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- [00:00]
David Rothkopf
We have had multiple times in our history after Eisenhower's heart attacks, when FDR was in its declined health at the end of his term, where other people did the job of president. Power flows from the president, from the people closest to the president, from the people who control his schedule. The vice president is almost never in that. If he were incapacitated and they had to invoke the 25th Amendment, that would be another story. You may just have more memos on more decisions going to Stephen Miller or going to somebody else who's sitting outside the Oval Office. You know, Stephen Miller going to say, okay, we'll send presidents. Fine, just send those memos to me. I'll handle it. And I got to tell you, you look at Donald Trump, you look at the bruises, you look at his behavior, you look at his age, you look at his family history, and we could be heading for one of these periods where somebody other than Trump is actually behind the scenes, the acting president.
- [01:03]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
If it's Monday, it's David Rothkopf.
- [01:05]
David Rothkopf
Hi, Joanna.
- [01:07]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Where do we begin?
- [01:09]
David Rothkopf
Well, tell us about your weekend. What did you do? Did you have a good time?
- [01:13]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
I had a very good time. Perhaps not as good a time as the president did cruising around on his golf cart with Gary Player, the golfer, except that he's showing nasty bruises. David,
- [01:29]
David Rothkopf
I can only, you know, when I see those bruises we had started with his hand and his ankles. Now the bruises are going up his arm. You know where that leads. It makes you want to wonder, like, what does he look like naked?
- [01:40]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
No, it doesn't make you think that, David, I've never once thought that. I do have questions, though, about.
- [01:47]
David Rothkopf
But you know how he looks naked, right? He's got all these bruises and then he's got like this orange spray tint. So when he takes off his shirt, the orange stops right here, right?
- [01:58]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Well, do we know it stops right there? You think he has an orange chest?
- [02:02]
David Rothkopf
He's completely orange.
- [02:04]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
What I'm curious about, because we'll come onto in a minute, discussing the AI photo, the sort of Photoshopped version of what he released yesterday is the image of himself.
- [02:20]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
Who does he think he is?
- [02:22]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
I was very caught by the thing he said last week about Republicans. People don't like Republicans. They're angry at Republicans. They're not angry at me. And when his people, like Natalie Hart, put out pictures of himself and they've made him slimmer and they've removed the bruises, does he think he's slimmer and the bruises aren't still there? Does he have a fake sense of who he is at this point, for sure, he does.
- [02:48]
David Rothkopf
First of all, he's kind of a delusional guy to begin with. He's always had crazy ideas of who he was, that he's the greatest developer in New York, the most important producer on television, the only guy who can get ratings, the only guy who can solve a problem, the only guy can end a war. All those things are completely delusional. But, you know, he now, as fewer and fewer people want to have anything to do with him, he's in this tighter and tighter bubble. And the only reason people have been picked for that bubble is because they lie to him about who he is. They say, you're a great boss, you're a genius boss, your policies are working, boss. Natalie Harp is there. One day he looks like Jesus, the next day he looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was training to be Mr. Universe. And Trump thinks, oh, yeah, this is who I am, this is who I am. And anybody who says I not, they're my opponents. And I think it's a sign, just as we discuss every week, we could have a little checklist. But this is a sign of his further decline, his further remoteness from reality. And that comment in that interview is just a perfect example. The polls say no, he's the least popular president at this point in the second term ever. His policies are unpopular. Everything that's associated with him, that's unpopular, he just is beginning also to try to distance himself from what he sees as the November outcome. And he's like, well, if I had been running. And he said this in the interview, it's kind of like, if I had been running, then they would have done better, but I wasn't running.
- [04:29]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
David, we've got a lot to get into. I want to talk about Suzy Wiles. I want to talk about some of the people who are clearly pulling away from him. We've got Melania's 226 workload for people to see. I'm just going to hold it up here because you will see a lot of gaps on the calendar. We want to talk about Iran. My favorite, I mean, I shouldn't say my favorite, but my sort of favorite moment, I guess, of the week was Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, saying that Iran had agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz, and then Iran listed their conditions for it. And it was like a sort of farce. I mean, it was as if the list had been written by Armando Iannucci, you know, one of the favorite writers we come back to who did in the loop and who did veep in terms of just the madness of this war that Trump started, his forever war. But before we go on, let me just remind people to smash the subscription button. Please share this episode with your friend David Rothkopf, former editor of Foreign Policy, and I think it's fair to say a former, well, I guess civil servant, right? Worked for the government. David Rothkoff, historian, author of many books that made you sound like a spy. I'm sorry, but you're the author of many books. The Deep State Radio Network.
- [06:00]
David Rothkopf
Nice to meet you. Have we met before?
- [06:02]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
I'm losing it this morning. It's the doldrums of summer. Anyway, David Rothkopf is with us, who always shines his wisdom at the beginning of the week on the crazy that's going on. So, David, can we just go back to Trump and this notion of presidents finding it very difficult to actually understand what is going on because they're sheltered in by the Natalie Harps of this world who are running around showing motivational statements and making up pictures of him on Mount Rushmore or as you say, as Jesus. How hard is it? You've been a presidential historian, you've worked for presidents. How hard is it for them to get a sense of actually what's going on?
- [06:47]
David Rothkopf
It's really very hard. And that's why, you know, presidents actually have to work against the bubble that closes in on people when they're in the White House. They have to work against what's called group think, this idea that everybody around them, you know, they go into the same meetings, they get the same signals, they start thinking their policies are right and that anybody who's opposing them is wrong. That's why, you know, you have, as Doris Kearns wrote in her book, people seeking a Team of rivals, right, that they try to get together people in their cabinet with different points of view. Well, Trump doesn't want that. He doesn't want different points of view. He wants people who will flatter him and agree with him. So the tendencies towards groupthink, the bubble get stronger and stronger. And he, frankly, doesn't tolerate people who stray once. Look at Jeanine Pirro. You know, here was this woman who was going on TV all the time saying how great Trump was, and then she became the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia because she said how great Trump was. And she started pursuing all of Trump's insane cases. And she strayed once, and he's like, well, I'm considering firing her because he just does not tolerate any dissent or different points of view.
- [08:08]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
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- [09:39]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
So, David, we have a story on the Daily Beast today about how Susie Wiles was completely blindsided by the new head of ice that Mark Wayne Mullen, the new head of Homeland Security who replaced Kristi Noem. He's got zero experience, like various Trump appointees, it has to be said, but he's got zero experience to be head of ice. He was part of Mark Wayne Mullins security detail and before that he was a highway patrolman. So he's probably quite good in a car. But Susie Wiles was apparently blindsided by this, as was Tom Homan. Susie Wiles, we know, has had breast cancer. She's being treated for it. Then we saw Dave Warrington, the White House lawyer left this weekend to be replaced by someone called Will Scharf, who's been knocking around the White House. So there's sort of changes going on. Melania is completely missing in action. We did a deep audit of her White House performances. It feels like people are abandoning him. Susie Wiles doesn't seem as present. Warrington's off to make money. It's like he seems even more isolated.
- [10:58]
David Rothkopf
Well, I think he is more isolated. I don't think People like him, I don't think they want to hang around him. You've talked about that on other podcasts here. But I also think people can see the writing on the wall. Trump won't admit he's a lame duck president. But with these coming elections, and particularly if the Republicans do badly in these coming elections, you get to the other side of these. Particularly if the Democrats control one or both houses of Congress, he's a lame duck, he's over. Every story is going to be about who replaces him. It's going to be hard for him to maintain being the center of attention. So that's a problem for him, particularly given his personality defects. But you also have the discipline around him breaking down as people start looking for their next job. And this happens all the time, by the way, in a White Houses, you get a couple of years in, everybody starts looking for their next job and discipline breaks down. And by the way, one of the other problems is that as the A team leaves, the B team comes in, you get sort of second rate choices, which we're seeing there. Susie Wiles had this great reputation that she was the one who could keep control of the uncontrollable Donald Trump. And she stayed out of the limelight and she just made sure the trains ran on time in a job which has been called the second most powerful job in the world. But she has been ill and she, I think is a little disconnecting. And I think from what I hear, she's getting frustrated by Trump because Trump is notoriously undisciplined. And in this, by the way, he's like some other presidents Clinton. The whole secret with Clinton was get to him right before he gives the speech. If you're the last person to talk to him, you had the best chance of influencing the outcome. And this is a tendency that other presidents have had. You have as an alternative, certain presidents who are more respectful of the process. Obama was a little more respectful of the process. But even with him we talked about on the show that you're doing on women around presidents, Valerie Jarrett, other people would meet with him in a social context and they would circumvent the policy process. Well, with Donald Trump, you're on the golf course. With Donald Trump you could change his mind on anything. I mean, he changes his mind on all these things anyway. And also he has no process. He's not a president who'll say, well, I've got to run it by the guys, right? Or run it by my team, cuz he doesn't run it by his team. So clearly, Mark Wayne Mullen buttonholed Trump and said, hey, I got this, pal. He's really good. You know, he has a lot of law enforcement experience. Let's put him in charge of ice and he'll be super loyal to you, boss. And Trump's like, okay, let's do it. And he announces it. And then Susie Wiles finds out. This I predict Susie Wiles will not last long in this job because this is the kind of thing that chiefs of staff do not tolerate. Well, at least professional chiefs of staff. And I think you're going to see a lot more churn between now and the end of the year, particularly if the elections go badly. We're going to see cabinet secretaries go, we're going to see people around the President go. And he's going to seem more isolated. But the final point, and the one that you know more about, and this the Daily Beast has written more about than anybody, is, you know, the sort of canary in the coal mine is Melanian, who is completely checked out. Nobody, you know, if she's the first Lady. Right. You know, she's the one who's going to have some sense of, you know, what her obligations are. She probably has it in a contract someplace. And, and, and I think according to your analysis, she made two appearances in July.
- [14:46]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Right? Two appearances in July. And actually we are running, as you know, because you're part of the last episode, the final episode, a four part series on Trump and Trump's women, the women around him, his family, his wife, his daughters, and then the work wives. And we had yesterday on with Nell Scovell, whose idea it was, we had Anthony Scaramucci come on and he said the issue with Trump now is that he's also meaner. So people don't want to hang out with him as much because as he's gotten older, he's gotten meaner. As he's under more pressure, he's gotten meaner.
- [15:22]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
And people just don't want to be around it.
- [15:24]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
And if they have options, they leave.
- [15:27]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, and I did one of my podcasts last week on the DSR network was with a mutual friend, Mary Trump. And Mary said that Donald's father, as he sank into dementia, became meaner and meaner. You know, that this is a trend that will continue for biological reasons, neurological reasons, in addition to the usual lame duck, end of the administration reasons. And, you know, Melania, you know, I think she's completely fed up. You know, I mean, her famous coat that she wore that said, I don't really care, do you? Or whatever it was. I don't. She doesn't care. You know, what's he going to do to her? She's gotten her money. She'll be gone the day after this is all over. She's leading a completely separate life. But people see that, you know, people in the administration go, well, wait, his wife never shows up.
- [16:25]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Right.
- [16:25]
David Rothkopf
I mean, the only person who showed up less in July than melania is Mitch McConnell.
- [16:32]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Yes. Although Mitch McConnell is now back home. Right. Mitch McConnell. And where is Barron? Also odd that his youngest son just, you know, who you would think would be enjoying having a father in the White House, is nowhere, nowhere to be seen, supposedly on the NYU campus in
- [16:49]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
D.C. well, it was.
- [16:50]
David Rothkopf
Look at how central Ivanka was.
- [16:52]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Right.
- [16:52]
David Rothkopf
And Ivanka made the decision early on. I'm not doing this again.
- [16:55]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Yep.
- [16:56]
David Rothkopf
You know, and so who are the people closest to Trump? They're the ones who realize they want to stay away, because I think they know that as bad as things are with Trump right now, as he goes through this election, as his relevance shrinks as the conversation turns to, is it Marco? Is it JD Is it, You know, and he's not the center of attention. He's going to melt down. He's going to be absolutely intolerable to be with.
- [17:26]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Yeah. We had James Carville on the podcast last Wednesday, and he was saying, speaking
- [17:31]
David Rothkopf
of people who are intolerable. Yeah, go on.
- [17:33]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Well, he was very tolerable last weekend. And he speaks highly of you, David.
- [17:39]
David Rothkopf
Sure he does. Sure he does.
- [17:41]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
But his point was that Trump will have. Is completely unprepared for what happens after the midterms, assuming the Democrats win the House. Where power, just people go to where the power is. And when the power is no longer with you, that it's, you're in the rearview mirror. And he won't be. He's not used to it, and he won't know how to handle it.
- [18:04]
David Rothkopf
Was his James Washington? Well, unusually for him, that's correct. That the, the, the, I'm in one of the, you know, I'm a little bit more progressive. He's a little bit more centrist. I have a little problem with some of the stuff he said recently, but he knows Washington. He's been around in Washington, and he knows that the thing that makes Washington different from New York is in New York, it's all about money. And everybody can have money. You can be a billionaire, I can be a billionaire. Your billions don't impact my billions. But Washington, it's all about power. It's a zero sum game and it's all about access to the president. And the table has a certain number of seats in it. And either you're at the table or you're not at the table, or you're the center of power or you're not at the center of power. And Trump's stock in this regard is depleting on a regular basis. And frankly, for a guy who's literally, since, I don't know, 1980, made his whole life about how could he be the center of attention in the New York Post, in the New York media, on tv? And he's going to stop being the center of attention and it's going to drive him completely crazy. I feel this because, you know, while you had this weekend and you were off doing glamorous stuff, I just look at, watch movies because I'm a movie freak. And I watched the Apprentice, the Sebastian Stan movie about Trump with Roy Cohn in the 70s and 80s. It's a very depressing, kind of grim but true depiction of Trump. And, and he is about to enter a phase in his life that he has not been in, in 40 years. And that's his period of irrelevancy, his period of being old news, of not being interesting to people. And it's going to coincide with, you know, his physical decline. And it's, it's not going to, it's not going to be pretty.
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- [21:26]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
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- [21:27]
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- [21:33]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
All right, can we talk about something else? That's really not pretty and seems to be going on and on and, again, is very reflective of, as you said, Trump's complete lack of process and his determination to be a government of one until we assume the Democrats win the House, which is his forever war. Let's just talk about this. Scott Besant puts out a statement saying the Iranians are excited to do a deal, that they're almost there. Can we go through the terms that they are demanding? Because this, to me, is just sort of breathtaking in terms of the.
- [22:10]
David Rothkopf
Well, the first thing that I took from this was that if you get a chance to be around Donald Trump, play cards with him, because he's really bad at cards. And he's always saying these people don't have the cards. And he's always wrong. He said, well, the Ukrainians don't have the cards. The Russians have the cards. And then it turned out the Ukrainians actually have the cards and the Russians don't. And in this war with Iran, they don't have the cards. We have all the cards. Well, they then signed an MoU, which was a sort of capitulation to all the core Iranian demands. And then the Iranians distanced themselves from them. Well, they've now taken it to the next step, where they have essentially issued a bunch of demands which amount to a call for unconditional surrender on the part of the U.S. i mean, it's like, we will not discuss anything with you unless you pay us the money to rebuild our country. You give us all the assets of ours that you are holding. You stop fighting us in any way. You take the blockade and you get rid of the blockade. You promise never to say anything bad about us. You send us a Christmas card every year. I mean, it is an incredibly detailed list, six or seven points, but there's no wiggle room in this. It's not like we're gaining ground. And on top of that, as all this was happening, and I love that Scott Besant was the designated idiot last week who had to go in and offer up the Trump position, even though everybody knows that the position is full of baloney over the weekend, at the same time, days after Trump said, and we are making progress in Gaza. So look over here. Because Benjamin Netanyahu said, nope. He. He said, you know, he waited and he said, do I piss off Trump or do I piss off my allies in Israel? And he's like, I'm not up. I'm happy to piss off Trump. And again, this is another message to Trump. It's another, you know, everybody is whispering in his ear, you're not relevant. You are old. You need to leave the stage. It's coming to an end, Donald. It's the Grim Reaper everywhere he looks, standing around him. And you know, unfortunately for the world, that has terrible consequences when he is the only decision maker when it comes to a thing like this endless war. Because the Iranians are saying, we'll wait it out. Talk to you after the election, Donald. Talk to you after. We can push the price of gas up any day we want between now and the election. Talk to you after the whole campaign is being run on your inability to control this war. And so they now have all the cards. We have none of the cards. And there is, by the way, another story on that which we've gotten into over the weekend again, or expanded over the weekend, and that is that Trump waged this war without advice, against advice. And what did he do? He used up the vast majority of the most important munitions in the American arsenal, the air defense systems, precision guided weapons. Honestly, I have to tell you, and I wrote about this for you guys on Friday. This should be the biggest scandal there is. The United States right now, if we were attacked, couldn't defend ourselves. The United States right now, if one of our allies were attacked, couldn't defend ourselves. We had a general leading general in Europe who said, if Israel gets attacked now, we can't help them because we don't have these weapons. This is profound mismanagement on the part of Hexeth and Trump. But it also ties Trump's hands. You didn't hear him over the weekend saying, we're going to destroy Iran. And the reason is he can't. He doesn't have the tools to destroy Iran anymore. And they know it, and the Russians know it and the Chinese know it. And there was this thing that they just put out today, you know, well, you know, we're going to get proposals from defense contractors to restore all of these stockpiles. And it's complete bullshit because it's going to cost tens or hundreds of billions of dollars and take many, many years to get back to where we should be on this. And so, you know, in a way, Trump just blew his wad with Iran in the wrong war. He used up all the cards that he had. And the Iranians are laughing all the way to the bank. They know that they are going to dictate the terms and frankly, our allies in the region talk to them. They know that the United States influence in the Middle east has never been weaker.
- [27:01]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
And I think Donald Trump is probably terrified of being compared to Jimmy Carter with, of course, the Iranians keeping American hostages for 444 days. I mean, the Iranians really understood how to play Jimmy Carter. They understood there was an election coming up, and they surely understand that here.
- [27:23]
David Rothkopf
That's exactly right. It's exactly right. But, you know, but Trump is making Jimmy Carter look like a cross between Dwight Eisenhower and Von Clausewitz. I mean, or Winston Churchill. Right. Because Jimmy Carter was at least having a process, managing circumstances, trying to handle this properly. He had some bad luck. And also, by the way, he got screwed because the Republicans were doing this back channel thing where they were saying to the Iranians, don't release them until after the election. But Trump is in the situation he's in because he's an ignoramus who doesn't understand history, who doesn't listen to advisors, who's told his advisors, get rid of all the people around you, who have real experience, who has literally shut down the National Security Council, who has a frat boy running the Department of Defense into the ground. He has screwed this up. I mean, we've made many mistakes in the past, Vietnam and Iraq and all this other stuff, but we've never made mistakes as a consequence of such chaos and stupidity. And those are the hallmarks of Trump foreign policy. Chaos and stupidity.
- [28:44]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Chaos and stupidity. What happens, do you think, to Pete Hegseth? Does Pete Hegseth get fired after the midterms? I mean, we know that Trump shouted at him at Camp David last week when they were all there for their brief summer off site. And Trump said that Hegseth hadn't told him that the shortage of munitions was as grave as it is. Hegseth then promptly blamed his number to Steven Feinberg, I think, and said, oh, well, it was his job to tell you, and he's the guy in charge of munitions.
- [29:20]
David Rothkopf
That's a real hallmark of great leadership, isn't it?
- [29:22]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Just blame someone else to throw your
- [29:24]
David Rothkopf
number 2 under the bus in front of the president rather than taking responsibility for what is clearly the single greatest act of Defense Department mismanagement ever in the history of the Defense Department. I mean, it should be a giant scandal. There will be investigations into this if the Democrats win. And I think Trump will probably push Hagseth out as we get to the end of this term.
- [29:54]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Do you think that's what will happen? Trump will fire Hagseth Yeah, I mean,
- [29:58]
David Rothkopf
Trump's whole calculus now is, will this make me look weak before the midterms? So I think, you know, there will be an exodus, as there often is two years into a term at the end. And I think Hegseth is one of the people who'll go. I think Susie Wiles is one of the people who will go. We will see what investigations do for, you know, the future of Howard Lutnick, who's tied up in the Epstein thing, or Scott Besant, who seems to be pissed off at everybody around him in the government. So, you know, I think there will be a big turnover, but I think Hegseth will be at the center of it because he literally has been an absolute catastrophe on every conceivable level. Department management, budget management, people management, strategy, leaking stuff, attacking the press, ending transparency, sending the wrong message, being a clown. You know, it's. It's. I'm surprised he's still there, frankly.
- [31:03]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Democrats are not necessarily in a. In a much better position. They've got a sort of civil war within the party between the moderates and the more progressives.
- [31:16]
David Rothkopf
Do they? I mean, they do for James Carville, but they don't for, you know, I mean, look what happened after Dr. Abdul El Sayed won the Democratic nomination for Senate in Michigan. Within hours, his opponent embraced his candidacy. The other opponent in the race embraced the candidacy. Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, who had not supported him, embraced his candidacy. Within a couple of days, he was meeting with Barack Obama, and Barack Obama was offering to help him in giving him advice. Here's what happened. This doesn't get covered, but the Democrats are actually in array, and they recognize that whatever their differences are internally.
- [32:04]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Wait a minute. They're in array? Is that the opposite of disarray?
- [32:08]
David Rothkopf
That is the.
- [32:08]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
I've never heard that term, that in array. How interesting.
- [32:12]
David Rothkopf
Well, I offer it up in contradistinction to the term that you often see in the press, which is Dems in disarray. The Democrats are in disarray. And the reality is, at least in this case in Michigan, we see an example where the Democrats say, oh, no, it is far more important to be Mike Rogers, who's the Republican candidate for the seat, and hold this seat because the Democrats winning the Senate really will turn heavily on a few states, and Michigan is one of them because the seat is currently a Democratic seat.
- [32:44]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Okay, so can we just take a look at some of the action going on in Michigan because Abdul El Sayed has suddenly come to life? I mean, A lot of people paying him attention. He's very quick in his responses. We've got a couple here. And then we wanted to show you Mike Rogers and more importantly, Mike Rogers wife, in his new ad welcoming moderates to the Trump wannabe candidate. And of course, Mike Rogers is a former congressman, so he's known in Michigan.
- [33:18]
Abdul El Sayed (clip)
If you're among the majority of Democratic voters that woke up on Wednesday feeling, well, hopeless, because the person who won does not represent your values well, just know there is still hope. Michigan deserves a senator who is ready to sit with you, hear from you and represent you. The parents across Michigan who want an education system that sets up their kids for success. You have a home with us. To grandparents across Michigan who are heartbroken from watching their kids and grandkids leave the state. You have a home with us.
- [33:51]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Mrs. Rogers just, she doesn't look very happy there.
- [33:56]
David Rothkopf
Well, you know, she's pissed off. And maybe there could be a parade of pissed off Republican wives who've got to sit next to these jerks as they put this up. I think, you know, his slogan, you have a home with us doesn't really work very well because as Dr. Elsay had pointed out, the last time he lost in Congress, the first thing that Mike Rogers did was actually move out of Michigan and he moved to Florida to live in Florida. But, you know, this, that, you know, you've sort of picked the part of his message that sounds more traditional. In the past 48 hours, both him and Trump have launched really racist attacks on Dr. El Sayed because he's got a different sounding name. Oh, my God, like Zoran Mamdani, like Barack Hussein Obama, like the woman who's running in Wisconsin for governor tomorrow, Francesca Hong. Oh, my God, there are immigrants in America. And when you don't have anything to point to in the way of success, like the economy is in a mess, the war that both he and Rogers said was a necessary war is a complete disaster. There is no agenda for the Republicans in Congress. They've gotten nothing done. The candidates that you see from the Republican Party on the tv, like Max Miller in Ohio or Ken Paxton and in, in Texas, are among the sleaziest people you will ever see. They don't have a message. So they go back to Trump 101, and that's racism. And, you know, you got to ask yourself, you know, like, look at Abdullah Sayed. He has a degree from Columbia, his degree from Oxford. He was a Rhodes scholar. He's a doctor. He was a public health official in Michigan. He lives in Michigan with his wife, who's a psychiatrist like his two kids. If his name was Smith, they wouldn't be saying any of this stuff. And his crazy, radical policies that he wants, he wants the people of Michigan to have health care. He wants the roads to be paved well.
- [36:12]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
And he's very specifically said, he's not actually a member of the dsa. He's also very quick in his response to the media. Let's play some of those responses over the weekend.
- [36:24]
David Rothkopf
And he says, if you pardon the language, you're full of. What do you say to that?
- [36:28]
Mike Rogers (clip)
At least I don't let mine go in the middle of the Oval Office.
- [36:31]
Abdul El Sayed (clip)
The caption was two very different Americas.
- [36:35]
Mike Rogers (clip)
What was your response when you saw that? Yeah, he's right. One in which your overlords are two people who don't like each other but joint in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you, or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good things. So, yes, you've got two different visions of America. Donald Trump's vision is the one you're living in right now. Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries? Do you believe when you look your kids in the eye that they're going to have a better future than you did? And Sara and I are running because when we look our daughters in the eye, Amelie and Sirin, we want them to believe that they're every bit as able to have a better future than the one that they could have had under the Trump administration.
- [37:22]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Very capable politician there.
- [37:24]
David Rothkopf
He's a very good candidate, he's a brilliant guy and he's had a great career. But here's the reality that the Republicans are going to have trouble dealing with. He is the all American guy. It's not Trump. It's not a billionaire who flies around the world, who's, you know, flaunted immigration laws with his prior wives, who's got all these birthright, citizen offspring. This is a guy grew up in America, has built a family in America, has built a career in America, has succeeded in America. If you listen to him, he's talking about the things that people in Michigan care about. And, you know, he's, you know, I mean, Trump is totally off his game at the moment. And that's what, you know, Dr. El Said immediately said, I would like to have five debates with Mike Rogers, right? It's like, let's have debates. You know, he's like, he knows he's going to clean the floor with him in these things because the Republican record is bad and Rogers record is bad. And Rogers, you know, when he left Congress, he ended up making $14 million. And as Elsa points out, you know, he had a very cozy relationship with the pharma industry. And, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's not a case that, that Trump wants to make. But having said that, he's got nothing else. And so I really expect the next two to three months to be among the most racist we've seen in American history with attacks on him, like the attacks on Mamdani, like the attacks you remember on Obama, like attacks on potentially this Democratic candidate if she wins tomorrow, Francesca Hong in Wisconsin and so on. And I don't think that's going to play well because it reminds everybody that the Trump administration, immigration policies are awful, that people are dying in custody, that these unqualified people are being put in charge of ice, that ICE is killing people. That ICE just this week announced, well, we have cameras, body cams on our cops, but we're only going to show you the film we like, not the video that then may not look good for us. That it's just, you know, scrutiny does not serve Trump well. And I think Elsaye will play to that extremely well because he's deaf. There's a reason he won against the odds, against all the money against him. He's a good candidate.
- [40:12]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
He's a very good candidate. Also, I thought it was odd that Donald Trump put those two pictures out himself in black tie with Melania in a dress that I always think makes it look as if she's redacting her body from Donald Trump with those thick black stripes. And then a much more relatable picture of a couple having what looks like Sunday pancakes.
- [40:35]
David Rothkopf
Well, yeah, I mean, it's like they also don't get it. The reality is that the U.S. census Bureau said that by 2043, in the next 10, 12 years, the majority of Americans are going to be what we used to think of as minority groups, people of color, immigrants, other kinds of backgrounds. That's the majority of Americans. It's not going to change. Playing to the white male majority or the billionaire white male majority in your black tie is playing to a small group. People can relate to Abdul El Sayed better than they can relate to, you know, Donald Trump at Mar a Lago hanging around with foreign dictators.
- [41:24]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Well, if he's hanging around at Mar a Lago. That means he won't be hanging out in the ballroom. Do you think the ballroom, which as we know was given a 14 day stay last week by a D.C. court, Will, how will he maneuver through this essential halt to the work? He's got 14 days to get it resolved.
- [41:51]
David Rothkopf
Well, he's gonna go to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court will possibly address this thing on the shadow docket. And the decision that went against it was a decision in which the one Trump appointee judge said that he should be able to continue and the two non Trump appointee judge on the appellate court ruled against him. And they may come up with some reason that he should be allowed to do this because there's a big hole in the ground there. Or, you know, Trump doesn't refer to this as a ballroom anymore. He refers to this as a military installation.
- [42:25]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Right.
- [42:26]
David Rothkopf
Because he feels he's got more legal ground saying, well, I have to do this for national security reasons than he does saying, I have to build this giant gilded ballroom with all these chandeliers in it in which to entertain my rich friends. Trump's violated the law a bunch of times in proceeding with this, but he knew that if he did and there were a big hole in the ground, it does create a problem for the courts, which is, well, what are you going to do? Fill in the hole in the ground. And so I have an uneasy feeling, but my uneasy feeling is that the Supreme Court will say, well, go ahead and finish this project, even though there's no legal reason to do it. It's just that there's six Trumpy justices on the Supreme Court and they tend to look for excuses to do this kind of thing. Were they to give him the thumbs down, it would be absolutely devastating to him. And his whole, his project right now is his legacy project. You know, where can I leave my name and monuments to me so that when I'm going, people remember me. And the, you know, the centerpiece of that is this ballroom. And you know, it's, it's, it's in jeopardy now. But I have an uneasy feeling that he's going to get his way in one way or another.
- [43:53]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Interesting. I tend to think that the Supreme Court either won't take it or they
- [43:57]
David Rothkopf
will restrict from your lips to God's ears they should not take it. It this case has been resolved. There's nothing that requires their involvement. If they don't take it and he is enjoined from it, it will only accelerate the meltdown we're talking about. And I think, you know, if you wanted to sort of tie a bow around, our conversation today is the President is melting down. The people around the President realize he's melting down. It's only going to get worse. It's only going to make the situation in Iran worse. It's only going to make him more of a racist going into this election. It's only going to make him more intolerable to the people that are around him. It's only going to lead to an exodus of those people and an inflow of even less capable people. And it's going to be a kind of a pathetic display because after all, this is an 80 year old guy who is obviously not physically or mentally healthy or up to the job he's got. I mean, we don't talk about it, but you guys have written about it a little bit. You know, Trump's schedule is so micromanaged these days. And he does a couple of hours a day, he doesn't appear on tv, does fewer of these open press things than he used to do. And it's because people are sort of easing him away. This happened with Biden, by the way, where they just sort of don't put you center stage. And it does raise a question which is if he declines further, if he is less capable of handling the job, who's going to handle it for him? Stephen Miller going to say, okay, we'll send presidents, fine, just send those memos to me, I'll handle it. Because that has happened before. And I did these books that were histories of the White House and the nsc. And I'll just give you one example. I talk to people like Frank Carlucci was of Defense Department, the Secretary of defense under Reagan, and Colin Powell who was the chairman of Joint Chiefs and, and later Secretary of State. And they said that after Reagan entered his decline, they had rules after 5pm they didn't ask a question. They said they would try to resolve the question among themselves and it would get passed on. And you know, his, his, his role as president grew more diminished. They would run more things by Nancy Reagan. Same thing happened during the Nixon administration when as a result of Watergate, he started drinking more heavily. And there was even one instance during the Nixon administration when there was a report of an incoming Russian missile attack. Al Haig, who was acting as the, who's the Chief of staff at the time, didn't call Nixon, he called Kissinger. He said, what do we do with this? Or maybe it's Haldeman called Kissinger. And, and, and he Said, well, how do we deal with this? It was Haldeman. And, and, but the point is, we have had multiple times in our history after Eisenhower's heart attacks, when FDR was in its declined health at the end of his term, when Woodrow Wilson was bedridden after a stroke, where other people did the job of President. And I gotta tell you, you look at Donald Trump, you look at the bruises, you look at his behavior, you look at his age, you look at his family history, and we could be heading for one of these periods where somebody other than Trump is actually behind the scenes, the acting president.
- [47:33]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Well, shouldn't that naturally be J.D. vance when he's not on his book tour?
- [47:38]
David Rothkopf
Theoretically, it should be. And frankly, the reason that the Constitution was amended so there was a succession process in it was because of that. But of course, that's not how power works in the White House. Power flows from the President, from the people closest to the President, from the people who control his schedule, from the people who send out his statements. And so the Vice President is, is almost never in that. If he were incapacitated and they had to invoke the 25th Amendment, that would be another story. But, but that's not, I think what is going to happen here. I think, you know, you may have a slow decline and you may just have more memos on more decisions going to Stephen Miller or go into somebody else who's sitting outside the Oval Office.
- [48:39]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
That's a very depressing scenario. And they will probably feel more desperate and more anxious themselves, especially if the Democrats win the House. So perhaps they'll become more extreme with what they think they can do.
- [48:53]
David Rothkopf
Well, also they may become afraid if I were Stephen Miller and Democrats start doing investigations and there may be a Democratic president in the Democratic Department, Department of Justice. I'm running scared. What am I going to get prosecuted for? Or if I've been involved in some corrupt activity that I was hoping the President would be able to pardon me for. What am I going to do about that? Or are you going to start having people who aren't the President handing out pardons in the President's name? I just, I think we need to brace ourselves for this possibility. And I'm actually writing a column for you guys on this now because it happened with Wilson, it happened with Roosevelt, it happened when Eisenhower had his heart attacks, it happened when Nixon was drunk, it happened when Reagan had dementia and was feeling the after effects of his assassination. It has happened frequently in our recent past. We need to prepare for the possibility that it's going to happen with this rapidly declining, stressed out basket case of a president that we've got a rousing
- [49:59]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
start to the week with David Rothkopf. What more could we ask for? David, you really paint a quite bleak picture and yet this is America. We must remain optimistic. And the point of democracy is you can change your government.
- [50:14]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, well, look, that's what may happen in November. One of the things that may push him over the edge is democracy works and Democrats win one or both houses of Congress. So there's good news and the bad news. The thing that's gonna make him craziest is if democracy actually works.
- [50:31]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
David, I'll see you back here next Monday. We'll see what further declines are in evidence. Certainly those bruises on his arms look unpleasant.
- [50:42]
David Rothkopf
He looks unpleasant from top to bottom. And I apologize for the image of him unclothed earlier. But it is good to talk to you and I look forward to it next week.
- [50:51]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Good. David Rothkop, thank you very much. I love the way that David put a bow on essentially that the president appears to be failing, that his health is failing. He's got new bruises that appeared this weekend. He really doesn't look well. The White House understand it because they're putting out Photoshopped pictures of him and his policies are failing to and it's
- [51:20]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
reflected in the polls.
- [51:22]
Podcast Host (Daily Beast Host)
Anyway, write and tell us in the comments what your favorite part of the conversation was and if you have been big. Thank you for joining and to our production team, John Romero, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro and Neil Rosenhaus. We will see you back tomorrow where we're going inside Donald Trump's head with Michael Wolff. So the good news is we have so many Beast Tier members now, there are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support.