
- [36:40]
B
Right? Right.
- [36:41]
A
And he's like, yeah, let's send JD that little smug fucker. And off they go. And it's just high times giggling in, you know, Marie Antoinette's lair, AKA the Oval Office.
- [36:51]
B
Right.
- [36:52]
A
You know, I think that this is. These are not serious people doing serious things. They just have a very serious job.
- [36:59]
B
Right. And it's being taken very seriously by everybody else. So we've discussed Hegseth Rubio, little boy in those big man shoes. Have you ever seen anything funnier than Rubio trying to shuffle forward in those $148 Florsheim flat rogues? A sort of tragic figure in many ways. Rubio, right, I mean, he had his moment with Venezuela. He's going to get sucked into this Middle east crisis, which, as you point out, nobody cares about. Nobody can pick out Iran on a map, including half the Cabinet. Where does this go? How scared should we be?
- [37:42]
A
I think we should be terrified. I think we should be absolutely terrified. It's so weird because as we're all living our lives, you can go out and talk to your friends and you can kind of forget that all of this is going on. But as we're sitting here right now, they are breaking fundamental pillars of American democracy, of American economic system. And that's before we even get to. These are just the players at the table. This is before we even get to the oligarchs that have funded this entire thing, that have bent the knee so we have. Nobody is going to save us. You don't have industry titans standing up and saying, no, we do not support this like you did in Trump 1.0. You have the Cabinet, which, you know, who is the craziest, who is the dumbest? We could do a 10 part podcast about that. I think it'd be really quite good, actually.
- [38:32]
B
We should do that. It's a very good idea. And we could Start with Kristi Noem. We haven't even talked. How could we have got this far into the podcast, Jen, and not talked? Looning.
- [38:43]
A
I need to keep you abreast of a situation.
- [38:46]
B
Go ahead.
- [38:47]
A
Regarding Big Titty Brian.
- [38:50]
B
Btb.
- [38:51]
A
Btb. The husband, Big Titty Brian.
- [38:54]
B
Is that what you just called him?
- [38:56]
A
Big Titty Brian?
- [38:56]
B
Why you did. Does he spell his name so oddly too? Because everybody thinks it's Byron, but it's Brian. He spells it with an O. It's weirdly confusing.
- [39:05]
A
Well, I think that was probably Brian. I think that's probably what screwed him from jump. His parents thought they were cute, right? Instead of spelling it B R, I, A N, they had to completely dick him over and do this, you know, dyslexic.
- [39:19]
B
You know, can you imagine every time he fills out a form or says his name, he has to go B, R, Y, O, N. You know, that's O, N. It's just annoying. It's just annoying. It's also irrelevant. Except. Well, please continue.
- [39:31]
A
Yeah, so I think this, to me, first of all, I have to say, like, I was beaming for like 48 hours because I am very familiar with this type of religious hypocrisy. Living in the Bible Belt my whole life. And Big Titty Brian and Christy Noem have constantly said they have a godly marriage.
- [39:52]
B
A godly marriage.
- [39:54]
A
Godly marriage. And when she was hauled ass in front of Congress to talk about what ICE was doing to US Citizens in Minnesota, Big Titty Brian sat behind her and they grilled her about her affair with Corey Lewandowski. And Big Titty Brian sat there and provided cover. Cover for her that they had a godly marriage.
- [40:15]
B
I thought Big Titty Brian, as you call him, and now I'm going to call him btb.
- [40:19]
A
Yes.
- [40:20]
B
I thought he actually, actually wasn't behind her for that. And I thought. Had someone warned them that that question was coming? Cause I certainly saw him earlier in the proceedings. I thought for the actual question, are you having sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski? That was asked by the California congresswoman Democrat that he was mysteriously missing.
- [40:44]
A
You're probably right. I know that he was there for part of it. Cause I've seen the image.
- [40:48]
B
He was going to be there for part of it.
- [40:50]
A
And you know, I want to be clear to your listeners that if somebody has a kink and they like to put on big titties and get on OnlyFans, I don't give a shit. It's a free country. I don't care. But what I care about are these sanctimonious MAGA Christians that are consumed with the genitals and the sex lives of everybody else. And talking about having a traditional family, a traditional marriage, a godly marriage. And come to find out Kristi Noem is banging Corey Lewandowski, which again, I don't give a shit. Somebody has to do it. It might as well be her.
- [41:26]
B
And basically they both deny it, but it seems. Well, all I can say is they both deny it. Nevertheless, it appears to be. And she certainly didn't deny it when she was asked by the congresswoman. Right. She said that is a tabloid. Tabloid question.
- [41:43]
A
Yeah.
- [41:43]
B
And I was just very pleased that she said that because we think of ourselves proudly as a tabloid, smart tabloid. But it's the hypocrisy.
- [41:51]
A
It's the hypocrisy. And I am a hypocrisy shamer. I think that these hypocrites need to be shamed. They're sanctimonious. They fetishize gay people at night and ostracize them during the day. And I think that this is at the epicenter of the MAGA movement, of the Victor or Bonds movement, this type of toxic masculinity misogyny, where the through line is homophobia. And I don't think Big Titty Brian's gay. I watched a very good interview with one of his only fan ladies that he frequented.
- [42:31]
B
Right.
- [42:32]
A
She was. It was a great interview. Highly recommend watching it. She spoke about Big Titty Brian was in love with her, wanted to marry her, was alone in his basement at night. And you know, I don't have any problem. I feel, I mean, in a normal world I would feel badly for him. But when people in the Trump regime or in Christian circles use the word traditional family, they're doing that to be critical of single moms, single dads, two lesbian moms, two gay dads, mixed race. It is an exclusionary term that they have baked in signaling superiority when in fact they're all messed up. You remember that Larry Craig, that senator that was doing the foot tap in the airport?
- [43:14]
B
Right. In the airport bathroom.
- [43:15]
A
He was a big anti gay senator.
- [43:18]
B
Yeah.
- [43:18]
A
And it's just. Then there was that he was having
- [43:22]
B
relations with strangers, that he was. Bathroom.
- [43:26]
A
Yeah. That happened to be an FBI agent.
- [43:28]
B
Right?
- [43:28]
A
Yeah. And then there was that, there was that pastor, big mega church guy, big anti gay, big conversion therapy, ends up getting caught, you know, with poppers and a hooker in Denver somewhere. And it's just, it's the same story over and over. So I am a hypocrisy shamer. I feel badly for people that live in Bible Belt culture that feel like they have to stay in the closet because of society. And if they do that in a passive way, no judgment for my part. But these people that have these, you know, crazy private lives and then their legislation is myopically focused on the private lives of their fellow citizens.
- [44:07]
B
F that I share your. Well, I go back and forth on the hypocrisy because do we have. Isn't everybody a hypocrite? And should we just relax on it? My issue is don't tell everybody else how to live. Which is, I guess your point too, really, that. Don't come into my bedroom and tell me whether I can or can't do whatever I want to do. Especially when I was younger. I mean, in terms of reproductive rights, in terms of abortion, I mean, what the Supreme Court has done to the accessibility of abortion across America is shameful and it's hurtling America backwards. I mean, it's just an extraordinarily punitive thing. And I think it goes to the heart of America's really weird relationship with sex. And, you know, it's part puritanical, it's part of guns and pornography and it's such a strange place. And then bang, in the middle you find the husband of the minister or the secretary for homeland security who is in charge of your security. She's in charge of my safety. She's in charge of your children's safety. And meanwhile, her husband is giving away, you know, up to $25,000 he spent on these women in Onlyfans, which is a huge, huge security issue. Right, the security issue. He could have been blackmailed. They could have been blackmailed. They could have made up all sorts of stuff. The whole thing is just as you said earlier, these are not serious people. And yet they are doing serious business. And meanwhile, her people, Greg Bevino up in Minneapolis, shooting, shooting people in cold blooded daylight.
- [45:50]
A
Yeah, I mean, think about, I think about Renee Goode and she, we've all seen that video. She had a black lab in the back of her car. And she says, dude, I'm not mad at you. And she starts spinning around and this guy is so jacked up on insecurity that he just can't handle. He can't handle it. I think her wife says something to him like, hey, big guy. And he's so jacked up on insecurity, he takes his penis extender, his gun, and then calls her a fucking bitch.
- [46:20]
B
And also Shoots her four times, right?
- [46:22]
A
Yes.
- [46:23]
B
Four times. It's like shoot the tire, shoot past her. Because the sound of a gunshot is enough to bring a car to a halt, if that's the goal. But to shoot someone four times at lunchtime, in the middle of the day when you are surrounded by people and she's not going fast. We've all seen the video. Yeah. There's an accident and then to make it up afterwards. Right. To say, oh, that she was trying to run him over.
- [46:50]
A
Right. A domestic gnome called her a domestic terrorist. And this is what gets me, Joanne. The whole time she's doing all this, she's got her husband in the basement boozing up on vodka, putting on his tits, asking only fan models to marry him. Are you kidding me?
- [47:10]
B
Right?
- [47:10]
A
Are you kidding me?
- [47:12]
B
It's time to go back to South Dakota.
- [47:14]
A
Yeah. Or to prison.
- [47:17]
B
Or to prison. Yeah. Or to prison. And then, of course, there's the death of Alex Peretti a week later, again, you know, an intensive care nurse. An intensive care nurse who turns up to pay witness to what's going on, to bear witness. And then he ends up dead. And then they say, oh, well, he was armed. No, we saw the video where you disarmed him.
- [47:39]
A
Yeah.
- [47:41]
B
And he had every right to carry a gun anyway. I'm not a gun person. Yeah, me neither. But if you're. If you have the right to carry a gun and you're carrying it peacefully, then you're within your rights. So the idea that they go after him for that is also crazy.
- [47:53]
A
Yeah. I think when I see both of those videos, and if I think about that, I'm at one of those protests, neither one of them thought for a second like it was a life or death situation.
- [48:05]
B
Right.
- [48:05]
A
You know, they didn't think they were going to get killed. And it just reminds me that this is a lesson for our country that black Americans that experience, that Renee Good and Alex Preddy went through, that's been their existence. That's what happens if you live in a black neighborhood that instead of being invested in, we invest the money into over policing. And these black women have been telling us for decades our kids are getting shot, our kids are not resisting. And we didn't listen. And so then it happens on video now to these white protesters. And I think the important lesson here for all of us is that this really isn't new. It's just new for white people. And I think when we look at how did we get to this fascism, we have to look at what's been incubating it this whole time. And I think there's been a failure of the American public to address the disparity in policing systems, justice systems, economic equality for our black brothers and sisters in this country. And I think it's a really important point that this has been happening for a really long time.
- [49:22]
B
So it's hopeful that Greg Bevino got dispatched back to California. It's hopeful that Christine Ohm got fired. It's hopeful that the. I mean, I can't even begin I'm going to say this, but Mark Wayne Mullen.
- [49:35]
A
Oh, my God.
- [49:36]
B
Right.
- [49:37]
A
He's from my state.
- [49:38]
B
Tell me about him.
- [49:40]
A
Senator booster box.
- [49:41]
B
What does that mean? Does he have to stand on a box?
- [49:43]
A
He stands on a box. When he's at a podium, he has to stand on a box. And he. Here's the thing, though.
- [49:52]
B
Senator booster box.
- [49:53]
A
Senator booster box.
- [49:55]
B
So we've got btb, Big Titty Brian, and then we've got sbb. Senator booster box.
- [50:01]
A
Senator booster box. But I would be remiss if I didn't say that. And I think the reporting has pretty much confirmed this. Kristi Noem didn't run dhs, and Mark Wayne Mullen is not going to run dhs. It is Stephen Miller.
- [50:14]
B
Right.
- [50:15]
A
Stephen Miller is the one that put all of that pressure go interact with these protesters. I think somebody who works right under Stephen Miller's been hospitalized like four times for stress working with that guy.
- [50:28]
B
Exactly right. And he was demanding quotas of, I think 3,000 arrests a day or 3,000 people put on a list of deported.
- [50:34]
A
Yeah. So we have puppets in our government. We have, you know, Marco Rubio back to him. I don't think he's really the Secretary of State. I think Kushner and Witkoff are. And so we have a lot of puppets of people that Trump keeps super close that he allows close to the levers. And Senator Bush, SBB is just going to be another puppet who reports directly to Stephen Miller.
- [50:58]
B
Good times, Jen. Good times. So do you look out and see anything hopeful on the horizon?
- [51:05]
A
I do. I don't know. It seems so dire and I had felt like it was so dire, but I have felt like lately that the midterms are going to be too big to rig. And I know they're going to try
- [51:19]
B
too big to rig. That's also another one. You just come out with these phrases sharp.
- [51:23]
A
Well, as attack over here. I think that we are going to see. I think there's going to be a lot of fuckery. I. We've already seen it With Trump, I think there's, you know, he's going to pull everything that he possibly can, but this is a very large, diverse country. In our election, elections are local. And he's going to try and he's been trying, and I think that these midterms are seven months away, and I'm hopeful that we get, I think it will be an absolute blue tsunami. I saw some, they had some special elections a few days ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Somebody who ran for school board. It shifted in a Democrat one. And I mean, Oklahoma is ruby, ruby, ruby red. And I know that's a very small little space, but I was like, oh, wow. Like, that's big.
- [52:13]
B
So as I'm listening to. Would you ever run?
- [52:16]
A
Never.
- [52:17]
B
Why not?
- [52:18]
A
I just. Here's the thing. Trump has made politics seem like entertainment, and they're not. Joan, I don't want to go to work and sit and talk about infrastructure policy. I mean, I. That's boring to me. I need smart people that are very interested in that, that excites them to do that. I don't want to go to work and talk about tax policy. I want the best, brightest, enthusiastic bean counters on the planet to go do that. Trump has given this aura where we think maybe somebody like me, where I could be in politics. Politics used to not be entertainment like this, right? And genuinely, a lot of policy that is executed is rather boring. And I don't know that I have the attention span or the bandwidth or the knowledge to do it. I know what I believe in, and I'm a good communicator. But I'd much rather sit here with you and gossip about them doing their jobs correctly or incorrectly than taking that on because it's a very serious job. It's very serious.
- [53:23]
B
I wonder if the pendulum will swing back or whether or not the genie's out of the bottle with social media. What you have to do to stay in front of the, of the public and what you have to do to create a tension means that we no longer get serious people going into politics.
- [53:38]
A
I think the genie's out. But look at Zoron. He is governing. He is using social media and showing the way he's governing. You know, he plowed all the streets and now he's doing potholes. And I saw on, I follow him on Instagram. He walked from City hall to Gracie Mansion six miles yesterday, shook hands with everybody. So I think that there is a new generation of people that have been left behind by just grotesque, unregulated capitalism that see that, okay, we need to make this economy work for more people and that are also tech savvy and compassionate. And I think that they are going to turn out. I went to a Bernie Sanders rally in the Bronx like a week ago with Professor Jason Stanley, the guy who was at Yale, and then left and went to Toronto. And it was so fascinating because the room was full of all of these young people and it was all about economic equality. Well, not even about social issues at all. It was just economic equality. So I think that I have a lot of faith in the younger generation and, and being motivated and motivated for the right things. They're not fixated on all these culture wars like the Republicans are. And so I, I do. I don't know, I feel a little bit of hope now. Next week, who knows? But this week I have felt, even despite Trump's horrific tweet, I have felt like we are going to do the right thing. We are a history of people 250 years that have done horrible things. Horrible. But I feel like we have always tried to right the ship. And I just, I feel like. And I hope that together we can right this ship.
- [55:21]
B
Okay, so final question. Were you to go into politics, you might be able to avail yourself of the enormous plane that Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem were riding around in. And Donald Trump has now sequestered for the first lady, who he refers to as a movie star. I don't know if you saw, but on Easter Monday when they were talking, when he launched his rant at the world with the Easter Bunny standing right there.
- [55:49]
A
Yes.
- [55:50]
B
And then my favorite moment of the day was when he was signing things for children and he said, you know, Biden couldn't have done this. He would have needed an auto pen. Right. And the child's looking at him going, what are you talking about? And then someone says about Melania, who's that? And he goes, she's a movie star. She's a movie star. Another piece of fantasy going on, because that documentary didn't, sadly, didn't do as well as perhaps people had hoped. You don't want the plane. You wouldn't be in it for the. I mean, Melania's got the plane now, but at some point it'll come available again.
- [56:26]
A
I will say I can be shallow and pretentious. Probably character defects in mine.
- [56:34]
B
Can't we all? Can't we all? Jen, you're not the only one.
- [56:36]
A
A private plane to bypass all of the TSA fuckery and non funding and all of that stuff would be an Absolute dream, no question. But I do think that the next round of people that get in here, if we recover from this, I want people that have righteous anger. I want all of these people, every lie, everything exposed, complete reckoning, complete atonement. Because this is really bad. And there are people like, when I think about my sons, for a lot of their upbringing, this is for, even when Biden was president, Trump was on the news every single day. It's been, you know, 11, 12 years now going on of this being normalized and we have to reconcile that.
- [57:27]
B
I'm amazed that America, because it's a consumer society and we're constantly in the search for something new. I'm surprised that people aren't bored of Donald Trump. He seems to be one of those entertainers that has just managed to stay on top of the public imagination in a way that I've really almost never seen before. I mean, it's hard to think maybe he's a once in a century kind of politician, but it's hard to think of anybody that's managed that. Most times people get bored, they're, ugh, I'm done. I can't watch season five. I'm done. I'm done with it now. I jumped the show up. He jumps the shark every day and people are still, well, let's hope the polls are right and that people have just given up on him. But you say you think 30% of MAGA voters are still very much with him, regardless of the war.
- [58:22]
A
I do. I think they're just broken. I think we have a portion of the electorate that for whatever reasons, they have authoritarian personalities or members of an authoritarian religion. There seems to be, that seems to be the link according to psychiatrists, psychologists that have studied it, and probably racist. And he serves that up. And I think that these are the people that are never, ever, not only would they stay on the Trump train, they're never going to vote for Democrats, ever. It's just never going to happen. And so I think in order for the Democrats to take this down, they not only have to take it down, but they have to install a government, an FDR style government that delivers materially for the American public, not just for a portion of the American public, but for the American public and reminding them how government works and make it work efficiently and in a good way and also show justice for this. I mean, this has been 12 years of just straight up abuse. Looks like we're living with a, you know, an alcoholic stepfather that will not shut the fuck. He just won't you know, it's just relentless, this guy. It's relentless.
- [59:36]
B
It's relentless. But so are you, Jen Welsh. So are you. Which is why we love having you as a guest. Please come back. Always good. And I can highly recommend. I've had it. Your podcast with Angie. Angie Pomps.
- [59:54]
A
I call her Pumps.
- [59:54]
B
That's right. I was thinking Pumps. I was actually your producer or one of your colleagues that you've come in with has got the most incredible boots on. And as I was groping for Angie's nickname, Pumps, I was actually thinking about your colleagues. Enormous platformed boots. Anyway, we're off topic, but I'm very grateful for you coming into the studio. I'm thrilled you've moved to New York, at least for this year. And come back soon.
- [60:22]
A
I will. Thank you, Joanna.
- [60:28]
B
Okay, so there you have it. You've got everything that happened this week. You've got Melania, you've got the war, You've got Big Titty Brian. Okay, I. I need to go and lie down. I just need to go and lie down. But I will be back tomorrow afternoon with Michael Wolf, where? You know very well where we're going.
- [60:47]
A
Inside driver upset.
- [60:50]
B
See you then. 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. Thanks to our production team. Devon Rogerino. Ryan Murray. Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro, Neil Rosenhaus.