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- [00:00]
A
In Trump's head, it's always, I can get a win. His entire foreign policy is focused on that question, can we get a win? What's the win? Everything. Everything is personal. What happened in Venezuela, you know, it finally happened. They took Maduro out because he was dancing and making fun of Donald Trump. What can we do here? What can we win? The bombs that we have, all of this. We. What can we do with them? What do they do? Can we kill him? So he's very focused on the success that he can have. Michael, Joanna, are we ready? I don't know if I'm ready.
- [00:48]
B
I don't think anybody's ready for this moment, except perhaps Marla Maples is ready. I think Marla Maples has realized that Melania is taking her new role at the UN very seriously, where she was speaking. And Marla is. Well, Marla's been posting.
- [01:06]
A
I once saw Marla Maples in a restaurant and snapped her picture from afar.
- [01:13]
B
Oh, my goodness. Just like Lauren Boebert at the Hillary Epstein hearings.
- [01:17]
A
But I didn't post it. I just kept it for myself.
- [01:20]
B
Oh, you did? Okay. As some kind of weird hidden talisman.
- [01:25]
A
Yeah. Well, I always say, when I've written all of these books, I always say to the publisher, how about pictures, right? Because I'm in a whole kind of cache of secret pictures. And then the publisher says, no.
- [01:42]
B
Okay, well, shall we explain who we are? I'm Joanna Coles from the Daily Beast.
- [01:46]
A
I'm Joanna Coles from the Daily Beast.
- [01:48]
B
You are Michael Wolff, who's written four books on Donald Trump, two books on Rupert Murdoch, many other books. But the Trump books are why we are here. Why we are here.
- [02:00]
A
No, and it's just. And just in a broader context, Donald Trump. I mean, I think everyone in the world would be sympathetic to this, because this is true for everyone, that he has occupied my mind for now, almost heading on for 11 years.
- [02:20]
B
Yeah. And now he's occupying the world's mind.
- [02:22]
A
Well, he has always. I mean. I mean, really. I mean, this is why we are here. Because no politician has ever so dominated our mental space as this one.
- [02:35]
B
Right. Particularly at the moment. And so we have our podcast, and
- [02:39]
A
I'm finally getting resentful.
- [02:41]
B
Well, you've had enough. You want a break?
- [02:43]
A
Sometimes it's just like, I can't do it. I can't get up today. I cannot face this guy again.
- [02:49]
B
Really?
- [02:49]
A
You feel like that finally now? Yeah.
- [02:53]
B
You've had a sufficiency.
- [02:54]
A
Yeah. I may be maxed.
- [02:57]
B
Okay, well, you can't be Maxed. Cause we're, as we're recording this, which is Tuesday lunchtime. Ish. The dow is down 1,000 points, the price of gas is up 12 cents, and the President has an unpleasant rash on the side of his neck.
- [03:19]
A
I'm not sure there's such a thing as a pleasant rash.
- [03:22]
B
Good point. Well, there could be a rash of excitement. There could be a rash of excitement, but it's a particularly unfortunate dermatological rash. Yeah, they're all. And I'm not a dermatologist, but I would like to.
- [03:35]
A
You have a diagnosis?
- [03:36]
B
I have a diagnosis. Which is. I think it's stress psoriasis. That's what it looks like. And Sean Barbarella, the White House doctor, in a strange statement that he put out, said that the White House doctor had prescribed the President a preventative cream. He is the White House doctor. So Sean Barbar Bella is now talking about himself in the third person.
- [04:02]
A
Well, maybe there's a White House dermatologist that we don't know about.
- [04:06]
B
Well, there might be. I mean, someone needs to get there quickly. And I think it might also be. Explain the strange sartorial discrepancy, which I noticed and became, of course, obsessed by, because we saw the President dancing to YMCA at a fundraiser at Mar a Lago on Friday night. Then he rushed into his temporary situation room, which is made out of black velvet curtains at Mar a Lago. And when he went into the situation room, he was missing his tie. And it's very unusual for the President to be missing his ties. We know he loves his ties. There's very, very long ties.
- [04:47]
A
No. And lectures people around him when they take off their tie, even when they loosen the tie.
- [04:53]
B
Right. He doesn't like it. And so I assumed that he was simply trying to replicate the famous. The iconic photo of Barack Obama as they're in the middle of the raid to bring down Osama bin Laden. You remember Biden and Obama are both sitting there, and they're kind of crowded around a television screen. Hillary Clinton's got her hand to her mouth, and Barack Obama does not have a tie on. So I was like, oh, that's what he's doing. But now I think he was avoiding wearing a tie because it was irritating his rash.
- [05:25]
A
I think you're right. Okay, Dr. Coles.
- [05:29]
B
Well, inside Trump's rash, I think there is a story there. I think this is not.
- [05:35]
A
Because, actually, in fact, he does not like to look like Barack Obama and likes to do the opposite and feels Barack Obama is. I mean, actually, that's A. That's a. That's a frequent riff that Barack Obama and others have been too casual.
- [05:53]
B
Too casual? Barack Obama was too casual. He was always in the suit. Unless he was on the basketball.
- [05:58]
A
Well, no, he wore a light suit once.
- [06:00]
B
Oh, that's right. He wore the tan.
- [06:02]
A
Just was.
- [06:03]
B
Back in the days when we collapsed.
- [06:05]
A
About that.
- [06:06]
B
Well, we're going to be playing the tape from Marla Maples today. I'm going to be reading Melania's words from the UN And, Michael, why didn't you serve her papers while she was at the U.N.
- [06:18]
A
you know, you can't just go up to the first. You know what happens if you go up to the first lady. You get shot.
- [06:24]
B
Okay, well, I don't want shots.
- [06:26]
A
Would not be me. It would be a pure process server. A poor process server who. Who you've just killed.
- [06:32]
B
But you couldn't have somehow sneaked the papers over to her desk. Okay, all right. Not to hand them.
- [06:40]
A
That's the whole. The point about. They've been. The papers have gone to many desks.
- [06:45]
B
Okay.
- [06:45]
A
Doesn't count.
- [06:46]
B
All right, well, we'll come on to where you are. She has to be hit. She has to be hit with the papers.
- [06:50]
A
Yes.
- [06:51]
B
Are you the first lady? Well, she wouldn't say that. The process server would say, are you the first lady?
- [06:56]
A
You don't even have to do that. You don't have to identify, you know who she is. You just have to say, you're served.
- [07:03]
B
Okay.
- [07:04]
A
Before you're shot down.
- [07:05]
B
Okay. It felt like it was an opportunity that somehow got missed. Whatever. Then we've got Tucker and we've got Meghan. We need to discuss. Because they are both coming out against the war. They don't think it's wise. And I know you have been talking to people in the White House.
- [07:21]
C
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- [08:13]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And if that's my cue.
- [08:15]
B
It's not necessarily your cue. We could also talk about J.D. vance and the fact he's been briefing that he was against the. But now the war has started, he's saying it should have been bigger and faster.
- [08:26]
A
Wasn't there. I was against the war until I was for the war.
- [08:29]
B
Exactly. Yeah. I'm a man of principles. But if you don't like these principles, I have some more.
- [08:33]
A
But the White House, and this is not, it's not always true that the White House falls in behind the president, actually. And certainly the people I talk to usually give me a fairly balanced, if not sometimes jaundiced view of what's going on inside Trump's head. But they are, I would say, pretty optimistic about this now. I think they're feeling good. How are you feeling? We're feeling pretty good.
- [09:04]
B
They're feeling good. Really? 300,000Americans spread across the Gulf, all trying to get home.
- [09:12]
A
Well, yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think how that comes into a. I think in the main, when you analyze this, when you analyze someone going to war, a president going to war, what you're asking, if you're the president's person, is how long this is going to go on and let's, Are you going to win? And Trump himself is going around saying, and this is, I think, key, he says, everybody loves a winner. And you know what?
- [09:53]
B
Trump is going around saying, everybody loves a winner.
- [09:55]
A
And you know what? Everybody does. So the, I mean, really, what we're looking at, and I saw a lead in some, somebody's lead, some article, and a censorious article saying, well, Trump obviously hasn't learned from the past mistakes of presidents when they've launched these foreign adventures. And I think that that's not true. I think he very specifically has learned, or at least there is a good possibility, and he is certainly representing that, that he understands you've got to claim victory. There's got to be that moment. And, you know, he often goes back and I mean, I mean, this has been going on certainly in the first, in the first administrative, first White House, and, and, and still going to George W. Bush. And he goes through, he plays, he plays this out. You know, you know, they went in there, they swept to Baghdad, and then Bush lands on the aircraft carrier, Mission accomplished. And then, of course, as we know, years later, we're still in Iraq. But Trump is like, so why didn't he go home? No. And then he's. And Very, very precisely. Then he says, no one would have given a fuck about what happened after that if he had just gone home. So I think that this is a thing in Trump's head. It's always, I can get a win. And that's the thing. I mean, he really directs the entire foreign policy. His entire foreign policy is focused on that question, can we get a win? What's the win?
- [11:49]
B
Okay, so on Saturday, they had arguably a win because they took out the leadership of Iran, they took out the Supreme Leader, and then the layer underneath him. And then, in fact, they also took out the layer that they had expected to take over. If they took out the top layer, I mean, they ended up winning a bit more than they thought. Right. So, in effect, they took out the Delsey Rodriguez layer that they thought they might be able to do business with. And now it feels like it's all unraveling a bit.
- [12:20]
A
Well, it does at the moment, and it certainly might unravel. I mean, this is the kind of thing, I mean, George Bush, I assume, we can all safely assume, did not expect to spend the next five years
- [12:36]
B
in Iraq,
- [12:39]
A
But I have a feeling that he is not. George Bush was not as plastic as Donald Trump. So I think that there is that moment when Donald Trump gets to say, we went mission accomplished, we won, I won. That's me. I won, and we're going home. And then what happens is literally somebody
- [13:03]
B
else's, not my problem, except that it becomes his problem. If Iran continues to attack the Gulf states, which I'm not sure that the Americans saw coming, because that's been much more disruptive than people buy. Airport closed.
- [13:19]
A
I'm sure they saw that in the world. I mean, obviously, they should have seen that coming. And that's basically what General Kaine said was going to happen right now. My guess is that Trump believes that our firepower can stop this, that literally they can level the military resources that the Iranians have now. And at that point, with some magical quiet, he says, we're done, we're done, we're done. But.
- [13:59]
B
Except Peter Hegseth is now raising the specter of troops on the ground, or boots on the ground, as they like to say. I mean, it seems to me that we're now in the Donald Rumsfeld phase of the unknown unknowns, and there seem to be a bit more of them than we expected. I mean, literally, there's 300,000Americans who've been told to get out of the Middle east, and there's no way for them to get out the Airports are closed. UAE have put buses on and said, we can get you to Egypt. It's a mess.
- [14:29]
A
No, everything. I mean, it' swhat's the problem. I mean, the problem with war, war itself is unintended consequences. That's what can't be controlled. So the question is, and obviously George Bush just went down in flaming unintended consequences. Is it different with Donald Trump who basically doesn't care about consequences? So at some point this becomes what he says it is. Can he, in his usual fashion, pronounce what reality is and have enough people believe him? Now, clearly not everybody believes him. And usually actually, certainly half of the country and significantly less than that of the world believes him. But enough people end up at least over the last 11 years believing him.
- [15:34]
B
Well, Tucker Carlson doesn't believe him. Megyn Kelly doesn't currently believe him. Although Megan is like a weather vane. And you know, wakes up one morning thinking one thing, another morning thinking another thing. Is the MAGA base going to be split over this? Because the one thing Donald Trump promised was America first, no foreign wars, no forever wars. And I mean, this was a man who two weeks ago had invited the leaders of the Gulf states over to celebrate the, the inauguration of his Board of Peace. Okay, so let's think about this from the point of view of Donald Trump as television producer. What's going on inside his head? A trip we make three times a week as he's figuring out he wants to declare victory, which I get.
- [16:17]
A
I want to step back, I just want to address the ma. I think that's a good quote, we should come to that because that's what he's seen. He sees everything as essentially a stage set and television set.
- [16:29]
B
Right. Cause this could be the spinoff series of the war, you know, and it's a two parter or it's a week.
- [16:34]
A
Exactly. That's what he sees this as a
- [16:36]
B
deep dive over a week.
- [16:37]
A
That's what he sees this as. I mean, that's very good. This is the kind of thing, it's a distraction. Cause the distraction always works. But this is a kind of, you know, this is Celebrity Apprentice.
- [16:50]
B
Okay. It's a miniseries. It's a sort of. Yeah, it's a spin off miniseries.
- [16:53]
A
But go back to the MAGA point because this, I mean, I mean, I think, think he's on difficult, potentially difficult ground here. And the ground is, okay, more wars. Forever wars. I'm not going to get. I'm the peace president. We're not going to fight these wars anymore. We're an isolationist country. I'm an isolationist president. Tucker Carlson is the isolationist in chief, all of that. But there is this other subtext, which is. It's a dangerous subtext for him, which is Israel. So this is. He is, he has in, you know, I mean, he has always coupled himself to Israel. This is even more so. I mean, he is essentially, and certainly Tucker is going to argue this, is now arguing this. He is doing Israel's work.
- [17:56]
B
And we heard Marco Rubio basically saying that yesterday that the Israelis had told them they were going to strike because Iran was going to strike them. They were doing this preemptively, at which point the US had to step up.
- [18:07]
A
Right. Now that is linked to this new thing that has happened in American politics since October 7, which is a really profoundly, I was going to say anti. But it's more than that. It's a virulent attitude toward Israel. It is clearly mixed on the right, probably on the left too, with antisemitism. I mean, it's a profound reaction. So to the extent that this is coupled with that, I think that this is going to make trouble for. This is going to make trouble for him. It is also going to make trouble for the other people in his MAGA coalition whose support he needs, not to mention is going to make trouble for whoever hopes to succeed him.
- [19:09]
B
Right. And yet whenever he's confronted with this, which he was yesterday when someone said, Tucker Carlson's not up for this, neither is Megyn Kelly, he said, well, I am Maga. Maga is everything. MAGA is me.
- [19:22]
A
Well, that's a thesis. And it may be true. I mean, so far it certainly has been true. You know, MAGA is a fan base. He's the star.
- [19:36]
B
Right.
- [19:37]
A
But it may not be true. That's what's being tested here, and that's what he's counting on. I'm doing. I'm gonna do war. I'm gonna do it the way I would do war. It's going to be my war. I'm going to win it. And the MAGA base, forget Tucker Carlson and forget Megyn Kelly. The MAGA base is going to respond relatively with. It's going to be positive. I mean, that's the thesis. Could that be wrong? Certainly could be wrong. I suspect he's more right than they are.
- [20:10]
B
Okay, so let's just go back to the idea of the war as a miniseries and television. Where are we with central casting? And how does this sort of, how does this impact the bigger audience? So maga, we think he's Sort of. He's trying to figure out maga, but in terms of the bigger audience, the
- [20:34]
A
central casting, there's only one central person, and that's Donald Trump. I mean, he doesn't want the other, you know, other wars. Presidents are always pushing generals out and. Or generals are always. Are always making every effort to get out out there. You know, they give briefings. During the Iraq war, I was actually in Doha for an endless amount of time before. Before the war started. And then as we went in, as we went into Baghdad, and all you
- [21:11]
B
did is you were there for a new magazine, and it was like, why do they have someone in Doha?
- [21:18]
A
That were the great days of the magazine business, actually. I won a National Magazine Award for those set of stories, which, incidentally, is
- [21:30]
B
what that weird structure is. Behind you. We get lots of comments because you and I both have a National Magazine Award, which we have on our shelves behind us.
- [21:38]
A
And I have two.
- [21:40]
B
You have two. Okay, well, I only have one, but that's their Alexander Calder statues. And we get lots of comments from people saying, why do you both have one? Is this some kind of weird signal?
- [21:50]
A
It's really not Masons. We're both Masons.
- [21:53]
B
Journalistic Masons. Okay, so you were in Doha.
- [21:56]
A
But anyway, that was the kind of thing, you know, those generals all became very prominent in the telling of this. Of this story.
- [22:04]
B
Right? General Schwarzkopf.
- [22:05]
A
Yes. And they were pushed out there. That was. He was the first Gulf War, Gulf War. But they're pushed out there and they become figures in this. I don't think he wants it. It is his war. He is the main person, and that's what the staging is about. That's the miniseries. He starts the war on my say. So we're. We're going to war, and he's going to end the war.
- [22:33]
B
That's a very good point. That he becomes commander in chief. That's where you see him. Maybe it's miniseries. Commander in Chief. Nothing makes me feel more awkward than when I see Donald Trump come down the steps of Air Force One and salute the military personnel at the bottom. I mean, it looks so phony and weird.
- [22:56]
A
Yes. Mr. Bone Stirs.
- [22:58]
B
Yeah. Mr. Bone Spears. Yeah. And there's a whole movement now to. Baron should sign up. Let's send Baron to war. He's too tall to go to war. I'm sure he's got bone spurs, too. So what do you think's going on with the rash?
- [23:14]
A
I am nowhere. You know, he has a dermatological problem. You know, every. Everybody has A dermatological problem.
- [23:21]
B
No, they don't. Most people don't have a dermatological problem. Unless you watch too much cnn, in which case you come away thinking that you have, you know, I don't know, and you need Humira or one of those drugs that's constantly on a 24, 7 AD.
- [23:37]
A
I find it very hard to get a dermatologist appointment. So they're all booked up.
- [23:42]
B
You know who had a dermatologist? Jeffrey Epstein.
- [23:46]
A
Jeffrey Epstein had doctors for everything.
- [23:48]
B
Yeah, I know. It's really alarming, the pieces coming out from the Epstein files about his network of doctors thing.
- [23:55]
A
And he was always, always supposed to applying doctors to people and always saying, this is the best I'm going to send you to. The best you got to go see Dr. So and so.
- [24:06]
B
Well, one of the interesting doctors that comes out from the various stories that have been pieced together by the files is this guy Stephen Victor, who was treating Epstein's girls for free because Epstein had given him a loan to launch his cosmeticeuticals business. And then they got into a whole spat about it because Stephen Victoria Victor apparently wanted more money. And Epstein was like, no. And then Victor was like, I haven't spoken to the press about you. I've remained silent.
- [24:34]
A
Now, that's actually a sort of one of the untold stories about. So there's always money and then the money always leads to a spat in Epstein world or into a breakup.
- [24:49]
B
Interesting. Which is what happened with him and Donald Trump over the property. Right. So the Clintons gave evidence on Thursday and Friday, which slightly got eclipsed by the announcement that we were at war.
- [25:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, I found it interesting. I found that they both seemed in pretty good shape. I mean, well, for those who didn't watch it, she was very feisty.
- [25:17]
B
Well, this was Benghazi too.
- [25:21]
A
And he was. I mean, I don't. Clinton doesn't seem all that healthy, but he seemed very precise and very credible in his explanations. And the one thing that I caught. So there's been this back and forth about how did Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump breakup, with Trump giving several versions of this, but usually about either because he threw Epstein out of Mar A Lago, or Epstein was hiring people from
- [26:05]
B
Mar A Lago, including Virginia Giuffre from Spa.
- [26:08]
A
Right. So all of these were. There's always a kind of a chronology problem there, but they all are. He denies or. And circumvents the Epstein explanation, which is that they had this breakup over real estate and over. Over a house. Epstein bid $36 million for this house. Takes his friend Trump just to advise him on how to move the swimming pool. In turn, Trump goes around his back and bids $41 million for this house. And shifting back and forth, the New York Times either reports that, or they then report that the other thing that he was stealing from the Steven, hiring people from Mar? A Lago. Nobody can get this story straight. Clinton says in his discussion with Trump about Epstein, Trump specifically tells him they ended their friendship over a fight over property.
- [27:27]
B
Right. Oh, they ended their relationship over a fight over property. He seemed frail, whereas Hillary seemed very robust. I loved it when she was like, no, let's stop this right now. When Lauren Bobbitt took the picture.
- [27:43]
A
No, she seemed good, that Lauren Bobbitt. And then the other one, Nancy Mace. Oh, my God.
- [27:48]
B
Well, Nancy Mace is in trouble now for possible corruption. All right, can we play, though, please, the tape of Marla Maples? Because I think Marla is sensing. I mean, we all see that Donald Trump looks increasingly isolated. His wife doesn't appear to live at the White House. As you've pointed out, his daughter is safely in Jupiter, Florida. So he's on his own.
- [28:12]
A
I mean, I would somewhat just disagree with this characterization because he's always been on his own. I mean, he doesn't have these relationships. He doesn't have family relationships, has never had family relationships like most people have family relationships.
- [28:28]
B
So he has no one to debrief to at the end of the day when he's declared that America is at war.
- [28:34]
A
Yeah, but I can't even imagine a situation in which that ever would have arisen as a question in his own mind, who am I going to speak to? Or the people around him. He doesn't do that. He doesn't. I mean, that suggests a level of intimacy, a level of trust, a level of interest in someone else hearing what someone else has to say.
- [29:01]
B
And a level of vulnerability.
- [29:05]
A
Yeah, I suppose. I mean, a level of communication which he doesn't do very well. So I don't think you're describing someone who has never existed.
- [29:19]
B
Right. So I'm normalizing him in the relationship phase of his life. But let's listen to Mala's tape because she's really elbowing her way back into relevancy, I think.
- [29:30]
D
Good morning. I'm here in D.C. and I just felt like this is a good time to pause and pray for the people of Iran, the beautiful souls there that are not a part of this regime and those in our military, the countries all around Iran. We just pray for the people we're sending so much love. Traveling through a time now where we've seen biblically and let's. That the light always wins. We know the light always wins. But surrounding all of you with so much love and yeah. Protection. Put that light shield around you. Let God be your guide. Always be safe. Sending love.
- [30:13]
A
I can't tell if she's. If she's a liberal or a religious nut there.
- [30:22]
B
Does any of it matter? I mean, you know, the main. Your light around you, Michael.
- [30:26]
A
Yes, but I'm sure she feels more hotly about Donald Trump than even we do.
- [30:37]
B
Go on. Meaning what?
- [30:38]
A
Well, I mean, I'm sure she hates him. I'm sure that imagine, imagine these past 11 years. Imagine what I feel having spent so much time thinking about this. Imagine what she feels.
- [30:56]
B
What she feels irritated. She's not in the White House.
- [30:58]
A
No. I think she feels like this is the most hateful person in her life. Is the person now she has to hear about, look at, think about. Like we all do for the bulk of her day.
- [31:16]
B
Interesting. Well, Melania has been very busy at the un and rather than.
- [31:20]
A
Than she. Melania is, I'm sure, is not thinking about him at all.
- [31:24]
B
Well. And Melania definitely hates him. So rather than play the tape of Melania, I thought I would read it. And what was interesting watching her doing it was that she had a file and she was reading from her file, and it was almost like she would go, hello. And turn the page and it was like there were three or four words written on each page. It was kind of shocking, actually. But what was interesting was that she also sent my earnest wishes for swift and smooth recovery to all those who have been injured in my thoughts and prayers during these challenging times. The US Stands with all of the children throughout the world. What is she doing there? And then she says, and I don't know if this is passive aggressive against her husband, but she goes, conflict arise from ignorance, but knowledge creates understanding, replacing fear with peace and unity. I implore you to build a future generation of leaders who embrace peace through education. I don't think that's a message to her husband. I mean, what is she saying there? Peace through education. I implore you to build a future generation of leaders.
- [32:42]
A
I'm just trying to think what she wants.
- [32:44]
B
What is she signaling? What is she.
- [32:48]
A
I think you have to assume what she's doing is working for her own account. And this is Melania the brand Melania the Melania who you can license. Melania who you can monetize as a marketing entity. And what she's trying to do is just. Is distance herself from her husband.
- [33:13]
B
Right.
- [33:13]
A
I mean, she's saying. I mean, you know, she's saying the baloney that any, I think that she, that she imagines any first lady would say. That's a kind of white noise. Everything is. I'm not involved with any of these policies.
- [33:31]
B
Right. And literally the opposite of what her husband's doing. I mean, she did this 48 hours. She's pleading for peace at the United Nations 48 hours after her husband has just declared war. Can we talk about the language of his declaration, too? And the kind of, you know, there's going to be casualties. It is what it is.
- [33:53]
A
No, and then, and then I thought that was a weird thing, you know, and I'm not afraid of putting boots on the ground. Everybody's afraid of putting boots on the ground. Not me. But I'm going to tell you something. He's not going to put boots on the ground. That's the tell. When he says he is. When he says other people, other people wouldn't do this, but I would do this. The tell is that he's not going to do this because he knows a other people did do this.
- [34:23]
B
Right. And it ended very badly. Ended badly. So there's this bit in your book, all or Nothing, which feels very relevant to this. And it's an anecdote I want you to tell people in case they don't know it, which is that one of the things he said over the weekend was, well, the Iranians were trying to kill me. We killed them first. And of course, the revelations that came out during the campaign that the Iranians had a hit on him, they wanted him out of the way. And there's an amazing anecdote in your book, all or Nothing. I want you to recount this anecdote because it's very funny and it's very apropos, actually, at the moment. So Trump has gone to Montana to support a Republican candidate who's in a very tight race against the incumbent Democrat, Jon Tester.
- [35:17]
A
Exactly. And so this has been, in the days prior to this, it's been identified that there an Iranian cell or conspiracy that comes to nothing that has targeted Donald Trump. And let's see this in a broader sense. Remember, this is Donald Trump. Everything is personal. So one of the reasons he's going to war with the Iranians now, it's personal. And he said, before they tried to kill me, but I got them first. Personal. But in this. So the Iranians, he believes he's been told they're coming after him and he's totally paranoid about it. Totally paranoid. And the reason is that they have. That he has targeted the uber general Soleimani.
- [36:23]
B
Right. Cassam Solemni. Yeah.
- [36:25]
A
Yes.
- [36:26]
B
And can I just remind people that this is like three months after the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt.
- [36:33]
A
Right, Right. So he's. So Soleimani. They've targeted Soleimani. They've killed Soleimani. Now they're coming after him. And he's completely, completely paranoid about it. So paranoid about it that he sends. This becomes official policy. Don't mention Soleimani. Don't do this. I don't want to antagonize them anymore. And, you know, I mean, he is reasonably, on a reasonable basis, afraid for his own safety. He's already been almost assassinated. So Solemni. No Soleimani. No Soleimani. And everybody, everybody goes into this. All of his aides are absolutely aware of this. It's on their mind. No Soleimani. And so they go out there and he's supporting this. A guy who's now senator is. I think his name is Sheehy. So he's going out. There's this. The guy who's running against Tester is Tim Sheehy, who was a soldier, who was an, you know, and in Iraq, In Iraq war vet and had, you know, I mean, had seen combat. I think he had. He had a number of. He had seen a number of friends killed. You know, he said he's, you know, had a. Had a. Has a war. Has a war story. Is a real. Is a real soldier, unlike Mr. Bone Spurs. But so he's on the stage and he's talking about Trump and how great Trump was. Trump is. And then he starts to go, this is the man. You know why I love Donald Trump? Because this guy is the guy who got Soleimani, blew that guy right off the face of the earth. This is. I love Donald Trump because he got rid of Soleimani. He did that Soleimani in and repeated Soleimani. Soleimani in. All of the people around Trump, finally, as they relate this to me, first thing are kind of horrified, but then they can't stop laughing.
- [39:04]
B
It's a very funny anecdote with Donald
- [39:07]
A
Trump going, oh, my God. Every mention of the word Soleimani, he's recoiling it.
- [39:14]
B
The very, very funny anecdote, poor Tim Sheehy without realizing what he was doing.
- [39:18]
A
But in that context, you know, this is. He looks at the Ayatollah as literally him or me. Everything, Everything is personal. What happened in Venezuela, you know, it finally happened. They took Maduro out because he was dancing and making fun of Donald Trump.
- [39:39]
B
Can't help wondering if now he's discovered he's got a military and he can use it because there's no opposition either from Congress or the people around him, if he's going to end up building a sort of weird tolerance for these things. So he goes into Venezuela. The high of that has now faded. He's edged it up by bombing Iran. At some point, the high of that will fade. What's next? Because Cuba doesn't seem interesting. Does this mean he then takes on North Korea, which is higher stakes because they have nuclear weapons?
- [40:11]
A
Well, I think. I think that he's very careful about the stakes or thinks that he is very careful. And he goes around saying, and that's within the White House the last couple of weeks. This is apparent, this is what I'm hearing, that he focuses on, what can we do here? What can we win? What can we do? What is all the bombs that we have, all of this, what can we do with them? What do they do? Can we kill him? So he's very focused on the success that he can have in Venezuela, actually, for this Iranian adventure. He kept saying, I want to do it like we did in Venezuela. Can we do that? I don't want anyone killed. Can we take them out? You know, the idea. I mean, he basically has been saying the idea of regime change if it comes about, yes, we want regime change, but he's offering no, not even the prospect that we would be involved in whatever happens.
- [41:34]
B
Well. And they ended up killing the people that they thought might be the Delsey Rodriguez layer. Right. That they thought might be workable.
- [41:44]
A
Well, I don't even think they know that, and I don't think that they particularly care. I think it's going to be. I mean, I think 90 million Iranians are going to be left with a mess, but it's not going to be Donald Trump's mess. You know, he is not incorrect by saying that George Bush should have gotten out there at that point in time, that the idea that you can redesign these societies with American troops on the ground absolutely doesn't work and is going to lead to more problems. So just go home.
- [42:23]
B
Do you remember when Condoleezza Rice was asked about the sort of growing trouble in Iraq and she said, oh, it's just the birth pangs of a new nation, prolonged birth pangs, as it turns out?
- [42:36]
A
Yes. No. And I think that this is something that he instinctively understands when you look at something in which it is only about the win. Let's just reduce this. Everybody else in American foreign policy has been all about expanding this. What do we want? We want stability. We want to contain bad actors. We want to foster economic growth. We want democracy. None of that really matters to Donald Trump. So it's just the. It's essentially the performance. What's the win?
- [43:17]
B
And no one is talking about Minneapolis, and nobody is talking about the Epstein files.
- [43:24]
A
Little talk about the Epstein files.
- [43:26]
B
Little talk about the Epstein files.
- [43:28]
A
No Minneapolis.
- [43:29]
B
No Minneapolis. We've moved swiftly on. All right, we have a couple of poems. Do you want to read the first limerick?
- [43:35]
A
This is usually your job, though.
- [43:37]
B
Well, we've got two limericks, so I thought we could do one each.
- [43:40]
A
There was an orange ruffian named Don who thought he'd get tough with Iran, for the name of his game was to shift all the blame to outsiders. Not in on the con. Not bad.
- [43:55]
B
It seemed to get pretty much all the themes into one. All right, what's this one? Is this also. As Trump steel hardened. Okay, so here's one that's not quite a limerick, but it rhymes. As Trump's steel hardened, brave hearts went to war with Iran. Reporters asked did he feel the same. As he went into battle in Vietnam in a state of delirium, he'd taken truth serum and was heard crying. I ran Iran. Iran works on many levels. That one. I like it. It's great. We love it. Garfried weighed in this week on someone else's limerick, which was great. In fact, Garfried declared someone else's limerick brilliant. That was very good. If you have been. Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to join our Beast tier of membership. Leave us a comment. Sign up for the Daily Beast so you can get nanosecond by nanosecond developments of what's going on. Are we a war? Are we not a war? Has he declared victory or not? Is Pete Hegseth going to lead a battalion? That's what I want to know. Props to Colin Jost. I thought this week on Saturday Night Live.
- [45:07]
A
Yeah. I was thinking about this, that they curiously put a time frame on this. Four to five weeks. You know, I mean, usually that doesn't happen.
- [45:22]
B
Meaning it goes on and on and on.
- [45:23]
A
Yeah, you're just, you know, you never want to say that kind of thing. You never want to build up expectations for. What if it goes on longer than. You're hoisted on that. But I have a feeling that he knows that this is in his head. This is contained. The episode goes on until this point.
- [45:45]
B
Well, also the fact he hasn't been taking questions about it in his press conference. And he came out on Tuesday and there was that amazing moment about the drapes where he's talking. He's talking about war, about losing life. And then he goes, these drapes, they're great drapes. Great drapes. I mean. And started talking about the ballroom again. Another thing that we've totally forgotten, the fact he demolished a third of the. The White House in the middle of the night because he could. And now he's got to rebuild it. It's going to be a beautiful ballroom. Beautiful ballroom.
- [46:20]
A
Well, we'll be back next week. Still with the war in next week.
- [46:25]
B
We'll be back on Thursday. We'll be back on Thursday. We're back in less than 48 hours.
- [46:30]
A
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