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- [00:01]
Joanna Cole
Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money.
- [00:05]
Kurt Andersen
Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@Bloomberg.com he shakes it up. I like watching him. Unlike other politicians, that's been a huge part of his power and success is the entertainment. But failing at even this inconsequential stuff like the Great American State Fair feeds the correct view that wow, he's kind of incompetent, isn't he? Here we are trying to this authoritarian who can't even make the trains run on time. Bread and circuses, as has been said leaders for thousands of years is fine if you've got the bread, but just the circus alone and giant ballrooms for rich people, and giant tax benefits for rich people and giant crypto scams for rich people. While I can't afford meat at the grocery store, that doesn't go down so well.
- [01:06]
Joanna Cole
I'm Joanna Cole. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And sometimes I love this job so much because I get to talk about the thing that I'm most obsessed by, America and the state of it right now with people who've been thinking about this for years. Today's guest is a favorite of the Daily Beast podcast, Kurt Anderson. He's an author, he's a soothsayer, he was the co founder of spy, and he explains why America is so in love with characters like Donald Trump and the characters around Donald Trump. So today we talk about the 250th anniversary. We talk about UFC, we talk about the sycophants around the cabinet table, and well, we talk about how did we get here, how did we get here and what happens next. So before we get into it, very quick reminder, please press the subscription button. We are independent media and we appreciate your support. Now, Kurt Anderson, let's get into it. Kurt Anderson, the man who created the phrase the fuckening of America. And I couldn't help thinking, and I don't know if this is me being a snob and I want to get into this conversation with you.
- [02:23]
Kurt Andersen
Yes.
- [02:24]
Joanna Cole
But when I saw the erection of the octagon on the south lawn of the White House for the UFC fight, which Donald Trump has chosen as his cultural emblem for the 250th anniversary of America, I couldn't help thinking, oh, Kurt Anderson foresaw all this with the fuckening of America. Is that what's going on here?
- [02:48]
Kurt Andersen
I think in his case, yes, it is. But as I wrote in my book Fantasyland there is a long history and much of it fine and good. I mean, America is this motley creation of ordinary people and small d democratic multitudes. Right. So it's not all bad. And I love country music and I like boxing and you know, so it's not exactly a snobbish, you know, oh my God, censoriousness. It is this idiotic, highly politicized use of pop culture symbols in this case in this really debasing way. You know, I don't know if you saw the movie Idiocracy if your listeners
- [03:43]
Joanna Cole
have, but I'm sure lots of people have seen it. I mean, people mention it in the comments all the time.
- [03:47]
Kurt Andersen
Well, and it was this Mike Judge, great filmmaker, animation guy, whatever director, created this film that I thought in 2006 was terribly over the top about this future where America is run by idiots and morons and kind of reality show carnival like freaks and show business. Well, here we are in so many ways. Indeed. People mention your comments. I, starting in 2017, couldn't get Idiocracy out of my head. Anyway, the president in that movie is this, you know, showbiz madman who like shoots, shoots an automatic weapon around Congress and dresses in this WWE costume.
- [04:39]
Joanna Cole
Well, right.
- [04:40]
Kurt Andersen
And the ufc, by the way, in addition to, I mean, unlike professional wrestling, it's absolutely real. I mean these people are really fighting. It's a show, but they're not faking anything.
- [04:51]
Joanna Cole
Right.
- [04:52]
Kurt Andersen
So there's that.
- [04:53]
Joanna Cole
So it's not Hulk Hogan.
- [04:54]
Kurt Andersen
Well, but it's not Hulk Hogan, although they're characters, but it's real and it's legit. But it is a descendant of WWE, WWF, the McMahon Empire of Showbiz wrestling in which Donald Trump years ago was a character himself. Literally got up on.
- [05:14]
Joanna Cole
Right. I remember he would get under the ropes and get up on stage.
- [05:18]
Kurt Andersen
Vince McMahon and everything. Well now, of course, his secretary of education is the separated wife of Vince McMahon, sex trafficker and sexual assaulter accused
- [05:31]
Joanna Cole
Linda McMahon, who's in charge of basically dismantling Linda McMann. Linda is dismantling the Department of Education.
- [05:39]
Kurt Andersen
Yes, that was her task. The richness of the ironies. She's the Secretary of education, this person who made professional wrestling as huge as it became in the 80s and 90s. It's remarkable, but it is this cage match of people who, you know, can fight well in it. But it's, it has, basically its attraction is that has no rules, has very, very few rules, unlike boxing or.
- [06:12]
Joanna Cole
Right.
- [06:12]
Kurt Andersen
Or actual normal old fashioned Olympic Sports, this sport was invented in the last 30 years for this purpose of show business. So it's, you know, I mean, and
- [06:23]
Joanna Cole
you can do anything, right? You can kick, you can bite. You can, you can't bite. Oh, you can't bite. So it has some rules.
- [06:29]
Kurt Andersen
So it has some rules.
- [06:30]
Joanna Cole
Indeed. It has some rules.
- [06:31]
Kurt Andersen
But you can, you can, you know, it's.
- [06:33]
Joanna Cole
But isn't the goal to get someone in a chokehold so they, so they go to sleep?
- [06:37]
Kurt Andersen
Well, you know, more than I do, if that's, if that's the case. No, I don't think they, they don't. I think, I don't know. I don't think people become unconscious during the fights. But, but it is, it is all but that, I think.
- [06:52]
Joanna Cole
But, but the symbolism of him using the ultimate fighting sport.
- [06:57]
Kurt Andersen
Correct.
- [06:57]
Joanna Cole
To show himself as the ultimate fighter, in theory, for.
- [07:01]
Kurt Andersen
Correct.
- [07:01]
Joanna Cole
The American people, but really for himself.
- [07:03]
Kurt Andersen
Indeed. And as he's pursuing a stupid war. More than stupid war. A war that is hurting America's place in the world in all kinds of ways and making us look weak and incompetent and having a cartoon figure, Secretary of War out there, like some, you know, animated character talking about how great war is and how wonderful our war fighters are. It's all of a piece. It's the same comic book understanding of and presentation of the world and their, the way they think about how the world ought to work.
- [07:45]
Joanna Cole
So you have written, I mean, you mentioned Fantasyland, which is a fantastic book explaining America's obsession with story land and conspiracy theories and religion. I mean, what did you see in Donald Trump when you first started mocking him at Spy magazine, which you were a co founder of with Graydon Carter? What was it in Trump? And I know we've talked about this before, but I can never get enough of it. And by the way, we have to come onto your lobster roll chic in a moment, which people wrote about in the comments last time you were on. But what was it specifically about Donald that you spotted 40 years ago?
- [08:34]
Kurt Andersen
All of his features, salient features today. The braggart, the bully, the liar, all of it. The craving to the point of what looks like addiction to me. Attention. All of those things. I mean, you know, later on and while we were doing spies, then the, you know, oh, let's execute these accused defendants who were later exonerated.
- [09:08]
Joanna Cole
The Central Park Five.
- [09:09]
Kurt Andersen
Exactly. So it wasn't initially any of any political thing at all. It was just, God, what an asshole this guy is. So that was it. And he was, you know, as we were starting spy in the mid late 80s as New York was kind of coming back from bankruptcy and all that. He was. And he was this extraordinary character in this also moment where tabloid newspapers had suddenly become a big deal in New York City especially as well as American culture. And he got them both to cover him relentlessly. And it was. He was putting on a show and we were, I don't know, at least jeering from the cheap seats and doing journalism and trying to expose him for the liar, bully, braggart he is when he was still purely a joke. He was just a rich boy who had built a couple of buildings and pretended he was king of the world and talked about back then starting in 1988, about being president, starting in our first issue of Spy where he was saying, I could negotiate the missile, you know, arms control treaty with Russia in an hour. I know everything I need to know about missiles. So he was the guy. He was that guy already, right?
- [10:34]
Joanna Cole
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- [12:05]
Kurt Andersen
Well, there's various kinds of fictions and narratives that all people but exceptionally Americans, I mean, we talk about American exceptionalism and that is one of our extreme ones, is we can make our own truth and live our own stories and invent our own lives. And that's why we come here from other Countries, we'll start afresh.
- [12:26]
Joanna Cole
Guilty as charged.
- [12:27]
Kurt Andersen
Well, and create a new version of ourself. Create a new country. So it was, as it was working well, had a good side and occasionally a bad side. The bad side was kept in check by the Enlightenment Founders, for instance, and their descendants ever since, until the last half century or so when the fetters came off and things kind of went off the rails. And so it was as though we had this chronic condition which. Which had its good side. And America was fun and America was more interesting than, say, Canada or, you know, definitely. It was, you know, and full of interesting oddballs and various, you know, ethnicities and characters and all that. And so, you know, I think, for instance, and in terms of precedents, President Andrew Jackson, great populist Democrat, small D, and I guess large D, and I
- [13:28]
Joanna Cole
think who Trump has sometimes modeled himself on. He has a portrait of him in the Oval Office.
- [13:33]
Kurt Andersen
Well, well, he, you know, was a horrible genocidal person as regards indigenous Americans, for one thing. So I'm sure Trump, to the degree he knows about that, thinks that's great. But he was. But he was also this actual military hero general or anything. Anyway, so he gets elected president and his first inauguration, he opens the White House, you know, the fairly new White House, to anybody who wants to come, you know, and it's 20,000 people show up in a city that probably didn't have a population of 20,000.
- [14:08]
Joanna Cole
Right. And obviously, pre social media.
- [14:11]
Kurt Andersen
Yes. And pre. High security and pre everything.
- [14:13]
Joanna Cole
Right.
- [14:14]
Kurt Andersen
And they trash the place, basically. They fill it up. They trash the place. There are too many people. President Jackson himself gets pushed up against the wall. His people, I mean, you know, no Secret Service, then somehow manage to get him out a window and he escapes. And then they lure the crowd out of the White House again. It's winter, it's March with barrels of whiskey and ice cream. So, I mean, talk about an American iconic event again. So, you know, we'll see what happens when. What's it called, UFC Freedom fights 250 happens or the Great American State Fair thereafter.
- [14:59]
Joanna Cole
Right, well, so the Great American State Fair is supposed to be this huge concert which several artists agreed to do, thinking it was going to be like a national state fair, like the bicentennial
- [15:11]
Kurt Andersen
was 50 years ago.
- [15:12]
Joanna Cole
Right. So Martina McBride, the Commodores, Florida, Milli Vanilli, who knew they were still going Michaels of Poison. Oh, really?
- [15:21]
Kurt Andersen
Yes.
- [15:21]
Joanna Cole
Okay. And now it turns out they're all pulling out because, as you say, as you mentioned at the beginning, Trump is able to politicize anything. And they discovered it's actually basically going to be a MAGA concert.
- [15:34]
Kurt Andersen
Yeah, well. And they immediately pulled out, which is has to be, you know, a humiliation and embarrassment and causing lots of shouting around the White House and panic because I believe this thing was announced on Wednesday. They started pulling out on Thursday, you know, I mean, so.
- [15:51]
Joanna Cole
Right.
- [15:53]
Kurt Andersen
Yeah. One wonders what the conversations between Rick Grinnell, who was part of it, or whomever was organizing this in the White House, and the representatives and agents of these performers, like, as you're suggesting. I'm sure they were told, oh, no, it's just, it's the great. It's the 250th. It's great. It'll just be a national celebration as opposed to inevitably because of what Trump and maga and Donald Trump's obsessive posting on his site indicate is that it is indeed a Republican MAGA event and would be and will be. Now, it's a little. Seems a little disingenuous that they had no clue of this inevitability, but maybe they don't pay attention. A lot of people don't pay attention to the news. I don't know.
- [16:42]
Joanna Cole
Well, it's possible they don't pay attention. It's possible that they were told other people were taking part and so they thought, well, if the Commodores are doing it or if, you know.
- [16:52]
Kurt Andersen
And otherwise too, like, oh, you know, McBride is a big star, you know, and millions.
- [16:59]
Joanna Cole
Right, Millions. So if you're told Martina McBride is going to be headlining.
- [17:03]
Kurt Andersen
Exactly.
- [17:03]
Joanna Cole
Probably. Like, oh, it's going to be like Live Aid or one of those big concerts that's sort of bigger. The sum of its parts is bigger than the individual artists.
- [17:11]
Kurt Andersen
And the comeback when these people pulled out is, oh, well, look, she performed at the White House when Obama was president. Like, yeah, because he was a normal president.
- [17:23]
Joanna Cole
Right.
- [17:23]
Kurt Andersen
You know, not because he was a Democrat. And she, therefore, she probably, I don't know. I mean, coulda would have might have performed at a George Bush thing too, you know, again, in the age before every move of everyone is, you know, you're on our side or the other side politically became a besetting tragedy about America.
- [17:48]
Joanna Cole
Well, and Rick Grenell, who was in Trump won the German or the ambassador to Germany and then got. Because in fact, everybody says Trump was like, he's gay. He can run the Kennedy Center. He ran the Kennedy center until everybody pulled out of performing at the Kennedy center, apart from I think Kid Rock, who will perform anywh for maga. So they shut the Kennedy center down because Trump was like, well, it needs
- [18:16]
Kurt Andersen
to be renamed for renovations.
- [18:18]
Joanna Cole
Right. And of course, it's not just the Kennedy center, it's the Donald J. Trump Kennedy Center. So they've shut it for renovations. That is, they can't get anybody to perform there anymore. Now Rick Grinnell's concert is disappearing. It's just. It's like, what is it? Spun sugar that's just melting in front of him?
- [18:37]
Kurt Andersen
Well, the thing is, you know, and of course, he answered in his social media way immediately when Mrs. McBride pulled out. Oh, you have always been a woke lefty. Not as far as I know.
- [18:51]
Joanna Cole
She's a country singer.
- [18:53]
Kurt Andersen
Well, I mean, yeah. And you know, they all say, oh, like Dixie Chicks alluding to something from 25 years ago about people who objected to the Iraq war. You know, I mean, that's their answer is, oh, you performed for Obama and you're just a woke lefty. I mean, the idiocy and reductive binary quality of every reaction like that is, oh, you're against this. Rather than this. It's just. It's pathetic. It is entirely pathetic, you know, and gets them nothing. Except for, you know, among the shrinking cult hardcore who are as stupid as they about like, oh, it's this. Or it's this, you're with us. Or you're an idiot and a sheep. So it's but a guy who ought to know better, who ought to have some sense of, how dare I say, dignity or shame or whatever, like just, oh, God, this is embarrassing. I'm just going to shut up. No, they never do that. They always spit back.
- [19:58]
Joanna Cole
They always spit back. So I tell you where they weren't spitting back around the Cabinet table at the Cabinet meeting this week where we were texting back and forth the New York Times sycophantic meter. Did you have a favorite among all of them who was the most sycophantic who held onto their power? And my favorite note was just the way that Scott Besant had written Resilience down there twice.
- [20:29]
Kurt Andersen
I think he wrote down Resilience.
- [20:30]
Joanna Cole
Yeah, I mean those motivational sort of Instagram. Well, they're motivational statements. It's so sweet that the Treasury Secretary has to write it on a piece of paper when he's meeting his boss too.
- [20:47]
Kurt Andersen
No. Well, it reminded me of if indeed it's that as the New York Times reporter reported, that it was this sort of self soothing.
- [20:58]
Joanna Cole
You can do this. Come on, Scotty.
- [21:00]
Kurt Andersen
Or maybe I mean more charitably, I guess he was Just saying here's the themes in my future television appearances. I need to. This is the talking point. Right. But whichever. It's sad.
- [21:11]
Joanna Cole
Well, he'd also written Operation Economic Fury. I know, which is quite a good phrase for him to say in the meeting, I think.
- [21:19]
Kurt Andersen
Indeed. And no. And I mean again, somebody who not only ought to know better, I mean he was a completely legitimate financial person, kind of like, you know, the warsh of his sector of the financial industry, who by being such a sycophant and being in his presentation such a kind of a weenie in the way he presents himself and in his, you know.
- [21:48]
Joanna Cole
Well, his Uriah heap. Isn't he in David? Precisely like oh, Mr. Trump, said Mr. Trump.
- [21:53]
Kurt Andersen
Well, they all that he is the most Uriah Hepi in the sigfund. We could in fact label each of them as the fictional character that they best.
- [22:00]
Joanna Cole
Oh, what a good idea. Yes. And also if you're watching at home, please, this is a perfect place to put in your comments of who are they most like.
- [22:08]
Kurt Andersen
Yes, yes. Well, Rubio. And again, they did this. I love data and I love infographics and they did this. Wonderful. They analyzed 12 hours of cabinet meeting, which is only like one cabinet meeting. Several. And who spoke the most and at each meeting and about each thing with little color coded charts. It was great. And who flattered the most. And they color coded by sheer speaking or flattery. It was great. I loved it. Anyway, Marco Rubio, to my surprise, actually was. Actually spoke the most and was the most flattering.
- [22:42]
Joanna Cole
Yeah. The most obsequious.
- [22:43]
Kurt Andersen
Now they left Pam Bondi out because she was a pretty obsequious flatterer. But like they left her out because it didn't work.
- [22:52]
Joanna Cole
And also she was a writer of motivational notes to herself. Do you remember during the hearings we got some shots of the little notes that she was writing to herself.
- [23:01]
Kurt Andersen
Now I'm surprised they still allow cameras to like go down to shows.
- [23:06]
Joanna Cole
I don't think they realize, do they? Because otherwise they would put something over the paper a bit like I'm doing here. Although it's a woefully small list of.
- [23:13]
Kurt Andersen
But that's happened so many times in the last 30 years. I remember with the first George Bush like message we care, remember? I don't know.
- [23:22]
Joanna Cole
The idea that you have to be reminded that you care when you're the president is also fantastic.
- [23:27]
Kurt Andersen
So Rubio was the most significant and Besant and Hegseth and Vance and Lutnick were the runners up.
- [23:35]
Joanna Cole
I thought Vance was the Least sycophantic.
- [23:38]
Kurt Andersen
No, Vance. No, not the least sycophantic. Less sycophantic than Rubio. And then it was interesting who is the least flattering and head of the CIA? Ratcliffe. Which sort of conformed with like, okay, he's one of the least embarrassing of those people and seems to be more or less doing his job.
- [23:58]
Joanna Cole
But that's partly because he's under the radar. So he's not thrusting himself forward.
- [24:02]
Kurt Andersen
True. But you know, I mean, again, he's somebody as one thinks like, how are these people thinking they're gonna get out of this? And what kind of career are they gonna have less. You see, he. And people like him are still thinking it appears or else they actually have some this much integrity instead of zero. I'm thinking about this is only going to last another two and a half years. I got to figure out the rest of my life. And the less I'm out there saying, you're the greatest president or leader of any country in history. Which literally some of them say the better. Duffy, the Transportation Secretary.
- [24:38]
Joanna Cole
Sean. Who's made himself a reality television series while he's supposed to be running the Department of United States.
- [24:44]
Kurt Andersen
That's what he was before he got this job.
- [24:46]
Joanna Cole
But you're supposed to give that up if you are running the Department of Transport.
- [24:50]
Kurt Andersen
Well, but you work for a president who every day wants to put on a show. So I don't think that's a problem with the job. Unless he gets too much attention.
- [24:59]
Joanna Cole
No, it's just a problem for the public.
- [25:02]
Kurt Andersen
Well, yes. And you mean the guy who has to run the aviation system of America? Yeah, I guess that is a problem.
- [25:07]
Joanna Cole
I think so.
- [25:07]
Kurt Andersen
I think to drive around for a few months with your family being filmed for your reality show. Yeah, that's.
- [25:13]
Joanna Cole
And then he said, I managed to get some work done in the back of the RV that he borrowed.
- [25:17]
Kurt Andersen
Yes. Yeah, so it is. And again, I mean, I can imagine people listening to this or watching this can say, oh, look, there's so many more important things to talk about. The world economy is being ruined, as we mentioned. America's place in the world is being diminished. There's a horrible war going on that we can't seem to get out of. That made no sense to. And now the choices.
- [25:42]
Joanna Cole
Hello, we've held up 20% of the world's fuel.
- [25:46]
Kurt Andersen
Exactly. All that. All these consequential things they could say. Why are you talking about this silly stuff? Well, it's summer is one reason, but. But you know, I mean, what's interesting, it's part of it is consequential because it's why heretofore he has been so popular because so many people like him and vote for him, especially not necessarily the hardcore, because, hey, this guy is fun. This guy's entertaining. My belief is, and I've seen focus group results to show that it's true is that lots of, say the younger people who don't pay that much attention to news and maybe we're even very aware of Trump first term, this guy's running in 23, 24. Hey, this kind of, this guy is interesting. He shakes it up. He's. I like watching him. Unlike other politicians, that's been a huge part of his power and success is the entertainment. So talking about his attempts at entertainment, at indulging his mania to build and fix the reflecting pool and overpay and a no bid contract for that and all this just all this like, let me do this, let me do this stuff that he can just do and order as opposed to negotiating with Congress to pass legislation or negotiating with Iran to stop this madness. He can just order it done and to see it. So it's consequential in that way because it's part of his governing power has been. But here it is, along with trying to do things that some Republicans are objecting to, like pay 1.8 billion to people such as the January 6 rioters are substantive things causing problems but failing at even this inconsequential stuff, like the Great American State Fair is like, wow, it feeds the correct view that I think is spreading among more and more and more people that, wow, he's kind of incompetent, isn't he? You know, he's not. You know, here we are trying to this authoritarian who can't even make the trains run on time. You know, it's right.
- [28:03]
Joanna Cole
It's like, what is the benefit to the public? Because the public are willing to forgive all sorts of weirdnesses if there is a benefit. But if there is no benefit, if they're paying higher prices at the pumps, if their neighbors are being picked up by ice.
- [28:19]
Kurt Andersen
Correct.
- [28:21]
Joanna Cole
Then things feel destabilized. And I think that's what makes people anxious.
- [28:28]
Kurt Andersen
Correct. And bread and circuses, as has been said leaders for thousands of years, is fine if you've got the bread, you know.
- [28:36]
Joanna Cole
Right.
- [28:37]
Kurt Andersen
But just the circus alone and giant ballrooms for rich people and giant tax benefits for rich people and giant crypto scams for rich people, while I can't afford meat at the Grocery store. That doesn't go down so well.
- [28:53]
Joanna Cole
Well, and I do think the slush fund for himself, him suing the treasury himself or the DOJ or whoever it was, and then deciding that this is the settlement and it's 1.77.
- [29:06]
Kurt Andersen
The settlement with himself.
- [29:07]
Joanna Cole
The settlement with himself where he's now going to pay people who've been, in theory, weaponized or who've had the Justice Department weaponized against them, that is the January 6th rioters, as you just mentioned, that surely is going to set people on edge. I mean, I don't know how anybody who even knows a policeman is okay with that.
- [29:27]
Kurt Andersen
No, exactly. Well, I've wondered about that about January 6th ever since it began being excused.
- [29:34]
Joanna Cole
Right. Well, when he pardoned everybody on his first day.
- [29:36]
Kurt Andersen
That too, so. And, and, you know, I mean, his second level of sycophants, not the circle in the cabinet, but the Republicans in Congress are also, certainly in the US Senate, are beginning to like, just be pissed off. Like, what are we getting out of this? He just got rid of two of our good, solid, you know, senators sitting Senators Cassidy in Louisiana and Corn in Texas for no good reason except he wants a more, in one case, a corrupt person like him who is also an absolute unwavering sycophant.
- [30:19]
Joanna Cole
Right. Well, the parallels with Ken Paxton and him are almost, well, they're surreal in terms of biblical style divorce and being impeached, you know, corruption charges. I mean, he's the thoroughly unpleasant man. Even the Republican Party in Texas said he's unfit for office. They were taking out ads against him,
- [30:42]
Kurt Andersen
impeached him, his fellow Republicans in the legislature. So, yeah, it's remarkable. And of course, because as he has been in so much in this year and a half in office driven by retribution and revenge against Cornyn for not being, you know, for being 98% supportive instead of 100% supportive against the legislators in Indiana, all these people. I mean, he was wasting so much time and money and attention in this attention economy on defeating his. Not even political enemies, just personal enemies, the people who don't want to be in the bunker with him all the time and follow his every order. I mean, spending the time punishing those people, not for any policy reasons, as, you know, left wing Democrats, primary moderate Democrats, that's a whole different thing. Maybe wrong or maybe right, but at least has a basis in reality rather than just, you offended me, I'm killing you.
- [31:49]
Joanna Cole
Right. You know, I am your father, but. And also now, but to the Democrat point, Eugene Carroll.
- [31:57]
Kurt Andersen
Well, exactly. And Eugene Carroll of course, who he sexually assaulted many years ago. It'd be true enough that he should have to pay a fine for having defamed her by denying that and then
- [32:12]
Joanna Cole
doubling down on it when he was found guilty of sexual and then being
- [32:15]
Kurt Andersen
fined another 80 million instead of just a few million. And so now he's got his Justice Department criminally investigating her and the people who may have funded her legal cases, which is, I mean, so wrong on so many levels and so pathetic and awful. Yet given the storm of awfulness that he brings about and his administration brings about like, I mean a story that might have in the old days, like it would be a weeks long story like discussing how bad this was and the abuse of the Department of Justice and what a waste, you know, it barely a one day story.
- [33:00]
Joanna Cole
Right.
- [33:01]
Kurt Andersen
I mean, and that's, you know, that's where we are.
- [33:06]
Joanna Cole
And also in the case against Eugene that was going through the courts, they already deliberated this issue and the judge threw it out. So at this point bringing it back. And their argument is that she didn't declare funding, that the case was being
- [33:22]
Kurt Andersen
funded and she perjured herself by saying, which is just, I mean, I mean we could go on and on about the degree to which he ran on. We must stop politicizing the Justice Department as was done against me. And of course it was never true. There's a Justice Department, you can make arguments about some New York state court, state prosecutions, but it was never done. And now he's doing it as it's never been done before. It's, you know, again, one of the true cliched things about Donald Trump is that, you know, every accusation is a confession.
- [33:57]
Joanna Cole
Well, every accusation is a confession and
- [33:59]
Kurt Andersen
this is an accident. And here, well, not even a confession. An accusation is, here's what I'm going to do this thing, I'm, you know, without basis accusing someone else of having done. So it's, it's, I mean it's, there's, at this point, there's nothing new in this, in this administration. It's just, you know, the shark has jumped so many times and so high that it's just another shark. Well, yep, hadn't done that before. Oh, oh, cage matches in the White House lawn. Yep, that's a new one. But it's, it's just still, it's like, and it is the phrase jumping the shark came about as a matter of TV writing, you know, the happy days. This is what writers in a writer's room do when they've run out of Good ideas. They're gonna have Fonzies ski and a shark jumps out of the water. And that became the meme for that idea. Well, to the degree the Trump administration and Trump's whole shtick is more than any other president ever, including Ronald Reagan, is a show, that's the level they've reached. Along with a guy who's days away from turning 80 and is obviously showing the signs, not good ones, of being that old.
- [35:18]
Joanna Cole
Right. One of the things that you tweeted out this week has been knocking around the Internet, but I wanted to just revisit it because it's extraordinarily prescient. Comes from Mad magazine, and it's Donald Trump as the wizard of Odds. When did this come out?
- [35:36]
Kurt Andersen
January 1991. And of course, I was well into my adulthood, verging on middle age by then, and so I was unaware of this in Mad. But it's extraordinary. I mean, I was. We were in the middle of doing Spy and having our own coverage of showing Trump's bullying and duplicity and corruption. Corruption and deeply cynical kind of criminal view of the world. Well, here he is. The premise is, it's one of these standard, you know, eight panel cartoons about Donald Trump. He is advising. He is the wizard, as in the wizard of Oz, advising the Tin man and the scarecrow and the lion and Dorothy what to do. As, of course, famously end of the wizard of Oz. The wizard does. And instead of saying, oh, just believe your courage or believe you're smarter, all the things happens in the movie, he says, don't be a sucker. You know, you don't need a job. Scarecrow jobs are for suckers. Or Tin Man. You should Tin what? You're plastic. You gotta be replaced in plastic. He goes on and on, just encouraging him to lie, cheat, stealing, and be a cynic with specifics about, you know, it's just a ring. So true. I had no idea. I mean, like, hats off Whoever wrote this 35 years later, right?
- [37:03]
Joanna Cole
I don't know if you're still alive who ever did this Mad Men cartoon, but you saw the future. You saw the future. And I want to refer people to your. You tweeted it, right? So you X'd it out. What is your ex account called?
- [37:18]
Kurt Andersen
It is called KB Anderson.
- [37:20]
Joanna Cole
KB Anderson. It's worth going and having a look at the whole thing.
- [37:23]
Kurt Andersen
Or Blue sky, if you prefer. Blue Sky. And I can't remember what my handle is on that, but there I am.
- [37:27]
Joanna Cole
Okay. I once had a Blue sky account. It's all too, you Know, threads, blue sky, all of it. And then you just. I just.
- [37:34]
Kurt Andersen
Another substack. You got to get there, too.
- [37:36]
Joanna Cole
I am on substack, but I'm saying,
- [37:38]
Kurt Andersen
oh, on the notes part, they're like,
- [37:40]
Joanna Cole
oh, you should post this on substack notes.
- [37:43]
Kurt Andersen
Well, I should.
- [37:44]
Joanna Cole
You definitely should.
- [37:45]
Kurt Andersen
Yeah, I should. Maybe I did. Yeah.
- [37:49]
Joanna Cole
Anyway, wherever you get your socials, you should look for this because it's so prescient, it's alarming.
- [37:55]
Kurt Andersen
But let me read a bit. I mean, he tells the Scarecrow, jobs are for losers. Scarecrow get into junk bonds or phony real estate schemes or get control of a union's pension fund. Better still, become a televangelist. There's a world out there just waiting to be taken.
- [38:10]
Joanna Cole
Oh, there's a world out there just waiting to be.
- [38:13]
Kurt Andersen
And then at the end, even better in a thing that, you know, we wouldn't have done in Spy then. Not because it would be too edgy, because I just wasn't that aware of it. He sits, you know, Dorothy down on his knee and basically is grooming her. Like, hey, when you're old enough, you know, you know, we can. That was just when his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein was beginning.
- [38:35]
Joanna Cole
Of course. No shades of Epstein. I mean, how about this? Stick around and I'll put you up in a penthouse with a limo and ten grand a week in spending money. In a couple of years, after you fill out, you could be my steady bimbo. What an invitation.
- [38:52]
Kurt Andersen
I mean, you know, I mean, no, it is remarkable.
- [38:56]
Joanna Cole
He is unifier. He is unifier. I want Melania to read this because I wonder if she did read it, we should send her this in the Post. And by the way, she never reads her mail.
- [39:06]
Kurt Andersen
But speaking of Melania, you know, of course, he, Donald Trump, I believe this morning said in a truth social post
- [39:14]
Joanna Cole
about, oh, Dr. Jill Biden. We haven't even talked about that yet.
- [39:19]
Kurt Andersen
Well, he said, like, because in her new book, she talks about how interestingly and obviously, frankly. And when Joe Biden was fumbling and not answering and doing his disastrous debate in June of 2024 with Donald Trump, she thought, she says now in this book, I thought he might be having a stroke, as one would think. And of course, what does Donald Trump say? Not like, I'm glad to see some frankness about whatever she says. Well, why didn't she go run on stage and see about him, as any loving wife would? And that's the thing I would like to have Melania see and say, really, what would I have done in that case went on stage.
- [40:05]
Joanna Cole
What would Melania have done?
- [40:07]
Kurt Andersen
Well, you know, I mean, because we
- [40:09]
Joanna Cole
all remember Wendy Deng when in the case in Parliament when someone tried to throw a cream pie at Rupert Murdoch. Wendy Deng, his then wife. And he's had a table since then. Yeah, she leapt across the table to protect him and I think hit the person who had thrown the pie.
- [40:28]
Kurt Andersen
Tiger wife.
- [40:29]
Joanna Cole
Tiger wife. Tiger wife. He's had a few more since then.
- [40:33]
Kurt Andersen
No, I mean, the thing about the idea of Melania Trump doing that, who can barely touch him or, you know, doesn't want to spend time with him, obviously would like go into some mode that we have never witnessed even a hint of, kind of, that kind of, I don't know, normal spousal, you know, defense. I mean, it's just, it's. Again, every accusation is a confession.
- [41:02]
Joanna Cole
Every accusation is a confession. So, Kurt Anderson, the last time you were on, you were in your Connecticut home. Lovely home, if I may say, because I have been there. And you were wearing a gingham shirt, which a lot of people commented on and said they approved of your. This was someone's term. It was a brilliant term. Lobster roll chic.
- [41:25]
Kurt Andersen
Yeah. I'd never heard that. And I. Fine, I'll take it. Yeah, I don't love lobster rolls, but. Great.
- [41:30]
Joanna Cole
How can you not love a lobster roll?
- [41:31]
Kurt Andersen
I know, I know.
- [41:32]
Joanna Cole
I think they'll be selling them on the south lawn.
- [41:34]
Kurt Andersen
The good ones are fine, but anyway. Yes, that was nice. And. Well, you know, you know, we don't always wear ties and jackets. Look, you have some Montana cowgirl.
- [41:47]
Joanna Cole
Well, this is my, this is my. Yeah, this is my new T shirt. Yeah.
- [41:51]
Kurt Andersen
From Zara. It's summer. I love summer. It's summer and summer. You know, I don't know. This, this is less lobster roll and more like barbecue, I guess.
- [42:00]
Joanna Cole
She again, very ufc. Well, they're bound to have barbecue on the stuff.
- [42:05]
Kurt Andersen
Well, truly, I mean, I grew up in Nebraska. I like going to rodeos. I like going to, you know, drag races and, and, and giant car fights and I love all that stuff, you know, but. And you know, I loved it when, when everything didn't. Wasn't a political signifier, you know, and
- [42:23]
Joanna Cole
when we weren't in a forever war.
- [42:25]
Kurt Andersen
Well, this isn't a forever. Well, I mean, it depends how well
- [42:28]
Joanna Cole
it could be a forever war.
- [42:30]
Kurt Andersen
Well, it is.
- [42:31]
Joanna Cole
I mean, the straight of Paulmuz is not yet open.
- [42:34]
Kurt Andersen
No. But this guy, I don't think is ever going to send in, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands of troops to somehow not back out. I mean, that's an interesting thing about. More seriously about this war is his basic disinclination to actually commit to like, no, we really have to fight this war because it's important. Because he doesn't think it's important. He knows it's not. He just, let's bomb some stuff, let's blow up some things. That's all it's about. And let's bring them to heel, as I'm able to do with all of my cabinet members and the entire Republican Party. Let's bring them to heel. And we'll threaten to kill him and we will kill them. And by the way, Oman ally, we'll blow you up too. He said the other day.
- [43:18]
Joanna Cole
Yep.
- [43:19]
Kurt Andersen
You know, so it's all talk in this case, talk that also kills a few thousand people and destroys, you know, threatens to and teeters the global economy and everything else but his so far. I mean, the taco part of Donald Trump. Trump always chickens out in terms of actually doing more than just wasting munitions and wrecking the economy and the global political order. Besides those, the idea of getting into a forever war of any of the kinds we've been in in his, you know, lifetime, effectively, I mean, Since World War II, Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan, he just, he doesn't want. He understands in his basic way, not as a matter of virtue or isolationism. God knows he's not an isolationist, we've discovered. But just, I don't want to be the guy who gets in a terrible war because I remember being, you know, 20 years old when Lyndon Johnson and then Richard Nixon were fighting Vietnam. And that's not what you do. Not what you do. Again, I'm not implying any moral feeling. I'm implying like that's the quagmire that destroys presidencies.
- [44:41]
Joanna Cole
Well, and he understands the value of pictures and television. And he doesn't want the images of body bags coming back of American soldiers. Right, right. And he understands that the power of those pictures of the bombs that they put out with videos at the beginning, sort of intercut gaming images can be very powerful. And then people move on. They don't want to see that.
- [45:04]
Kurt Andersen
Well, and that's the thing. I mean, the other thing. And again, it's not as important as the Iranian regime's resilience. And to not be destroyed by this war is their skill, really remarkable skill in the first week, month or so of those Lego Lego videos. I mean, the skill both of visually and the speed of each of them responding to real Life events and the sophistication of the take, you know, not too much, you know, we will crush you and kill you. Praise to Allah. I mean, it was just, it was absolutely brilliant. And, you know, so much, I hate to say it, but so much better than I can imagine the United States doing. Whatever the United States equivalent of good propaganda is to support even a just war, like say Ukraine against Russia, it just wouldn't be as good. It's like, wow, somebody in that, you know, corruption, military dictatorship, theocratic regime is giving the kids some leeway to do great propaganda.
- [46:27]
Joanna Cole
Yeah, well, who knows what's going to happen? Who knows? I mean, also, frankly, a genius move to figure out they can close the Strait of Hormuz. There's 1500 tankers sitting in the Gulf unable to get out, which presumably, I
- [46:44]
Kurt Andersen
mean, that's the thing again, I want the book on this to know, like, what did they know? I mean, of course, I guess they knew that I hadn't ever thought enough about how a scenario like this could play out to say, well, of course they have this power that is not nuclear, but like next best thing. And unlike nuclear, usable.
- [47:04]
Joanna Cole
Right. And it's more effective in a way because it's the slow choking of energy to countries that rely on it.
- [47:12]
Kurt Andersen
Correct. And you know, there had been a prelude with, you know, like out of town rehearsal with the Houthis firing drones and things and saying, look, this can be done. Like it wasn't out of the blue, you know, that it had been demonstrated, you know, essentially that this could happen.
- [47:35]
Joanna Cole
Well, and all the experts in Iran, before they were fired, would red team on what happens if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, it's been known by foreign affairs and intelligence analysts that this is a potential choke point for global affairs.
- [47:52]
Kurt Andersen
And obviously that was said to him surely sometime before this war started. And he just like ignored it as he didn't hear it as he does something. And, you know, for whatever set of reasons, you know, Bibi Netanyahu was so persuasive in presenting in the Situation Room how this is going to be great and we're going to, you know, the people will rise and all those untruths that didn't happen. And this three week war of liberation and suddenly a democratic Iran didn't happen. I mean, it's, it's astounding in a way, but it's just an extreme version of what he is, which is he doesn't listen to experts, he knows what he feels, he knows what he wants to See, he wants to see him all blown up and surrender immediately. And so he did it. And he had a more successful and sophisticated and intelligent autocrat. Okay, maybe Netanyahu is not yet an autocrat, I guess, but tell him, no, no, it's good, Donald, it's good. Do it, do it. You know, there we are.
- [49:01]
Joanna Cole
And he fell into the trap that the previous five presidents refused to fall into.
- [49:05]
Kurt Andersen
Right. Well, and yes, indeed. And had not and refused to entirely sign off on, for instance, the two state solution being a wink, wink, nod, nod, this is still what we hope to do. And saying no, no, you know, the far right of Israel should get what it wants. I agree. Go for it. You know, short of so far, you know, annexing the west bank just because the Gulf states, his Gulf State friends would find that problematic.
- [49:37]
Joanna Cole
And of course, his vice president, J.D. vance, very cleverly and quickly signaled that he was the one person in the room that didn't like this idea. Now he seems to be being punished. He'd been sent off to Pakistan to organize the peace deals. He's been put in charge of fraud. I mean, I think Trump is doing everything he can. We had Jen Walsh on the podcast on Friday and she was making the point. She said, he's just rat fucking J.D. vance into oblivion at this point. He's just loading him up. Seems like, because JD Actually has signaled his distance with the President here, which
- [50:12]
Kurt Andersen
is, you know, and again, that's all about playing for 2028, because what do you have to do in 2028 to be a successful Republican candidate in this stage when, apart from Trump, there are tremendous fissures to my mind, deeper fissures than in the Democratic Party between the, you know, the pro Israel, anti Israel isolationists and not all of it traditional Republicans economically and, you know, people who sound like, you know, Bernie Sanders, Tucker Carlson. So there's a lot of fissures there. And how if you're J.D. vance or Marco Rubio, but J.D. vance, how do you play that? How much can you find, afford to distance yourself from Donald Trump and these nonsensical, incompetent, stupid national security policies now, I mean, there's still two years left. He's still your boss, right? But once he leaves office, depending on how that goes, you know, it's a very, very tricky thing for the Marco Rubios and, and J.D. vance is the world to be figuring out. And it's again, just on the pure, I guess it's chess, chess game level of politics, really remarkable to see. And given that, again, I Guess he has some beliefs. And I suppose Marco has or had some beliefs. Donald Trump doesn't. And much of those surrounding him don't. So it becomes more of a pure game. It's not like, oh, what can I get for the policies I really want for those people? It's just like, how can we be the center of action and be as powerful as possible?
- [52:00]
Joanna Cole
Well, and we know that the one thing he's going to do is try and undermine them because he doesn't want them to succeed him. He wants scorched earth in terms of the people around him.
- [52:11]
Kurt Andersen
A child of his. And people used to talk about Don Jr. Being a child of his, that he would like to succeed him, but he won't go to his wedding because he's got a golf game. And to think about Iran, obviously, you know, I don't know at this point that Donald Trump Jr. Had a real chance to be a nominee for president, but I can imagine, I could have imagined him running, I mean, if his father urged him to. But he seemed to be signaling that, you know, he doesn't want anyone to follow him. I mean, it is one of the, you know, it's not an exceptional way to be somebody, you know, within sight of the end. Right. Apres moi, la deluge. And I don't give a fuck what happens after I go to the Republican Party or even kind of sort of, you know, let's say Don Jr. Let alone J.D. vance or Marco Rubio.
- [53:07]
Joanna Cole
Okay. Well, we have an early copy of your new book, the Breakup, Kurt Anderson. It's not out until September, so we're not going to talk about it. But it's very exciting to have it and it's so big. I'm glad because it's going to take me several months to read it.
- [53:22]
Kurt Andersen
Yeah. Well, now I'm glad you got it in the summer. It's a summer read. And by the way, yes. It's not out until August 18th.
- [53:28]
Joanna Cole
August 18th. Okay.
- [53:29]
Kurt Andersen
August 18th. And pre orderable anytime.
- [53:32]
Joanna Cole
Pre orderable. The Breakup by Kurt Anderson. Kurt, thank you very much for coming into this G day. I love my job so much because I just get to talk about the thing I love the most, America, with the people who have such original, interesting takes on it. And you saw 40 years, 40 years ago the crazy that Donald Trump brought to the world. And here he is. Here he is. And it's Donald Trump's world. And we're just living in it.
- [54:00]
Kurt Andersen
True. And it's always a pleasure.
- [54:06]
Joanna Cole
I can't wait to read the Breakup, Kurt's books because Evil Genius is one of his books, and Fantasyland, another of his books. Really get at the crazy elements of America. I loved when he said America's just more fun than Canada, although Canada's suddenly looking much more attractive than it has done on the occasional visit I've had there. Anyway, I know we have a lot of Canadians watching, so I'm very curious to know what you think. Is America more fun or is it just more crazy than Canada? And actually, Canada is going to have the last laugh. If you have been. Thank you for joining. Don't forget to subscribe. Big shout out to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro, and Neil Rosenhaus. 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.