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- [00:01]
Joanna Coles
Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money.
- [00:05]
David Rothkopf
Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story.
- [00:11]
Joanna Coles
Get the money side of the story.
- [00:14]
David Rothkopf
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- [01:19]
Joanna Coles
I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And of course, as ever on a Monday, I'm about to start talking to David Rothkop, who's deep in the intelligence and foreign affairs services in D.C. and, well, what he's hearing from his sources is deeply, deeply unsettling. But before we get to that, I just want to remind you, smash the subscription button. We're closing in on 700,000 subscribers, which is amazing, and we really appreciate your support. We are independent media, which is how we can bring you the kind of conversations that we do. Anyway, David Rothkopf, let's take it away. David Rothkopf, Yes.
- [02:05]
David Rothkopf
Joanna Coles, Far across the ocean. Do I have to shout for you to hear me in far off Blighty,
- [02:12]
Joanna Coles
Far off Blighty where the vibes, as my parents refer to the Internet, are very, very slow. So thank you for bearing with me. I will say, looking at the situation from the UK and watching Donald Trump walk from Marine Force One with his son, it appeared as if the president was compressing himself. His neck has disappeared. And I remember Steve Bannon said he thought he looked like a giant shrimp. I think he looks more like a bison with that kind of he's got no neck. What's happened to his neck? The President looks terrible. His cankles swelling over his oxfords when they, I mean, they're like king sized cankles. David, he looks terrible. What's happening, what's happening with the President's health?
- [03:07]
David Rothkopf
Well, I think the President has always had the kind of job of the Hutt gene, you know, and I just think it's kind of triggering now as he gets to a certain age and he's becoming kind of gelatinous and, you know, it makes it easier to get around the White House. He can ooze under the door. He's always sort of had that vibe that he could ooze under a do. But there is something going on with Trump now. And I think we've got lots of stories in the news about Iran and about the Supreme Court and about elections and stuff like that. And then there's the James Comey thing. But the one thing about Trump that's happening every day, and you're putting your finger on it here, is he's fading, he's failing. He's fading physically, he's fading mentally. He can't handle things. You know, he said today in an interview, oh, I do. Iran over again. I don't think he even remembers what he did in the first place. He doesn't know how to get out of what he's doing on Iran. The Supreme Court rules one thing on tariffs. He says, no, we're gonna have 25% more tariffs on Europe. Even though it's a disaster, his political numbers are a disaster. And, you know, when I think of all of this and I think of Trump decaying before our very eyes and also day after day doing himself in. To me, the headline is, you don't need James Comey to call for somebody to 86 47. Trump is 86ing himself. He's shuffling off the stage. And you see it. We sent some notes back and forth before we started. You see a lot of people now starting to say, I gotta start hedging my bets. This guy is not long for this world. Or is it gonna be JD or is it gonna be Marco? People talking about that a lot, or how are the Democrats gonna succeed him? Or what's going, it's the end of maga and I think we need to put all this together and say we're watching him dissolve before our very eyes and tomorrow's a big day. I don't know if you're going to celebrate it there in the uk you probably think It's Cinco de Mayo, but it's something more important than Cinco de Mayo, which I know is a big UK audit. It's six months to the election. Tomorrow is six months.
- [05:51]
Joanna Coles
Six months to November. Right. So. Intriguing. Well, he definitely looks worse. And of course, he's also now got Marjorie Taylor Greene barking at him from Ron Paul's sort of circus of a conference. But she said, I don't have Trump derangement syndrome. I've got Trump disappointment, Which, as a sort of catchphrase, isn't very compelling. Except that she used to be his biggest fan.
- [06:28]
David Rothkopf
Well, you know, she's got, like, jilted Maga syndrome. Right. You know, there's something like, you know, she's, like, hurt because he didn't support her Senate bid or some kind of thing like that. And I got no sympathy for Marjorie Taylor Greene. But. But one by one, we're starting to see these people distance themselves a little bit or hedge their bets a little bit. And I think that's just going to accelerate. And Trump knows it. He knows it. The one thing I think he realizes most of all is if he loses this election, he is the lamest of lame ducks. He's over. He'll never get anything done. Everything he wants to do, the spending will be blocked for it. He won't build his arches. He won't be able to pave over more of the White House garden. And I think he is real. We've talked about this before. It's kind of sad. It's like watching a guy come to grips with his own mortality. And that's what I get out of Trump all the time. He's just this old man struggling, saying, no, it's happened too fast. It's going, I want more time. And it's just. He's running out of time.
- [07:51]
Joanna Coles
He's running out of time, which I think is a line from Hamilton, isn't it? But is he running out of time to open the Strait of Hormuz, which the only thing his war on Iran appears to have done. Of course, it's cleared out the Iranian leadership, but there's new leadership that's emerged, like when you chop the head off a worm and it grows back. But the Strait of Hormuz, that appeared to be open before the war and is largely the reason that the previous five presidents haven't gone into Iran, as this one has. Is he gonna be able to guarantee safe passage to the tankers and the cargo ships that are st there, as he's claiming? I mean, this morning he was supposed to open it for people. And the Iranians have already apparently fired on one Navy, American Navy vessel.
- [08:48]
David Rothkopf
Well, they say they fired on it. Central Command says they have not fired on it. Central Command, I think, has been lying about a lot of the damage the Iranians have done to them. There's this big sort of festering scandal that perhaps the Iranians have done much more damage to US Bases in the region, to US Aircraft and so forth, then we know. And of course, we don't. You know, Pete Hegseth's Department of Defense, nobody trusts anything that they say. But you can't trust what Trump says from one minute to the next. And on this particular issue over the weekend, he said, well, we're going to have this operation, and we're going to send our guided missile destroyers alongside merchant ships and we'll guide them through and everything will be fine. Well, two problems with that. One problem with it is his team immediately backed off and said, well, that's not really what we're doing. We're just going to give them some advice on where they can go that's safer. Secondly, I think he's reached out to some people. There was one report that he reached out to the Chinese and said, it's going to cost us $2 billion a day to keep the strait open. And the Chinese said, that's on you, buddy. I mean, I don't think they said, it's on you, buddy. But the point is, their message was this strait was open before you went and started this illegal war on the 28th. And you want to open it up, you've got to resolve your issues with the Iranians. And we are a long way from resolving the issues with the Iranians. The Iranians have put a counter proposal. The US Rejected the counterproposal. There's talk about trying to get a framework. We're nowhere near getting a framework. Meanwhile, the Israelis are still blowing things up in Lebanon. The Iranians apparently fired on a UAE tanker this morning. There was an air raid in the UAE this morning. This is a festering wound, and there is no doctor who knows how to solve it, because Trump keeps saying no to the only things that could bring it to a conclusion, which is he stops fighting and he accepts the Iranian promise that they're not gonna seek any nuclear weapons, and he moves on. He turns the page, but he's too stubborn to do that.
- [11:20]
Joanna Coles
So, David, I don't want to side with the Iranians in any way here. They are a horrible regime, but why would they acquiesce to anything the Americans want at this point, given that weirdly, they've emerged from Trump's bombing campaign with the upper hand, with the straight of Hormuz,
- [11:42]
David Rothkopf
then they wouldn't and they won't and they're not going to. And we know that. And they think they have more time than Trump does because they know there's an election. They know that if the Republicans lose in November, that Trump becomes politically emasculated. And they know that this war is super unpopular. The longer it goes on, the higher the price of gasoline is. I filled up my car over the weekend and admittedly it was premium gasoline. It was $6.39 for a gallon of gasoline. I could only afford half a gallon. But, you know, it's bad news for the average American out there and they know it. And so it's not just the strait of Hormuz. They know they're applying economic pressure to the average American in a way that is intolerable for Trump. But Trump is just too proud. And I think Trump is also, I don't know, it goes back to this earlier point. I think he's kind of disconnected from reality a little bit. Part of it is I think he's losing his marbles.
- [13:08]
Joanna Coles
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- [14:26]
David Rothkopf
Well, they're saying he's erratic. You know, they're saying he is in denial about these things. You know, over the past few hours he said, oh, we're going to take over Cuba next. Right away. No wait, no delay we're going to go do this kind of thing. There was an article in the Atlantic a couple days ago. What was the article about? It was about that Trump thinks he's the most powerful man who ever lived. I mean, seriously, if somebody says that to you, the first thing you do is you say, well, maybe you want a cold compression here. Let's hydrate a little bit. I'll call the doctor. You stay here. Right. Because he's out of his gourd. But I also think because he's a narcissist, he doesn't think anything continues after him. Like after he's dead, everything is gone. After he leaves office, he doesn't care what happens to the United States. He doesn't care what happens to Maga. He only cares about what happens to him. And so as he sees the end approach, he's starting to act in a way that things have no consequences. Okay, we'll keep the war going forever. Sure. We'll go and invade Cuba. Yeah. We're going to pull our troops out of Europe. Because what could happen. Nothing. To me. That's no skin off of my nose. To make Europe more vulnerable to the Russians. He doesn't care that people are losing their health care or that, you know, the environment is going to be destroyed because he's strip mining the world and pushing us back to coal because it's not affecting him. He lives in a little bubble, mar a lago, where he kind of expects to die. You know, he'll just be in there and they'll all be sitting around or whoever's sitting around, whoever he pays to hold his hand in his last minutes of life because his wife won't be there. And I think that's where his head is right now. It's a little morbid, but that's what.
- [16:33]
Joanna Coles
So what are you hearing from the Defense Department about how the SEC Def as he's called in your terms, or SEC War, as he would like to be called. Pete Hegseth, how is he doing in all this?
- [16:52]
David Rothkopf
Well, he's doing terribly. And first of all, nobody who's a professional refers to as the Department of War. That's a Trump administration lie. It's not legal. The Congress has to determine what the name of the department is. But quite apart from that, people see that Hegseth is a liar. He's an extremist. He attacks troops who, you know, I mean, here's a case where I was talking to somebody over the weekend and they were saying how pissed off people were is that some of the troops who were injured or near the troops that were injured or killed in the attack that hit this unfortified facility in Kuwait have said we're not being protected. Others in the region have said we're not protected. You know, getting good food, right? We're not getting good rations. And Hegseth's calling them liars and Hegseth is saying that they're traitors rather. You know, he talks a good game about standing up for the troops, but actually he's thrown generals under the bus. He's thrown admirals under the bus. He's thrown people with beards under the bus. He's thrown fat people under the bus. He's thrown black people under the bus. He's thrown women under the bus. He's thrown non evangelical Protestants under the bus on a regular basis. And frankly, evangelical Protestants make up about a third of the military. Right. Other kinds of Christians make up another third, and then Jewish and Hindi and Buddhist and others make up another third. And all of these people are alienated every day by exit. So he may be winning with Trump, but he's failing with the million people that work for him. And I don't think it's unfair to say that when I talk to people, it's halfway between disgust and hatred for Hegseth. And that's why I think there's a short list of people who are in this administration who are not going to make it to January 1st. Hegseth, Kash, Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, the core of the national security team. They're all done.
- [19:17]
Joanna Coles
It's just extraordinary. And so what do we think then of the Secretary of State, who as we know, has got numerous jobs at this point, including National Security adviser? Normally those roles are separate because if you're president, you want more than one opinion being dispatched to talk to the Pope. Now, Trump has realized that if the population Pope doesn't come before the election, which in theory he was supposed to be doing to celebrate 250 years of America's existence, that that would be a bad thing. So Marco Rubio has now been dispatched to be the Pope whisperer. Another of his jobs. Do you think he's going to get very far? And is this a slight to J.D. vance, who basically wants to be the most public Roman Catholic in the cabinet and has got a book coming out in June about how he found his way back to the Catholic faith, presumably presumably taking in the fact that he was the last person to visit the previous Pope. And the day after JD's visit, the Pope expired.
- [20:30]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, right. JD Vance, Pope killer. The Rubio story is interesting. First of all, there was one time, I've written a couple of histories at nsc, and there was a time when their National Security Advisor, Secretary of State were the same person. It was Henry Kissinger played both roles. Marco Rubio is not Henry Kissinger, but Donald Trump is not Richard Nixon. And Richard Nixon was actually extremely adept at foreign policy. Doesn't actually get enough credit for some of his breakthroughs like the opening to China and so forth. And, you know, so it's a very, very different kind of situation, but it didn't work very well. So I actually spoke to Gerald Ford about this because he is the one who undid it. He left Kissinger as Secretary of State and he made Brent Scowcroft, who was Kissinger's deputy at the nsc, as the National Security advisor. And Ford said that one of the most important things he did as president was splitting the two jobs up because he felt too much power had been concentrated in Kissinger's hands. Now, having said that, too much power has not been put into Rubio's hands cuz he didn't have any power, cuz Trump doesn't listen to anybody. And so he's got Rubio doing all sorts of weird odd jobs whenever he can. J.D. vance makes a massive speech at the Munich Security Conference. Rubio gets sent in the next year to clean it up. J.D. vance is sent off to Pakistan to end the war. Rubio goes with Trump to the UFC match and holds his hand. While all this is going on now Rubio's being sent off to sort of paper things over with the Pope. I think we should be clear, the Pope is the one who delivered the last blow in this because he took somebody who was earlier in his life undocumented here in the United States, and he made him the Cardinal from West Virginia. And it was a very clear message that he supports refugees and immigrants and he opposes, as he has often said, the Trump administration's immigration policies. And that was just a week ago. So I think Trump realizes, and I suspect a lot of people in the Republican Party have said to Trump, you gotta fix this. The swing vote that got MAGA across the line was Catholics. I think it was something like 55, 43 Catholics split for Trump. And so there is a lot of pressure on him to fix it. Now, Rubio is a kind of odd choice because although Rubio was born Catholic, I think for a while there he converted to being a Mormon. I don't know what his Current status is on this. And of course, there is the Vance issue, where Vance is saying publicly, I'm a Catholic. It means a lot to me to be a Catholic, and so forth. But he's attacked the Pope, and he's the one who said the Pope ought to be very careful about getting into theology, which was one of the weirdest, most arrogant statements ever made by any American politician. But I think what this says more than anything else is Trump realizes he has a problem and that one of the core groups that is essential to the Republicans having any chance at all in November is being alienated by their repeated attacks on the Pope. And I doubt Rubio is going to fix that. He's certainly not going to be able to fix it publicly, because every time anything comes up, Rubio says, the president's right. The president's right about that. He never, ever publicly questions or apologizes for Trump.
- [24:39]
Joanna Coles
He also looks terrible. I am really interested in how we can see this Cabinet. I mean, you said Trump was dissolving before our very eyes, and it's really noticeable how his neck has just disappeared, and we should figure out what was going on at his dentist appointment this Saturday. But when you look at these Cabinet ministers, you can see the stress on their faces. You can see it on Ribio's face, which has Ribiot's definitely lost weight. He looks gaunt. His face has sort of gotten longer. Pete Hegseth in the hearings last week looked absolutely frantic. He looked across between sort of panicked and frantic. And you can see them all looking really under pressure. And I don't actually remember having seen it so obviously in previous cabinets, actually. And I guess the war adds pressure, but sometimes things are just hiding in plain sight, and this isn't even hiding. So how serious do you think you're.
- [25:48]
David Rothkopf
I just want to say you are really onto something here, and I think it's really important. This administration is on the defensive. They see the polls. They know that the core support for Trump, which had a floor of 40%, then 33% on critical issues, is now down to under 25%. They know that the war is unpopular, that he's doing terribly with polls on the economy, which used to be a strong suit, that even his immigration policies are unpopular, that his negative rating right now, his disapproval rating is like 66%. It's like 2 thirds of the American people are against what he's doing, and nothing he is doing is fixing it. Right. And so who's on the defensive? Caroline Levitt's on the defensive. Steven Cheung is on the defensive. Susie Wiles is on the defensive. Hegseth is yelling at everybody around him. Rubio's on the defensive. Bondi was on the defensive when she was there. Now Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General, is whining and whining and whining all the time because he is on the defensive. Somehow Scott Besant has gotten even smarmier. He's become more smarmified. He is, in his own condescending, kind of super weird, 1930s movie villain way, he is getting weirder. And the reason you haven't seen it very much is that usually the message from administrations or the feeling about them from within is a little more mixed. Right? Usually there's some good news to balance things out. And there was a moment during the George W. Bush administration where things were pretty bad and ultimately he got rid of Rumsfeld and he shook things up a little bit because of that, because he was trying to adjust to it. The problem with Trump is he doesn't adjust. The only time I remember it really like this was Nixon during Watergate, where they were so defensive. I don't know if you remember it, but there was an incident where Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler, pushed somebody out of the way. You know, just. He was. He couldn't contain himself and he pushed somebody. And, you know, you know, he was starting to have Cabinet secretaries go to jail. And there was a meltdown. And, you know, speaking keeping with our theme of dissolving, there is a meltdown going on in the Trump administration because nobody's got a solution. Pick a problem. Any of the problems that they've got, whether it's the economy or Iran or healthcare or the Congress not getting anything done or whatever, nothing is working. Everything they try. Let's have Melania make a movie. Let's have the President announce some new building. I don't even. It seems that there's even some discussion that the UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House, the ultimate bread and circuses distraction of this administration, may not happen. Who knows? But the point is they're plumb out of tricks. There's no more rabbit. There's no more rabbits in their hat.
- [29:16]
Joanna Coles
Right? There's no rabbit to pull out of a hat. And also, the other thing that Donald Trump has done is because he's allowed cameras into the Cabinet meetings, we are all so much more aware of the people he has put round him. So we know what the head of intelligence looks like. Tulsi Gabbard. We know what Pete Hegseth looks Like, we know who Marco Rubio is. We know who Linda McMahon is. We all knew who Laurie Chavez de Rummer was. The Labor Secretary who just got fired because she did this egregious suck uppery where she said, Mr. President, I do hope you've seen that your beautiful face on the banner hanging outside the Department of Labor. Which was still not enough to protect her once her husband got banned for the building for sexually harassing members of her department, her father was told to stay away, and her own bodyguard had to leave because of relations they'd had. So we know who these people are because Trump has let us in in a way that normal presidents don't. And he has created them as characters. So we all know them as characters, and we can see their flaws and we don't see any of their strengths, because, as you say, everything is going wrong. From ice to foreign affairs to the prices of things, it's all going wrong.
- [30:44]
David Rothkopf
Well, this may seem a little facile, but bear with me here. It really does seem like a psychotic version of the Apprentice. Trump. The myth of Trump was that he was a great businessman. He wasn't. He was a bad businessman. Everybody knows he was bad businessman.
- [31:01]
Joanna Coles
He was a terrible businessman, David. He was a terrible businessman. Really.
- [31:05]
David Rothkopf
Remember, terrible.
- [31:06]
Joanna Coles
Trump steaks, Trump water. I mean, the list goes on and on. Trump wine, Trump champagne. Trump University.
- [31:14]
David Rothkopf
He lost money running a casino, right? He lost money running a casino. Nobody could do that. My dog, Grizzly could make money running a casino. But here's the thing. Look at his cabinet. It looks more and more like the Apprentice, right? He's got a table full of people who are like the characters who are on that show. And one by one, he's firing them. And at the end of the day, one of them is going to be left and they'll say, well, and you get a great new job, Marco, or JD or whatever, you can succeed the president. Except, of course, that job's a fake, too. He is in no position to promise that. But meanwhile, you're right, because it's kind of televised. I mean, again, it's facile, but it's true, right? This is reality TV presidency. And the way reality TV shows go off the tracks is when there's no appealing characters. There's nobody anybody can relate to. The host is kind of odious. And then the show gets canceled. And the Apprentice, the Apprentice ratings started to fall. The ratings of this show are shown up in the polls, and they are gonna fall, and he is gonna behave ever weirder. And I think he will fire a lot of these people because they're not helping him and he won't own that. The reason the problems exist is him. He'll say, oh, well, Marco dropped the ball on that. Pete dropped the ball on that. Cash Patel, I mean, you're in the uk so he didn't get to watch Aziz Ansari.
- [32:50]
Joanna Coles
Oh, I did. Of course I watched it. Of course I watched it. It was fantastic. The only thing he didn't do, I mean, he did that brilliant thing with the eyes. He didn't do the cross eyes, which is what Kash Patel does. But I thought Aziz Ansari, I mean, it couldn't have been better. Him and Colin Jost. Colin Jost as Pete Hegser, frat boy, was wonderful. And if you haven't watched it, go and watch it on YouTube because it was really good.
- [33:18]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, it's good. But you know, the thing he captures in both of them, the reason it's funny is their desperation. Hegseth lashing out at everybody, yelling at everybody, telling them all that they're jerks, but doing it with that kind of 8th grade locker room kind of humor that he uses. And Aziz Ansari sort of begging for his job, you know, or as Kash Patel begging for his job and saying, I'm great and soon I'm going to find where Osama bin Laden is.
- [33:51]
Joanna Coles
I know. That was so funny. It was so funny. We have a very good story in the Beast today about the video that Kash Patel released showing all the work that the FBI has been doing. And of course, the FBI does do good work, even when it's led by Kash Patel. But the whole thing was very clearly a plea to Trump to help him keep his job. And of course, there was lots of criticism of the previous president, of Joe Biden for not appearing, for never doing interviews, or I think he did six the entire time he was president. But he didn't sort of play his cabinet like this and dangle them in front of people so that they were essentially failing in plain sight. And you'd be pushed to remember who some of them of Obama's cabinet secretaries were, because the business of government with both Biden and with Obama was taken seriously and went on, you know, in quiet rooms where people could work effectively without having a camera in their face. If you're in a cabinet meeting and the camera is in your face, you have to perform for it. And what Trump has done is surrounded himself with a cabinet of performers, as we've talked about before, like P.T. barnum, and as you say, the ratings have plummeted. When you go inside and you see what's happening and it's not going to get any better.
- [35:12]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. The problem is this, of course, this isn't the Apprentice. It's not a meaningless reality TV show. Having Trump think that he's the most powerful man in the history of the world is super dangerous, as he decays before our very eyes. And every single day, some damage is being done to the United States and to the planet Earth, and typically on typical days, multiple kinds of damage that are either irreversible or terrible. Last week, we haven't talked about it here because it's just not as zesty, but last week, the Supreme Court made one of its worst decisions in history. When in the Calais decision about Louisiana, essentially, they said, yeah, no, the Voting Rights act is over. We are going to allow people to redistrict to serve political purposes. That wasn't their explicit statement, but that's the effect. Within days, Louisiana, Florida, other states are now redistricting, which is essentially taking the voting rights away from people in minorities or Democrats by drawing the lines in such a way that their votes won't matter. And Trump is over the weekend again, in his kind of manic way, on Truth Social, urging them on, we need 20 more votes, and if they don't get the 20 votes, they're gonna impeach me. And there's a war and he's destroying the environment and millions of people are getting kicked off healthcare, and the country is the biggest deficit that it's ever had in its history, and we're falling behind China and, and, and, you know, all these terrible things are happening. So in, you know, this, this reality show, while it's diverting and crazy, is also masking another story which is much more grave, serious, profound in terms of its consequences for everybody else. And it's real important we don't lose sight of that because, yeah, Trump's kind of a weird grandpa, but so long as Trump thinks he has power, and so long as you have a Congress that won't stand up to him and say, well, you don't have authority to fight this war, or you can't just build any building you want, or you can't just repurpose funds or withhold funds for Ukraine, which was a story of the past couple of days, until you have a Congress that stands up to him, this bad stuff is going to happen. And millions and millions, and in some cases billions and billions of people are going to feel the pain of this psychotic reality show that 77 million Americans said should be the narrative of two four year periods in our history.
- [38:23]
Joanna Coles
So last week when we spoke, you thought that the King was a stooge. You thought that he'd been dispatched by the British Prime Minister to try and sue.
- [38:37]
David Rothkopf
I thought we'd get back to this. Yes, go on.
- [38:39]
Joanna Coles
Well, I'm curious though, because what you heard and what you saw. For me, the most fascinating achievement of the King was the fact that he got Congress to stand, both parties to stand, but he got Republicans to applaud the idea of American democracy, the idea of the beautiful, pristine American environment. And he got them to applaud things which shouldn't feel controversial. But of course, everything's controversial and everything's political under this particular system that we have at the moment or under this particular president. I was curious to see whether or not you felt better about the King's visit after he'd come and gone. And I promise you, I'm not trying to say I told you so because he exceeded my expectations and my expectations were reasonable.
- [39:35]
David Rothkopf
Oh, really? It feels a little bit like I told you so, but I gotta tell you, totally justified. You were right, I was wrong. Okay.
- [39:46]
Joanna Coles
And
- [39:48]
David Rothkopf
this is one of the things that makes me different from Trump. I'm able to acknowledge it. The other thing is that I have a neck. But between those two things, I'm quite different from Trump. But I thought the King did a great job, and in some ways I thought he did a masterful job. He stood in front of the Congress and he delivered blow after blow to Trump. And what's wrong with Trump, whether it was the Magna Carta and the importance of the rule of law, or the importance of checks on executive power, the importance of NATO or the importance of supporting Ukraine, and the list of things goes on and on. And it has just been spectacular that he was able to do this and as you say, get the Republicans to actually stand up and applaud him as he was deconstructing Trump. And another sign by the way, of Trump losing it is he was sort of trying to rub up against the King and get some of that royalty to rub off on him. And after the speech in which it was like some samurai warrior with a razor sharp katana chopping somebody apart and they don't even know it until they shake and all the pieces fall apart after the speech, Trump goes, That was a great speech. I wish I could give a speech like that. And so the main thing that I took away from it is Trump didn't understand Anything the King was saying.
- [41:39]
Joanna Coles
Well, I think that's incredibly true. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
- [41:43]
David Rothkopf
I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have
- [41:53]
Joanna Coles
one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today.
- [41:56]
David Rothkopf
I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com
- [41:59]
Joanna Coles
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate, first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full terms@mintmobile.com well, he seems, he's mesmerized by the King's accent, but also when the King said, you know, we must support Ukraine and their whole house got up and applauded that, that was also a moment I thought that has actually been underplayed.
- [42:30]
David Rothkopf
It was, it was beautifully done. And then when he had the dinner at the White House, he continued some of these themes, you know, and he, you know, he understood Trump. He said, here, President Trump is a bell. It says Trump on it. You can play with that. And Trump's like, oh, a bell that says Trump on it. He was like a child, you know. And meanwhile, the King is eviscerating him. He's just taking him apart piece by piece. And then Trump is like, thank you. Thank you for eviscerating me. Thank you for making me look like an idiot. And then the King flies off and to Bermuda or wherever he went on his next stop. And so let me say this again slowly so that everybody can hear me. You were right, Joanna, and I was wrong.
- [43:17]
Joanna Coles
Well, I don't hear that very often on podcasts, David, so I'm going to take it. But he exceeded my expectations. I thought that he would do some real diplomatic jiu jitsu. Although I like your idea of the samurai, so that the bits fall apart when the victim stands up. But Trump didn't quite understand, I think, what was happening to him. He was so fixated by the accent.
- [43:42]
David Rothkopf
Look, we talk a lot about Trump, but I don't think we should ever completely set aside the fact that he's an idiot. I mean, you know, he's a bad guy and he's decaying and he's demented and he's got certain horrible impulses, but he's also an idiot. And I just don't think, I don't think he's ever listened to a speech. I don't think his attention span is long enough. He's got something in his brain. And unless the guy actually says the word Trump, he doesn't hear it.
- [44:22]
Joanna Coles
He doesn't hear it. Unless it's about himself, he doesn't hear it. And it was also fascinating watching Melania standing next to him. I mean, two weeks after she gave her very peculiar speech about not knowing Jeffrey Epstein, and there she was again. And he's trying to reach for her hand and she's flicking it away. And then she finally takes it when they have to walk down the stairs because she knows he needs to cling onto her to walk down the stairs. He wasn't right next to a banister. So that was a sort of semi tragic moment too. Cause her disdain for him was really very clear. Very clear.
- [44:59]
David Rothkopf
It was so horrible to watch her flick his hand away so that he couldn't hold her hand. And she's sitting there stone faced. It was just, I mean, you almost, and not quite, but almost felt something for Trump in that kind of humiliation. But that's the theme every day. The Iranians, they're humiliating him. He's going to go to China, he won't even know it. They'll be humiliating him by showing how far they're getting ahead. And he's not getting ahead. Every time he talks to Putin, it clear to the world that Putin is using Trump. And Trump is their poodle, you know, and when he gets on TV these days, he gets humiliated. He does, he does. He's just lost. I don't know. Did he ever have magic? I don't know. But if he did, it's gone.
- [46:00]
Joanna Coles
His magic has gone the way of his neck. It's sort of compressed on itself. We should be by rights. David, you and I at the Met gala tonight. Jeff Bezos is the biggest sponsor of it. I think he and Lauren Sanchez, his second wife, I think. Is he her fourth husband or fifth husband? Fourth husband. I think they're supporting the met tonight with $10 million. We are not going. Trump is not going either. And neither is Zoran Mamdani.
- [46:37]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. And I understand Zendaya is not going either, but I always find that this is kind of of the sign of the apocalypse. You love parties and all that kind of stuff. And you were like part of the fashion constellation that rules the world. And I do like parties.
- [46:53]
Joanna Coles
What's wrong with. What's wrong? I don't like. I like parties. As if there's something wrong with liking parties.
- [47:01]
David Rothkopf
There's not. And you were always the smarter, funnier, more likable major magazine editor in that world. I'm not contrasting you with Anna Wintour directly, but yes, I. But here we've got this event taking place, which I always feel is like a sign of the apocalypse because a bunch of nobodies show up in these incredibly excessive pieces of clothing and celebrate themselves for how rich they are and the world is suffering. But having said that, it is interesting with the Bezos thing and with Lauren Sanchez trying to place herself at the center of this, because we do have to remember that Trump is a pawn of a bunch of oligarchs who are putting billions of dollars into our political system and our other systems so that they can control the outcomes. And Peter Thiel and Palantir want to have a kind of new kind of state where women can't vote. And Bezos has his agenda and Elon has his white supremacist agenda and so forth. But those people will be there after Trump is gone.
- [48:13]
Joanna Coles
Gone.
- [48:14]
David Rothkopf
They will be going to the Met Gala after Trump is gone and forgotten. One thing that I think is kind of interesting, I did not get to go and see the Devil wears Prada 2 this weekend, although I was glad to see the Daily Beast had a nice review of it. But the people I've spoken to who did get to see it and enjoyed it a great deal thought it was quite interesting that here is this very Vogue centric movie that has Jeff Bezos as the villain and then cut to the Met Gala, also undervoked, and you have Jess Bezos as the center of attention and the chairman, and it's like they're trying to have it both ways. It's like, yeah, let's make fun of the billionaires, but let's not make too much fun of the billionaires. And there's a little bit of that vibe going on with everything right now. Because as people see Trump and the MAGA movement, these others, losing some power, everybody is going to start trying to have it both ways. They're going to show loyalty to the powers that be that they think they need to, but they're going to distance themselves where they can. And I think the juxtaposition in this movie and this event is just a little vignette of that.
- [49:34]
Joanna Coles
Yeah, well, we'll see what everyone was wearing. I find the sort of Pick Me where people are just wearing more and more outrageous outfits because they just want the clicks is so much less interesting than fashion used to be. But I went once and I thoroughly enjoyed it, was great fun. But David Rothkopf, we will be here next Monday. We can dissect the pick me outfits if we need to, but I suspect there will be more urgent matters for us to pay our podcast attention to.
- [50:11]
David Rothkopf
Well, yeah, but I hope we don't just limit ourselves to the urgent matters because sometimes the fun matters are helpful. And in fact, if I can add one last thing, I've been thinking about this a little bit. Maybe I'll write something for you about this. But I've been thinking about what a huge hit the astronauts from the Artemis mission have been and that they're on every show and everybody and they are so likable and they are such good people and they're so serious about their work and what they did was so heroic and we can feel good about them and we're just. Trump is so toxic. He is constantly pissing into the well of our lives, and people are looking for something to give them relief and to feel better about themselves. And I actually think this is going to drive the elections. I was listening to Texas Senate candidate James Tallarico over the weekend and I was like, yeah, the more I listen, the more I get it. He makes people feel good about themselves again. And the astronauts make us feel good about themselves again. And if the Devil Wears Prada too got $277 million or whatever its worldwide box office was, it was because people want something to just divert themselves and to laugh a little bit. And I don't think we should underestimate the sense of grossness, the sense I do my work, I go to Washington, I come home, I want to take a shower because Trump and the people around him are so gross. And every once in a while there's a little pinpoint of light and it's like, oh, yeah, that's what we used to be, or that's what we used to aspire to, or that's still possible. And I don't know. I'm feeling a little hopeful today, Joanna.
- [52:11]
Joanna Coles
I'm glad you're feeling hopeful. And I will say I'm now going through a family health crisis. I'm in my childhood home and I cannot, cannot tell you how many people have written to me, how many people have commented on YouTube with their own stories and just sending support. And you realize that actually the majority of people, by far the majority of people, are good. They want to put good vibes out there. They want to connect with people. We are all going through things. And this unpleasant discourse that is emanating from the Trump White House shouldn't poison everything. And the toxicity shouldn't spread everywhere and we should seize fun where we can.
- [52:55]
David Rothkopf
Well, yes, there is hope and the majority of people are good and the majority of Americans are good. And in the past, I think that where Trump and the others win is when some of those people say this isn't relevant, politics isn't relevant to me, I'm not being engaged. And I think they've seen that they need to step up right now, and I think I'm hopeful that they are going to do that. And this period, I don't think we fully recognized the darkness of the period we've just been through because it's not just Trump, but there was also Covid, and that was extremely grim for all of us. And we still haven't done the postmortem on how that's changed the world. But this decade of Trump and Covid has been a decade in which there has been a burden on us all. And I think there is an opportunity now and there is even some signs of hope that that dark cloud may lift.
- [54:00]
Joanna Coles
Okay, that's totally a hopeful note on which to end on David. We will get together, God willing, next Monday. Who knows what will have happened by then. But it is always good to talk to you. And I love that we ended on a note of optimism.
- [54:14]
David Rothkopf
Me, too. And I think next Monday, if I get the chance and you're there, we'll be together in the same room for the podcast.
- [54:22]
Joanna Coles
Oh, that will be fun. Well, I very much hope so. It's not clear to me that I'll be back by then, but let's hope.
- [54:27]
David Rothkopf
Well, I hope so and I certainly join everybody else in wishing your family the best. And hopefully this will come out in the best way possible.
- [54:34]
Joanna Coles
Thank you. If you have been, thank you for joining us. And a big thanks to Devon Rogerino, who's been our producer for the last year and who is now leaving us. He's going to the US sun, so we wish him the best of luck there. And our team, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro and Neil Rosenhaus.