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- [00:02]
Adam Grant
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- [00:40]
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- [01:21]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [01:53]
David Rothkopf
Donald Trump is at the end of his story. This is not a person whose biography is about their future. It's about their past. And everybody can see that in Washington. Republicans are making fun of Trump behind the scenes. They are saying he's not up to it. He's crazy. He literally cannot pass an object without thinking it should be named for him.
- [02:19]
Hugh Docherty
Welcome to the Daily Beast Podcast. I'm Hugh Docherty. I'm Executive Editor. I'm keeping the seat warm for Joanna Coles, who is currently pow wowing with the world's power elite in the Middle East. But she will be back. She'll be talking to Michael Wolfe about what is going on inside Trump's head later this week. Thank you to everybody who commented on our interview with Senator Alyssa Slotkin and Major General Paul E. It was an amazing insight into what's in the mind of the national security people as they Deal with Pete Hegseth. But we have somebody who's even better qualified than that here today joining us in the studio, we are honored to have David Rothkopf.
- [03:01]
David Rothkoff is our incomparable columnist. I'm claiming you first for the Daily Beast, David.
- [03:06]
David Rothkopf
But that's fine. I'm happy to be.
- [03:08]
Hugh Docherty
Perhaps more importantly, you, I think the Trump lot would say you are the Deep State. Right. You run the Deep State Podcast network, you have worked for the Continental White House, and you have provided your expertise as part of Henry Kissinger Consultants and then as your own consultancy, and you've edited Foreign Policy magazine. So, I mean, that sounds like the Deep State. Although maybe the Deep State has been dismantled by Pete Hegseth while we were all not watching.
- [03:38]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, I mean, the last time I was here, you told me that when you called the White House for a comment on something I wrote, they said I was.
- [03:45]
A nerd nobody'd ever heard of.
- [03:47]
Hugh Docherty
No Name Nerd.
- [03:48]
David Rothkopf
Yes, thanks for clarifying that. Yeah, right.
- [03:50]
Hugh Docherty
Well, I think it's only fair to do our best to be accurate with White House.
- [03:55]
David Rothkopf
I mean, no Name. I go by no Name Nerd also.
- [03:58]
Hugh Docherty
Well, thank you to our no Name Nerd for joining us. I aspire. I would aspire to get anything like that out of the White House.
- [04:05]
David Rothkopf
Well, they're too busy these days, I believe they've got all the Kennedy center honours.
- [04:10]
Hugh Docherty
So you're obviously, you're in the studio and I should say we're recording this just after the Kennedy Center Honours. You weren't honoured?
- [04:17]
David Rothkopf
No, I was honored not to be there.
- [04:21]
Hugh Docherty
So I wanted to talk to you. Well, I mean, there's so much to talk about. Right. But I wanted to talk to you particularly because, as I said, you are the Deep State. But more importantly, you have been a chronicler of America's foreign policy and how America deals with power abroad. And right now we have a Defense Secretary who. I'm sorry, a Secretary of War, a Defense Secretary who is blowing boats out of the water which may or may not be bringing drugs to the United States. And it seems like a pretty serious situation. What should we be thinking about this?
- [04:55]
David Rothkopf
I think it's serious on a couple of levels. Right. On the one level, they're committing murder. Right. There's no justification whether the two guys that got blown up were floating on a boat that was right side up or upside down or signaling for help or not signaling for help. And by the way, all those stories go against their stories. They were, the boat was upside down, they didn't have a radio. There was no way for them to signal for help. And if you are shipwrecked in the water, you are off limits to being attacked. Right? So that was murder, but sinking the boat in the first place was murder because we're not at war with anybody. The premise that there is somehow a kill list, that it's okay, you know, if the Secretary of Defense gives you a list of people to kill, you may kill them legally. That's ridiculous and offensive. And it's going to catch up to them, whether it catches up sooner or later. This is breaking international law. It's breaking the laws of war. It's violating the Uniform Code of Military justice, which guides what the US Does. It was wrong of Hegseth to say kill them all. It is wrong of.
- [06:12]
Admiral Bradley to have gone ahead and supported killing them all.
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And.
- [06:21]
It'S bad. And they're bragging and doing more of it. So, you know, it's getting worse and worse. But if I may, there is another reason this is more troubling, and that is that last week, the US Government did something that nobody else pays attention to outside of Washington, and often in Washington, they don't pay attention to it, and that is they released something called their national security strategy. And the national security strategy of this administration is to coddle Russia, coddle China, pull the rug out from under our allies, attack the Europeans for having too many immigrants. But shifting the focus to this hemisphere, where Trump is essentially saying, there's a Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, he gets to decide who gets to deal with what in the hemisphere, who gets to tap into what resources in the hemisphere. And if you cross the United States, we're going to take care of it on our own, and we're going to move assets here. So my point is, what we've seen, they want to do more of, they want to make this the centerpiece of US Foreign policy.
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Hugh Docherty
I want to talk to you about this, because this document, 33 pages.
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Do administrations normally set out a foreign policy like this?
- [07:46]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, Well, I mean, maybe not to answer that question, by law, Congress has mandated that they issue a national security strategy. Typically, the national security strategy is kind of a bowl of porridge. You know, it's, oh, we like these guys. We like these guys. We're supporting democracy, we're trying to do good things, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Typically, it gets released, it gets put in a drawer. It may not get put in a drawer. Nobody ever reads it. Again, this one is different because it is so outrageous. And on one level, essentially, you know, there's been over the past few years, led by Vladimir Putin, this new kind of global alliance that's not just anti globalist, but it's pro authoritarian, it's ethno nationalist, it takes a very harsh view against immigrants. And essentially what Trump is doing in this document is saying we're part of that group. You know, those allies we've had Since World War II, since World War I, they're not our allies anymore. And the document is brutal.
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Hugh Docherty
Well, I just wanted to read out a bit of it, which is exactly about that topic. And it's called Promoting European Greatness. And I should say I often.
- [09:09]
Offer a disclaimer at the top of when I'm sitting in for Joanna, that this is my Scottish accent, but I am sitting here live and direct in Manhattan. So I feel I've got some tiny insight into European greatness. And I don't think normally it gets decided by who's sitting in Washington, D.C. scotland. And Scotland is not in Europe anymore. But for a while we were, and it's all changed. But I just wanted to read some of it about Europe, particularly because I think this is like the one that goes to the heart of what's going on in this document and inside maga, it says that Europe's in economic decline, eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. Can you justwhat does that even mean?
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David Rothkopf
Well, it means that there are people coming to Europe who aren't white people. That's particularly non white, non Christians. It's the same thing they're saying here. And it's the same thing that Putin says and Orban says, you know, and in other parts of the world, it's the same kind of scapegoating another and racism that is used by Narendra Modi in India about Muslims in his case, or Bibi Netanyahu in Israel about Muslims in his case, or was used by Yair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Javier Milei in Argentina. There are a bunch of people who are playing on this kind of demagoguery, this kind of racism.
- [10:38]
But this is, you know, particularly disgusting. And the document goes down a few levels from that saying we're going to support the parties that are.
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You know, aligned with these views. And, you know, if the Germans pass a law saying that being.
- [11:00]
You know, white supremacist is hate, then we're going to go against that because that's hate speech. And so we've lined ourselves up with the far right in Germany the far right in France, the far right in the UK with Nigel Farage and the Reform Party. It' syou know, if you're an American, you may say, well, that is remote from me. But essentially, you gotta think of two things. One, we're casting aside democracy. We're promoting and embracing racism as an American export. We're signing on with the world's other racists. But the other thing is we're attacking our real allies, the people who are the frontline defense against Russian aggression, and we're pulling the rug out from them. You know, in what we're talking about here, I expect what you'll see is efforts to pull troops out of Europe. And the Congress is afraid of it. They're passing laws, I should say the.
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Hugh Docherty
Defence Authorization act has actually been, which was published in the last couple of days, has got clauses in it about refusing to allow troops to be removed.
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David Rothkopf
He's going to ignore it.
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Hugh Docherty
Right.
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David Rothkopf
Because what he does is he ignores it. Somebody brings them to court, then they'll go to court, they'll fight it. Meanwhile, the troops are moving. Right. They're going to get out of. He's going to do what he wants to do.
- [12:22]
But, you know, similarly, or as part of this whole thing, it says, you know, Ukraine's better sign on the dotted line. And, you know, our job, our job, according to this, is to promote stability in the European Russian relationship. And, you know, this isyou know, this is Trump as Putin's errand boy signing on. And if you read the document, you know, as the joke goes so often these days, you know, you know, it probably read better in the original Russian.
- [12:51]
Hugh Docherty
And they've erased the metadata. So we don't know.
- [12:55]
David Rothkopf
We don't know. But we do know, for example, that the last peace plan for Ukraine did include Russian talking points.
- [13:01]
Hugh Docherty
Yep.
- [13:02]
David Rothkopf
And we do know they're meeting with the Russians. And we know that at the Kennedy center honors last night, because the President was doing his Jimmy Kimmel impression and he was Hosting these things, 27 minutes.
- [13:14]
Hugh Docherty
Of Jimmy Kimmel impression, which is double the length of a Jimmy Kimmel monologue.
- [13:17]
David Rothkopf
Including insulting the audience. And it was ugly. But as part of it, somebody asked him about Ukraine and he said, oh, Zelenskyy hasn't read our stuff. I'm disappointed in him. You know, we're going to, you know, And Donald Don Jr. Said, well, dad, you know, one of the strengths of my father is that he's erratic. He didn't use the word erratic, but that he's unpredictable. And.
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I think he May just walk away from Ukraine. And I was like, walk away, Right.
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Hugh Docherty
Ford's a walk away.
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David Rothkopf
He won. He walked away from Ukraine from the beginning. He was on the side of Russia from the beginning. And document institutionalizes it. And there's another document, a defense strategy document, that almost surely is going to come out and say, yeah, because we're focused on this hemisphere, more assets in this hemisphere, because we're not as focused on the Middle east or Europe. We're pulling assets out of there. And it was also very kind of cozy, soft on China as well.
- [14:14]
Hugh Docherty
And perhaps a lot of people in MAGA will say, well, you know, really, we're focused on America First. And with Marjorie Taylor Greene on 60 Minutes saying, She's not MAGA, she's America first. But why does this matter? How does it affect normal people? Because a lot of this sounds highbrow and difficult to relate to, but it must matter, right?
- [14:35]
David Rothkopf
Well, I mean, yeah, it depends, you know, I mean, you know that meme that's out there where the guy sing we're the baddies, you know, we're the baddies. Right. We are now signed up to be the baddies in, you know, we're on Russia's side, we're on Netanyahu's side, we're on Modi's side, we're on Xi Jinping's side. We are on the side of authoritarians. We are not for democracy. If you think democracy is a good thing, that's bad, Right? If you think standing up against aggression around the world is a good thing, then what we're doing now is. And you know, in the past, there have been people who didn't stand up to aggression. Neville Chamberlain didn't stand up to aggression. World War II was the result. I mean, we have some history to know that this is bad. But, you know, it's also institutionalizing further racism. It's institutionalizing further.
- [15:30]
The kind of anti globalist attitude. You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene says America First. You know, where did America first start? It started in the pre interwar period with people like Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh saying, let's not get involved with the rest of the world. Let's isolate ourselves. And, you know, part of that is isolating ourselves. Part of that is saying, well, you know, if Hitler wants to be Hitler, let Hitler be Hitler. You know, and that's. And frankly, Henry Ford was kind of cool with that. Lindbergh was kind of cool with that.
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Hugh Docherty
They obviously had particular anti Semitic prejudices that they were very public about.
- [16:10]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. And they, you know, they sort of went along with that. And so I think we are shifting to a place that has been the place we've opposed for 100 years. You know, we are throwing out everything we've learned about how the world works, and we are throwing out the people who've been our friends, and we are.
- [16:32]
You know, embarked. You know, we're just a year into this administration. Where is this going to be in three years from now? Where does it leave Taiwan? Where does it leave Ukraine? Where does it leave the Baltics? Where does it leave other places the Russians may go after? Where does it leave international institutions? Where does it leave NATO? All these things could be damaged in ways that are, you know, you can't put the pieces back together.
- [16:57]
Hugh Docherty
I'm in Target, I'm in Walmart. I'm worried about the price of shopping.
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How do these two things come together? How do you bring that home to people that it's.
- [17:08]
David Rothkopf
Well, I mean, look, it dovetails with the tariff strategy because it's like, we don't trust globalization. We don't trust the world. We're not working within multilateral systems anymore to make sure that there are no tariffs, which was the goal of US, you know, trade policy for 80 years. But, you know, people know, because the prices go up, the price of chocolate is higher, the price of coffee is higher, the price of anything you import is higher. And by the way, today as we're recording this, you know, Chinese trade data came out, and the Chinese trade data said China's trade deficit is up to a trillion dollars. And all the US Steps that were allegedly meant to eat into Chinese exports to the US and put pressure on China didn't.
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Hugh Docherty
Zero effect.
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David Rothkopf
No effect.
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Hugh Docherty
And the idea that Trump put forward was, oh, they're going to take more of our soy and they're going to take more of our beef, and they're going tothat hasn't happened either in these statistics.
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David Rothkopf
Well, you know, Trump likes to say, you know, he holds the cards. I think the Chinese have revealed he does not hold the cards.
- [18:16]
Hugh Docherty
And they manufactured them in the first place.
- [18:18]
David Rothkopf
Right. And they hold the cards. And I think, you know, I think we're going to see more of that in the year ahead. I think one thing you can look for is that Trump is planning to go to China in the first part of the year. He wants Xi Jinping to come here in the latter part of the year. And I can give you a theory of foreign policy here that my wife gave me, and I'll share it with you and your viewers and listeners, which is very sophisticated. It's called the dog park theory of foreign policy. If you ever go to a dog park, you notice the dogs are going around sniffing each other's butts because they're trying to figure out who's the alpha dog. And the funny thing is when the alpha dog walks in, it can be the smallest dog in the park. And all the other dogs are like bowing down to it, letting the.
- [19:07]
And this is just, you know, sort of pack behavior. It's like trying to figure. Donald Trump is looking around the world sniffing all the butts. And for all the puffing himself up, he has concluded Xi Jinping is the alpha dog.
- [19:23]
Hugh Docherty
He's always saying, he's my friend.
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David Rothkopf
He's, that's the thing that can lift. He doesn't think Europeans can lift him up. He doesn't think it's the prestige relationship to have. You know, he has a trophy wife, he's got trophy houses and so forth. The trophy international relationship he wants is, is with China.
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Hugh Docherty
Now, you mentioned the next year and again, I know you've talked, you've spoken to Joanna about this at great length. There's a column and I'll just say, go in the Daily Beast and find David Rothkoff's column from early in November. Trump's year of hell is just beginning. And one of the things you mentioned in that is tariffs, that people are going to really feel the impact of them recording this on Monday morning. There's a morning this morning that the big retailers are looking at late December and January after Christmas to put up prices.
- [20:18]
David Rothkopf
Hold that thought. Hugh, let's have a word from our sponsors.
- [20:23]
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- [24:23]
Hugh Docherty
And we are back talking Trump and the Deep State with David Rothkoff.
- [24:29]
David Rothkopf
Well you know, Trump lives the life of the chronic bullshitter. You know, he's got his patter down, he goes out, he sells a good line, but every so often, the chickens come home to roost. You know, people say, well, you promised me this. Where is it? You know, and that, you know, he ran for office again, saying, I'm going to fix the economy and I'm going to make everything better and we're going to be respected in the world and I'm going to be a peacemaker and so on and so forth. And the reality is you can get all the made up trophies from FIFA and other people you want and you can have your cabinets say that you're handsome and you have a six pack and all that kind of stuff, but what does it mean for regular people? And the problem is this ties to your prior question. Over the next year, what are you going to see? You're going to see prices go up, you're going to see the economy slow down. You're going to see that the services you got from the Veterans Administration are not as available to you anymore. You're going to see the cost of your health care double or triple or quadruple, you know, and that you're not going to be able to actually afford your health care. If your kid got picked up on a school bus because they're disabled, you're going to see that that program is canceled. If you look outside your window and you're living in most American cities these days, you're going to see ICE rounding up your neighbor or rounding up somebody works in your neighborhood, dragging them off, whether they're an American citizen or they're not, whether they did anything wrong or not, whether they're contributing to the community or not. And that's going to add up. And I think that that's why the year is going to be terrible. And it's just doubly terrible for Donald Trump because despite all his efforts to put his thumb on the scale of the elections, there will be an election next year. And all the signs say the Republicans are going to do terribly in the election next year. And so the chickens are going to come home to roost at the worst possible time. Voters are going to know about it. He can't give a speech to talk his way out of this one because it's people's lives and that's going to be bad news for him. And if the Democrats win control of the House or the Senate, the next year is going to be even worse for Donald Trump because he will Be impeached. People in his cabinet will be impeached. His programs will be dead in the water. And the Donald Trump chapter of American history, it'll be over. Because he'll be 80 years old.
- [27:01]
And he will have no future in politics. And the guys on his own team will be going, ugh, maybe this isn't, you know, the star to hitch our wagon to anymore. And they're going to be looking for outs like Marjorie Taylor Greene is now.
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Hugh Docherty
So you mentioned his age. Trump is 79. He'll be 80 on June 14th. And I mention that date because national parks will be open for free on his day. On his birthday.
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David Rothkopf
Not on Martin Luther King Day.
- [27:28]
Hugh Docherty
Not on Martin Luther King Day. No. Why would you celebrate Martin Luther King Day when you can celebrate the President's birthday?
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David Rothkopf
Well, you know, we're going to. Also on the President's birthday, there's going to be a big celebration on the White House South Lawn.
- [27:42]
Hugh Docherty
Yes.
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David Rothkopf
And it's going to, it's going to be, you know, I think it's going to capture.
- [27:49]
The spirit of the Trump administration because it's going to be a cage match, a WWE cage match on the South Lawn of the White House in an octagon. Well, of course. I mean, how would you do it?
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Hugh Docherty
I don't know how else.
- [28:03]
David Rothkopf
Although, you know, maybe they'll add a ninth side to it just in honor of Trump, you know, and give that a new name.
- [28:10]
Hugh Docherty
I hope it's gold as well.
- [28:12]
David Rothkopf
Trumpagon.
- [28:12]
Hugh Docherty
Trumpagon.
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David Rothkopf
Yeah. And that's because they should. Right. He's the President of the United States and they should be fighting in a golden Trumpagon.
- [28:21]
Hugh Docherty
And we've yet to see where on this Trumpagon the guilt goes. Cuz there's obviously, you know, the guilt.
- [28:27]
David Rothkopf
The guilt should go on American voters who elected this asshole in the first place. I think it's spelt differently than the guilt. God.
- [28:34]
Hugh Docherty
I believe we are talking at two different forms of guilt.
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David Rothkopf
Two different forms of guilt, but nonetheless.
- [28:41]
It'S a homonym and we can, you know, we can embrace the transition. Because, you know, folks, you should have known this was coming. This isn't our first show.
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Hugh Docherty
Be a surprise.
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David Rothkopf
You spent four years with this, right? You know, this guy is one of the most visible people in America and has always been, you know, a repugnant figure. I mean, it's like the Epstein thing, it's like, what do people think they're going to discover from the Epstein files that they don't already know?
- [29:13]
Hugh Docherty
I think a lot of People are going to get a lot of confirmation.
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David Rothkopf
Right. But that's just. It's just gonna. It's like. Oh, yeah, yeah.
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Hugh Docherty
I just wanted to go back to one of the things you mentioned, the cage fight.
- [29:23]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. I knew we'd end up there.
- [29:26]
Hugh Docherty
Well, we brought you here. You're from New Jersey.
- [29:29]
David Rothkopf
Where is that?
- [29:30]
Hugh Docherty
You're from New Jersey. I'm from Scotland. Thank you both of history.
- [29:32]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. Thank you very much. Michael Wolff is from New Jersey, too.
- [29:36]
Hugh Docherty
Michael Wolff is also from New Jersey. Yes. We could have special Daily Beast reenactment or.
- [29:42]
David Rothkopf
Or a cage match.
- [29:43]
Hugh Docherty
Cage match. Preview of the cage match.
- [29:44]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. He would not do well against me.
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Hugh Docherty
I. I'm good to sit. I'm good to sit. That one. I'm not even going on Polymarket.
- [29:51]
David Rothkopf
Yeah.
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Hugh Docherty
No, but the, the idea of the cage match or Kalsh, or either. And we would welcome sponsorship from either.
- [30:01]
Please get in touch in the comments. You know where we are.
- [30:07]
It does look a bit like there's a cage match going on in the Cabinet because there are people who are beginning to see, as you have said, that this ends and they have to position themselves. And Marjorie Taylor Greene has got out first and is denying that she's going to run for president, which is usually the most effective way of running for president.
- [30:27]
But there's a lot of potentially wounded wildebeest in the Cabinet. I want to talk about Hegseth, and the reason I want to talk particularly to you is you wrote a history of the National Security Council and we have not heard anything about the National Security Council.
- [30:42]
David Rothkopf
Well, the National Security Council, you know, was put out of its misery essentially. You know, when he had to fire his National Security adviser, as he does so often during the last term, he did it a few times as well. And instead of replacing him.
- [31:01]
They said, okay, Marco Rubio is going to run it. In addition to, by the way, running the National Archives, the State Department and usaid. He's got four jobs and they got rid of most of the staff and they don't listen to the staff. I think the staffing level, professional staffing level at the NSC is down around 60, 70 people, which is the size it was sort of when Henry Kissinger was National Security adviser in the 1970s.
- [31:30]
In the past 20 years, it's been 300, 400 people. Why? Because presidents wanted expertise to guide their decision making. Well, Trump doesn't listen to any expertise, so it's become irrelevant. But I think to your point.
- [31:46]
Hegseth, you know, if you had to handicap who's going first. Hegseth could be on that list. Because it's not that there's one problem. It's just from the beginning, he has been a problem. You know, he did signal gate his staff then turned on him and ditched him. He then started, you know, going his DEI purge, getting rid of admirals and generals who were women or people of color. He got, you know, Jackie Robinson books thrown out of libraries. He renamed bases after Confederate generals. He did a lot of things that were super unpopular, but he the worst thing he did for him and for Trump was with his speech at Quantico, which I think you and I talked about the last time I started talking to you. And all of his other behavior is he pissed off all the generals and admirals, and they know how to play the game better than he knows how to play the game. And so when he starts to throw them under the bus like he did with, you know, the admiral who's been in charge of the boat incident.
- [32:53]
They didn't say, hey, boss, you're throwing us under the bus. They said, you know, Bob or Betty, get me the Washington Post on the line and, you know, or call me Senator Wicker, the Republican head of the.
- [33:11]
Hugh Docherty
Senate Armed Services Committee, who's notably not calling Pete Hegseth, the secretary of war.
- [33:16]
David Rothkopf
No. Well, nor should anybody, let's be honest.
- [33:20]
Hugh Docherty
And I should say we do it the daily basis policy, very strictly. We refer correctly to him as secretary of defense.
- [33:24]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. Because that is actually the aim of the department. Right.
- [33:30]
And, you know, what do these people do? They just throw him under the bus and they will make his life a living hell, because he is making their life a living hell. He is actually putting troops at risk. You know, if the US Starts to say, well, you know, you can shoot anybody anytime for any reason.
- [33:50]
Who'S going to be vulnerable to that? It's going to be U.S. troops. Right. I mean, the last time that this happened During World War II, when American sailors were floating in the water beside a wrecked ship and Germans or Japanese shot them. We prosecuted them for war crimes. And they know that this is not a game. It's not a Fox TV show. It's not Trump and Hegseth pumping up their testosterone levels. This has real consequences. And they're going to go after him. And so my sense is I don't think Hegseth can survive this. Does Tulsi Gabbard also go because she's alienated people, or does Kristi Noem go because.
- [34:36]
You know, she's done some crazy nonsense with Corey Lewandowski or does, you know, are there others who will go Allegedly, Allegedly. You know, the reality is, yeah, there'll be others because this, you know, at the end of a year tends to be in an administration. There is some turnover anyway.
- [34:54]
But I don't think Hegseth. I think it'd be too big a headache for Trump as he goes into this year where his party is fragmenting. And I think that's the, you know, the bigger thing is Marjorie Taylor Greene, but also Wicker and other people saying, you know or you know.
- [35:20]
What'S the one, you know, who's co leading the Epstein effort?
- [35:24]
Hugh Docherty
Oh, right. Thomas Massey.
- [35:26]
David Rothkopf
Massey, right. You know, these people are like.
- [35:30]
They'Re not afraid of Trump anymore. And that in some respects the biggest development in U.S. politics in the past couple months is nobody's afraid of Trump.
- [35:41]
Hugh Docherty
David, hold that thought. We need to hear from our sponsors.
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Hugh Docherty
Yeah.
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- [38:36]
David Rothkopf
And we're back talking Trump. Hegseth, what's going on in the Trump world and a cage match.
- [38:43]
Hugh Docherty
Now, you worked very closely with Henry Kissinger. Yeah, but I just raised that because he's a man. Well, I raise it really because he's a man that people were afraid of but also respected. And I'm not going to go down, you know, the difficult road of right and wrong here, but he was a, he was a figure.
- [39:05]
David Rothkopf
You can go down the difficult road. He was wrong in a lot of things.
- [39:08]
Hugh Docherty
Well, I was only going, I was only avoiding that because I just wanted to focus on the personality issue of it a bit. That Trump doesn't have a Henry Kissinger, right or wrong. He doesn't have, he doesn't need one.
- [39:21]
David Rothkopf
He thinks he's the only Henry Kissinger he needs, you know, and he's got Steve Witkoff to go and essentially be the most powerful foreign policy figure other than him. And maybe Jared is coming back as the, you know, I mean, he likes people who will confirm his impulses and that will, you know, do what he asks them to do. Now, by the way, Rubio had his spine surgically removed. He is not standing up for anything either. But I think Rubio, like J.D. vance, is sitting there going, how do I play this? Because I want to succeed Donald Trump. And I just think, you know, this is going to be the whole thing. You know, you guys cover with a great avidity how many band aids he's got on his hand.
- [40:07]
Hugh Docherty
We, we are always on ankles alert band aid watch.
- [40:11]
David Rothkopf
Right. And the circumference of his cankles.
- [40:13]
Hugh Docherty
Yes.
- [40:14]
David Rothkopf
And, you know, I mean, you know.
- [40:16]
Hugh Docherty
Those are, these are actuallyi mean, these are serious issues.
- [40:19]
David Rothkopf
They actually are serious issues because they are evidence that Donald Trump is at the end of his story. They are signs to the world that this is not a vigorous person. This is not a person who's, you know, biography is about their future. It's about their past. And.
- [40:40]
Everybody can see that in Washington.
- [40:42]
Hugh Docherty
And so, and especially the people who are sitting in Marco Rubio's case, to his right, and in J.D. vance's case, across the table or at.
- [40:49]
David Rothkopf
The Cabinet meeting, Marco Rubio is sitting there going, you know, the President is the most vigorous, brilliant man ever. And Trump's like, you know, Trump. Trump is passed out next to him, you know, so. But, you know, I mean, Rubio's like, in the shot that then everybody uses to go, these people are losing it. Yes.
- [41:08]
But they're alsoif you're Marco Rubio.
- [41:11]
Hugh Docherty
You'Ve got to be unhappy that you're in that shot, because you can'tyou're inyou're now in this territory.
- [41:16]
David Rothkopf
You can't say, well, that's the thing is they're gonna spend all their lives going, well, you know, I was there advising Trump not to do this horrible thing. You know, I was the conscience of this administration. But, you know, I think I don't trust anything Marjorie Taylor Greene says. And, you know, if you watched her 60 Minutes interview over the weekend, she was still pretty gross and still pretty much Marjorie Taylor Greene. But there's one thing she says that everybody knows is true, and that is behind the scenes, Republicans are making fun of Trump. Behind the scenes, they are saying he's not up to it. He's crazy. What is he going to name? He literally cannot pass an object without thinking it should be named for him. You know, I mean, you know, he wants to name the Kennedy center after himself. The past week, he renamed the US Institute of Peace after himself. He said last week that he wants to tear down Dulles Airport. And you know why? Because he wants to name it after himself. And there's a move afoot to name things after himself. To me, by the way, you know, if you're watching his band aids and you're watching his cankles, the number of things he wants to name after himself, I think is a good indicator of how ill he thinks he is, because this is just him looking for some legacy. It's just him saying, well, that could make me immortal if you know that, because I think he realizes that he is shuffling off this mortal coil sooner rather than later.
- [42:52]
Hugh Docherty
Well, if you were in the Trump Cabinet, or maybe if you were a Trump Cabinet member's chief of staff, what would you be doing right now?
- [43:02]
David Rothkopf
Looking for plan B? You know.
- [43:06]
How do I get a soft landing. How do I get out? How do I put a place where, you know, I don't alienate Trump while he has some power, but that I can distance myself from Trump? And by the way, it's not just the Cabinet, you know who else is doing that? Elon, Peter Thiel, Mark Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, all the people who are catering to him, all the people who are funding his.
- [43:37]
You know, ballroom where he, by the way, fired the architects last week. And the price is getting bigger and bigger. You know, all these people are walking a fine line. How do I keep this lunatic from screwing up my life now? How do I get as much as I can out of him while he's, like, selling pardons and selling market share and, you know, all that, and do it in a way where whoever comes next doesn't throw me in the slammer or.
- [44:11]
Sort of stigmatize me? And I gotta tell you.
- [44:17]
I'm not a stock advisor. You are not giving out investment advice. Right.
- [44:21]
Hugh Docherty
Do not.
- [44:22]
David Rothkopf
But if I were a Palantir, and I were a shareholder in Palantir, which has just said we're all in with Trump and we have the most, most overvalued stock in the whole stock market, because look at our multiple, which is just crazy compared to our actual real earnings, I would be like, oh, boy, there's a reckoning coming. And I think that's going to be true in a lot of places, as has been true in Crypto, by the way.
- [44:48]
Hugh Docherty
Well, I've seen the Trump family wealth.
- [44:53]
David Rothkopf
The Melania crypto is down.
- [44:56]
Hugh Docherty
I can't believe you made me buy them.
- [44:57]
David Rothkopf
Well, I thought it was going to be a sure thing.
- [45:00]
Hugh Docherty
It's down to. I think it's one twentieth of its high point.
- [45:03]
David Rothkopf
Maybe it's down 90% in its value. And I would just move all your assets into her new production company.
- [45:11]
Hugh Docherty
That's an investment tip that we should all perhaps ignore.
- [45:15]
David Rothkopf
Ignore.
- [45:15]
Hugh Docherty
But if we can get that production company to do a cage match of you and Michael Wolf, that would be.
- [45:22]
David Rothkopf
The shortest cage match in history. Come on, bring it on. I'm ready.
- [45:26]
Hugh Docherty
I will. I'll. I will. Happily. We'll be refereeing it in the trumpagon.
- [45:31]
David Rothkopf
In the. In the trumpagon. Two aging Jews from New Jersey who went to Columbia University.
- [45:38]
Hugh Docherty
Oh, I've. I've forgotten those.
- [45:39]
David Rothkopf
Yes, yeah, exactly. But there are differences, folks.
- [45:43]
Hugh Docherty
There are differences.
- [45:45]
David Rothkopf
May draw your own conclusions.
- [45:50]
Hugh Docherty
There are many differences. One piece of. One thing I will say in common, before or after Your cage match is that both David Rothkoff and Michael Wolff provide unparalleled insights into the world of Trump. Into the world that's going to come after Trump. Absolutely. Deluge soon, I hope.
- [46:07]
David Rothkopf
Yeah.
- [46:09]
Hugh Docherty
And also that they are regularly to be found here on the Daily Base podcast and Inside Trump's Head, not to.
- [46:16]
David Rothkopf
Mention Deep State Radio.
- [46:17]
Hugh Docherty
David, I was about to say, where else can we find Deep State Radio?
- [46:21]
David Rothkopf
Well, Deep State Radio, we do lots of podcasts every week, so deep stateradio.com, and I do a substack called need to Know which people can go to and get videos and also get stuff I've written. And I have a new article in the New Republic Today on the President's.
- [46:38]
Hugh Docherty
National security strategy, and I definitely recommend checking it out. Check out Deep State Radio, which is, I was going to say, every day.
- [46:46]
David Rothkopf
In the week, every single day of the week. 15, 16 podcasts a week. Desperately trying to stay one step ahead of you guys.
- [46:54]
Hugh Docherty
David Rothkoff, I hope, will be back soon to bring his wisdom if he survives that cage match. David, thank you for joining us.
- [47:00]
David Rothkopf
Thank you.
- [47:03]
Thank you.
- [47:08]
Hugh Docherty
David Rothkoff, thank you for your insights. Good luck with cage match prep. You can keep up to date with the other cage match, the one in D.C. at the Daily Beast. Subscribe to Never miss a cankle or a bruised hand@www.thedailybeast.com. thank you to everyone who subscribes. Thank you to everyone who's part of our YouTube channel. We love your comments. Thank you to everybody who commented on our interview with Senator Slotkin and Major General Eaton. I just want to give a big shout out to Karen White, one of our Beast level members, who commented that Central Slotkin is her own senator in Michigan. You can join the growing list by hitting the join button right under the video. Get your name read out by me or by Joanna, who has far better diction. And there are a load of other benefits to being a member. Exclusive interviews and opinions. Among them, Joanna will be back with Michael Wolfe to dive into the dark place that is inside Trump's head. Whether you're planning a trip to the trumpagon for a cage match or just going about your normal life, there's only one thing I should say which is be Beast. Thanks to all our Beast tier members. The other names are Sandra Clarke, Methinks, Travels With Carol, Andrew Beaver, Capinator Harry Clark, Don McCarthy, Daniel Dog Lover, M. Griner, Olivia Orlando, Herbie Andrew Mellor, Laz Conde, Bonzo, Val La Francisco, Andrea Hodel, Bullcock, dc, Shardon Shipley, Connie Rutherford and Heidi Riley. And finally, thank you to our team, Devon Rogerino, Anna Von Olsen and Jesse Millward.
- [48:43]
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- [49:25]
Hey.
- [49:25]
Adam Grant
It'S Adam Grant from Ted's podcast Work Life, and this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 companies use the ServiceNow AI platform. While other platforms duct tape tools together, ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data workflows and AI connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters Most. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work.
- [49:59]
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- [51:07]
David Rothkopf
Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, the Last Laugh and our Star Studded the Daily beast podcast@thedailybeast.com podcast if you enjoyed this.
- [51:16]
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