Loading summary
Transcript69 lines
- [00:01]
Joanna Coles
This episode is brought to you by Starbucks.
- [00:03]
David Rothkopf
That is fire. Whoa, that's good. This might be the drink of the summer. Okay, I like this one, too. I'm rocking with it.
- [00:10]
Joanna Coles
Okay, try it for yourself. Starbucks refreshers concentrates are coming home. Find them in the coffee aisle and make it yours.
- [00:18]
David Rothkopf
You don't get cognitive tests unless the doctor thinks you've got a problem with your cognition. Okay, we've got that as evidence, but we've also got evidence of the behavior you're talking about. 52 Truth Social posts over the weekend. He is a disturbed, sick lunatic who holds the most powerful job in the world and is at a stage of his existence where, because he's a narcissist, the only thing he cares about, himself. And if every single one of us cease to exist, he wouldn't care because the world is him. This guy's got some dark fantasies.
- [00:57]
Joanna Coles
I'm Joanna Cole. This is the Daily Beast podcast. Who else do we talk to on a Monday but David Rothkoff? And what a lot we have to talk about. Trump's manic posting spree over the weekend. What's happening in Iran? He says, we're about to have a deal. The Iranians are saying, not so fast. No, we're not. Is he having to take his name off the Trump Kennedy center, yes or no? The court says yes. His Interior secretary says not so fast. What's going on? So much. Greg Bevino, remember him running ICE operations in Minneapolis. Then he was dispatched to California. Now he's popped up in Portugal where he's attacking Susie Wiles, Donald Trump's chief of staff, and asking for his old job back with his new boss who's running the Department of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen. Does it get any madder? Maybe because there's the Triumphal Arch going up and the Reflecting pool, which is reflecting nothing but the chaos of Trump's America. So press the subscription button. We're independent media. We appreciate your support and that's how you display it for us. Thank you. Thank you. And let's get straight into it with the all knowing, the all wise David Rothkopf. David Rothkopf. Way to start the week. Trump is saying Iran wants a deal. Iran has just said they don't want a deal because of what Israel's doing in Lebanon. And Trump is moaning, he's complaining, he's whining that the Republicans aren't backing his war in Iran. What is going on? Trump? 52 posts on Saturday. Frenzy of social media posts on Truth Social. He's Obviously trying to keep the business going. Cause we know the business of truth social is not doing very well. And meanwhile, you live in D.C. or you live on the edges of D.C. you've spent a lot of your life there, and now you're living in a demolition site. What's happening? What's happening, David Rothkop, make sense of it.
- [02:58]
David Rothkopf
Oh, yeah. Well, okay, let's start out with those 1 million things, and I'll try to find a pattern inside of all of them. Look, the pattern inside of all of them is that Trump always. He always destroys things. And he tries to cover up his destruction with his lies, but the reality is it's just not working for him anymore. And it's got him in a real quandary with the case of Iran. He started a war that he shouldn't have started. And the result is that I think
- [03:26]
Joanna Coles
your dog is agreeing with us. Is that Grizzly?
- [03:28]
David Rothkopf
Okay, I invited him into the room so he can join the conversation.
- [03:31]
Joanna Coles
Well, he obviously agrees with you, which is he's possible, intelligent. The good news is, if you're not available one Monday, we'll just do it with Grizzly.
- [03:40]
David Rothkopf
With Grizzly, yeah. Do a Joanna and Grizzly show. I look forward to that. Look, there's a lot of things going on, but the reality is that they're all connected by one thing, which is the failures and the meltdown of Donald Trump on Iran. We shouldn't have started this war. He can't figure out how to finish it. And on a daily basis, his assertions that the Iranians have got a solution cooking and they really want a solution just aren't coming to pass. And that's why in the middle of the night, over the weekend, he's whining, oh, my God, it's so hard for me to do my job when everybody says, solve this problem. Well, of course, nobody would be saying that if he hadn't for weeks and weeks and weeks said, oh, they want a deal. It's almost done. It's done. We're gonna announce it any minute. He's the one who's created the misleading expectations. He's the one who's created the war. But, you know, the bad news for everybody, There is no easy answer to this one. This is gonna be an open wound, and it is gonna stay an open wound. And then, you know, to cut to your second point, that's what Washington looks like right now. It looks like an open wound. Look at the White House. You've got an octagon going up, which is destroying the South Lawn. He's destroyed the east wing of the White House. He's destroyed the Rose Garden at the White House, the across the street from the White House. And there's the reflecting pool. He's turned it into a kiddie pool. He's painted it blue. I'm not sure it's gonna reflect anything anymore. He's spending $5 million painting Four Horses Gold with 23.5 karat gold. He is trying to rename everything after himself. Although on Friday, we did have the good news that a judge said he can't rename the Kennedy center after himself. And once again, and I think this is an interesting thing that you may want to talk about, is that Trump's response to being told by the court that he can't call the Kennedy center, the Trump Kennedy center was to say, okay, I'm washing my hands of it.
- [05:47]
Joanna Coles
Well, and then did you see Doug Bergen, the Secretary of the Interior, say, not so fast, we may be able to leave his name on there?
- [05:55]
David Rothkopf
Well, you know, his cabinet entirely, you know, depends on their jobs, you know, based on whether or not that they can soothe his out of control ego. But the thing that I think is more interesting in all of this is that Trump is throwing up his hands. He's walking away from things. If he could walk away from Iran tomorrow, he'd walk away from Iran tomorrow. He's walking away from the Kennedy Center. He's walking away from the Republican because there are people in the Republican Party who don't like him because he has destroyed the economy and he's ruining their chances of reelection. And you know, it's what he's done throughout his life. He walks away from his wives, he walks away from his girlfriends, he walks away from his family, he walks away from his bills, he walks away from his business partners. This is what he has done. Donald Trump leaves.
- [07:00]
Joanna Coles
You know, but the interesting thing is that he, I mean, the consequences of him bombing Iran are huge. The ripple effect across the world. This is not one of those confected fires where he plays both arsonist and firefighter because the fire continues to burn and will burn bigger as more and more of the world. I mean, proper countries with people with leaders who are also to their own electorates have to manage the increased price of oil and frankly, the lack of availability of oil. If you hold up 20% of the world's energy, of course there is a ripple effect. And he can't just leave.
- [07:46]
David Rothkopf
Well, no, of course, that's the problem. The problem is that throughout Donald Trump's adult life when he screwed things up. The knock on effects haven't been that great, whether it's his marriage or his businesses.
- [07:57]
Joanna Coles
You know, I just want to read part of the Truth Social because I'm conscious that a lot of people who watch and listen to our conversations probably don't spend as much time on Truth Social as you and I do, though. This is the reason to read the Daily Beast. I ran into someone the other day who said, I can't bear to read Truth Social, but I love reading the Daily Beast because I know you'll give me a digest of what madness he's putting out there. But he says Iran really wants to make a deal and it will be a good one for the USA and those that are with us. But don't the dumbocrats and we'll come onto that in a minute and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans understand that it is much tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate when political hacks keep negatively chirping at levels never seen before over and over again that I should move faster or move slower or go to war or not go to war or whatever. Just sit back and relax. It will all work out well in the end. It always does. DJT it doesn't always, it doesn't always work work out in the end.
- [09:01]
David Rothkopf
Of course it doesn't. But the baby is in his cradle and he's crying, you know, and that's what he is doing. And you know, he feels it's unfair. Note there, he says at levels previously unseen like he has no one has ever been criticized as much as Donald Trump is being criticized now. No president has ever felt the pressure that Donald Trump feels now. Not during World War II, not during World War I. Abraham Lincoln facing the Civil War, there was no one near the pressure that he feels now with, you know, his various problems. You know, it's ludicrous, it's sad. And mostly it is a kind of cry for help because he doesn't have a way out here.
- [09:47]
Joanna Coles
Well, he also doesn't seem to have, I mean, he obviously has his cabinet of sycophants, but he also doesn't have anybody around him, it seems, who can take the phone away from him in the middle of the night. Or who can say it's all going to be fine, just get a couple of hours sleep. Or who can just say, why are you posting out your sort of innermost anxieties? Because what we see here, it's such an interesting insight. He thinks he's being, I don't know, strong or going on the attack or playing offense. But in fact, what it seems to be is an insight into a man who is in a full panic spiral.
- [10:26]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, but it's like drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike who, you know, get angry at the cars going around them, they shout and yell and they think that that makes them strong, but actually they're impotent to the flow of things around them. And that is, you know, that's Donald Trump. He thinks louder is stronger, he thinks angrier is stronger. He thinks a volume of statements from him is a sign of strength. And it's not. But it has brought him companionship. Cuz I was reading in the Daily Beast and he's now got an aide, which you guys referred to as a blond aide, who follows him around on the golf course to try and help him get the.
- [11:06]
Joanna Coles
Yes. So that's very interesting. And I think it was the 26th time he played golf this year. So he's playing once a week when we're at war, when the east wing is being demolished, when the reflecting pool is dried and there's no water in it and it's reflecting nothing other than incompetence in D.C. when ice is running around trying to round people up, when there are riots in New Jersey outside ice centers.
- [11:34]
David Rothkopf
No. Well, you were talking about his girlfriend or whatever she is that is following him around on the court.
- [11:39]
Joanna Coles
We haven't had a positive ID of the blonde that he was sitting with on the golf cart, have we?
- [11:46]
David Rothkopf
I don't think that we have. There's some rumors that there is a particular aide that he is close to. But let's not fan the flames of those rumors when there's important substantive matters that, that are associated with all of this, which is Donald Trump is on the run. If Donald Trump had not signed up for a four year job, he would be on vacation now. He would be gone because he does not like it when his chickens come home to roost. Right. His whole thing in life is here's a scam, wanna buy some kind of bullshit. And then people go, yeah, okay, I'll buy the bullshit. And then he's like, oh my God, it's bullshit. I'm gonna get out of this thing and, and move on to the next scam. And he can't do it here. He's stuck in the White House. And so that's why we have this serial demolition of the White House, of the government, of the Constitution, of the global order, because all he's doing is lashing out. He's taking all the toys in his crib and he's throwing them at the rest of the world because he doesn't know what to do well.
- [12:52]
Joanna Coles
And his efforts to celebrate 250 years of America and his own birthday, starting with the UFC fight. And we can see the octagonal beginnings of the UFC staging on the south lawn of the White House. UFC ain't gonna pull out. But it turns out that a lot of the artists that were being recruited to celebrate his, whatever, the 250 years, I guess, and they've been sort of recruited under the claim that this was a state fair and it would be a joyous celebration of music. It turns out they discovered that essentially it's a sort of the most maggery of concerts. So they're all pulling out. Cause they don't want to be associated with one political side or another. And then of course, Trump has gotten furious and I just am going to read another of his truth social posts or part of it. I understand, I understand artists are getting the yips they're having to do with their performance on Wednesday. So I'm thinking about bringing the number one attraction anywhere in the world, the man who gets much bigger audiences than Elvis in his prime. And he does so without a guitar. The man who loves our country more than anyone else and the man who some say is the greatest president in history, the goat. Donald J. Trump. To take the place of these highly paid third rate artists. I mean, if they're third rate artists, why was he asking them anyway, right? He told us that they were going to be the greatest artists in the world. Now he's referring himself to himself as the greatest president and the man who attracts more people than Elvis in his prime. I should have worn my Elvis T shirt. I have a beautiful Elvis T shirt with his mugshot on it from when he was arrested.
- [14:38]
David Rothkopf
Well, that's another part of Trump's way of celebrating the 250th. Right. He wants to put his mugshot, his literal mug shot, on a $250bill. And if you look at these things, there's a pattern here. Donald Trump is giving something to the United states on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independ that none of us ever wanted. But it's his big present. And his big present is what? Well, take everything you've just described. Add it up and the president's humiliation. What we are getting is humiliation from top to bottom. A UFC match. That's pretty humiliating. The fact that no one wants to go to it, and he actually has to get members of the military to go. And he's saying he doesn't want fat ones. He only wants people who meet certain height and weight standards. So the crowd looks good, but he's papering house at this ridiculous event. And then he had this series of concerts that literally did have third rate artists. It was the only true thing in what he said. And he had Milli Vanilli as an artist there. And they're like not even a real group. They had a scandal. And only one of them's around. The other groups, several of the groups, most of the players who were in those groups are no longer around.
- [15:53]
Joanna Coles
I'm going to defend Martina McBride here and say Martina McBride is not a third rate.
- [15:59]
David Rothkopf
She was by far the most legit person on the list, possibly followed by Flo Rida and Brett Stevens of Poison. Third rate group. You don't have a poison T shirt. I'm pretty willing to guess I don't
- [16:13]
Joanna Coles
have a poison T shirt. I don't have a Commodore's T shirt either. But I did like their song Easy Like a Sunday Morning. Although then someone accused me of saying that they were a one hit wonder and they had so much more to offer.
- [16:24]
David Rothkopf
Well, look, here's the point. It was a bunch of crappy artists, and they then discovered that they were being used for political purpose and they dropped out. So wherever you look, the ways that Trump is trying to honor the country on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence are blowing up in his face and making us look bad. And that's not counting the substantive things that will be remembered this year, including the war in Iran, a potential war in Cuba.
- [16:57]
Joanna Coles
So, David, I'm gonna ask you, what should the Democrats do? And don't suggest a 247 reading of leaves of Grass. I Contain Multitudes. A wonderful poem, but it doesn't feel like it meets the Trumpian nature of how he's grabbed this 250th anniversary. But if you're the Democrats and you're trying to put up an opposition at this point, knowing that Congress has basically rolled over on its back, how do you celebrate and show the patriotism of the Democratic Party?
- [17:33]
David Rothkopf
By running good candidates and by winning in November. Because what we want to show on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is that we care about the principles laid out, the Declaration of Independence, that we care about democracy, that we don't want to have A mad king in charge of our country. In the Declaration of independence, there are 27 grievances that are laid out between the colonists of the colonies and King George. And if you go through the list of those 27 grievances, almost all of them are echoed by abuses of Donald Trump. In fact, the ultimate Trump offense, in light of this anniversary, is that he has become King George, while the rest of us, he wants to turn into subjects. And so what the Democrats need to do is to emulate the founders and to throw off the shackles of but Mad King. And the way you do that is you say, well, we're gonna nominate James Talarico in Texas, and the Republicans are gonna nominate a corrupt, sleazy Trump clone like Ken Paxton. And the Democrats have a shot at winning back Texas. The Democrats have a shot at winning back Maine and Ohio, North Carolina, Alaska, Iowa. The Democrats have a shot at taking over the Senate. If the Democrats could win the Senate and win the House, then they can begin to roll back the corruption, roll back the crazy projects, prosecute, investigate, do what's necessary to fix the structural defects that led us to the point that 250 years after the colonists threw off the shackles of King George iii, we do the same with a guy who's trying to destroy our democracy. That's the story of the anniversary year. It's not about fireworks, concerts, UFC matches, Trump's sleaziness or tackiness. It's that we are, in this 250th year, forced to go back to square one and fight over again for the principles and ideals that the founders fought for in 1776.
- [20:14]
Joanna Coles
It's amazing that they foresaw that this problem could keep recurring, which is why they tried to put in the boundaries that they did. You refer to the madness of King George. What about the madness of Donald Trump? We know he had his first visit in 13 months to Walter Reed, the medical center. He says that he passed the cognitive test perfectly, absolutely perfectly, and that his health is absolutely perfect. Yet we can see that it's not actually perfect, that he's entering his ninth decade in two weeks, and he appears frenzied. He doesn't sleep much. He has a terrible diet. He takes no exercise. We asked viewers and listeners on the podcast last week whether or not they thought he would survive the presidency. How bad do you think his mental health is? You've studied presidents. You've worked alongside presidents. You know, the stress of the job gets to people. He seems very stressed at the moment with his frenzied tweets or truth socials. What do you think about this visit to Walter Reed?
- [21:27]
David Rothkopf
Well, look, I'm not a doctor. I do think, I think you could
- [21:31]
Joanna Coles
play one for the sake of this podcast.
- [21:35]
David Rothkopf
My grandfather was a doctor.
- [21:36]
Joanna Coles
Excellent. That's enough for us, David.
- [21:39]
David Rothkopf
I'm a doctor by extension. We know that people normally go once a year. He's going every few months. We know that some of the things that are said in the medical report are obviously lies. When they say he's six, but three and £230, all you have to do is Google what a 6 foot 3, 230 pound athlete looks like. Trump does not look like that. We know that the assertion that he has bruises on his hands because of handshaking is ludicrous. And we know that Trump's assertion that he is the only guy who's had to go through all these cognitive tests and he passed them with flying colors is silly because you don't get cognitive tests unless the doctor thinks you've got a problem with your cognition. Okay, so you know, we've got that as evidence, but we've also got evidence of the behavior. You're talking about 52 truth social posts over the weekend, including this weird AI slop that shows him as a God or shows him as a super soldier with planes flying over his head. So he's going out to conquer the world, right?
- [22:50]
Joanna Coles
The discombobulator, he called it. Trump is the discombobulator.
- [22:54]
David Rothkopf
But who does that? Even if you've thought about that, even if you spent the weekend coming up with Joanna Coles the Discombobulator as an AI piece of art, you wouldn't share it with your friends because you know they would think you were nuts. And he doesn't have a filter. And in meetings he doesn't have a filter. And we know that's a sign of dementia. We know that his use of profanity in public places increasingly is a sign of it. We know that his anger at things and his inability to control his emotions, sign of it. We know that his behavior is erratic. We know that he's doing irrational things. We know that he's ignoring rational advice. So look, you don't have to be a psychiatrist to know that this guy is behaving in an erratic, irrational way for whatever the organic reason is. You don't have to be a doctor to know that this guy is physically unwell. He can't stand up. When he was standing with Xi Jinping, his legs were splayed in three different Directions. He can't walk at the same pace. He can't hold himself up. He only goes short distances. He gives long speeches, and he has to prop himself up on the podium in a way that reveals that he is losing it physically. So I don't think there's any doubt about it. Now. He's 80. Should we be surprised? He's had a good life, and he should be at Mar a Lago, sitting by the pool, having a margarita, talking to his friends about things he used to do. Unfortunately, he is a disturbed, sick lunatic who holds the most powerful job in the world and is at a stage of his existence where, because he's a narcissist, the only thing he cares about, himself. And if every single one of us ceased to exist, he wouldn't care, because the world is him. And that's why. I mean, there are other things we don't talk about. Look at the defense budget, where there's hundreds of billions of dollars in there for new nuclear weapons programs, where he wants to have nukes that he can use that are more usable. He thinks he can build a golden dome. He thinks he can build a White House bunker where he can be safe. And yet people on the roof can be firing at people down the streets of Washington. This guy's got some dark fantasies. And in all of those fantasies, the role we play is a victim. And that's scary as shit. Regardless of what the final diagnosis of Donald Trump is, when they and Michael Wolfe go and perform the autopsy and really, finally, once and for all, get
- [25:42]
Joanna Coles
inside Trump's head, and we discover there's Nothing there. Well, Dr. Jonathan Rayner, who I believe was actually Dick Cheney's heart doctor, delivered a fairly damning synopsis of what he believed was going on with Trump. And to your point, he says that these MOCA tests that Trump is taking, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Tests for Mental Health, you don't take them unless you've got some reason to take them. And in fact, he's being monitored. This is not a question of him taking the test and passing the test, famously passing the test. I mean, you're being monitored because there is a reason why you are taking it. And as you say, we can see this in plain sight. We see the increasing disinhibition. We see the frenzied tweets, we see the lack of sleep, which contributes to this. And yet people still seem to like him.
- [26:43]
David Rothkopf
Well, first of all, the number of people who like him is smaller and smaller. The people around him don't like him. That Much. We haven't seen much of his wife with him. I'm sure when he went out to play golf this weekend, I'm sure his son, whose wedding he missed, was not too happy with that and the use of the President's time. But even among his supporters, politically, he's down at the lowest ratings that he's ever had. And some number of those supporters aren't real supporters. They're just people reflexively answering questions the way that they have always answered them. Every single one of his initiatives, political initiatives, policy initiatives, is kind of opposed by something like two thirds of the American people at this point. The Republican Party looks like they're going to be devastated by the results that take place in November. He's hugely unpopular, and I think that contributes to it, because everything we've talked about here today paints the picture of a lonely, old, dying, isolated man who doesn't have friends, who doesn't have solutions to the problems that confront him. Him, and can only lash out in this kind of public, performative, crazy way. And that's what should matter to us. There's the duck test. If it walks like a duck, spins like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. And in the case of Trump, if he sounds like a madman and he behaves like a madman, and then I think we can relatively safely assume that he is not fit to be President of the United States. And that's where we are. And I talk to Republicans all the time. I talk to senior people in the national security community. I don't think I've talked to anybody who thinks that Donald Trump is fit for office right now. Some people say, well, he'll be done in a couple of years. And some people say when the election comes, he'll be. His hands will be tied and he'll be able to do less damage. But nobody thinks that Donald Trump ought to be president right now. They're just sort of hoping to get to the other side in one piece.
- [29:04]
Joanna Coles
Do they think that there's any sort of Republican opposition? I mean, we talk constantly about who are the leaders of the Democratic Party who are going to emerge. But are there leaders of the Republican Party or is it now so Trumpified that there's no one who could try and seize back a kind of more normal party, I mean, excluding the Cabinet, sitting around clapping like seals?
- [29:30]
David Rothkopf
Well, the Cabinet has humiliated themselves, and hopefully they will never have positions of responsibility again. More likely they'll end up on the board of some hedge fund and they'll make millions of dollars. But having said that, there are two kinds of Republican opposition that are significant. One is a story that just broke over the weekend, and that is that some of the people that Trump has defeated, John Cornyn, for example, or some of the people who have been mildly critical of him in the past, Thom Tillis, Thomas Massey, Thomas Massie, Susan Collins, Marjorie Taylor Greene is another example. Example. It looks like they're sort of talking to each other and that there may be a kind of a resistance caucus here within the Republican Party to help stop some of Trump's initiatives. And I think they'll focus on the most egregious ones, the slush fund, if it ever gets that far. Courts on Friday seem to have put a stop to it for the moment, or the ballroom or some of his craziest initiatives. But so those people will be speaking out, and that's going to be unusual for us. There used to be sort of Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski, and that was it. Right. But the number who are going to speak out is going to increase. And some of them, like Tillis, Corn and Massie, have nothing to lose. And then you've got people who sub rosa behind the scenes are just trying to ride it out, but who are not happy. And I put right at the top of that list John, the Senate majority leader, who is an institutionalist Republican, but who has talked to many people I know and is like, I think we can stop him on this. I think we can slow this down. I think we can drag our feet. He's not like Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, who's all in for Trump and thinks Trump has been sent here by God d'. Thune. And there are people in the Senate who are going to make life harder and harder for Trump, Trump going into the 2026 elections, because they know that if they don't, the loss they suffer will be even greater. I mean, it looks like in a bunch of sort of traditionally red states, whether it's North Carolina or Georgia or Texas or Alaska or with red seats like in Maine, despite the soap opera that's going on there, or in Ohio or in Iowa, they're real shots for Democrats to win.
- [32:17]
Joanna Coles
It's fascinating. So one of the other observations, I think, and actually you've just sort of highlighted it, is that people are loyal to Trump until they're not and they leave.
- [32:29]
David Rothkopf
And by the way, and vice versa, right?
- [32:31]
Joanna Coles
Well, of course, one just assumes that he's loyal until he's not. And in fact, he's never actually Loyal. But I was thinking of Greg Bevino, who led us in Minneapolis, was in charge when two American citizens, Alex Pretty, the ICU nurse, a veterans nurse, and Renee Nicole Goode, got shot. He then got sort of maneuvered with his big green trench coat out of Minneapolis back to California. He was giving a speech over the weekend at a far right conference in Portugal, and he suddenly attacked Susie Wiles, and he suddenly attacked Mark Wayne Mullen, especially Mark Wayne Mullin, who of course took over from Kristi Noem at the Department of Homeland Security, saying, listen, Mark, you may have been a plumber in your day because his family's plumbers, but this ain't how you fix an influx of immigrants. You need me back. Please, please have me back. And by the way, Susie Wiles, what are you doing? You don't know what you're doing. Which struck me as an odd way to get your job back. You don't attack the guy that's gonna be your potential boss. And you don't also go after Trump's loyal chief of staff,
- [33:47]
David Rothkopf
might I add. You don't also go to an extreme right wing conference that is populated by Nazis and anti immigration folks and white supremacists and fit right in because you're a Nazi white supremacist person. I mean, this guy is horrible. You know, that big green trench coat you're talking about looked like SS trench coats for a reason. He chose that. He has chosen Nazi imagery. He is a loon of a loon. And when you find yourself to the right of Mark Wayne Mullen, you're in a different solar system. System.
- [34:31]
Joanna Coles
You're in a different solar system. Yes.
- [34:34]
David Rothkopf
And that's, you know, that's where Bovino is. He's not gonna get his job back. But what he may get is a podcast, because everybody gets a fucking podcast in America.
- [34:43]
Joanna Coles
No, no, there's nothing wrong with podcasting, David. You say that as the founder of Deep State Radio, which I've been podcasting.
- [34:50]
David Rothkopf
I've been podcasting, but I'm one of these kind of, you know, podcasters. Who doesn't get rich podcasting. I'm not one of these sort of people who also has an OnlyFans and makes $82 million on and has nine houses. There are a lot of people.
- [35:03]
Joanna Coles
Wait a minute, wait a minute. We once had to do a podcast with you from a Porsche dealership because you were running out of time trying to buy a new car.
- [35:12]
David Rothkopf
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm the only American champagne liberal. I'm the only American with a midlife crisis and a sports car. Okay. But my point is not that. My point is that there is a market for Nazi lunatics. And a lot of them have podcasts and a lot of them have substacks, and a lot of them are out there making money being right wing lunatics because there are people who will fund that and sponsor it and so forth. And I think this is just know your audience. I think Bovino is out there and he's saying, I, I, you know, there are people out here who love me and I could be a spokesperson because I'm famous. And he's just trying to monetize it. And, you know, that's how. That's the American way right now.
- [35:58]
Joanna Coles
Right? That's the American way right now. So he's not really trying to get his job back. He's just trying to hustle for someone to finance a podcast.
- [36:06]
David Rothkopf
Well, it's a podcaster. It's a book or it's a speaking
- [36:09]
Joanna Coles
series, or it could be a series of trench coats.
- [36:12]
David Rothkopf
It could be the Greg Bovino line of trench coats made by Hugo Boss, the people who made the uniforms for the Nazis.
- [36:21]
Joanna Coles
I don't think Hugo Boss want to be reminded of that, just as Mercedes don't want to be reminded. They were the official car, weren't they?
- [36:28]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, or Porsche, for that matter. But let's not dwell on that.
- [36:31]
Joanna Coles
Let's not dwell on that. All right, so, David, the other story that we ran over the weekend, which I found fascinating by Anna Nemtsova, was about Putin's health. That he, like Trump, is obviously getting older. He's in his 70s. He's not quite as old as Trump, but also beginning to struggle occasionally with his words. Side note, aren't we all? But he was caught slurring. He was caught slurring. And when they released the official video of a talk he'd had with some troops, they'd corrected it so that you couldn't tell he'd been slurring. What are you hearing from your, Your friends who I know spend a lot of time thinking and learning about Russia and talking to Russians about Putin's health, which has been the cause of sort of. Do you remember there was a whole sort of moment where people said he had Parkinson's, then they said he had cancer. Then he too had that sort of telltale weird bruising that Trump has.
- [37:37]
David Rothkopf
He also was sort of swollen and he looked like he was on some kind of steroids. And then there's. It looks like sometimes they send out a body Double for him, and he doesn't look healthy. I think there's a bigger story under all of this. And the bigger story, it relates to what we were saying about Trump, and it relates to your Debbie Harry T shirt, and it relates to a bunch of other things that is there is a generational change going on in the world right now. And as we talked about here, in the next election in the United States in 2028, it'll be the first election in which the majority of voters were born since 1990. They will be millennials and Gen X and the boomers are aging out of their jobs. And you see how it shows up in Trump, and you see how it shows up in Putin. Bibi Netanyahu is another member of this generation who has been ill and who looks kind of under the weather some of the time and increasingly feeble. Somehow, Xi Jinping has avoided this, but he's 70s, and he's also going to go. The generation of leaders who gave us the shit show we've got right now is going to be ushered off the stage, not necessarily by the people, but by Father Time. And I think what is going to be troubling is the period between now and then when they struggle to remain relevant, when the ones who have unchecked powers struggle to put off that change. And Putin and Trump are right at the top of that list. Bibi Netanyahu is also near the top of that list. I think Narendra Modi in India is near the top of that list. One of the things that we've got to deal with with in the next five to 10 years is the denial of the progress of time by baby boomers who are in charge and to the extent to which they are not willing and not embracing the handover to next generation power. And frankly, we saw this with Joe Biden as well. There will be. Now, in case of Trump, those issues may be wars. In the case of Putin, those issues may be wars. And that makes it particularly dangerous. But it's happening everywhere in our society, and some people are handling it well. I saw Debbie Harry singing the other day in some video, and she's what, 75 years old? And she's still got.
- [40:26]
Joanna Coles
She's forever young, David. Debbie Harry is forever young.
- [40:30]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, no, I. Mike, I'm with you. But we saw Paul McCartney on Saturday Night Live two weeks ago, and he couldn't carry two. It's all one. It's the big story of our time. Say goodbye to the boomers.
- [40:47]
Joanna Coles
Say goodbye to the boomers. Well, David Rothkoff you've got unchecked power on this podcast to say whatever you like. And you do. And I think you're right about this sort of that sense that people get older and they're like, well, if not now, when? What have I got to lose? All my life has been building up to this moment. I was just talking to a wealthy friend the other day who said, what am I saving my money for? I'm now going to start spending it. And they were buying all sorts of wild things. But I'm sure there is a sense as you get to that stage of this is the moment, because I haven't done it before. And that's what feels might be fueling Donald Trump. But as I say, you have unchecked power on this podcast, David Rothkop. So use it wisely. And my friend, I think you do. You bring us great wisdom from the people that you talk to. And sitting in your marvelous house with your Porsche in the drive in Washington,
- [41:42]
David Rothkopf
first of all, you've never seen my house. You don't know what it is.
- [41:45]
Joanna Coles
To be fair, I've been invited and I wasn't able to come because I had personal intervention.
- [41:50]
David Rothkopf
But you were washing your hair. But look, cup covers it. You'll see that we live a normal, humble existence out here on the edge of Washington, D.C. but I spent a lot of my time in Washington D.C. and I gotta tell you, this thing that I'm talking about here, this generational shift, it's the big story at every level. Who are the policy influencers? Who are the political advisors? What are the tools they're using politically in this country? Are they next generation? Are they clinging to using things like TV or are they embrac? Every place I go there is this struggle and the question is whether the transition can be smooth or whether the transition reeks of desperation. And with Trump, it reeks of desperation. And that's something we should all be worried about.
- [42:44]
Joanna Coles
God willing. We will see you next Monday. Thank you for sharing your insights and your wisdom with the Daily Beast.
- [42:51]
David Rothkopf
Thank you. It's a great pleasure to be part of the Daily Beast.
- [42:53]
Joanna Coles
Joseph Hannah, well, and I want to recommend your column. We've got a column coming in today. I think your columns are excellent. They generate lots of comments and they're always provocative, Prophetic, wise wisdom from David Rothkop there. Please leave your comments on what you think about the conversation. I didn't like the idea that Martina McBride is dismissed as a third rate artist. She and how smart of them to pull out of a concert having been lured in under the premise that it was a national state fair when in fact it's really a MAGA celebration. And what do you think about the Triumphal Arch? Is it America's arch? Is it Trump's arch? Should there be an arch blocking the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery? What do you think? Is this just D.C. on the move? Is it just the changing times? And often when you're in the middle of those times, you can't see that actually the arch will be something to celebrate in the future or is it a vanity erection by our current president? Write and let us know. David Rothkop, thank you once more and a big thank you to our production team, John Romero, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro and Neil Rosenach House. 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.