I Know Why Trump's Slimy Goon Squad is Unravelling

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Daily Beast Podcast

Episode: I Know Why Trump's Slimy Goon Squad is Unravelling
Host: Joanna Coles
Guest: David Rothkopf
Date: June 23, 2026

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Overview

This episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, hosted by Joanna Coles with regular guest David Rothkopf, dives deep into the ongoing dysfunction and corruption within Donald Trump's administration during his second presidency. The discussion dissects Trump’s self-aggrandizing tendencies, chronic mismanagement (from vanity projects to diplomatic debacles), family drama, and global political shifts. With trademark irreverence and sharp wit, Coles and Rothkopf examine how “Trump’s slimy goon squad” and the broader Republican apparatus are unraveling, with special attention paid to foreign policy failures (especially Iran), domestic grift, familial dysfunction, and the symbolic destruction of D.C. landmarks.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Trump, Corruption, and ‘Grift Force One’

• Trump’s Vanity Projects:
  • Trump’s obsession with personal monuments, including “banners of his big ugly face hanging all over downtown D.C.,” and projects like a “gilded ballroom for billionaires” and an arch “to honor himself” (01:00, Joanna Coles).
  • The new presidential airplane, dubbed “Grift Force One,” was a “$400 million gift” from Qatar—upgraded with a billion taxpayer dollars, with the deal that Trump keeps it after his presidency.
    • Quote: “This is corruption at a scale we have never seen… and he’s bragging about it.” (01:00, Joanna Coles)
• Symbolic Vandalism:
  • Trump is caricatured as the “vandal in chief” defacing both literal and metaphorical American institutions (01:00, 18:12).

2. Foreign Policy Fiascos and JD Vance’s Ordeal

• JD Vance as Fall Guy:
  • JD Vance, sent to Switzerland to attempt an Iran peace deal, is portrayed as Trump’s scapegoat, “[yodeling] for peace with the Omanis and the Pakistanis” (05:33, Joanna Coles).
  • Trump undermines Vance’s diplomatic efforts publicly on Truth Social and privately “talks shit about JD Vance” while cynically playing him and Marco Rubio off each other (06:46, Joanna Coles).
    • Quote: “He's first in line to take credit for things he thinks he can get credit for, and he is the first to push it away.” (06:46, Joanna Coles)
• No-Win Negotiations:
  • Any new Iran agreement will be “less good than the Obama agreement,” and Trump’s saber-rattling is described as empty, with Iranians exploiting his lack of genuine leverage (08:27, Joanna Coles).
    • Quote: “Trump has a secret…he has no cards. All the cards he says he has? He has no cards.” (08:27, Joanna Coles)
  • American and European exhaustion: Both hosts speculate why outrage is muted—Europe tries to “ride it out,” and 70% of Americans oppose the war but feel helpless (14:40, Joanna Coles).

3. The Reflecting Pool Debacle

• Failed Renovation as Metaphor:
  • What should have been a simple project turned into an embarrassing fiasco: faulty materials, dead wildlife, and now a tourist attraction for anti-Trump memes (16:53–18:09).
    • Quote: “He’s literally building a swamp in the middle of Washington. The ‘drain the swamp’ guy!” (23:10, Joanna Coles)
  • Trump blames imaginary vandals for a “250-foot gash,” but surveillance footage would have caught any real vandalism.
    • Quote: “Of course it’s all made up...There are cameras all around the pool.” (22:24, Joanna Coles)
• Meta-Vandalism:
  • Trump is compared with vandals of the Capitol, but as Coles notes: “Donald Trump is the man who is defacing the nation’s capital.” (18:12, Joanna Coles)

4. Dysfunctional Trump Family Dynamics

• Father’s Day Drama:

  • The Trump Organization lavishes praise on Eric Trump (“he is…its engine and its next great chapter”) while Don Jr. is snubbed. Tiffany and Barron are barely mentioned; Ivanka has distanced herself, and Jared Kushner is “out there negotiating” shady deals (32:42–36:29).
    • Quote: “When I think of Don and Eric, I think of Beavis and Butthead.” (41:16, Joanna Coles)
  • The hosts speculate the family will have to “change their names” to escape the taint of Trumpism (40:38, Joanna Coles).

• Lonely President:

  • Trump described as isolated—alone, eating fast food in his room, “like Howard Hughes or something…except he’s the fucking President of the United States!” (34:54, Joanna Coles).

• Contrast with Past Presidents:

  • Reflections on Obama, Bush, and Clinton reveal “normal” affection and decency, which is “yearned for” amidst the Trump era’s “black hole of malevolent bad governance” (42:03–57:14).

5. Media Critique: The Journalism of Withholding

• Book vs. Breaking News:
  • Coles criticizes journalists like Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, and Bob Woodward for hoarding major revelations for eventual books rather than immediate reporting, calling it an “offense to journalism” (29:41–31:48).
    • Quote: “Something has happened in journalism today where it’s perfectly acceptable to go and gather up all this stuff and not report it until you get paid.” (30:19, Joanna Coles)

6. Global Political Upheavals

• British Turmoil:
  • Keir Starmer’s resignation—analyzed as an example of poor front-line leadership and bad political decisions, likened to the instability of Italian politics (43:49–46:14).
  • Discussion of rising “democratic socialists” in cities like D.C. and NY; the difference between leftist “good governance” and tired political labels (47:17–50:16).
• Out-of-Touch Elites:
  • Ivanka and Jared’s real estate ventures in Albania draw protest, exemplifying billionaire detachment from regular people’s realities (37:57, Joanna Coles).

7. Wider Context: The Failure of Governance

• Trump’s Legacy:
  • Rothkopf lists 50 Trump initiatives—finding “every single one…had a bad outcome” and challenges listeners to name one positive meaningful policy (50:16).
• Widespread Cynicism:
  • 70% of under-40 Americans don’t believe in the American Dream anymore; demands for basic, competent government are at a breaking point (51:57–53:38).
    • Quote: “We’re living at a nadir… governments are not actually meeting the needs of people…” (51:57, Joanna Coles)

8. The Trillionaire Gap and Musk Critique

• Musk’s fortune is dissected as “illusory wealth”, drawing a sharp moral distinction between Musk-style grift and the average American’s shrinking opportunities (54:12, Joanna Coles).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trump’s grandiosity:

  • “He's building an arch to honor himself, and banners of his big ugly face hanging all over downtown D.C.” (01:00, Joanna Coles)

• On JD Vance’s Iran role:

  • “He is the smarmiest guy in the world... He was trying to kiss ass and defend him and he sounded like a dork.” (10:19, Joanna Coles)

• On European leaders’ strategy:

  • “Their plan is ride it out, manage Trump... And they don’t want to have to go through that. So I think they’re just being sensible.” (14:40, Joanna Coles)

• On the reflecting pool:

  • “When it heated up, algae started to grow. There was a picture over the weekend of a dead duck floating around in the algae. It was so sad.” (18:09, David Rothkopf)

• On Ivanka and billionaire detachment:

  • “They don’t live on the same planet as we do... There are 1100 billionaires in the United States that live in a life on a different planet from the rest of us.” (37:57, Joanna Coles)

• On the failure of governance:

  • “I made a list of 50… major Trump initiatives. And every single one of them was bad, and every single one of them had a bad outcome.” (50:16, Joanna Coles)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Timestamp | Topic Summary | |------------|--------------| | 01:00 | Trump’s self-vandalism, “Grift Force One,” and personal aggrandizement | | 05:33 | JD Vance’s Iran mission and setup as scapegoat | | 08:27 | Limitations and failures of Trump’s Iran strategy | | 14:40 | Why European and American outrage is muted | | 16:53 | The reflecting pool fiasco & D.C. as symbol of Trumpism | | 22:24 | Trump’s invented “vandalism” at the pool exposed | | 29:41 | Critique of Haberman, Swan, and Woodward’s book-first journalism | | 32:42 | Eric Trump praised, Don Jr. and others snubbed | | 34:54 | Description of Trump’s isolated, Howard Hughes-like behavior | | 41:16 | Dysfunctional Trump family dynamics, “Beavis and Butthead” comparison | | 43:41 | Keir Starmer’s resignation and British political crisis | | 47:17 | Rise of “real” leftist governance and what it means | | 50:16 | Failures of Trump governance, exhaustion with political labels | | 54:12 | Elon Musk and the myth of the benevolent billionaire | | 57:14 | Reflections on past presidents versus Trump’s adversarial style |

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Tone and Language

• The episode is fast-paced, irreverent, peppered with sharp, sometimes profane humor and memorable analogies.
• Coles and Rothkopf are openly critical, blending exasperation with darkly comic wit.
• Historical, contemporary, and cultural references abound, keeping the conversation lively, insightful, and engaging for an audience already skeptical of Trumpist politics.

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Summary Conclusion

This episode underscores the perceived unraveling of Trump’s inner circle—highlighting chaos, incompetence, corruption, and familial dysfunction—while connecting the administration’s failures to broader themes of institutional decay, elite detachment, and a crisis of faith in governance. Through a mix of satire, outrage, and exasperation, Coles and Rothkopf paint Trump as the supreme vandal—defacing not just buildings but the basic fabric of American governance and identity.

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Joanna Coles]

Who is building an arch to honor himself and who's got banners of his big ugly face hanging all over downtown D.C. now that's what I would call a vandal. And so Donald Trump is the vandal in chief. Grift Force One. This flying bribe that has come here from Qatar while Americans can't afford gas, can't afford food, are getting kicked off health care. Go. And it's the most luxurious plane in the world. Everybody knows that the deal he struck with Qatar, when he leaves the presidency, the plane goes with him. He gets to keep it. It's beyond this is corruption at a scale that we have never seen it. And he's bragging about it.

[David Rothkopf]

I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. It's Monday, so we must be with David Rothkop. And indeed we are. Where we're going to talk about a lonely figure on the international stage, JD Vance, as his boss tries to undermine him on Truth Social. We're going to talk about why did the Trump Organization single out Eric Trump for Love on Father's Day and forget about his other children? Who knows why? And we're going to talk about the drama unfolding as we have this conversation in the UK as the British prime minister resigns, signs it's all action. And don't forget Grift Force One, the new plane from Qatar that David has very strong opinions about. So let's get into it. David Rothkopf.

[Joanna Coles]

Joanna Coles, where are you today?

[David Rothkopf]

I am still in the south of France, my friend. I am not going to complain. We have record temperatures, record amounts of in Bottles flowing everywhere, champagne everywh. And everybody is very excited about the transformation in the advertising business. That's why I'm here, to hustle up dollars. Which reminds me that we would love you to subscribe to the Daily Beast if you haven't. This is your moment to show your support for independent media. And they don't come much more independent than David Rothkopf.

[Joanna Coles]

Yeah, show your support for independent media and help pay for Joanna's return flight from Cannes.

[David Rothkopf]

Thank you. Yes, my return point.

[Joanna Coles]

People do not subscribe. She's not coming back.

[David Rothkopf]

I'm gonna get stuck there. Well, that will encourage people to not subscribe, David. So listen, we've got, you know, I know it was Father's Day in the US Yesterday. We have to talk about the dis to Don Jr. Who didn't appear in his father's truth social rantings, but Eric Trump did. So lots of love for Eric Trump from the Trump Organization, but no love for Don Jr. We must talk about a lonely day for J.D. vance. I'm sure he would rather have been at home with his three children, but instead he was in Switzerland yodeling for peace with the Omanis and the Pakistanis. And I'm dying to talk about the accusations of vandalism at the long reflecting pool that Trump says has been slashed as if it were The Friday the 13th movie and Freddy Krueger appearing at night. And instead, it turns out a former Olympian has been arrested for pinching a bit of floating paint. So where do we begin? We've got Grift Force One, as Hugh calls it, the new airplane from Qatar. And we've. Well, last time we talked, we mentioned the ufc, because that had happened the day before. We've also had the Obama library, which it's just the juxtaposition of UFC fighting the reflecting pool reflecting nothing. The ballroom in a demolition crisis, and then all the other ex presidents, like a sort of band back together in Chicago. But I guess we should start with the Iran deal and what's happening. And poor J.D. vance, as I said, yodeling, yodeling.

[Joanna Coles]

Poor J.D. vance. We all feel terrible for J.D.

[David Rothkopf]

i'm sure he's eating a lot of Toblerone. I hope he is. And cheese and clocks. I mean, what else is Switzerland for?

[Joanna Coles]

Well, there's something else Switzerland is for, and that is to dispose of vice presidents you don't like very much. And this is what Donald Trump is doing. It's like, here's this thing that Donald Trump has not been able to solve that is really impossible to solve on the terms that Donald Trump wants to solve it, and somebody's gotta be the fall guy. And he's like, who could I pick from around here? And he goes, well, maybe it's that guy JD Vance or whatever the name he's using these days is. Let's send him over there and. And then when we have to strike a lousy deal, we'll say, well, that was J.D.

[David Rothkopf]

don't you remember when the Maduro extraction happened, that Trump was everywhere talking about it? He was everywhere. And of course he's pushed J.D. vance out to negotiate this impossible peace deal that the Iranians are just frankly laughing at. And then he's undermining J.D. vance's attempts by his Truth Social posts. Please explain.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, yeah, and also we seem to be hearing in all sorts of stories and upcoming books and all kinds of other nonsense that he, like, talks shit about JD Vance behind his back. And he's always going up to people going, who do you like better, JD Or Marco? You know, and he's kind of playing them off of each other like his kids, right? Like he did this weekend with Eric and Don Jr. But, you know, you talk about something else that's pure Trump, which is he is first in line to take credit for things he thinks he can get credit for, and he is the first to push it away. And I would expect any minute Don Jr. To be named the head of the committee to fix the Reflecting Pool,

[Narrator/Interjection]

because

[Joanna Coles]

why not give that thankless job to him? Since of course we know the reason for the problems with the Reflecting Pool. But with Iran, the problem is this. Every single available solution is less good than where we were the day before the war started and less good than where we were the day before the Obama agreement was torn up by Trump. And so he's going to get an agreement on nukes that's less good than the Obama agreement. And we saw this already because JD Came out and said, look, we have an agreement and they're going to allow inspectors in. And that's fantastic. And people need to stop and just sort of go back and look at their notes because that was in the Obama agreement. Iran's promise not to have nuclear weapons was in the Obama agreement and in the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. And all the way back to 1957, they kept saying it. So he is achieving nothing. Trump knows he will achieve nothing, because Trump has a. Trump has a secret that he actually knows in some part of his lizard brain, and that is he has no cards. All the cards he says he has. I have all the cards. He has no cards. And he rolled out the Republican Party over the weekend. Lindsey Graham, a bunch of other sort of spear carriers in the Republican Party all come out and go, if we don't have a deal, then we are going to go out and we're gonna bomb them. And of course, the Iranians know something that Lindsey Graham doesn't know, which is there's no way Donald Trump's gonna go back to war. There's no way Donald Trump is gonna go and try and take over the Strait of Hormuz. This war is despised by 70% of the American people. It's gonna cause economic hardship for everybody through the elections, no matter what they do. And so Trump's stuck. He knows whoever negotiates the deal is gonna end up with egg on his face. And so he goes, hmm, how about the guy with the beard?

[David Rothkopf]

How about the guy who's trying to promote his book Finding My Way Back to Faith?

[Joanna Coles]

Yeah. I mean, what a guy. What a guy. This weekend, he was meeting with a Pakistani, and he said, you know, the most important people in my life are an Indian and a Pakistani, my and you. They're the only ones I talked. Even though his wife is, of course, from Southern California.

[David Rothkopf]

Right. His wife is American. Her parents are Indian.

[Joanna Coles]

Exactly. But he is the smarmiest guy in the world. And today, when somebody said, well, the Iranians don't like it when Trump threatens them, Vance said, well, we told them this is what we call in America, trash talk. And if they talk trash about him, he's gonna talk trash about them.

[Narrator/Interjection]

And

[Joanna Coles]

he was trying to kiss ass and defend him, and he sounded like a dork. And of course, the interesting thing about all this is that the very beginning of the MOU specifically says that neither side will threaten the other side.

[David Rothkopf]

Right, right. And what does Donald Trump do? He can't stop himself, David. He cannot stop himself.

[Joanna Coles]

That's right, because he's never made an agreement that he hasn't broken, and that's where we are here. And so what happened last night, right before markets opened, they said, okay, but maybe we're making some progress, because they don't want. The thing they fear is not the Iranians, it's the stock market.

[David Rothkopf]

Well, maybe they fear the Iranians a little bit, too.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, I mean, they fear the Iranians are going to push harder and harder because the Iranians are really good at that. And the Iranians know that there's nothing that Trump can say no to that they can't overrule. And we saw that because Trump said there will be no tolls. And then the Iranians go, well, there'll be an administrative fee and we're gonna go ahead and do this anyway. And Trump's like, yeah, well, maybe there needs to be an administrative fee. And the Iranians said, Trump's like, we're gonna get rid of missiles. And the Iranians said, no, we need missiles. And so then Trump comes out and goes, well, we can't take away their, can we? And so forth. And they're going to hold his feet to the fire and he's going to realize, I think if we stop and we look at Donald Trump's benighted life and his five or six bankruptcies and his three failed marriages and the kids who hate him and the business partners who don't want to do business with him anymore and all the stupid, fucked up things Donald Trump has done in his life, this is one of the worst. This is going to be one of his signature failures as president. Because this war. Wall street bank on Friday estimated that the total cost to the planet of this war could be a trillion dollars to the global economy. And the war itself, probably, probably, they estimate, has cost $130 billion minimally. And there is no level on which him starting this war is working out for him.

[Narrator/Interjection]

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[David Rothkopf]

Well, nothing about his treatment of Iran has made sense. Right the minute he ripped up the jcpoa, the Obama administration agreement, the Iranians immediately started enriching uranium again. They immediately embarked on the nuclear program requiring the obliteration, in theory, obliteration last summer. And now we're in a worse position. I do not understand why more people aren't outraged by this. I don't understand why more European leaders aren't outraged by it. I mean, Giorgio Maloney gets outraged because he's put out nonsense about wanting her begging for a selfie. And she's like, Italians, we don't beg. We never beg.

[Joanna Coles]

I love that.

[David Rothkopf]

Why aren't they more outraged by what has gone on here?

[Joanna Coles]

Because I think that the European leaders, for the most part, are rational. Human beings who realize that getting outraged is not gonna get them anything. And their whole plan, and I've talked to some European diplomats about this, I think their plan is ride it out, manage Trump. They've got the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Ruta, the former Prime Minister of Holland, and he kisses Trump's ass a little bit, and some of the others stroke him. And Macron is one day tough on him and one day nice. And Keir Starmer, the outgoing Prime Minister of the uk, One day tough on him, and one day nice. Giorgia Maloney, when she yells at him, she says, but, you know, I could have been your ally. I support some of the things that you support. And I think they're just trying to get to the end of this nightmare because they know that if he gets pissed off, then he starts tariffs, we're gonna have tariffs, we're gonna have bad trade deals. I'm pulling my troops out. I'm not, you know, and they don't wanna have to go through that. So I think they're just being sensible. As for Americans being outraged, Joanna, the poll this weekend said 70% of the American people don't approve of this. That's as outraged as America gets, because 30% of America thinks the earth is flat.

[David Rothkopf]

Right? So the rest of us think that the war in Iran was a bad idea. So, David, on top of the Reflecting Pool. Can we just have a moment on the Reflecting Pool? Because it's supposed to be ready by July 4th, it appears that the whole thing is gonna have to be redone. We know the contract didn't go out to. It went to a friend of Donald Trump's. Are we surprised that the Reflecting Pool is reflecting nothing but the corruption and the greed and the, frankly, grift of this current administration?

[Joanna Coles]

First of all, that's a rhetorical question, because clearly we're not surprised, right? But secondly, let's just break this down a little bit. Did you see the picture of the guy who got the contract?

[David Rothkopf]

Of course I saw him. He looks like a Mafia don. He looks like a Mafia don. I mean, when Hugh Docherty, our executive editor, got that picture, he was beside himself. I mean, the hair, the moustache, the overcoat.

[Joanna Coles]

He doesn't look like a Mafia don. He looks like a kid in high school playing a Mafia don in the high school production of the Sopranos.

[David Rothkopf]

Okay?

[Joanna Coles]

Fact, he's, like, holding a big cigar and he's got this cheesy coat on. But the reality is this, Trump screws up things all the time. Trump is the tackiest person on earth. But this was a really big. I mean, let's look at this. The reflecting pool was fine, right? And he thought it was a little dirty. And so he said, well, okay, let's refinish the bottom of the reflecting pool. It wasn't that tough. It didn't take that many days. And yet from every single possible perspective, it's been a debacle. They did it with the wrong people. They did it in an illegal way. They painted the bottom of it the wrong color, the bottom color, heated it up. When it heated it up, algae started to grow. There was a picture over the weekend of a dead duck floating around in the algae.

[Narrator/Interjection]

No.

[David Rothkopf]

It was so sad. So sad.

[Joanna Coles]

It was horrible. And it's turned into a tourist attraction in downtown D.C. for people to hate on Trump, right? They come down and they reflect on what a bad president they've got. So then Trump sends in the National Guard and people from Homeland Security to threaten people. And then he's like, holy mackerel, this is a mess. What are we gonna do? And he's like, well, I have to blame it on somebody. So he comes up with a conspiracy theory and he says, well, it was vandals. And they cut, according to him, a 250 foot gash in the bottom of the materials on the bottom of the pool. And he says, we're rounding up these vandals who are behind this whole thing. Lord knows, if there were a vandal, and we'll get to that in a second, they would not get the pardon that the vandals who destroyed the Capitol on January 6 got. But of course, there is beyond all of this, there is this meta thing. And the meta thing is, who's the vandal in Washington who's defacing everything in Washington? Who defaced the Oval Office? Who destroyed the East Wing, who put a giant claw on the South Lawn of the White House? Who is building a gilded ballroom for billionaires to dance in while Americans starve, Who is building an arch to honor himself, who's covering all the horse statues in Washington and in gold leaf, you know, somebody. And who's got banners of his big ugly face hanging all over downtown D.C. now, that's what I would call a vandal. And so Donald Trump is the vandal in chief. He is the man who is defacing the nation's capital. And, you know, he's trying to go further. You know, he wants to rename Penn Station after himself. He's trying to rename Dulles Airport after himself. He's renamed West Palm Be Beach Airport after himself. He didn't do enough damage as the worst, most tasteless developer in America. Now he's taken it to another scale with tack. And by the way, it ties to something else you've talked about, which is Grift Force One. This flying bribe that has come here from Qatar that he decides. I mean, this is like mind boggling. The President holds a press conference to say, look at the $400 million gift I was given by a foreign government. And to then, while Americans can't afford gas, can't afford food, are getting kicked off, healthcare to go. It's the most luxurious plane in the world. The most luxurious. And he's got it painted in these cheesy Trump colors. And everybody knows that the deal he struck with Qatar was not just they give him a plane to use as president, but the deal is that when he leaves the presidency, the plane goes with him. He gets to keep it. I mean, and it cost a billion dollars to upgrade the plane to be suitable to be Air Force One. So he gets 400 million from the Qataris, he gets a billion dollars from the taxpayers, and he gets to keep the playing. I mean, this is grift, but it's beyond grift. This is corruption at a scale that we have never seen it. And he's bragging about it. I mean, something's missing.

[David Rothkopf]

I'm very glad I checked in with you this morning. Cause we're receiving peak Rothkopf this morning. Your outrage is very clear. Do you think the reflecting pool will be done by July 4th? Is that even possible? And does he. Is it possible there? Was that his description of the dagger and the 250 foot slash? I thought they just painted the bottom of the pool. So it's not possible to have slashed it. Is it just all made up?

[Joanna Coles]

Well, of course it's all made up.

[David Rothkopf]

Right? It's all made up, Julia.

[Joanna Coles]

There are cameras all around the pool. There's cameras all around Washington. If somebody did that, it would be on video. Nobody did that. And what he says a slash is what he meant was that the kind of surface, what they paint it with is a kind of a rubberized surface, you know, and what's happening is they didn't affix it to the concrete or whatever the reflecting pool is made out of properly. And so pieces of it are just floating up in the swamp. Now, for meme makers everywhere, it's been great because here is the drain. The swamp guy, literally building a swamp in the middle of Washington Right.

[David Rothkopf]

That's a very good. It's an amazing metaphor, isn't it?

[Joanna Coles]

It is amazing. And so there's thousands of little Internet memes of Trump covered with algae and, you know, seaweed hanging from his face, like the Thing or some horror movie monster crawling out of this swamp. And in fact, one of the great things that happened over the weekend is that some creative artists started projecting on different buildings in Washington, images from the Swamp Thing coming up. And image, they just started projecting all over Washington mocking images of Trump. So I think that one of the things about the reflecting pool is the timing couldn't be worse because you had this Iran war debacle. The country's in a mess. The 250th birthday is coming up. You had this UFC hideousness, and now there's this thing, and it's such a symbol of his vandalism, his failure, his inability to take responsibility for anything, his turning Washington into the grimiest, slimiest swamp of all time that, you know, it's. You know, you talk about reflection, you know, upon reflection. This is a metaphor. This is a metaphor for Trump, and it's pretty powerful.

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[Joanna Coles]

Wayfair.

[David Rothkopf]

Every style, every home. And what do you think the most serious of his cabinet members think as they drive past it in their government cars? Do they have their head in their hands? Well, okay, totally fair question. But if you were thinking of, for example, Marco Rubio, who at least had a career as a senator before, or if you thought of Scott Besant driving past, these are people that you still think have a foot in reality. Do you think they're just head in hands thinking, oh, my goodness, we can't even get this done?

[Joanna Coles]

You're doing this to trigger me.

[David Rothkopf]

Okay, there's no foot in reality. You don't think there's any foot left in reality?

[Joanna Coles]

Or no, Maybe it's in the Maggie Haberman Jonathan Swan book. But apparently Scott Besant referred to Zelensky as Mr. Bean in a bad suit. I mean, how dare he? This pampered parody of a rich guy with practically going around with a Monocle and a top hat. Make fun of this guy who is an actual hero of democracy who stood up to Russia for four years and he's comparing him to Mr. Bean. I mean, Marco Rubio is kicking people out of the country or keeping them out of the country for offering views on the Internet that are critical of Trump. Marco Rubio is like, I'm Mr. Normie, right? But he has gone 100% total fascist. He's responsible for the millions of people who are gonna die because USAID was shut down. He has gutted the State Department. There are most diplomatic posts, senior diplomatic posts, and the US has around the world are open cuz he doesn't think he needs them. He's presided over the shutdown of the NSC and he's presided over the worst US foreign policy ever. Look at the tariffs. Look at the invasion of Venezuela. Look at sinking all of these boats around the world, blowing up NATO, blowing up our allies, kissing up to autocrats from around the world. The president's grift destroying American soft power. That's the normal guy.

[David Rothkopf]

Fair point. I totally triggered you. I totally triggered you. But you think there's nobody riding up and down in their hushed, quiet government cars that doesn't look out and think, how can we have messed up the reflecting pool? It's such a peaceful place in Washington. It's supposed to be a place, peaceful place. It's a sort of sacred place for reflecting.

[Joanna Coles]

Maybe Melania, when she's escaping the White House and she's heading off to whatever actual home she lives in and whatever actual bed she sleeps in might go, that idiot has done it again. But you could do that in her voice better than I could.

[David Rothkopf]

Oh, he is unifying. Unifying Washington with what has happened to reflect, Pool the pool or reflect. If it's not reflecting. That's a weird accent. I'm thrown because I'm in the south of France and I've been speaking French all morning. So now I'm very confused. I don't know where I am. What's happening?

[Joanna Coles]

You did see that the final accounting on the Melania movie is coming out.

[David Rothkopf]

Tell me exactly what it is.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, I don't have the exact numbers, but I do know that it was something like, you know, it made a few million dollars in revenue, but it cost them 40 to make and then another 60 or something to produce market and stuff. So they may have spent $100 million on this movie. They probably lost 70 or 80 million dollars on the movie. It was a complete flop. And. But anyway, I don't know who it is. Clearly somebody must realize what a mess he is making of these things. I mean, in the Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan book, apparently somebody says they go into the Oval Office and Trump is like, they're putting up this gold file stuff and they super glue.

[David Rothkopf]

Right? With super glue.

[Joanna Coles]

With super glue. Now, we could talk about Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan and what an absolute offense to journalism it is for them to go and collect all this stuff and then keep it until it's a book. Right? I mean, there's some of the things that they are writing about here which include his failings as president, bad policy, and all this other stuff that is news, and they just hold onto it until they can go and cash in on it as a book.

[David Rothkopf]

What offends you the most? What are the points that you feel they should have released at the time?

[Joanna Coles]

There are so many. I am offended by people who are day to day journalists who are not reporting breaking news when it comes in. I mean, Donald Trump, it was very clear to him that people thought that he was not healthy, that people thought that, that there was fighting in the White House and there were tensions between different people in the White House. The White House was dysfunctional in many respects. And they just thought, no, we're gonna keep this until we release the book. And they're good journalists, they write good stuff. But something has happened in journalism today where it's perfectly acceptable to go and gather up all this stuff and not report it until you get paid, until your payday happens, until it gets you on the New York Times bestseller list. And I just think that's an offense to journalism.

[David Rothkopf]

But hasn't that always been the way. Hasn't that been the way with Bob Woodward?

[Joanna Coles]

Oh, he's one of the worst offenders. In fact, Bob Woodward probably owns the patent on this kind of offense to journalism.

[David Rothkopf]

Well, it's the conflict or the tension, isn't it, between the writer and the journalist? And nobody's gonna buy a book if there's nothing new in it when you're writing this kind of nonfiction. So it's complicated. And I guess the Times thinks that they want to keep them reporting, and so this is the quid pro quo.

[Joanna Coles]

But no, I guess so. But, you know, it is also possible to wait a couple of years, have some perspective. But one of the problems is that publishers want books on breaking news now. So, you know, they want, you know, they want them to write three books in the course of the presidency, in real time that break news. And I think that's where you get the tension. Used to be in the olden days, somebody would write a book, it would come out three years after. It would be about perspective, which, by the way, we could use some perspective. Right. I think that's not a bad thing to focus on, but it's an ugly model, and frankly, it doesn't do the American people any service. And I don't know. That's just my opinion.

[David Rothkopf]

Well, I'm very curious to read the book. Have you ordered yours?

[Joanna Coles]

Somebody offered to send me a copy, so I will read the free copy I get.

[David Rothkopf]

Okay. So I do want to talk about Donald Trump as a father. And on Father's Day, the Trump Organization marks it with a gushing, gushing. I mean, as gushing as the water from the reflecting pool tribute to Eric Trump with no mention whatsoever of Donald Jr. Now it says, this Father's Day, we celebrate not just the man who inspired it all, but the son who showed up every single day and proved that the greatest gift a father can give isn't a name or a fortune. It's an example. The empire that Donald J. Trump built did not survive four years of presidential service by accident. It survived because a son put on his hard hat and went to work. Eric Trump is not merely the beneficiary of his father's legacy. He is its keeper, its engine, and its next great chapter. What can this mean for don? For Don Jr. Who is wedding to socialite Bettina Anderson, whose father was a financial advisor to Jeffrey Epstein, what can this mean for Don Jr.

[Joanna Coles]

Nothing good. I mean, clearly Don Jr. Is not in his father's good graces. I mean, he could have gone to the wedding. Clearly, Pitino really wanted the wedding at the White House. They could have done it there. It wouldn't have cost Don anything. He probably wouldn't have even spent any time with them there. He doesn't spend much time with anybody. In fact, is it in the Maggie Haberman book that he goes into his separate bedrooms with Melania and then his bedroom ends up being all littered with

[David Rothkopf]

fast food and ice cream cartons.

[Joanna Coles]

Ice cream cartons. And she doesn't want to live with that, so he goes in there, and then they have to go in and clean it up every day anyway?

[David Rothkopf]

I don't think that's the reason that Melania doesn't want to hang out with Donald.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, I don't know.

[David Rothkopf]

Is that he's got empty ice cream cartons and wrappers of. Of hamburger wrappers at the bottom of the. But I think there are probably other reasons she doesn't want to live with them.

[Joanna Coles]

You're absolutely right. But, Joanna, think about this guy. He's like the President, or he's this super rich billionaire and he's alone. His wife doesn't want to be anywhere near him in his bedroom, spending countless hours texting and tweeting in his jammies, and he's eating a Big Mac and he throws the carton on the floor and he's eating. I mean, it's like Howard Hughes or something. I mean, he's one of these billionaires who's lost his mind, except he's the fucking President of the United States. I mean, that's the amazing thing. And his family. I mean, it's not just Don Jr. What about Melania's favorite child? I mean, you just look at Baron and you go, this guy. There are bad headlines in store for this dude. Not to mention he hangs out with Andrew Tate and he loves that whole world. But he's not mentioned Tiffany. She's never. Poor Tiffany, she's never mentioned. And I mean, I think he's still deeply in love with.

[David Rothkopf]

But Ivanka's taken herself out of the running, right? She's just said, politics is too cruel. I don't want anything to do with it. So Jared is busy out there negotiating, but Ivanka's not part of it.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, right. She's not part of it. She's like, jarrod, you take the heat, you be out there. I'll be telling you what to do from behind the scenes.

[David Rothkopf]

Well, and happily, she's found the Albanian island that they want to. That they want to live on.

[Joanna Coles]

And Albania is closer to a revolution over the corruption of the Trumps than we are, you know, and they could get. I mean, I love what's going on in Albania. I think there's a lot we can learn from that.

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[David Rothkopf]

Yeah, we should remind people. People have literally been. I mean, thousands of people have been protesting in the streets over Ivanka and Jared's hope. Well, in fact, it seems like they've already Started work in this. This natural, beautiful beach and part of Cezanne island, which Ivanka said that she discovered when she was staying on a friend's yacht and she went swimming. And then they found this island, and then they climbed to the top of the island and they were barefoot, and it was so intrepid. And then they discovered that they could buy this island for not very much money and turn it into a fabulous billionaires resort. And she said it was just the kind of place she'd always wanted to live.

[Joanna Coles]

They don't live on the same planet as we do. I think Ivanka is living in this billionaire's bubble, where she believes she can arrange her world in such a way that she can influence her father and have her husband be the front guy who takes all the heat for these things, and he can go and collect money from overseas governments that wanna, you know, have a special in with the president, and she can look like she's removed from it and she's just being a mom. But then she travels around the world on yachts and things, and she says, oh, that island looks nice. Let's take that one. And she just is completely out of touch with the idea that it might belong to somebody else or that might not have a price or the country involved might want to have a say in what happens to it. And it's this kind of. There is this. There's this group. There are 1100 billionaires in the United States that live in a life on a different planet from the rest of us. And she's just sort of got it down, and she thinks she can escape on the other end of the Trump presidency, and is not going to bear the burden of the fact that her father is an accused sex offender, an accused fraudster, has been impeached a couple of times, may be impeached another couple more times. Is. Is the worst president in history. She's gonna think, I can escape all that. That's her whole game. And it's Melania's game, too. It's kind of interesting that these people are, like, trying to get close to Trump, trying to get as much cash out of him as they can, but trying to not be tainted by the fact that they're associated.

[David Rothkopf]

I just want to go back to Eric Trump, because this tribute, it's more than 1,000 words long on the Trump Organization. And it says from an early age, he was on the job sites, he mowed lawns, he laid tiles. But what distinguishes Eric from the caricature that critics attempt to construct is the texture of the man himself. He is, by all accounts, someone who genuinely loves the work, the construction, the design, the tangible satisfaction of standing in front of something he helped build. He has spoken often about his deep love for the outdoors, for skiing, for shooting. He is, in a word, real. I mean, what is this? It's just super bizarre. And then it says, eric Trump growing up alongside the greatest dealmaker in America, and what it means to carry that legacy forward. What can it mean to carry that legacy forward?

[Joanna Coles]

I don't know. I think they're all gonna have to change their names. It's like the Hitler family that used to live in Long island, right? And after World War II, they, like, they changed their names. You don't wanna have to carry that burden. And by the time Trump is done, a couple more impeachments, a couple more giant scandals, once we learn what's really going on in the Epstein files, once there are 15 more scandals that we're gonna hear about. By the time we get to the end of this thing, he's gonna be Eric Smith. He's gonna be Eric Smith of the.

[David Rothkopf]

He's gonna be living in an FBI protection program, Right?

[Joanna Coles]

And it's going to be the Worldwide Big Building Corporation, and it's not going to have any name associated with it. But the funny thing is, you read all of that. When I think of Don and Eric, I think of Beavis and Butthead, and I'm like, that's the image I see. Eric was always the dope. He was always the one that everybody was making fun of. Maybe Don feels sorry for him in some respect. I don't know. It is clearly a very dysfunctional family. You know, I was thinking about this today, and I know other people have made this comment about Trump. Have you ever seen him show affection for anybody?

[David Rothkopf]

Well, apart from grabbing his wife's arm or hand, because she's always flicking it away, right?

[Joanna Coles]

She pulls it back. But have you ever seen him? Do you know, I was watching the Obama thing, and here's Obama and Michelle and their kids and Obama and Bush and Obama and Clinton and so forth. Obama and Joe Biden. There's real affection. These people care about each other. They're normal. They're not that normal. They want to be president. You're not normal if you want to be president. Right. But they have some normal traits that they have not completely lost. And Michelle came out wearing a skirt that. That had her mother's face on it. And he got all moved, and I'm not into this. I think Barack Obama was a pretty good president. I think he's a good guy and a very smart guy and he's a great orator and he made history and he deserves a lot of credit. But I think he was kind of a pretty good president. But watching these people at the Obama library and thinking George Bush and Laura Bush, they like the Obamas, they're nice to each other. George Bush gives Michelle Obama at a funeral a mint. You think ever Donald Trump ever gave anybody a fucking mint in his life? That he ever said, you look like you need a mint? There's no normal there.

[David Rothkopf]

Well, there's no normal in the UK right now, David, because Keir Starmer has just resigned after a mere two years in the job as British Prime Minister.

[Joanna Coles]

It depends on what you mean by normal.

[David Rothkopf]

Well, Britain's turning into Italy.

[Narrator/Interjection]

Yeah.

[Joanna Coles]

You've had seven prime Ministers in a decade, right?

[David Rothkopf]

Yeah. Which is very unusual for Britain. And also Keir Starmer is the man who shaped the party up, the Labour Party up, so it could be re elected after endless years of Tory rule. I think 14 years of Tory rule. So remarkable exit for him as he's threatened by a mumdani type figure who's been the mayor of Greater Manchester.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, let's break that down. Okay. First of all, Keir Starmer prior to being Prime Minister was a pretty respected guy.

[David Rothkopf]

He was the chief prosecutor.

[Joanna Coles]

Right. He was kind of similar to the Colin Firth character in the Bridget Jones movies. That was kind of how he was viewed. Right. And he just didn't have. And again, this is a leadership thing. You know about it from business. But some people just don't want to take the hard decisions. Some people are just not made for being the front guy in this way. And he just couldn't deliver. And it was pathetic. But there were six other pathetic leaders of the UK in the course of the past decade as well. When you say a Mamdani like figure, what do we mean?

[David Rothkopf]

Well, we mean someone who's leaning into progressive politics as a way of making people feel better, I think. I mean, and just I'm going to stop you on the Keir Starmer thing because the first decision Keir Starmer's government did was to cut the benefits for pensioners heating. I've never come across a worse political decision than to cut old people's heating benefits. It was a staggering decision. Then they went after the farmers. They've made decision after decision that was incomprehensible to people, actually. I don't think. It's not that he's I don't think it's just that he's not a frontman, he's not a great orator. As Donald Trump said recently, he's not Winston Churchill. You don't have to be Winston Churchill, but he's definitely not a politician is what it turns out.

[Joanna Coles]

Yeah, even Winston Churchill wasn't Winston Churchill. Right. Remember for four years he was Winston Churchill.

[David Rothkopf]

Yeah. During the war. Yeah, absolutely.

[Joanna Coles]

But you're absolutely right. He made some bad decisions and he undermined himself politically as a result of them. And clearly he made those decisions because he was making a behind the scenes political calculus with pressure from different people within his party. And it was the wrong way to go. But I'm thinking about the Mamdani thing from a slightly different perspective because when I read about these developments and you see people like Andy Burnham being compared to Mamdani or Washington has just finished its mayoral primary and the person who will be the next mayor of Washington is another democratic socialist, just like there is in New York, just like there is in Seattle. Or people compare AOC and Bernie Sanders and so forth and they say they're leftists. I was reading the Economist and they refer to them as leftists and that this is about their being progressive. And I don't think that's what Mamdani's about. And I don't think that's what this change is about. Mamdani is about lower rent, cheaper buses for traveling pre K for people who need it, a grocery in your neighborhood. These people recognize that the government people don't believe government serves them, that people believe government serves powerful people above the government. And it's not delivering the kind of basic needs they've got. And I see this as kind of a different thing. It's about good governance and nuts and bolts, meeting the needs of average people who feel like they're being left out by governments that are controlled by oligarchs. And so it's not. I don't think the labels are super helpful. And clearly Mamdani has been thus far very successful by delivering small scale but meaningful, positive. He filled 100,000 potholes. That wasn't nothing. That was something. And I think that's, you know, I mean, frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if there's more of a focus on mayors. Mayors actually have to do stuff.

[David Rothkopf]

Well, they're accountable, aren't they? Mamdani hasn't been able to deliver free buses and he hasn't been able to tax the rich quite as vehemently as he said he was going to, because there are all sorts of.

[Joanna Coles]

But it's June and he's been in office for six months and he did come up with a tax for pied a terres and he did it with the governor and the legislature and he did get something done. And he's checking. This is not a Mamdani campaign speech.

[David Rothkopf]

Well, it sounds a little bit like one. And as someone who lives in New York City, which I know you live in the beautiful part of D.C. that you do. As someone who lives in New York City, I will say I haven't noticed any difference whatsoever to the number of men, mentally ill people that are on the streets.

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[David Rothkopf]

Get [e-mail] he's been incredibly lucky in terms of the overall decline in crime in cities. And he's been unbelievably lucky with the Knicks win, which has put everybody in a fantastically good mood. Well, look, and lucky is better than smart many times, right?

[Joanna Coles]

Luck helps. And the reality is this, that in New York, when he came in and now there are 120,000 people without homes, which is vastly more than any other city in the United States. It is a serious problem. Will he solve it? Will he make a big den? I don't know. I actually am getting at something else. I'm a little tired of the labels of people saying Trump and the conservatives. There's nothing conservative about Trump or the left has got to be destroyed in order for the centrists to win. But the centrists are really people who are advancing a corporate agenda and they're not so much centered. They're sort of pulling things to the right. And what do you mean by the left? Are you talking about healthcare for everybody in this country? Well, everybody wants that or common sense gun controls or stuff. That's. That's not what the issues are anymore. I just think the labels aren't super useful. And I think people are really sick of government that seems to be giving breaks to rich people and powerful people and doesn't seem to be helping them with their very real problems of whether they're paying for their lives or whether it's a crazy guy in the street or whether it's crime or whatever. And I just think they want government that works. And the thing about Trump is I did this over the weekend. I thought maybe, I thought I would turn it into a column. And I sat down and I made a list of 50 initiatives. You always tell me I'm making lists all the time, probably some manifestation of OCD, but I made a list of 50, what I thought was the 50 major Trump initiatives. And every single one of them was bad, and every single one of them had a bad outcome. And I went out on the Internet and I said, please name for me one thing Trump has done since becoming president that was actually meaningfully good for most Americans. And the answer was none. Now I know I'm on blue sky and I'm a liberal crazy and whatever, but the reality is Trump is an example of bad governance. We're living at a nadir. The British government is not functioning. Somehow our governments are not actually meeting the needs of people to deal with their day to day issues, whether it's the cost of living or getting health care or being made safe or just having decent infrastructure around them. And I just think that we're at a kind of watershed, particularly in the US where the majority of the under 40 population, which is the majority of the electorate going forward. There was just a poll. 70% of them don't believe in the American dream anymore. They don't believe they're going to ever own a home. And I just think everywhere, this is the issue. The issue is, could somebody make my life a little better? Can they make a plausible case they can make my life a little better?

[David Rothkopf]

Right. Can gas get cheaper? Can I buy a home? For the most part, sort of modest ambitions. And also in the light of Elon Musk becoming the world's first trillionaire, in

[Joanna Coles]

light of Elon Musk being the world's worst trillionaire, I saw somebody on, you know, the Internet this morning saying if you have $1, you are closer in wealth to the second wealthiest person in the world than the second wealthiest person is to Elon Musk.

[David Rothkopf]

Wow. Wow, that's an interesting. That's a fun riddle.

[Joanna Coles]

You know, the point is, Elon Musk is one of the worst people in the world. He's a racist. He's got a platform for racists. He, he's taken companies that other people have created. He's been a huckster, he sold the stock and he's fucked up the companies. I mean, Tesla will not be a major factor in electric vehicles in five years. Because it's been overtaken by the Chinese x he destroyed. SpaceX is a con of the First Order. Everything about SpaceX is based on, well, if we go to Mars, this company will be worth a lot of. Or if its rockets don't blow up, this company will be worse. A lot. Or if data centers are based in outer space, this company will be worth a lot. And it's all on the come. It's all make believe. But he has figured out a way to do that and to make a trillion dollars by doing that, even though everything he touches turned to crap. Look at Doge. Everything Doge did, some of it was illegal, some of it turned to crap. What they did with USAID will result in 10 million people dying. The cuts they're making in terms of cancer research, or the cuts they made in terms of other forms of veterans services and so forth, people are dying and suffering from that right now. And yet investors are like, yeah, let me write him another check. And it's not because they think he'll create value. It's because they think there will be demand for what he's selling and that they can get out of the stock before all the suckers who are holding onto it. And once it collapses in the future,

[David Rothkopf]

well, David Roscoff, this demand for what you're selling, which is outrage and humorous lists full of contempt for our current government,

[Joanna Coles]

it's not contempt. I just wish it worked better. I just wish it worked a little better. I just wish people's needs were taken care of a little more effectively. And that's why some of that Obama thing was pretty moving, because there were people there who'd worked and they were all deeply flawed people. But Joe Biden and Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, all of whom made huge mistakes, they all did something positive. And we look back on that, they're a little bit decent, they were a little bit effective. And we look back on that now with yearning, because we are in such a black hole of malevolent bad governance.

[David Rothkopf]

I do think that watching the old presidents get back together, get the band back together, as it were, in Chicago, also reminded you of presidents who, when they were doing the job, believed that they were representing all of America, that that was their goal and that was their wish. And you didn't see the divisiveness that you see with our current leadership.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, there's a fundamental difference between them, and it's really important to remember because July 4th is just less than two weeks away, right? Two weeks away. And they all recognized that the president of the United States in our system is not the top, it's actually the bottom. He reports to everybody. The president works for everybody. Donald Trump believes that he is the king, that he won the United States in some competition. And it's all his to do whatever he wants to do with it. And all the rest of us have to take the consequences because as he said, and he said this this weekend with regard to Iran, but true with regard to everything he said, I can do anything I want. He keeps repeating that. It's a meme in his life. I can do anything I want. And the reality is he does not understand public service. And I know that sounds really boring and like out of a civics class, but these people, as you just point out, they did and he doesn't.

[David Rothkopf]

Okay, David, excellent to see you as ever. We will regroup, I hope, next Monday and we will see what happens in the UK Whether or not they start the process for labor leadership nominations. I think that will probably open next week and, well, we'll see whether or not the reflecting pool is reflecting anything at all.

[Joanna Coles]

We will see. I look forward to. Are you going to be back here in America?

[David Rothkopf]

I should be back by next Monday, yes. All being well, I'm going on to Paris, which is experiencing record temperatures. And I'm warned that the apartment I'm staying in with my older son has no air conditioning and it's record temperatures. So I have been.

[Joanna Coles]

Yeah, you be careful. No, you know, France, whenever it gets super hot, like, people die because there's no air conditioning.

[David Rothkopf]

There's no air conditioning. But there is lots of bottled Evian. So I shall be taking that wherever I go.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, it's the best city in the world, so you should enjoy it. Have a great time.

[David Rothkopf]

Thank you.

[Joanna Coles]

And we'll see you when you get back. Safe travels.

[David Rothkopf]

I will see you next Monday. I always love talking to David Rothkop. I think my favorite part of the conversation was him just talking about how Trump is the chief vandal in America. But right on. You give us your comments, tell us what you think. We love to read them and it's good to have a place to express your feelings about the crazy that's going on right now. So if you have been, thank you very much for joining us. And a big thanks to our production team, John Romero, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro and Neil Rosenhaus. So the good news is we have so many B beast tier members, there are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support.

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[David Rothkopf]

Was she brave?

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[Joanna Coles]

Did you have to fight a dragon?

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[David Rothkopf]

Was it scary?

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