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- [00:00]
A
Bill Pulte is the worst appointment Trump has ever made. He has no intelligence experience. He is purely being picked because he will do exactly what Trump says. And Trump wants him there because he thinks that the intel community can help him invalidate upcoming elections, which is his main job. Vladimir Putin, if he sat with his generals in the planning room at the Kremlin, could not come up with a way to do more damage to America's national security than Donald Trump has done in the first year and a half of this presidency.
- [00:45]
B
I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. Who better to start the week with, of course, than the New York Knicks? No, just kidding. I'm talking about David Rothkop, our global affairs editor, who's got very strong feelings about the appointment as acting director of the Office of National Intelligence of Bill Pulte. David Rothkop has been talking to his sources in the intelligence community, and it's really terrifying what they're saying about the damage that Bill Pulte can do between now and the election. And he doesn't even need to be confirmed by the Senate, which is the normal practice for this job. He's remaining as acting director, which still gives him an enormous amount of leeway. We also get into Scott Pelly and 60 Minutes. Why did Trump storm off? Kristen Welker's set for Meet the Press, and, well, we also get into the Knicks and what's going to happen at the Garden tonight. And happily, I'm going. I'm very excited. Anyway, please don't forget to support independent Media. That's Us, by pressing the subscription button wherever you get your podcasts. And no more time to waste. Let's get into it with David Rothkopf. David Rothkopf, Joanna Coles, the week leading up to Donald Trump's ninth decade.
- [02:11]
A
Oh, boy, what a celebration that'll be.
- [02:14]
B
What a celebration.
- [02:15]
A
The only celebration I could imagine that would be bigger is if he didn't make it.
- [02:21]
B
David Rothkoff, what a way to start. So I wanted to start with an excellent column you have written this morning talking about a war that Donald Trump actually is winning. We're going to come on and talk about Iran. We're going to talk about the marches through the streets of Albania against Ivanka and Jared's $2 billion island development. We're going to talk about what happened when Trump stormed off Meet the Press on NBC. We're going to talk about Scott Pelly breaking down and weeping for the future of 60 Minutes. But before we do, I want to talk about the the war that you say Trump is winning?
- [03:03]
A
Well, look, I mean, if you measure success in a war, you have to measure the degree to which you have debilitated or degraded your enemy. And in this particular war, Trump has destroyed the national security capability of the enemy, destroyed the economy of the enemy, destroyed the unity of the enemy, destroyed the international alliances of the enemy, and helped the adversaries of the enemy. Of course, the problem is the enemy he is beating on a regular basis, even as he can't manage to make a dent on foreign enemies, is us. And it's not a small thing. Let's just take one area, the area that I know best. Let's just take national security, because that typically is something that people find important. Right? One of the most important jobs a president has is keeping the country safe. So what's his record? Well, he shut down the National Security Council. Effectively. It doesn't really exist anymore. He put a lackey in charge of the Department of Defense. They immediately made it the least transparent Department of Defense ever. They cut vital programs within the Department of Defense that protected us against foreign adversaries. They fired generals because they were women or people of color or people who didn't disagree with him. So essentially, he decapitated our military. And they have said that they will only put it in charge people who go along with the impulse driven, lousy defense policies of Trump and Hagseth.
- [04:49]
B
Well, can I just interrupt your flow for one second to throw in, because I really want your opinion on this and the sources that you talk to. And they put Bill Pulte in to run the National Intelligence Office.
- [05:02]
A
So here is Bill Pulte now. Donald Trump has made some really, really bad appointments in the history of his two presidencies, right? Some of the worst people. He put a guy in charge of the NSC first, Michael Flynn, who lasted 21 days and was then convicted of crimes. He's got RFK Jr. He's got all the people he's fired this time around, including Bill Pulte's predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard. And still, when I talk to people in the national security community or when you see the petitions that have been circulated, there is a consensus. Bill Pulty is the worst appointment Trump has ever made because he has absolutely zero experience in intelligence, something even Marco Rubio, the butt kisser of all time, acknowledged he has no intelligence experience. He is purely being picked because he will do exactly what Trump says. He has already used his tiny little post in mortgages to try to cook up cases against opponents of Trump. And Trump wants him there because he thinks that the intel community can help him invalidate upcoming elections, which is his main job. And he also thinks he can help him go after his adversaries, possibly. He thinks he can help him shred information that might be incriminating to Trump. But when I talk to people at the CIA, when I talk to people who are formerly at the Director of National Intelligence, people. I spoke to somebody from the DIA over the weekend. They are outraged. They are outraged. There are very few jobs in the US Government where there is a specific experience requirement written into the job description, written into the legislation creating the job. But the Director of National Intelligence job is considered so important that it's written in. And Pulte doesn't meet the grade, so that's why he is acting. But Trump did an interview a couple days ago in which he was asked, what's Pulte's job? And Trump said one of his primary jobs is gutting the Directorate of National Intelligence and the other intelligence agencies. So he guts the nsc. He guts the Department of Defense. He decapitates it. He's gutting the intelligence agencies. He has attacked the alliances that are the foundation of international stability and strength for the past 80 years. He has embraced our enemies. He's putting crazy programs in the defense budget, including hundreds of millions of dollars to his own son's companies. And add it all up. Vladimir Putin, if he sat with his generals in the planning room at the Kremlin, could not come up with a way to do more damage to America's national security. But than Donald Trump has done in the first year and a half of this presidency. And so that's what I mean by winning the war. But I could make the same case on the economy. I could make the same case on the environment. I could make the same case on social services. I could make the same case on social unity in the United States or on healthcare in the United States or on the environment. So across the board, the only thing Donald Trump is successfully doing is making the United States weaker and at greater risk.
- [08:53]
B
I want to read from your column because I think.
- [08:57]
A
I love that.
- [08:58]
B
Well, I thought you might do. I thought you might do, but you have an Rx in it for Americans. And you start by saying, why did tens of thousands of Albanians take to the street to protest a corrupt land?
- [09:12]
A
4 million Albanians, okay?
- [09:15]
B
4 million Albanians, which is substantially larger than Donald Trump's inauguration crowds. Let's just remember that. Why do Ukrainians fight Trump's Russian allies, even though the Odds are against them. And even though the cost in life, human suffering in economic terms are immeasurably high, while Americans passively accept the far greater threat that Trump poses to our national security and that of our allies. And then you say, snap out of it, America. Give yourself a good hard slap of across the face, douse yourself with ice water, wake the F up. Are people not aware of what's going on? Are we just exhausted by the flooding the zone? Do you think the no Kings protests which have been called for Donald Trump's birthday next Sunday, June 14, will any of that make any difference?
- [10:09]
A
I think it makes a difference. I just don't understand why it's not happening every day. I don't understand why the streets of Washington are not filled with protesters as he defaces and defiles Washington and undermines each one of the institutions on which the city is built and the country is built. I don't understand why, when he is demonstrably in decline, demented, posting crazy things all night long, depicting himself as Jesus or as some half naked football God surrounded by cheering, half naked other guys, which is a kind of interesting thing. But, you know, I mean, this guy is out of his mind. He's in his decline. He is the most corrupt president in American history. He's destroying our institutions. He's making us weaker. He's putting millions and millions of Americans not just at national security risk, but at risk of disease. New diseases are breaking out because Doge shut the programs down. We, we didn't get early warning on Ebola. Screwworm is wreaking havoc and terrifying farmers in the southern parts of the United States. It was eradicated, but it's back. I can, in area after area say this guy is putting us at deeper and deeper risk all the time. And Americans, we're pretty comfortable. The gas price is up. We may wanna complain about that. And yes, there are tens of millions of Americans who are struggling. But, but for 360 million Americans, most of 300 million of those are going, yeah, this is really a bummer, and change the channel. I want to watch the Knicks game tonight or, oh, the World cup is starting, or whatever the fuck they're doing. And they're going, I'll vote. Well, I got news for you. Donald Trump is absolutely committed to stealing the vote in November. The reason, and you may want to talk about this later, he stole, he got into a fight with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, is he had one talking point and his brain can barely handle two. And he just Went at it over and over and over again. And the talking point was California elections are rigged. Elections in the United States are rigged. You don't understand it. I understand it. Why is he saying that? It's not just cuz he's got an open wound about 2020. It's not looking backwards, it's looking forwards. It's his argument that we shouldn't trust the results in November, that we shouldn't trust elections in 2028, that we should question them. And that he will have his Department of Justice and his Director of National Intelligence and his entire administration saying there's a question about this, we have to freeze the result or, oh my goodness, this guy has got some problem in his background. What? We're gonna have to look into that more deeply or we better deploy troops to keep people from showing up at this election site. And so he's done all these other attacks and now he is about to try to do really the coup de grace on our democracy. And we're watching TV and going to the beach and I just don't understand it.
- [13:27]
B
Okay, so let me ask you something. Bill Pulte is by all accounts unlikely to get ratified by the Senate. Right. He's got 210 days where he can be the Acting Director of the Office of National Intelligence. How much damage can he do in that time?
- [13:48]
A
Well, the elections are within the next 210 days, so the answer is a lot. All he has to do is dig up this old conspiracy theory that Trump had Tulsi Gabbard nosing around in, in Atlanta a few weeks ago and say, oh yeah, there was foreign interference. I'm sorry, but the intelligence. We can't tell you what the foreign interference was. We're doing an investigation, but these results are questionable. And we're gonna have to lock down all the election results and you're gonna have to give us all of your ballots and we're gonna have to take control of all of your election machinery as part of a national security investigation. That Bill Pulty can do that. Bill Pulty can fire the people in the intelligence community and all the many, many agencies of the intelligence community who actually believe that Trump has ties that are too close with Russia, that the Russians are trying to help Trump. He can get rid of those peoples, he can get rid of those files. He can go after people who he believes have perhaps mishandled intelligence in the way that Trump was accused of doing it. We saw the John Bolton case last week. There are a lot of things he can do to attack Trump's enemies to protect Trump and to attack our elections. And that's what we should be worried about. He can do a lot of damage in over half a year. He's gotten the job well.
- [15:22]
B
And we know that Trump has instructed him to start firing people. And he says, really this office doesn't, which was created after 911 to make sure that the intelligence agencies, and I think it oversees 18 intelligence agencies share material because they were all working in silos. And it looked in the post mortem after 911 as if they'd actually shared information. They might have had a greater warning about what was going to happen. Let me just ask you something, David. Do people in the intelligence services that you speak to, do they actually think that Trump is working with the Russians? Like, what's in it for Trump? I understand corruption and I understand disruption, but what's in it for Donald Trump to be allying with Russia?
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A
Okay. I mean, you know, this is kind of the first question about Trump, right? I mean, because he, in his 2016 campaign said, Russia, if you're listening, do this right?
- [16:25]
B
Release Hillary Clinton's emails, right?
- [16:27]
A
And his team met with the Russians. And we do have a lot of investigative work that was done by Mueller. And people say, well, Mueller exonerated Trump. He didn't. Mueller said that there was a lot of coordination between Trump and the Russians. He substantiated it. He substantiated that there were many cases of obstruction of justice of Trump trying to block the investigation. Comey did further investigations. There is a lot of evidence that they work together. Now, there are a lot of people with different theories. Some people go, oh, he is an active agent, or they have kompromat on him. That's not the majority view. The majority view is Trump thinks being close to Putin helps him, and Putin thinks having Trump on a string helps him. And these are two people following expediencies. Where do I think the truth is? I think it lies somewhere in between. I think that the coordination between Trump and Putin, the times that he has done Putin's bidding, the times that Witkoff has done Putin's bidding, or Jared has done Putin's bidding, or Donald has done Trump has people over at the St. Petersburg Economic Conference that has been taking place the past few days in Russia. Now, even though Putin is a war criminal who is leading a war of aggression against a country that is defending Europe and democracy, which is to say Ukraine. So my sense is it's been too close. Remember, Trump first instance of mishandling intelligence was a visit in May of 2017 to the Oval Office of the Russian ambassador and the Russian foreign minister when Trump gave them classified intelligence that came to us from the Israelis. This is a matter of public record. Why was Flynn fired at the beginning of the last term? Because he was coordinating with the Russian ambassador. Fast forward to now, when Witkoff is supposedly negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. What does Trump do? Who does Witkoff believe? Witkoff says, I think Putin is right. Trump says, I think Putin is right. He cuts off the funding to Ukraine and then he attacks NATO, the principal bulwark of our defense against Russia. I mean, it almost doesn't matter why he is doing it. If you were a Russian agent and you were hired by Vladimir Putin and you spoke to him every night and he said, here's what you should do to weaken the United States, you would be doing exactly what Donald Trump is doing. Except I don't think they'd ever be so brazen as to ask for the sweeping attack that Trump has made on our national security apparatus and on our country in a way that benefits Russia.
- [19:46]
B
It is astonishing, and I was thinking this as Donald Trump has been comparing himself to sort of legendary figures in history, how one man seems to have the entire country in its thrall, and now he appears to have the entire world in its thrall. What is, nevertheless, the latest of what's going on in the war that he hasn't yet managed to even create a permanent ceasefire with Iran. So, David, what is the latest in the war on Iran? We know he's gotten into it with Bibi Netanyahu, who's continued to bomb Lebanon. The Iranians have responded. As we're recording this on Monday morning, the Iranians have said they're going to take a break in bombing. What is going on, do we think?
- [20:36]
A
Look, Donald Trump has no more control over the war in Iran or over Israel than he has over his own bladder. Okay.
- [20:48]
B
You know, unfortunately, very strange analogy. Very strange.
- [20:52]
A
Well, I don't know if it is or not, but I do think that we are all, you know, suffering from the fact that Depends does not make a version of its product to take care of foreign policy accidents. Because what has gone on in Iran is a foreign policy mistake that Trump immediately lost control of from the outset. And, you know, frankly, many people warned that that's exactly what would happen. And yesterday, you have this perfect example of it. As it happens. The story broke that Trump said, I'm in control of this. And I've spoken to Bibi, and Bibi will do what I would say in a conversation he had with my friend and my colleague on my daily Deep State Radio podcast, Ed Loose of the Financial Times. And Ed Luce called him up as. As people do on Sundays. They call up Trump on Sundays and he answers. And Trump said, oh, yeah, I'm in control. And three hours later, Israel launched massive attacks on multiple cities in Iran. And then Iran responded with massive attacks on Israel that included, by the way, worrisomely, a Houthi attack, a missile launched from Yemen at Israel, which is to bringing more of Iranian proxies into this deal. And now Trump woke up this morning and he was like, oh, crap, if I don't put a lid on this, the markets are gonna go crazy. And that's what I really care about. So he puts out a true social post saying, I talked to Bibi, everything's gonna be fine. And the Israelis said, yeah, okay, everything's gonna be fine. But it's not gonna be fine because Israel is trying to chop off a piece of Lebanon and hold it for its own. The negotiations with Lebanon are not with Hezbollah, who is the adversary. They're with the Lebanese government, which doesn't and has not ever controlled Hezbollah. It's just like the negotiations with Gaza. Remember, we were going to have peace in Gaza. That doesn't seem any closer. And the Iranians realize, and I've seen a number of pieces of reporting that support this, that they can do anything. And Trump is not going to go back to a massive war with them because it's so unpopular, because he lacks the political will here in the United States to follow through with that. And so they feel they can poke the bear all day long. And frankly, what with what's happened in the Strait of Hormuz, what has happened when Iran has attacked our friends and allies in the region, they're right. They have a lot of leverage. And so Israel's not going to do what we're going to say, Iran's not doing what we're going to say. Our allies don't know who to trust anymore. And so this is an open wound. It's festering. And I don't think there's any reason to expect that this is going to be resolved in a real way for months, if not years.
- [23:55]
B
And also, what's fascinating is that so many presidents have refused to do this very war because they anticipated exactly what's come to pass. And yet Trump feels that he is somehow smarter than previous presidents, that having fired all the experts on Iran, that he knew better, knowing nothing about Iran, as it turns out. And also falling for the first thing that everybody assumed Iran would do, which is to close the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, they. As far as I can see from this war that he started, the Iranians are in a far stronger position than they were before the war.
- [24:40]
A
Certainly, they're in a stronger position. Look, I mean, I think we look at Trump and we say, well, he's the most corrupt president ever, or he's a racist, or he's a misogynist, or he's not super competent at running the US Government, or he's had a lot of bankruptcies, or he's a serial sex offender. There are a lot of things we can say about him. But. But I think one thing that we should keep in mind is that Trump is an idiot, and he's an arrogant idiot, and he does not understand his own limitations. And so when he says, well, no American president has attacked Iran in 47 years, I'm the only one that's doing that, it's exactly like saying, no American president has jumped off the Empire State Building because he thought he could fly.
- [25:29]
B
Yeah, totally. I mean, no, that's a very good. That's a very good metaphor. Oh, Lordy, it's so chaotic, isn't it? It just does feel alarming. And it is also, when you look back over history, you think, well, how could Stalin have had such a grip and such a terrible impact? How could Hitler have done that? And yet we seem to be, as I said earlier, enthralled to a certain single man.
- [25:56]
A
You know, I think those are examples. But there are other examples in history that are also closer. They're the sort of mad king examples. There are people who were nitwits who ran countries or, you know, George III had porphyria and his mind was, you know, decaying in a, you know, a soup of chemicals. And he was not sane when he was doing this. But, you know, you know, from the Emperor Commodus in Rome, who dressed up and went around wearing a lion outfit and would go and fight in the Coliseum against gladiators that were holding sticks while he held swords just in order to glorify himself, there have been a lot of people in history who gained a lot of power, who were cracked, but they were so ambitious that they actually ascended to this position of power because nobody, you know, I mean, that's what it takes, right? To be president, to be Stalin, to be Hitler. You have to have a level of ambition most of us will never understand, right?
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B
We can't even Imagine it.
- [27:01]
A
No, I think actually wanting to be president of the United States is a kind of a disease. It is a pathology. Even the presidents we like are so desperate. I was in the Clinton administration. I saw Bill Clinton up close. I think Bill Clinton, on some levels, wanted good things for the United States, although he's a deeply flawed person. But he was so desperate to be liked and loved in every room he entered. Was it the death of his father or his mother or some problem in his. I don't know what it was, but the reality is it was pathological, his need to be liked. And that drives people to be president. And unless you're handed it like George W. Bush, because you're the heir to the heir, you've got to fight for it. And that's what a lot of these people have done. And that's why you end up with people who are broken in leadership positions, because wanting to be in the leadership position is kind of a sign of a problem.
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B
How would we ever get leadership? I suppose.
- [28:07]
A
Well, but it's the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, and what the founders of the United States concluded was that no one should have that much power. That you need a government where there are multiple branches and there are checks and balances, and that the people have some power on a proportional basis and some power on a geographically allocated basis, and there's some power in one house and some power in the other house of Congress and some power in the courts, and. And that the president's powers are limited and so forth. The whole idea of the United States is to limit the power of the president and to make the president subordinate to the people. And Trump is tossing that out. And that's the danger. The danger is in the 250th anniversary of the founding of this country, Trump is becoming exactly the kind of leader that the founders feared the most.
- [29:06]
B
Oh, David. It's sobering stuff. So. So what do we make of the two big media stories over the weekend that put, of course, Trump in contention with the fake news, as he calls it. But if he really thinks it's fake news, then why does he sit down and do interviews? Because he loves it. Because he loves storming out of the Meet the Press interview with Kristen Welker, where he's already been interrogated by her for 50 minutes? Because it's drama, right? What changed the headlines? Storming out of Meet the Press.
- [29:41]
A
He's so desperate to be the center of attention. It goes back to, you know, what's his particular pathology. If he were ever convicted of a court, they wouldn't have to throw him in jail. They would just have to say that no reporter could get within half a mile of him and he would shrivel up and die because all of a sudden he would feel no one was paying attention and he wasn't important anymore. And therefore he was not making up for the fact that his mother didn't like him. But whatever it is that drives him, it's crazy. And yet he can't seem to get the media, despite having his friends buy up big chunks of it, to behave exactly the way he wants. And it does make him a little nuts.
- [30:24]
B
But don't you think he probably went into that interview thinking, at some point, I'm going to walk out? First of all, let's just describe the scene because it was in Wisconsin. Trump has had a substantial ding to his popularity in the farming communities. Fertilizer has gone up massively in price because of the war and the added price of gas, obviously. So he's probably feeling a bit insecure out there. You saw him making strange comments about some of the people that he was meeting in the farming community, including a couple of guys, one of whom was an Olympian. He was a speed skater, Olympian winner, gave one of his medals, put it round Trump's neck, and Trump, of course, said, well, I'm going to keep it. I love this. I'm going to keep it. I think it's gold. And then he stormed out after 50 minutes, admittedly, of a Kristen Welker interview, which was taking place in a barn. It felt very sort of strange. There were bales of straw everywhere. There was a tractor in the background. I mean, it was. Was a very strange setup. They had two chairs facing each other, which I always think is an uncomfortable setup, although I know American networks love it. And then she was quizzing him on, well, she was asking him for evidence for his allegations that California election was rigged, the gubernatorial election, which we still don't have an answer to. And then he just sort of ripped off his microphone, stormed out and said thanks on the way out, and sort of patted her on the arm. And I thought, oh, he's been planning to do this all along. This is just another grab for attention.
- [31:59]
A
Look, I watched it a couple of times. I read the transcript. I don't agree with you. I think he lost it. I don't think he is capable of controlling his emotions. We've seen this in instance after instance, when he has press meetings, when he has public meetings. And it's actually getting worse. He can't control what he says. He uses extreme language. Of course, one of the big driving elements of his being is misogyny. And he attacks women reporters all the time. And if he can attack a woman of color reporter, oh, well, that's even better. And he calls them stupid, or he complains that Kaitlan Collins isn't smiling enough, or he calls them corrupt. And, you know, that's what happened here. And you look at his face, I mean, on the Internet now, there are all these pictures of his face, and it's all twisted and warped and it looks like a man who's absolutely losing his mind. Because she kept saying, well, there's no evidence. That's all she said. There is no evidence what you're supporting. And this made him crazy. And frankly, I saw his, his niece, Mary Trump, who was on our podcast, my Deep State Radio podcast last week, and I know that she has appeared with you before.
- [33:23]
B
And Mary said she was on our podcast yesterday.
- [33:26]
A
Okay, well, there you go. Well, I don't know if she said this on the podcast yesterday, but she has said multiple times since, this is the time that every reporter should do this. Every reporter should be going in. He should always be fact checked. And this gets to your core story, which is, of course, that's what they should be doing. The real story is that they don't. The real story is that the Washington Correspondents White House Correspondents association has agreed to do the White House Correspondents Dinner over again in July because the president wanted it, because he wants to have a chance to stand up on a stage and make fun of them. And because they're so desperate for access and kissing his ass that they said, yeah, okay, we'll do that. When he, I mean, it's.
- [34:11]
B
Well, hold on a minute. To defend the White House Correspondents association for a moment. The point of that dinner is to raise money to support younger trainee correspondents who want to cover the president. And there's usually a comedian who roasts the president. This time they have a mind reader, right, who I don't know if he's coming back because he's clearly not very good because he didn't, you know, anticipate what happened at the last dinner.
- [34:39]
A
Come on. Come, come on. Yeah, right. Worst mind reader in history. Right, but worst psychic ever. But, but, but, but let's, let's be honest. The real purpose of the White House Correspondent association is to promote, as they say in all of their documents, the First Amendment. No. 1 in the history of the United States has attacked the First Amendment in more ways. Limited access of reporters in more ways, in the Pentagon, in the White House, getting rid of legitimate reporters, putting in the pillow guys, TV network instead only responding to softball requests from Maria Bartiromo and other trained seals over at Fox. And then they're saying, yeah, let's invite this guy. We won't roast him cuz it would offend him. And you know, he's getting on there in years. Let's not offend the poor guy. Let's invite this guy and create this dinner around the person who's the biggest enemy of the First Amendment and freedom of the press ever. And if you don't believe it, let's invite the head of the FCC that is trying to silence TV networks. And if you don't believe it, let's have David Ellison, the son of the Ellisons who bought CBS and is shut down the legitimate news gathering functions within CBS News and wants to do the same thing for cnn. Let's have him buy a table, let's have him throw a party.
- [36:12]
B
So what would you have them do just not to invite Trump?
- [36:14]
A
How about doing their jobs? That's what I'd have them do. I'd have them challenge Trump in the way Kristen Welker did on everything. Every time he lies, say, I'm sorry, Mr. President, do you have evidence for that? Or Mr. President, the facts say something different. Because my job is to get to the truth. It's not to make the President of the United States feel all comfy.
- [36:36]
B
Well, I should also point out that the White House Correspondent's dinner last year canceled Amber Ruffin. Do you remember she as the comedian, in fact, due to comments that she made on the Daily Beast podcast, that seemed to me not a good sign for them. Well, it's an interesting debate. Should they invite the president or not? Should they invite the president or not? All right, so another man who was struggling with his emotions over the weekend was Scott Pelly, veteran 60 Minutes correspondent, who gave a remarkable interview to the New York Times daily podcast. Scott, we're available. We'd love to talk to you about what's happening at 60 Minutes, which is that the leadership team were fired after a stellar year. Viewership is up 9%. They just won two Emmy awards. And the leadership team, the executive producer, Tania Simon and 60% of their correspondents were fired.
- [37:33]
A
Well, but it's because we know what's going on there. Bari Weiss, who is a tool who was put in charge of CBS News, was put in charge of CBS News. In order to make it more comfortable for Trump and more comfortable for the right, which really means more comfortable for really rich people to get their agenda through and to advance and any political agenda that keeps them in power and to turn off the criticism that they're getting. And she was put in, and that's why she changed what's going on at CBS Nightly News. And that's why these people have left. And that's why Scott Pelley ultimately got canned, because he had the audacity to stand up and say, this TV show has stood for editorial independence throughout its many decades of illustrious history and we can't allow you to do this. And of course they said, well, he can't stay here. This is not the kind of person that we want. And a couple of his colleagues then said, well, we'll stay. We'll stay and fight, which I thought was weak.
- [38:39]
B
This was the email put out by Lesley Starr saying that they'd evaluated the situation and they decided to because they wanted to keep the show on the air. Do you think 60 Minutes survives?
- [38:50]
A
No, not in this form. Unless they take it someplace else. If I were Scott Pelley and Lesley Stahl and all these other people, I would go to YouTube or I'd go to NBC or I'd go someplace else and I'd say, yeah, we're going to keep 60 Minutes going. It doesn't have to. And CBS says, well, we own it, what it's called. Then we'll say 59 minutes is on the air now and we'll go and we'll do whatever the show is, someplace where they're allowed to actually do journalism. And Scott Pelley, more power to him. But frankly, this has been happening for months. There. Stephen Colbert is off the air. Why? Because he made jokes that made our thin skinned mad king in charge of our country unhappy. He didn't like the jokes. So they shut down the number one show on late night television because. Censorship. 60 Minutes censorship. It's blocking the press from going to the Pentagon to cover it. Censorship. Last week they made the press office in the Pentagon a classified space, which means you can't just walk into it, you need an escort to go into it. Censorship. They kicked people out of the White House press pool. Censorship. They don't let them on the plane, they don't let them ask questions. Steven Chung on a regular basis attacks the Daily Beast. Why? Because he's trying to intimidate the press. And they actually think it's a good look for them because they are going to make the press the villain. But what they're really doing is they're saying the truth doesn't matter. Believe what we say, don't believe what you see with your own eyes. And it's a real crisis in American journalism. And frankly, to go back to the point about the founders, Thomas Jefferson said, if I had a choice between the kind of government we've got and a free press, I'll take the free press, because that's what makes a country work. There gotta be places that are willing to tell the truth and take their lumps. And frankly, Scott Pelley was willing to do that. And Kristen Welker, who's not always willing to do that, did it credit to her and we should see more of it. And frankly, I don't think Trump can handle it in his precipitous decline. He's too fragile right now. And I think the more he's challenged, the more he's going to lose it. And that's in the interest of the
- [41:30]
B
US So many points to come back to you on there. I guess my first one is, I mean, Scott Pelley does have the opportunity now to go, as you said, to YouTube or he has the opportunity to go to Substack. There are plenty of places for Scott Pelley to go and to talk. I mean, independent journalists are working furiously hard across all these new platforms. Is this actually a sort of tech structural change we're seeing alongside the intimidation by the administration?
- [42:06]
A
Yes, absolutely. And it's a good thing. In fact, I think there's a kind of an irony that you've got all these tech gurus who have billions of dollars buying up media outlets, whether it's X or the Los Angeles Times or it's the Washington Post or it's cbs, at precisely the moment that those platforms are in precipitous decline themselves. And why are they in decline? Because we now have a much more distributed information system that plays off of our many networks. And by networks, I don't mean television networks. I mean Internet based networks that allow individuals with a microphone and with a camera on their computer or with just a cell phone held in their hands to go out and provide content and reach audiences and have an impact. And sometimes we joke here about how many podcasts there are out there. Everybody's got a podcast in America. Well, that's not such a bad thing. You don't have to watch them all. The reality is we need many platforms, we need many witnesses, everybody with a cell phone. Every time a bad thing happens in the streets of America, what happens? There's a guy with a cell phone who's recording it and up it goes instantly online. And that's a really good thing. And so, yes, people under 30 don't get their news from TV or radio or newspapers anymore. And so they miss some of the benefits of having an editor and having a real journalistic organization provide them with that stuff. But on the other hand, that ship has sailed, right? And the media habits of the group that, as we've said here before, in 2028, the majority of voters will be born. Since 1990, that means the majority of voters have never lived without the Internet, without a smartphone. That's where they get their news. That's how they connect with each other. And frankly, all these organizations have to adapt. That's why you mentioned the New York Times. And millions of people see the New York Times today as the daily, as their podcast. Right?
- [44:32]
B
Is their focus.
- [44:33]
A
Because the Times, for all of their gray lady boringness and their own arrogance, that the Times has made a pretty good adjustment to providing content and video and providing content and online and shifting away from what it used to be to being kind of a leading edge news organization of tomorrow.
- [44:54]
B
Right? And I would say our own numbers on the Daily Beast. But podcasts for certain episodes certainly outnumber lots of the television shows on cable news. So there is a sort of structural shift.
- [45:06]
A
The point is, they become popular. They get hundreds of thousands of viewers multiple times a week. They have much bigger impact than a lot of the articles. Little clips from them end up on YouTube, shorts or on Instagram. Much bigger sort of ancillary impact. And that's how the world is working and you guys are adapting to it and others are not.
- [45:30]
B
Well, you have your own radio network, Deep State Radio. But listen, before we go, I wanted to ask you for your thoughts on
- [45:40]
A
what you should wear to the Knicks game tonight.
- [45:42]
B
Oh, I was. What should I wear to the Knicks game tonight? I've become a new. A new Knicks fan in the last year, and I don't know what to go. I just wear jeans and a shirt, T. But it doesn't feel.
- [45:54]
A
How do you feel that you've got, first of all, jeans and a T shirt. That's what you always wear. That's what you should wear.
- [46:01]
B
Is it what you should wear? It's not like me to wear only jeans and a T shirt.
- [46:06]
A
Every time I see you, you're wearing a blazer and a T shirt. So wear a blazer and a Knicks T shirt.
- [46:11]
B
You know, I can't do that. I could never wear A sports T shirt. I just couldn't do it. The only disadvantage of going to tonight's game is because Donald Trump is going. It's. You've got to get there two hours early. So it's a bit like checking in for an international flight.
- [46:24]
A
Well, but it's also. Look, the cheapest seat in that arena is $10,000. I actually think this is an issue, and I think it's going to be a story tonight. Donald Trump is pals with Dolan, the head of the Madison Square msu, the guy who owns the Knicks, and also like the sphere in Las Vegas and whatever. Right. And so he's invited to this, which is gross, because he's trying to upstage it. And this street party that was happening in New York, every time these games were played, where thousands of people gathered outside the Garden because they couldn't get in and watched it on a big screen.
- [47:00]
B
Well, they couldn't get in because the games weren't there. Right. The games were in San Antonio. So the last two games where they've had parties, spontaneous parties outside MSG is because the teams weren't playing well.
- [47:13]
A
But also in the prior games that had been played there in the conference finals and so forth, they were there and they're partying. And this. The great thing about what's happening with the Knicks in New York City is it's infected everybody. And because Trump is there, they've now said they can't do that outside the Garden, even though the average person can't get into the Garden because the tickets are so expensive. And so Trump is doing what made him the most reviled New Yorker ever. There's no. I heard Rosie o' Donnell say it, but nobody who lived in New York for the past 40 years thinks of Donald Trump as anything but a selfish asshole. And here he is being a selfish asshole, spoiling this wonderful moment for the city. And I think there's gonna be some reaction to that. Whether you are gonna stay. Are you gonna boo him? When they all start to boo Trump, what are you gonna do? You say, I'm a journalist. I must remain objective here.
- [48:17]
B
I'm just interested to observe the scene. I'm there for the game. I'm not there for Donald Trump. I'm there for the game.
- [48:23]
A
Good. Well, you should enjoy the game. But I think. And that's what everybody should enjoy. But I think Donald Trump is gonna upstage it, and I think it's ugly and subtle.
- [48:32]
B
Well, I think Donald Trump is desperate for ratings. Right. And he understands that the attention of the nation is going to be on that particular. So he wants to be there. And I think they've moved the party to Central park, the watch party.
- [48:43]
A
Well, I hope they march down 7th Avenue and plant themselves as close to the Garden as they can. I hope they send a message. And by the way, you know who's been great at this? Zoran Mamdani. You know, who is a genuine Knicks fan who sat up in the nosebleed seats and who is able to sort of capture the zeitgeist, this feeling that something great is happening in New York. Now, they could lose, but I've been a Knicks fan since I was a little kid. They haven't won a title in half a century.
- [49:18]
B
It's a long time.
- [49:19]
A
It's 53 years. And sadly, I remember when they won it. And I gotta tell you something, it's incredibly exciting if you've sort of gone through all the years of this and New York makes a party feel like a party. And so I hope you have a good time. I'm sure you'll come up with the right T shirt. I think the answer for you is a blue streak and an orange streak in your hair.
- [49:48]
B
It's never gonna happen. It's never gonna happen. I might go as far as a wristband. I might go as far as bracelets.
- [49:54]
A
When you were like, young punk rocker, you didn't have a streak in your ear.
- [49:59]
B
Look what I have here, David. Look what I have here. Two little tasteful wrist bracelets.
- [50:06]
A
That's good.
- [50:06]
B
That's gonna be as far as it goes. That's my nod to Nick's Wearabilia. All right, so my final question. My final question is about Graham Platner. Actually, we haven't discussed Graham Platner. And he held a town hall at the weekend to talk about the various domestic accusations that the New York Times ran last week with various girlfriends saying that they'd found relationships with him unsettling and over. Over wrenching or emotionally wrenching, which I thought were all my relationships. I could describe all of them like that. What is the point of having a relationship if it's not, at some point, emotionally wrenching?
- [50:48]
A
Well, do they have to. They have to involve abusive sex? Come on, come on, let's not normalize.
- [50:54]
B
Was it positive sexting? I'm not normalizing it. I'm just saying that he held a town hall on Saturday to address it, and he was open to questions, and nobody asked him a question about it. Nobody asked him a question about it. They all asked him about questions about the economy and national security. Nobody asked him about his personal life.
- [51:12]
A
That wasn't orchestrated. Look, this is such a sensitive area because there's so many invested parties in this thing. And all of my progressive friends, they're out there and like, how dare you pick on Platner. He's the only way that we can beat Susan Collins. Well, first of all, that's nonsense.
- [51:31]
B
Well, it's not nonsense in terms of. The primary is urgent and it's too late to put anyone else on the ballot.
- [51:40]
A
Okay, first of all, there are other people on the ballot, and any one of them would be a better candidate than Graham Platner. Okay, now, look, I have to preface this. I'm more progressive than Graham Platner. I am every bit as anti APAC as Graham Platner. I am not somebody that you can go after and say, this is a plot by the establishment to go after this guy. There are certain things you just don't do and go on to high public office. And one of them is get an SS tattoo. I'm sorry. Okay. You know, there's a lot of things he could do to contribute to society.
- [52:21]
B
He says that he got it. He was drunk. He was a Marine. He was fine.
- [52:26]
A
Fuck you, Graham. You don't get to do that.
- [52:29]
B
He's tattooed over it.
- [52:31]
A
Well, fine. So he robs a bank. Okay, I was trying to. I robbed a bank. Should that follow me my whole life? Not in every.
- [52:41]
B
That's apples and oranges. Robbing a bank is against the law. Having a tattoo is not against the law, David.
- [52:47]
A
No, it's not. But to the son of a Holocaust survivor, there are certain things that are disqualifying. Okay? And having an SS tattoo, for whatever reason, you have an SS tattoo. And there does seem to be that he's had plenty of flirtations with the extreme right and sort of gun lobbies and a whole bunch of other parts of the US throughout his life. And then all of a sudden, he's had this awakening and he's like, oh, yeah, I'm this big liberal and so forth. Look, I've lived through John Fetterman. I know what happens when these characters end up. We've seen them change. We can do better. You know, if he wants to go and contribute to life in Maine, there are a lot of ways he can do it. But now it's up to the people of Maine, as so many people have said, I think he's gonna win. And I think what's gonna happen is that story after story after story, that has not Come out. Is gonna come out that the Republicans play harder than the Democrats do on these issues. And this is gonna be a big mess. And it could be the only reason that Susan Collins, who deserves not one second more as a senator, she is responsible for Brett Kavanaugh. She is responsible for a lot of the bad stuff that has happened. Her best shot at getting reelected is six months of scandals surrounding Graham Platner. There are a lot of good Democrats. Pick one. Pick anyone. But how about Democrats who say, we gotta believe the women, believing the women in this case, and Democrats who say we've gotta have values, embrace the values. This, to me, smacks of the sort of post2024 bullshit that in order to win, Democrats need to be as thuggish as the Republicans. We need our own Joe Rogan. We need our own Tape Brothers. Bullshit. We can do better.
- [54:54]
B
Okay, so last week you talked about generational change. If. And you're right, there are still other people on the ballot, one of whom is Janet Mills, currently the governor of Maine. Popular governor.
- [55:05]
A
Shouldn't be the candidate. You know, pick one of the others.
- [55:10]
B
Okay, well, David Rothkoff, very feisty this morning. Very feisty.
- [55:14]
A
Is that why we're here?
- [55:15]
B
Generational change. This is the generational change.
- [55:18]
A
Well, I'm the generation. I relate more to voters under 30 than I do to the fucking boomers that I am part of, who I've had enough of. I want to turn the page. I just don't want to turn the page to something less good. That's all. Have standards.
- [55:37]
B
Well, it was a good move by Mamdani to say to New York kids that on the night of the Knicks games, they didn't have to go to bed.
- [55:46]
A
It was a great move. Mamdani has not made a wrong move so far. Crime is down in New York over the first six months. He's done things for the schools, he's done things for the city. Will that continue? I don't know. But so far, so good. And he is a great example of what you can do when you go out and look for somebody who wants to solve the problems of real people. And that's what Democrats ought to be doing, is solving the problems of real people. And that doesn't mean they have to look like some kind of populist bozo to do it. I really love. Follow the Jon Ossoff campaign for Senate in Georgia. He's making great progress and sends great message. Follow Talarico in Texas. Great progress, great message. There are good people out there. Let's focus on them.
- [56:38]
B
David Rothkoff, what a positive note to end on. Excellent, as always to see you. I'm going to recommend your column again in the Daily Beast. Today. It's first class. Why Trump is winning a war, but it's not the war you think he's winning. And, well, I look forward to seeing you next Monday.
- [56:54]
A
Bye. Bye.
- [56:55]
B
Bye. I love that we ended up on a positive note with a very feisty David Rothkopf. Write and let us know what you thought the best parts of those conversation were, and the most worrying parts, too. I do think his point that Russian intelligence agents couldn't sit around and imagine a better scenario for Russia is a really important one. And whether or not you think Bill Pulte will do as much damage to the elections as David thinks he he could do. Okay, hopefully as this drops, I will be at the game. I will have braved the security cues and managed to get in to watch the New York Knicks win. Fingers crossed. See you next week with David Rothkopf. And I'll be back tomorrow with Michael Wolff. And we go inside Trump's head once again. Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Pascal there, Heather Passaro and Neil Rosenhaus. So the good news is we have so many Beast Tier members now, there are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.