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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now.
- [00:02]
Hugh
I was looking for fun ways to
- [00:04]
Ryan Reynolds
tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited
- [00:06]
Hugh
Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back.
- [00:09]
Ryan Reynolds
So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial.
- [00:18]
Hugh
Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment
- [00:22]
Joanna Coles
of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan. Required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy.
- [00:30]
Hugh
See Terms Amazon
- [00:33]
Ryan Reynolds
Painful thoughts I I can't stop scratching my downtown.
- [00:38]
Hugh
Mm, yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing For Amazon Health AI chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24. 7 Healthcare just got less painful. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly, the all in one creative studio with AI powered image and video generation built for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit and experiment fast because the asks aren't getting smaller and the timelines.
- [01:18]
Ryan Reynolds
Woo.
- [01:19]
Hugh
Yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Let's learn more@adobe.com Firefly this is a portrait of a West Wing where it is all going wrong. Donald Trump is in the Oval Office, shouting, swearing, screaming and powerless with rage. He's kind of like King Lear. He's a ranting mad king and it's all because, as you say, of this war, which he started. We're getting leaks because this West Wing, this administration, the staff around Donald Trump don't know what to do. They are talking endlessly, they are gossiping endlessly about the craziness of this.
- [02:02]
Joanna Coles
I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Bees podcast. It's Friday, so it means our executive editor is here with me to debrief on the week what happened to those four military who died after our bombing in Iran campaign? Where have they gone? Because they no longer are on the Pentagon website. They've literally disappeared. Four Gold Star soldiers disappeared. What's happened to the Tate brothers who's challenging Darlene Graham in the most Nepo of all elections for Senator? There's so much to discuss. And Laura Loomer's documentary, can you believe this? Her documentary on Ukraine. She's had a 180 turn and now says that America must support Ukraine. And it turns out that MAGA is following her. So, an unexpected week. Just a very big thank you to all of you who've subscribed. This week, we hit the milestone of 700,000 subscribers. Thank you so much. We love your comments. We love the fact you subscribed, and this is why we can have these conversations, because we are independent media and we rely on your support. Okay, Hugh, tell me everything. Hugh.
- [03:24]
Hugh
Oh, my God, Joanna, what is going on with your hair?
- [03:29]
Joanna Coles
Oh, Hughie, this is just what we ladies do. I've been taking tips, though, to be fair, from the Daily Beast's favorite reader.
- [03:38]
Hugh
Oh, I. I think I can guess who you mean. Although I did know about her tips.
- [03:43]
Joanna Coles
Do you know who I mean? Let's see what she's been doing this week.
- [03:46]
Hugh
What's your question?
- [03:47]
Ryan Reynolds
Okay, my question.
- [03:50]
Joanna Coles
What is something about you that nobody knows other than the people that are close to you?
- [03:58]
Ryan Reynolds
I don't. Are you a funny person or are you a boring person?
- [04:03]
Joanna Coles
I don't think people realize that I am silly. I'm funny.
- [04:07]
Ryan Reynolds
I think from a scale of 1 to 10. Well, because when I'm out at the
- [04:12]
Hugh
podium, I'm, like, getting after it, but I'm not like that in real life. So, you know, you just have to get to know me to know the real me.
- [04:22]
Joanna Coles
Actually a total dork, Hughie. When I'm doing the podcast, I'm like, let's get to it. But really, I'm kind of fun and a bit of a dork. What is she doing? She is the press secretary, and tonight she has the White House Correspondents Dinner, which has been shrunk because of. Well, we can talk about that later.
- [04:43]
Hugh
Talk about all of that later.
- [04:44]
Joanna Coles
Yes, because you were in the room next door to the assassins. Famously, famously, famously. But this. I mean, the White House press Secretary is sitting around doing her hair, finding time to do TikToks and Instagram Reels, while the President is wrestling with a war he started against his base's wishes and which he cannot find a way out of. And his enemy knows that, Right?
- [05:12]
Hugh
This is a portrait of a West Wing where it is all going wrong. We have been learning this morning about what's going on in the Oval Office. At the same time as Caroline Levitt is getting her hair done and giggling, Donald Trump is in the Oval Office shouting, swearing, screaming, and powerless with rage. He's kind of like King Lear. He's a ranting, mad king, and it's all because as you say of this war, which he started.
- [05:41]
Joanna Coles
So there's also something going on here because for the longest time, actually, we didn't get that many leaks from the White House. And Susie Wilde, chief of staff, first woman chief of staff, was supposed to have clamped down on leaking because we remember from the first administration, there were tons of leaks. It was just like a sieve. There was so much information. And at the beginning of this administration, they only leaked by accident, like when Pete Hegseth managed to put his military classified information chat on signal. But what's going on now? Cause it feels chaotic. It feels like this is out of control. Donald Trump has no idea what to do. He's throwing tariffs back around despite the fact the Supreme Court said no more tariffs, dude. So it seems like you say he's a mad king. He seems like a president out of control.
- [06:30]
Hugh
Yes, this is absolutely. These leaks are the sign of a West Wing where things, as I said, are going wrong, but also where the control has been lost. You're absolutely right, Joanna. Susie Wiles was supposed to keep it all buttoned down. And, yeah, the first few months, certainly maybe the first year, but definitely the very first few months of this administration, we didn't get a lot of leaks. And now we have a gusher.
- [06:56]
Joanna Coles
We have gusher.
- [06:57]
Hugh
A gusher. A gusher, I would say, of oil. But of course, you can't get oil anymore, can you? And it's too expensive, and nobody can afford to afford their oil anymore. Hundred dollars a gallon for. For the key measure of oil. That's what Donald Trump had said. Oh, oil will go back down. Everything will be fine. It hasn't. Gas will go back down. Everything will be fine. It's over $4 a gallon again, and it is going up. And, yeah, we're getting leaks because this West Wing, this administration, the staff around Donald Trump don't know what to do. They are talking endlessly. They are gossiping endlessly about the craziness of this.
- [07:35]
Joanna Coles
I thought that Michael Wolff's point about Lindsey Graham is that Lindsey Graham was, in public, slavish to Donald Trump, but in private, he was a source for almost everybody. And telling people. I'm now wondering, who is the leaker in the White House? Caroline, in between hairdos, you might want to find that out.
- [07:58]
Hugh
Well, they're taking this idea that there's leakers in the White House so seriously that they've asked people to hand over their phones. Kash Patel has been involved in this.
- [08:06]
Joanna Coles
Oh, do you think Kash Patel is leaking?
- [08:09]
Hugh
I have no idea, Joanna. But I'm sure he can look the president straight in the eye and tell him that he is not leaking straight in the eyes.
- [08:17]
Joanna Coles
His big, big eyes. His eyes that always seem to be like.
- [08:21]
Hugh
And the hunt for this. This idea that there are leakers has animated Donald Trump since the moment that he came down the golden escalator.
- [08:29]
Joanna Coles
Do you think it's him leaking about himself that seems furious? Cause we know he used to do that.
- [08:34]
Hugh
We know. We know that he used to do it. We know he used to be John Baron. We know from every book that's been written about him that he has been a source of many of these leaks. I'll just say we don't know, obviously, what the source of the latest leaks are. I think what we can say is that these leaks don't offer anything positive for Donald Trump. The idea that Donald Trump is in the Oval Office shouting that the Iranians are effing scumbags, effing lunatics, and that the only option is to go and bomb them harder and harder doesn't reflect well on Donald Trump. This isn't a strategic mind at work.
- [09:11]
Joanna Coles
It could also be Donald Trump, as we know, when he's not in the Oval Office or he's not on the golf course, and obviously he spends a lot of time on the golf course. He's always on the phone to a circuit of people, and we've talked about him. Anthony Scaramucci talks about when he was on the rota of phone calls. So it's possible that he's telling people and saying, oh, you know, they're just scum. I can't bear the Iranians. They're just terrible. And that's how it also gets out, because the people he calls then tell journalists and other people.
- [09:41]
Hugh
Right, of course. And one of the. I think the hallmark of this Trump administration the second time around is that his phone habits are out of control.
- [09:49]
Ryan Reynolds
I wrote a little song to remind you. Choice hotels get you more of the experiences you value.
- [09:54]
Hugh
The Cambria Hotel's got it all.
- [09:57]
Joanna Coles
A rooftop bar, have a ball.
- [09:59]
Ryan Reynolds
Bring a date, your squad, or even your mom.
- [10:01]
Hugh
Book direct@ChoiceHotels.com we had testimony, I suppose is one way to put it, this week from Tom Homan, who is the border czar. I think people will be familiar with this.
- [10:13]
Joanna Coles
I think he's nicknamed Mr. Dorito, right, because he was allegedly taking $50,000 in cash in a bag of Doritos, which the FBI was investigating. And Donald Trump shut that right down.
- [10:27]
Hugh
And I just, as a small Observation. I've never to my knowledge seen $50,000 in cash, but it fits in a bag of Doritos. Kind of surprising.
- [10:36]
Joanna Coles
Could have been a family pet. Could have been a family pet. Could have been in hundreds with those different flavors, you know, it's surprisingly small. $50,000 when you see it in hundreds.
- [10:47]
Hugh
I'll take your word for it. Tom Homan described how Donald Trump phones him at 2am and 3am and these are not casual conversations. He is dictating policy. He is telling he Donald Trump is the chief executive. He is telling the people who work for him what to do. Now, we know at the Daily Beast, we have relentlessly chronicled the unhealthiness of doing your business at 2 and 3 and 4 in the morning. That's what Donald Trump is doing. He is phoning people. Marco Rubio has said he phones two in the morning.
- [11:20]
Joanna Coles
They all complain about going on the plane with him because they say they can't get any sleep. And now they're complaining about going on the plane with him because the new plane doesn't have enough security. They're also increasingly the target of potential assassination attacks. Yes.
- [11:35]
Hugh
And we've got fascinating insight. And again, this has leaked. This is a matter of, of security. And people in Washington, D.C. are obsessed by security and always say, oh, we don't talk about security. We know more about the security questions over this White House and the people around it than we've ever known before, ever. And this time we learned that they're being told not to take those closest to Trump are being told not to take car services in case the Iranians use that to target them. I just say it kind of speaks to the out of touchness of this White House that people in it are using car services.
- [12:14]
Joanna Coles
Well, what would you want them to use?
- [12:16]
Hugh
Well, city bikes. There's an excellent bike share scheme in Washington, D.C. which I've used. Washington D.C. has an excellent metro system which we've all everybody.
- [12:26]
Joanna Coles
That would make them even more target, wouldn't it, if they're being followed?
- [12:29]
Hugh
I mean, is the point that after they're targeted, this is a question. But the fact that they are routinely seeing their commute through the elitist way of getting around behind smoked glass, driven in the backseat. These are not people that are in touch with ordinary people. And I think this speaks to a very, very important point about what's happening inside this administration. They appear to have lost touch with ordinary concerns. Donald Trump, you remember, said he did not care about inflation. And if you are living in an elitist world as he does. He's a billionaire. He's always flown in. Not always, but he's flown in his own private jet for decades. If you are beginning to live in that sort of world, how do you stay in touch with what normal people experience?
- [13:17]
Joanna Coles
But just in terms of the vulnerability of his aides and the people who are supposed to be targeted is the idea that the Iranians are somehow in their cell phones, knowing when their car is going to harm.
- [13:27]
Hugh
I think that, I mean, what is the point.
- [13:30]
Joanna Coles
Point. What is the point of failure here, that the Iranians are following people's routines?
- [13:38]
Hugh
Well, there's long been suggestions, claims, allegations that Iran has sleeper cells in the United States. And let's be honest, they've never been activated. So we don't know. But there have been people who've been prosecuted. There have been attempts to murder the enemies of Iran on American soil before. The point of failure here would be you can work out where a member of Trump's inner circle is from their cell phone communications with a car service, as opposed to not, you know, a government car service, or one assumes, Uber Lyft are probably more secure because you're not doing it on open text messages. The ability to infiltrate phones is something they do believe the Iranians have and the casualties in the Middle East. Among the concerns that exist about that is that it's entirely possible the Iranians are using cell site, location of American cell phone numbers to work out where they should target their missiles.
- [14:39]
Joanna Coles
Can I just say, I used to have a car service when I worked in fashion, especially during the fashion shows. And it was a. It was a wonderful thing. I had a driver called Serge who was from the Russian military, who always managed to get the nearest possible parking space when you were coming out of a show. So you would come running out of a show because you had to go to the next one. They were very badly scheduled. And Serge would always be there in the front car. He was a miracle worker. Anyway, that's beside the point. So, more targets on Americans. And yet, what is this story that we had this morning that there were fewer military deaths now than there were last week? Four deaths have disappeared off the Pentagon website.
- [15:25]
Hugh
Well, as we know, since these hostilities started back at the end of February, the United states has lost 18 members of the armed forces. And that's, you know, that's a group of people who, in ordinary times would be honored as war dead. And this morning, or late last night, we learned that the latest four casualties had disappeared from the Pentagon's Website which displays them as casualties. And people rightly want to know who has sacrificed themselves, who have given their lives to their last measure of devotion. And we suddenly have this disappearance. And the reason that the Pentagon had given is extraordinary. It is that, in fact, the United States was not at war with Iran at the time. So these are not wartime casualties.
- [16:22]
Joanna Coles
This was because we had a ceasefire
- [16:24]
Hugh
in place, because there was a ceasefire in place and because the President had written to Congress and said, oh, we're not at war anymore and therefore any casualties are not of war.
- [16:37]
Joanna Coles
So is this just a fudging to make it look like there are fewer casualties than there actually are?
- [16:43]
Hugh
I think yes. And I think also, did they think nobody would notice?
- [16:47]
Joanna Coles
What about the parents of the four people that have disappeared?
- [16:50]
Hugh
These are gold star parents who are being told that they are not gold star parents. I mean, I don't think you can get any more profoundly disturbing and weird.
- [16:57]
Joanna Coles
How is that appreciating the warrior class, Pete Hegseth out there with your vaccination to give everybody extra testosterone. How does this honor the warrior?
- [17:08]
Hugh
Well, I mean, quite clearly, Joanna, and veterans are talking about that this morning. It doesn't. The, you know, I think one of the hallmarks of the United States way of life is to honor the war dead.
- [17:21]
Joanna Coles
Right. And the process, the dignified transfer, which not every country has and which is an amazing. An amazing thing to thank people for the ultimate duty.
- [17:31]
Hugh
Yes. And I think for many presidents, it has been a humbling moment, an encounter between them and the ultimate price that the decisions they have made draw on. People who work for the United States. They don't work for the president. The president's the commander in chief. They work for the United States. They work for every one of the United States, 360 million citizens. And that moment at Dover where they see those coffins being unloaded is profoundly emotional. But it is a profound moment of recognition that this is a country that believes in honoring those people. To remove those names from that role of honour, it's just astonishing. And I should say sitting with these names in front of me so that I get them right. But in the last week, the United states has lost four soldiers. Private Isabella Gonzalez, 19, from Texas. Texas. Sergeant Angel Rampersad, who was from Queens, in New York, Lieutenant Tyler Feehan, who was from Hawaii, and Sergeant Michael Swinton, who was killed. I'll just point out here, the first three casualties were killed by a missile strike. Sergeant Swinton was disposing of a drone. And in Iraq, now, both of these places the missile strike was in Jordan. The drone strike was in Iraq. This is not a military. The Iranian military is not a military that has been degraded to the point at which it cannot attack Americans. In fact, it killed four of them. And that's why Trump is raging in the Oval Office.
- [19:06]
Joanna Coles
And they're pretending that, oh, if we just don't count them, and we come up with some nonsensical word salad about, oh, we weren't really at war. The point is these men and women would not have died had Trump not started his bombing campaign in Iran.
- [19:22]
Hugh
Yeah. And it's also worth saying that this is all about this White House. And we started with Caroline Levitt. This White House is all about communications. It's all about the presentation. And the presentation of 18 deaths is worse than the presentation of 14 deaths.
- [19:39]
Joanna Coles
Well, and disappearing four soldiers will turn out to be worse for them than just keeping them on the road.
- [19:46]
Hugh
Major communications blunder. And similarly, we were talking about Trump raging. He was raging about the fact that his insecure Air Force One had been leaked. He wasn't raging that Air Force One was insecure. He was raging that this had been leaked. And that's what a lot of this is. It's the fact that the communications are what obsess people rather than the substance.
- [20:09]
Joanna Coles
Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond. Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into sign up for your $1 per month trial@shopify.com specialoffer well, interestingly, they had. The New York Times leaked the original story about Air Force One, the new Air Force One, the grift Force One, as we say every time. Your phrase, grift force one, because it's based on the plane that was given from Qatar, a $400 million.
- [20:55]
Hugh
I mean, it's an amazing backstory, as you were pointing out, Michael Wolf.
- [20:58]
Joanna Coles
Well, and we've all forgotten about it. Although Laura Loomer, who we're going to come to in a moment, Laura Loomer, even she, she said that this was too much of a grift. But we know the plane has had to be retroactively fitted with all sorts of security, you know, paraphernalia. Maxed out.
- [21:16]
Hugh
Was the, was the, was the, the words Used by the president. Something I normally hear with a credit card.
- [21:23]
Joanna Coles
With a credit card. And it's not good or it's looks maxing and trendy. Yes, yes. Which will I don't recommend. If anybody's out there with a hammer thinking of breaking their jaw, stick to Caroline Levitt's hair tips. So Laura Loomer. Laura Loomer, who was last seen saying that she had it on very good authority and the White House was not shutting her down, that Mitch McConnell was in a vegetative state. She's now produced a documentary from Ukraine.
- [21:58]
Hugh
I know this is. Laura Loomer is a sort of Zelig like figure in this Trump administration. She doesn't do Caroline Levitt's hair, but she's pretty much got a finger in every other pie here. And you will know, we all know that for the last five years, MAGA has been obsessed by basically wanting Ukraine to give up, surrender to Russia. They have been full of conspiracy theories. They have hated Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president. They have smeared him as a cocaine addict. They have claimed that he's stealing all the aid. They have gone wild with the idea that there should be no weapons given to Ukraine, something that J.D. vance and Pete Hegseth continue to advance. But Laura Loomer, who had been at the heart of this, made a really extraordinary journey this week. She went to Ukraine to get to Ukraine. Of course, as we know, you don't fly direct. You have to get a train from the Polish border. She documented all this and she has had a damaskine, a Kievan conversion. She now says that the Ukrainians are the good guys, that the Christians of Ukraine are being persecuted by the Russian attacks, which has been a big MAGA talking point, by the way, about Christian persecution and that Putin was standing up for Christians. I mean, quite obviously this is crazy, but she had been pushing this. She says, no, I got it all wrong. She sat down with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who obviously scented an amazing turn of turn of view here, which he wants to clearly turn to his advantage. And she is going to come back. She is going to come back, show this documentary and evangelize for the people of Ukraine.
- [23:48]
Joanna Coles
And I think she got caught in an air raid, too, which will also do a lot. When you actually see the reality of war on the ground, it's very different than when she's sitting in the middle of the country just, you know, posting away about something that she has zero experience of.
- [24:03]
Hugh
And I think the thing that we should Take away from this conversion is. Over the last few months, our colleagues at the Daily Beast, particularly Alison Quinn, who for a long time lived in Russia, then Ukraine, and now lives much more safely in the United States, have been documenting how the Ukrainians are not being defeated. In fact, they are beginning to cripple the Russian economy in a way that people did not foresee. They have executed drone strikes on oil production, on Russia's version of Amazon, because that's how the Russians were moving around parts for their drones. They have made, I think, Vladimir Putin concerned that he might get overthrown. He's living in a bunker all the time. Alison was revealing yesterday on a live stream, which you can find on this YouTube channel. Go back and watch. It's fascinating. Clearly, there is a question over momentum here. And MAGA doesn't like, you know, MAGA doesn't like losing. If it does lose, it says you've cheated. But if Vladimir Putin becomes a loser, they don't want anything to do with him. And we had a sign this morning that not just Laura Loomer is on this train, that there's a comedian called Tim Pool. He has a vast MAGA audience. He turned himself around as well and says, yeah, I know, back Ukraine.
- [25:27]
Joanna Coles
So, so. And we know that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is coming to Washington next week. He's expected to have a meeting with Donald Trump. He's coming for Lindsey Graham's funeral, memorial. And we know that Lindsey Graham, despite the 180 on Trump, having called him a fruit loop and that, you know, he was out after January 6th. And then of course, we discovered that 40 minutes later, he was straight back on the phone call saying, I don't know why I said that. That wasn't me. I don't know what I was thinking. He was straight back in there. But the one thing he has been consistent on is Ukraine should win this war. The US should support Ukraine. This is a gateway opportunity for the Russians to go into Europe if the Americans don't do something. And of course, the Ukrainians have armed themselves with drone, learned drone technology and proved like. Unfortunately, it turns out Iran has proved that just because you invade a smaller power with, in theory, a bigger military, does not mean you win the war.
- [26:27]
Hugh
No. And we saw that this week, actually, when Pete Hegseth was in front of the Senate. We all saw Jon Ossoff's forensic destruction of Pete Hegseth. He reduced him to a stuttering mess. But some other senators were asking Pete Hegseth about, why are you not taking Advice from Ukraine. Why have you not gone and got every bit of help you can from Ukraine? And the quid pro quo is Ukraine needs weapons. And Pete Hegseth's response was to go back to this MAGA talking point of we sent all our weapons to Ukraine. And that was the woke Joe Biden. I'm using, you know, a sort of pastiche of his words here, but that this was bad and that America lost out. And these senators were absolutely robust in pointing out to him that Ukraine has the technology and the knowledge to prevent the sort of drone attacks that led to the death this week or the last few days alone of Sergeant Michael Swinton and have injured many, many more troops in the Middle East. And the lack of understanding, I think, of that in MAGA come to this point is intriguing because now we have these voices saying the opposite, saying, let's ally ourselves properly with Ukraine, let's beat
- [27:39]
Joanna Coles
Russia, and let's get this done. I mean, remember Donald Trump saying, oh, I'm going to solve this war on the first day that I'm there. And of course, he's discovered he can't possibly do that. They've got no diplomats in the region. Right. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have no idea what they're doing. They're just casting around for business deals. And also, this cover story that the reason that Pete Hegseth needs the $1.5 trillion to run the Pentagon, a man who literally was drummed out of his previous two jobs running veteran affairs organizations under accusations of financial mismanagement as well as intoxication at work, are something that we've talked about a lot before. But the idea of this cover story of why we need the money is because, oh, we've sent all our weapons to it, to Ukraine. We've run out of weapons. I mean, the whole thing is, of
- [28:32]
Hugh
course, it's a nonsensical cover story, but there are real concerns that there is a lack of supply of munitions and particularly defensive munitions for the Middle East. And we saw in the last few days this attempt to step up bombing on Iran in the belief that this will bring them to the table, which obviously hasn't worked so far. They deployed B1B Lancers for the first time, I think, in four months. The use of these heavier and heavier munitions is partly because there are real concerns about supply chains, but it's just
- [29:06]
Joanna Coles
a consistent theme in American foreign policy that America underestimates any other country. It's just believes in itself so much. And it's the disadvantage of America's self confidence, which is one of the reasons I think we both moved here. There's the sense of energy and positivity and you can do anything here. The inverse of that is the refusal to understand other countries, refusal to learn other languages and a refusal to believe that other countries have the ability to fight back. Fight back effectively.
- [29:37]
Hugh
Absolutely, Joanna. And the Middle east has been a quagmire for the United States, Afghanistan, Iraq, now we have Iran. And just to mention that Trump this week we had another leak that he was thirsting basically to go to war in another country.
- [29:56]
Joanna Coles
Oh, good lord. Good lord.
- [29:57]
Hugh
Mali.
- [29:58]
Joanna Coles
Well, he was in Mali.
- [29:59]
Hugh
Yes, in Mali is in Northwest Africa. France got out of their forever war for 12 years there.
- [30:08]
Joanna Coles
Do you think he's confused Mali with Bali and he thinks it'll be easy to bomb Bali because Bali's a peace loving nation. They won't see it coming.
- [30:14]
Hugh
That's entirely possible.
- [30:16]
Joanna Coles
Isn't it possible? I think it's possible.
- [30:18]
Hugh
I can see him on the beach in Bali.
- [30:20]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [30:20]
Hugh
Just, you know, sort of.
- [30:21]
Joanna Coles
We've had enough of the flowers. The purple flowers. I don't want the purple flowers everywhere. They've got the peace loving people will eat in and out, in and out like Venezuela.
- [30:31]
Hugh
Ugh.
- [30:31]
Joanna Coles
It'll just be, what a disaster. All right, so Lindsey Graham's funeral, memorial, what do we know about it other than Darlene appears to be ready to take his time?
- [30:41]
Hugh
Well, it's going to be quite a spectacle. He is going to be in the capital, so there was going to be a procession of people to come to come and honour him. We believe that Zelenskyy is going to be there. Not 100% confirmed, but I think that's almost certain. It would be very surprising if he doesn't come. We know that Benjamin Netanyahu has been wanting to come and wants to come see Washington, to come and see Donald Trump in Washington. We also know from this leak from the Oval Office that, that Donald Trump doesn't want to see Benjamin Netanyahu because he's annoyed and he feels that Netanyahu dragged him into this war in the Middle East. Netanyahu, I think would give a very different version of events, but we are going to see a lot of people come to Washington. And as you say, Darlene, the newly installed senator, she's newly dropped her married name. She is only calling herself Darlene Graham. She is going to hope that this is an occasion that propels her into the primary and gets the six year, six year Senate seat. It's pretty Extraordinary spectacle. It's two weeks between the tragic death of her brother, her swearing in as a senator, her being revealed by the Daily Beast's Swamp newsletter to have made a donation to a pro choice Republican state senator.
- [32:01]
Joanna Coles
That was a great exclusive by the Swamp newsletter, by the way.
- [32:03]
Hugh
Fantastic. And it has caused a lot of problems with Darlene. Our Swamp newsletter comes out every Tuesday, every Wednesday, and it follows the money. It does the thing that every journalist in D.C. should do, follow the money. We followed the money and we found her only political donation is to State Senator Kate Shealy. And the significance of this is that this is a state senator who filibustered a Republican state senator who filibustered a very draconian abortion ban in South Carolina. And we then discovered a second donation that Darlene made using an alternate spelling of her name. Darlene usually spells it D A R L I, N E. She is legally Darlene, D A R L E, N E. But she says that Lindsey Graham taught her to spell it with an I, so that's what she uses. Anyway, she made a second donation after the state senator filibustered the abortion law another hundred dollars. These are the only donations she's only ever donated to one person. And it is the state senator. And yeah, it's caused corruptions.
- [33:16]
Joanna Coles
Introducing Meta Glasses.
- [33:19]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey Meta, any last minute tables for two tonight?
- [33:22]
Hugh
Sure.
- [33:23]
Joanna Coles
There's a great attendance Italian restaurant 15 minutes away.
- [33:26]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey Meta, where's the nearest flower shop?
- [33:29]
Joanna Coles
Five minutes away, straight down Broadway past the bodega. Their lilies are trending on Instagram.
- [33:35]
Ryan Reynolds
Just saying. Hey Meta, am I forgetting anything else?
- [33:39]
Joanna Coles
How about setting a calendar reminder for next year? Meta Glasses available in more than 20 styles. Right, because what she was trying to do was leave the door open for women to have abortions for both longer.
- [33:51]
Hugh
This, this covered time and circumstances.
- [33:54]
Joanna Coles
Right, Time and circumstances. Which of course is a huge deal because Lindsey Graham was completely anti abortion.
- [34:00]
Hugh
Yeah, he.
- [34:01]
Joanna Coles
He was a hardliner.
- [34:02]
Hugh
He was very hard.
- [34:03]
Joanna Coles
A man that had no apparent relationships.
- [34:06]
Hugh
So therefore he did date Laura Ingraham in the late 90s.
- [34:10]
Joanna Coles
So did he? I didn't know that. Good Lord. Good for you, Lindsey Graham. Rather you than me. But for a man that didn't appear to have any sexual relations. I say didn't appear to because who knows what he was doing. He was very keen on others being held to account punitively if they did.
- [34:29]
Hugh
Well, I think the important point about this is he was very, very aware of this South Carolina Republican political base and that political base is very, very against Abortion. And he was aware of that. He courted that. And this when he was in with Trump, he was out with Trump. That didn't really matter because in South Carolina, he always had the solid calling card of saying, I am the pro life senator. And he proposed numerous laws before the overturning of Roe vs Wade. Basically every year from 2013 onwards, he proposed some form of abortion ban and some were more draconian than others. None of these were ever going to pass the Senate. So really this was about positioning, Right.
- [35:11]
Joanna Coles
It was performative.
- [35:12]
Hugh
But Will Darling Sheen has performed the opposite now, right?
- [35:16]
Joanna Coles
Well, she hasn't. I mean, she did it as a private citizen, quietly, right?
- [35:20]
Hugh
Yes.
- [35:21]
Joanna Coles
Clearly didn't want people to know because it would have been embarrassing for her brother. But do we think that she will be contested in this election? Are people stepping forward?
- [35:30]
Hugh
Yes, she absolutely will be. The wildest candidate that you could possibly come up with in South Carolina has already stepped forward. It is Mark Sanford.
- [35:40]
Joanna Coles
Mark Sanford, who used to be the governor, who went, of course, on his Appalachian Trail walk.
- [35:47]
Hugh
Yes.
- [35:48]
Joanna Coles
And in fact, it turned out had a relationship, at least as far as we know, with Olivia Nuzzi. Olivia Nuzzi, the journalist from New York magazine and then Vanity Fair who was a Digital lover of RFK Jr Yes.
- [36:04]
Hugh
And, you know, I don't know. Are there no second acts in American public life? He's back. He is going to run for this Senate seat and he says he's better qualified.
- [36:16]
Joanna Coles
And hey, he is better qualified. He is a Congress, a Nepo candidate.
- [36:24]
Hugh
But it's likely that. It's therefore likely that others will throw their hats more formally in the ring. There have been three or four other names that have floated around, but none of them have immediately gone in on it. He has. Now, clearly, if you're a more serious politician in South Carolina, you might be like, oh, don't think Mark Stanford's a great idea and you might go in yourself. One of the things that's worth pointing out here is South Carolina has runoff laws. So Darlene has put her name in for the primary. If there are more than two candidates, then the winning candidate in the first round has to get above 50%, otherwise there's a runoff. So this would take place two weeks later. So this could actually run in well into August. And of course, the election's only in November. And this is not what you need if you're the Republicans. It's kind of messy. Think of it as a deep red state. But even deep red Southern states have yielded surprises.
- [37:20]
Joanna Coles
And we've got Mitch McConnell's seat, which is effectively empty.
- [37:24]
Hugh
Well, Darlene is sitting as a senator until the start of January in Lindsey Graham's already, you know, his normal term. Lindsey Graham was up for reelection. He was going to run again in November. So she has put in for that six year term which would start at the start of January. The election would be in November. There is a primary in August. There could be a runoff later in August. But in the meantime, she can vote. She has been voting. She's been doing what Mitch McConnell can't.
- [37:54]
Joanna Coles
Mitch McConnell. Let's talk about Mitch McConnell. 40 days and 40 nights, as we pointed out, a biblical absence from Washington. Yes. Can he speak? Is Laura Loomer right? Is Mitch McConnell in a vegetative state?
- [38:09]
Hugh
Well, first of all, we haven't heard from him, have we? But we do have some new information from Scott Jennings which we can play now.
- [38:20]
Joanna Coles
Scott Jennings, have you had another phone call with the former majority leader recently?
- [38:25]
Hugh
Phone call, no.
- [38:27]
Joanna Coles
Have you traded do you know anything new about his condition that you can update us with?
- [38:32]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, I know he continues to do his rehab activities. I know he's still following doctor's orders. And my assumption is sometime between now and Monday they'll probably issue another update
- [38:46]
Hugh
on how he's coming along. I don't know if they've made any decisions about whether he's going to be
- [38:51]
Ryan Reynolds
cleared to come back to work or not. But I, I would be surprised if we don't hear from them again by the, by the weekend or by Monday.
- [38:58]
Joanna Coles
If I were Mitch McConnell's doctor, I would think it was quite stressful for Mitch McConnell and his family to have to deal with rumors that he's essentially comatose. Why don't they issue a 10 second video saying, hi, I'm Mitch McConnell, thank you for your good wishes. I'm working hard at rehab and I will be back soon. That's all anybody needs.
- [39:21]
Hugh
Yeah, we, I just say the Daily Beast and I just want to say to our subscribers, thank you. Because of our subscribers, we have been able to do what, let's be honest, other people have not done, ask these questions. We've been to the hospital. We've seen the security detail. We have tried to track down the people that are, that know the answers well.
- [39:43]
Joanna Coles
And the security detail is parked outside the hospital. These huge black SUVs.
- [39:47]
Hugh
We're paying, we are paying for this healthcare. We are paying for this. And we've, you know, I, you know, mentioned this before, Joanna. There is medical privacy. There is also the question of he's a senator, he has huge powers. Where is he? So we haven't had a video, we've had no new statement. Terry Cammack, who is his chief of staff, longtime aide, paid $226,000 a year, was finally spotted in the corridors of the Senate this week. Absolutely nothing to say. He was peppered with questions. He didn't say a thing.
- [40:17]
Joanna Coles
So what's the actual conspiracy theory here? That the Senator is actually unable to speak?
- [40:25]
Hugh
I think many people have this very reasonable suspicion that the Senator is unable to speak. And if you listen to what Scott Jennings said, he hasn't been. Scott Jennings now says he hasn't phoned. The question was incomplete. But he clearly has not been exchanging texts with Mitch McConnell. It is possible that his condition has worsened. It's also possible that he never had this call in the first place. All we have is his word for it. He's never shared any phone records. CNN disowned his version, said that's his personal recollection, not our fact checked and verified reporting. So in that situation, the chief of staff of the Senator becomes incredibly powerful. He is the person who liaises with other senators, with other chiefs of staff. And I'll just say there is a real world effect going on here. Republicans are beginning to warn that they are paralyzed on some really, really important things. Not just for appointing Trump's people, which is part of their job, but for real, that will have real world consequences. A government shutdown. The farm bill. The farm bill funds subsidies to farms which allow us to eat. And if this bill is every year is a must pass bill. Defense and the Farm Bill are must pass. Mitch McConnell is critical to these efforts and he's not there and his vote doesn't exist. And if his vote doesn't exist, it might not happen. There's a real possibility that we are beginning to get moved towards some sort of government shutdown. Where is Mitch if he can't speak, can't vote.
- [41:59]
Joanna Coles
And we're about to go into the six week long break that senators take over the summer, correct?
- [42:06]
Hugh
Yes.
- [42:06]
Joanna Coles
I love how these politicians award themselves the best healthcare, the ability to take unlimited time off work without telling anybody what they're doing. Witness Tom Keene, the Congressman in New Jersey who disappeared for months on end. I mean, he missed how many votes? 146 votes vote yes. This is not what.
- [42:26]
Hugh
But he did do some stock trading
- [42:28]
Joanna Coles
him in for yes. Happily, happily. Because he said that he'd been off because he was depressed. He wasn't so depressed that he couldn't carry out some investment trades.
- [42:38]
Hugh
It's the trading that keeps him going.
- [42:39]
Joanna Coles
It's the trading that kept him, that kept him positive. It's just astonishing to me. And then of course, they have great healthcare and they have very long holidays. Who doesn't want to run for office?
- [42:50]
Hugh
Well, the House, by the way, is firing up the jets this morning to get out of town. They're coming back maybe five weeks time and they won't do anything in between.
- [43:01]
Joanna Coles
Independent media has nothing on being a senator or a congressperson in America. And I know there are lots of very good politicians out there. As we've just mentioned, Jon Ossoff is doing a fantastic job and has obviously clearly risen up the Democratic hopeful ladder for 2028. So final question. Epstein has crept back onto the schedule. I've noticed. I mean, I felt as if Donald Trump had actually won the Epstein files at one point, but the oversight committee had just Staley back in today. The former JP Morgan executive and former CEO of Barclays Bank. An astonishingly high scalp for the Epstein case and a mystery death of a model agent who was very close to Jeffrey Epstein and supplied him with girls, as hundreds of emails have revealed.
- [43:54]
Hugh
Yeah, it's been Epstein week. It never goes away. And again, if we go back to that Oval Office, another reason to rage this week, as you say, Jess Staley was in front of the House of members of Congress in a brief appearance of them from their holidays. But the more significant thing is this mystery death of Daniel Sead. Daniel Seyad was found at his home in a suburb of Paris called Colombe. And we still don't know why he died. But this is another suspicious, weird twist in the Epstein case. He was being investigated by the French authorities. He had been accused himself of a rape back in the that he allegedly committed in the 90s against a Swedish model. And he was being investigated on, on grounds of supplying to Epstein women who let, who are girls obviously at the time who were sexually exploited by Epstein.
- [44:53]
Joanna Coles
And some of the emails that he sent are really just so depressing. And they're things like if you promise her that you will get her a modeling job, she will be easy. I mean, it was just a terrible, terrible indictment of the whole modeling business.
- [45:05]
Hugh
Yeah. One that obviously you know far better than I do, Joanna. But there's a real question mark here about the French authorities about why had he not been arrested. They say they didn't have the evidence. He had protested his innocence. But those emails were stomach churning on their own terms and they are not dissimilar Jess Staley situation that it was the emails that really have brought out the worst here. Jess Staley, who appeared in front of
- [45:36]
Joanna Coles
Congress and who denied. I mean, one of the reasons he lost his job at Barclays bank was he knew Epstein denied that he was a friend.
- [45:43]
Hugh
Yes. And just the one exchange that he had with Epstein in 2010 after Epstein's
- [45:51]
Joanna Coles
conviction and recently after his conviction.
- [45:55]
Hugh
This was not a secret. People knew. He knew he had corresponded with Epstein while Epstein was doing his sentence. But in 2010, Staley emailed Epstein. That was fun. Say hi to Snow White. So sinister, so weird. And Epstein said, which character would you like next? Which Staley replied, beauty and the Beast. And Epstein said, well, one side is available. And these creepy, horrible, weird, misogynistic emails.
- [46:25]
Joanna Coles
I mean, these emails are sickening. It's such an interesting insight, I think, for people into the lives of certain powerful men and how they treat women. And just the idea that these are kind of cartoons to them.
- [46:41]
Hugh
Yeah, well, those are not, of course, the only powerful men that we've seen exposed this week. We've also had the Tate brothers, Horrible, misogynistic influencers in quote marks, Andrew and Tristan Tate, who were arrested in Miami on charges which include rape, sexual assault and child sexual abuse. Imagery. Absolutely horrific selection of charges. They say that they're innocent and the charges have been brought in the United Kingdom, so they are up for extradition. But what is really fascinating about this is that they are closely connected to the Trump world. And there are real questions being asked by one Democratic member of the House this week who has written to the. Well, she's. She's written to the House Oversight Committee Chairman, James Comer to say we need to get Barron Trump in to answer for his relations. The relationship with the Tates.
- [47:40]
Joanna Coles
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Ryan Reynolds
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Joanna Coles
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Ryan Reynolds
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- [48:06]
Hugh
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- [48:08]
Ryan Reynolds
Tennessee 2012.
- [48:09]
Joanna Coles
The Tates are always saying, oh, well, we've talked to Barron Trump. We know they're held up within the manosphere. Slash the Bros as this kind of rich sort of. Well, again, it's just this revolting misogyny and money.
- [48:27]
Hugh
Andrew tate back in 2024, and I've had to just make sure I get these quotes right, said I'm very close with the Trump family, I know them well. And he said he had spoken to Barron and was also looking forward to telling the president, or I guess in 2024, the former president, that he's a bulletproof badass. And this is actually a real vulnerability for the Trumps because Yasmeen Ansari, who's the rising Democratic congresswoman who wrote this letter to say, we need to talk. Barron and the other trumps, Don Jr. Appeared on a livestream with Andrew Tate. JD Vance follows these tapes on social media. They don't have the power to force subpoenas. They don't have the power yet. But Donald Trump raging in his Oval Office knows that it is very likely that the House is going to flip to the Democrats at the midterms and then they can enforce this. And we could very, very well see Baron Trump served with a subpoena to say, what do you know about the Tate's?
- [49:29]
Joanna Coles
Well, and the Tate's also were originally arrested in Romania for sex trafficking and underage pornography. Right. And were miraculously. Because they're American.
- [49:41]
Hugh
They are both American and British.
- [49:43]
Joanna Coles
Yes, American and British relationships.
- [49:45]
Hugh
So they born here, but then brought up in our native country.
- [49:49]
Joanna Coles
But am I right in thinking that Donald Trump helped them get out Romania?
- [49:54]
Hugh
We absolutely believe so. We have the word of Andrew Tate for this because a text message that was leaked to the New York Times earlier this year said that just before Donald Trump came back into office, Tate was texting his friends and saying, I had word from the Trump admin that they're on top of things. I've been told I'll be free soon, but Trump needs to see me in Miami. So according to Tate himself. Yes.
- [50:20]
Joanna Coles
Well, the White and the White House this week have said that they're not going to stand in the way of the extradition and that they should end up going back to the UK to face charge.
- [50:29]
Hugh
They have washed their hands of these Tates in a way that one should. The Tate should have seen this coming because that's what they did to Epstein back in 2019. But this is, this is going to be a new vulnerability. There is an echo of the Epstein files here. The closeness of the Trump family to toxic people is something that Democrats are really, really keen to get their teeth into and could be a real vulnerability. A Real narrative of questions. And a real problem also for Melania Trump, who we haven't discussed because she has been so protective of Baron. He has vanished. He vanishes from the public eye for months at a time. The most recent time we saw him, obviously, last weekend at the World cup final. But like Melania, he's a bit of a mystery, and this could blow him open.
- [51:17]
Joanna Coles
Well, we know that Melania won't be accompanying her husband to the White House Correspondent's Dinner tonight. For those of you who have joined us and don't know what happened at the last White House Correspondent's Dinner, Hugh, why don't you tell them whose room you were adjacent to in the Washington Hilton?
- [51:36]
Hugh
We went to the last White House Correspondent's Dinner not to celebrate Donald Trump, who was going to be there, but because we had thought about this a lot and took the view that we have to report on this as journalists. And also we have to say to Donald Trump, this is our territory. You are coming on to our territory. And, you know, I was concerned that a lot of the elite DC Media that go to this thing were going to get their champagne, clap, yell, cheer and ask for selfies, because, quite frankly, that's what goes on in D.C. and I thought it was important that the Daily Beast goes and reports as journalists. What I didn't expect was that I would end up being turned out next door to the gunman who tried to get in. There's an astonishing breach of hotel security. He walked into this hotel armed. Nobody searched him, nobody searched any of us. And he got to within 20ft of being in the ballroom, the vast ballroom where this event takes place.
- [52:40]
Joanna Coles
And there were two and a half thousand people in the ball.
- [52:43]
Hugh
Two and a half thousand people there.
- [52:44]
Joanna Coles
It's a much smaller event tonight.
- [52:45]
Hugh
Yes, 700 people. And again, I'm concerned this DC elite likes this show. One of our reporters, Farah Tomuzen, will be there reporting on this event, not clapping, not cheering, not yelling, not seeking selfies, not giving approbation to Trump, who has been attacking the First Amendment, attacking journalism, demanding action against New York Times journalists for revealing that his Griffos one was insecure. I have grave personal reservations about the idea this event even took place. We have to journalistically be there to report on it, because that is the most important thing that we can do.
- [53:23]
Joanna Coles
And we should point out that Trump wanted to serve subpoenas to the New York Times journalists who broke the story about the lack of security around the new Qatar Griffon.
- [53:33]
Hugh
And he did, in fact, serve Subpoenas. But then it all fell apart because a judge told them, that's not how you serve a subpoena.
- [53:40]
Joanna Coles
The DOJ was forced to withdraw the subpoenas.
- [53:43]
Hugh
Yes, they voluntarily withdrew the subpoenas before they were ordered by the judge. But this attack on the First Amendment is not over. They may well come back with fresh subpoenas and try to force these journalists to reveal who their sources were, which is an incredibly bad idea for the free press, but also shows you that this story was true. And the story was denied by the White House. Denied by Caroline Levitt with a roller in her hair. And you can't prosecute a journalist if the story was. If you're going after the journalist, obviously the story was true. So, you know, quite a remarkable turn of events.
- [54:18]
Joanna Coles
Well, I hope that Farrah Thomasin does get at least one glass of champagne tonight at the White House Correspondent's Dinner.
- [54:24]
Hugh
Well, not to toast. Not to toast. To toast the First Amendment. Absolutely.
- [54:29]
Joanna Coles
Yep. Toast the First Amendment. Really. The dinner is to celebrate the incredible importance of the First Amendment, which we see undermined every single day by this government and this Cabinet. Not least the removing of four of the service people's names who died in this bombing of Iran. Huey, thank you so much for keeping us up to date. I know you have an editorial meeting to get to.
- [54:54]
Hugh
I do.
- [54:54]
Joanna Coles
It's always a thrill to wind up the week with you.
- [54:57]
Hugh
There's one thing I want to stay on top of, Joanna, which is a discussion we had last week about high tea.
- [55:03]
Joanna Coles
High tea? Yes.
- [55:04]
Hugh
Has started a debate. It's a very British debate. I'm Scottish, obviously.
- [55:09]
Joanna Coles
Joanna, I didn't know you were Scottish.
- [55:11]
Hugh
I keep it conceivable.
- [55:12]
Joanna Coles
No idea you were Scottish.
- [55:14]
Hugh
I know who it is.
- [55:14]
Joanna Coles
Does he tell us? Every single time.
- [55:18]
Hugh
I'm very discreet about it. But we discussed high tea and you offered one definition of what? High tea. Well, we talked about high tea because of Pete Hagsen.
- [55:28]
Joanna Coles
Right, Definition of what high tea is. Which should be sandwiches, little cheese sandwich, possibly salmon, bit of chicken, coronation chicken. Margaret Thatcher's favourite dish. With scones. Cream. It doesn't matter if you put the cream on or the butter on or the jam on first. Always a debate in England. This is what English people argue about.
- [55:46]
Hugh
Well, I hate to tell you, Scottish people and some people from other parts of the north of England, not Yorkshire, obviously. I have a different definition of high tea and I asked my parents to find high tea in Scotland bit old fashioned, but we would. It's 5. It's between 4 and 5pm and it's not scones and cakes. First, fish and chips, maybe a steak pie.
- [56:12]
Joanna Coles
Maybe steak pie. Not high tea, but it has to
- [56:16]
Hugh
be accompanied by a very, very big steaming pot of tea. And afterwards you can have a cake.
- [56:21]
Joanna Coles
Fish and chips at 4 o'. Clock. Who would do that? Who in Scotland who would do that? No, it's sandwiches, it's cream, clotted cream and scones. And it's fruitcake. And then possibly a fondant. Nothing better than a fondant at Fortnum and Masons.
- [56:37]
Hugh
You can't get any more English than that.
- [56:38]
Joanna Coles
You really can't. Anyway, thank you for all your comments about Haiti. You can tell us, do you really want steak pie or battered fish and chips at 4?
- [56:47]
Hugh
Yes, you do.
- [56:48]
Joanna Coles
I don't think so. I don't think so. Hugh, it's very good to see you. If you have comments on Hugh's accent, the fact he's Scottish or on some of the things we've talked about like the disappearing of four American men.
- [57:01]
Hugh
Yeah, I think there's a few more serious things to talk about.
- [57:03]
Joanna Coles
Right. Or Carolyn Levitt's hair. How do you roll your hair? Is that what you do? I find the lint roller is quite good because the hair sticks up there of its own accord. Well, the lint rollers accord. Anyway, write and let us know. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We just reached 700,000 subscribers.
- [57:20]
Hugh
100,000. I can't believe it. It's amazing.
- [57:22]
Joanna Coles
And we started only just over a year ago, so we are thrilled. Thank you very much for your support. I'm really excited for you to hear this next conversation with Dick Costello. He is the former CEO of, of Twitter and the co founder of O1 Advisors. And in it, well, he really caught me up short actually by predicting the end of thinking. Now this conversation is produced in partnership with pmi, US businesses of Philip Morris International as part of a year long initiative to celebrate and accelerate American innovation and reinvention. We're looking ahead to the next 250 years of America and reacting directly to your comments. So Dick and I are discussing the future of social media and the Internet. Let's dive right in. So Dick, is social media basically over now?
- [58:24]
Ryan Reynolds
It's certainly fractured. So what I mean by that is taking a walk through soho here in New York will tell you that it's not dead. The number of boyfriends of Instagram taking photos of their girlfriends standing in the middle of the street with a bag over their shoulder looking longingly down the cobblestones is there's one every other block, sometimes two. So certainly TikTok and Instagram are not over. I think the challenge is Facebook feels long, long past. Snapchat is not what it used to be for high schoolers. And Twitter is filled with the very thing that Elon said he wanted to get rid of. Bots. And now AI Slop.
- [59:15]
Joanna Coles
Right. So I'm going to protest about Snapchat because I'm on the board, so I'm just ready.
- [59:20]
Ryan Reynolds
This martini that you poured me in the Daily Beast cup is delicious, by the way.
- [59:24]
Joanna Coles
Isn't it good? It's good to have Marty sneaky, sneaky there. So if you're sort of looking out over the next five to 10 years, how do people continue to communicate on social media? And where have the conversations gone that I used to love so much in the early Twitter days when you were CEO?
- [59:50]
Ryan Reynolds
Thank you. They're not there.
- [59:51]
Joanna Coles
They.
- [59:52]
Ryan Reynolds
Those are gone. Seemingly not to return, at least on one of the existing platforms. Those. Those things are gone. People. You know, the. All you need to do is look at any one very sort of. Anyone who proposes anything controversial on. On Twitter is met with nothing but, you know, trolls. And the trolls are. So they're what gets attention, you know, friends who call it the sort of the anger economy and the troll economy. There's a whole economy for those people that by just being mean and cruel and everything, get attention and get engagement and get fans. One need only look no further than the Tate brothers, who are, like, rich from being crazy misogynists. So the challenge with AI now entering the fray is that the discourse is gone with the emergence of AI. The amount of content that's being posted, that's just AI slop to spot, by the way. Not for. Forget about just social media, but From Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter to Spotify Music to Amazon Books, I have four or five people now who've sent me, oh, I wrote a book I want. Can you review this book? Well, they're using. Everyone's going to write a book and everyone's going to be a musician and everyone's going to be an artist. And the problem is when everyone does it, nothing is interesting, as you remember.
- [61:39]
Joanna Coles
Hold on, let me just linger on that. I love that when everybody does it, nothing is interesting. It's increasingly hard to find anything of
- [61:46]
Ryan Reynolds
any value because you can use AI to create this stuff and then post it. You can be a musician, you can be an author, you can be a. It's impossible to It. It will become almost impossible to find Anything of interest that's new and unique on these platforms. I mean, and don't forget, AI brings as much as social media pushed all of us to our corners, the right and left. And everybody hears their echo chamber on these platforms, whether they're far right or far left. Artificial intelligence being the having studied the entire Internet and giving you back the average of what everyone thinks. Again, I say this all the time, but go to OpenAI and say, Pick a random number 1 through 10. Give me a random number 1 through 10. It will always say 7. Always.
- [62:41]
Joanna Coles
Really?
- [62:42]
Ryan Reynolds
The reason it will always say 7 is because that's the average. AI brings everything back to the middle. Meaning AI homogenizes everything. By homogenizing everything. All these books and music that are published to Spotify and Amazon and so forth are going to all be the same. So none of it will be interesting. And we're at the very early innings of people doing this stuff. You know, look at the millions and millions and millions of songs that have been added to Spotify that are AI slop. And you know, you and I haven't done it yet, but probably will go, oh, wait till it's. Wait till it's even easier. You know, I got a fun tune in my head.
- [63:24]
Joanna Coles
Yeah, I promise you I'm never gonna send you that. So there was a CEO of Twitter between you and when Elon Musk.
- [63:33]
Ryan Reynolds
There were like nine.
- [63:34]
Joanna Coles
There were nine CEOs.
- [63:36]
Ryan Reynolds
They're like Spinal Tap Drummers, the CEOs of Twitter.
- [63:40]
Joanna Coles
Okay, so what is one was killed
- [63:42]
Ryan Reynolds
in a bizarre gardening incident? You know, it's straight out of a Spinal Tap. There's like nine of them. No, that was a line from.
- [63:49]
Joanna Coles
Oh, that was. Okay, what did Elon Musk get right and what did he get wrong about X?
- [63:54]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, well, he certainly got right that you didn't need as many people as were in the company at the time. I mean, I think there were 7,000 employees when he took over from Parag. Jack left, made Parag CEO for a hot minute. And then. And then Elon took over. There were something like 7700 people there. And now, you know, there are what, a couple hundred, 300, 400, maybe 200,
- [64:21]
Joanna Coles
300, which a while, I mean, so radical departure.
- [64:26]
Ryan Reynolds
So. Yeah, and I think. But all these companies, Google, Meta, I mean, everyone had overhired and it was just, you know, doesn't matter because we're profitable and we don't need to pay attention to that. I mean, for whatever reason, all of these companies wildly over hired. And so he got that. Right. I think the thing he got wrong is, I mean, there are probably a bunch of things. The thing I think I would say he got wrong is probably any more than a couple hundred because literally, I mean, if you'll remember, when he took over the platform, he kind of was raging about bots. There are too many bots. And I mean all of the. Whenever I post something now, a week later, I'll go and look at my act engagement and see that, oh, a few of your tweets were retweeted like 19 times. It's all adult.
- [65:19]
Joanna Coles
It's always 19 times, by the way.
- [65:22]
Ryan Reynolds
19 is the magic number. It's all like sex cams, adult. It's all bots. And it's all, for whatever reason, mine happened to be all porn bots. So. That's unfortunately, you know, the complaint, the thing that he was actually complaining about has gotten significantly worse.
- [65:42]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [65:42]
Ryan Reynolds
I will say this. The person that he brought in to run product there now, Nikita Beyer, is exceptionally good at thinking about how to grow the platform and the kinds of things that users really want and what needs to be added. And he's done a great job. And he's only, he's only one. I think he's the only product manager there. And, you know, good for him because it's a hard job.
- [66:03]
Joanna Coles
Right? So if you're looking out sort of 20 to 30 years, how do you think we're going to be communicating with each other?
- [66:14]
Ryan Reynolds
I think that we underestimate how much cognitive offloading we do by our use of AI right now, and that's going to get a lot worse and people are going to stop trying. So there's a great paper out and I can't send it around to all your listeners. The TLDR of this paper is even people who only use AI for as little as 10 minutes stop trying to think for themselves to solve a problem and just like, well, I'll just ask for the answer. You know, if you, if you're in
- [66:51]
Joanna Coles
a university, that's so interesting. Much better.
- [66:54]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. If you're in a university and you get one on one time with your professor and you say, I mean, let's use coding as an example. Hey, how would I code a binary tree to sort XYZ more quickly? The professor would say, well, how would you start? And you have some back and forth and you learn along the way. Well, when you ask Codex or Claude code like, hey, I need to search for whatever as quickly as possible in something less than three seconds. Can you build it for me. And she goes, here. And so once you start to use AI and quickly learn, oh, it just will do it for me. Human beings have evolved to offload as much cognitive stuff as they can so they can run away from the saber tooth tiger. I don't have time to think right now. I got to get away from that thing and find some berries to eat. So we'll do all the cognitive offloading anything will let us do. And AI is, hey, you don't need to try anymore. I'll, like, answer it for you. And it's already happening significantly, and I think that's going to get a thousand times worse. So I'm like, one of the things I worry about is, as AI becomes even better, how do we make sure people are still learning? It sounds like a simple thing to ask, but it's going to be. It's going to be for parents who don't pay attention to their kids and the way they learn and how they learn. They're not gonna learn. They're just gonna. They're not. They're gonna go, just this thing will tell me the answer. I don't have to try.
- [68:29]
Joanna Coles
And is it. So are you predicting the end of thinking?
- [68:33]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm predicting the end of thinking for a large segment of humanity. Yeah.
- [68:39]
Joanna Coles
Yeah. No, it's alarming. I mean, it's so.
- [68:42]
Ryan Reynolds
I mean, if you said that 10 years ago, you'd be like, well, people are going to still think. Of course they'll still think. But it's already happening. You see, people. I'm telling you, this paper, you know, thousands of people with as little as 10 minutes using AI, they just stop. They just stop trying. They're like, well, I don't need to ask how to do this. I'll just say, what's the answer, do you think?
- [69:06]
Joanna Coles
Right. Yeah. And also, I know from my own behavior, the kind of memos or whatever that I whip up or that AI whips up for me, why would I ever want to go back to writing those myself? But actually, something is lost in the offloading, as you say. Probably.
- [69:23]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. Well, you learn by making mistakes and screwing things up, and then you find out things along the way. Right. That you wouldn't that aren't. You learn things that aren't the thing you were trying to learn in the process of making mistakes and screwing things up and trying and. Oh, that's interesting. This funny thing happened.
- [69:40]
Joanna Coles
Right. The serendipity of. Of the journey.
- [69:43]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah.
- [69:45]
Joanna Coles
So which are the companies that survive then, you know, OpenAI Anthropic Grok AI. Do you have a sense of, of which ones are here to stay?
- [69:55]
Ryan Reynolds
It's very. So there's a thing that's super relevant to right now, which is that once again the Chinese models and it's different ones on different days have emerged again as hey, these might be getting better a lot more quickly than we thought. And they're not nine to 12 months behind. In fact, they might not be that far behind at all. And there's a group of people that will say, well, they're basically going and distilling anthropic. And what I mean, but what distilling means is their AI is just going and asking anthropic millions and millions of questions and, and, and taking them for itself and you know what I mean? Basically stealing anthropic, if you will.
- [70:40]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [70:41]
Ryan Reynolds
So distilling is essentially you're going and copying anthropic by just having a billions of bots go ask your questions and, and steal it and try to, you're trying to do it a sneaky way and blah blah, blah and can't and
- [70:52]
Joanna Coles
anthropic or open AI can't stop that.
- [70:54]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, they, it's like, it's like spam, you know, like now I'm doing Now you block or bots on Twitter. I block it over here and now it comes in over now they're so there's lots and lots of ways to do this. However, there's another group of people are like it's too good to have distilled anthropic. It's, it's, it's come out. It's, you know, it's, it's better than anthropic in these kinds of things. It's a little bit worse in these kinds of things. The point being these open, these open weight Chinese models are very quickly becoming, I'll boil it all down. The point is these open weight models, in fact all the models are very quickly becoming commodities. And all the same, you can look to a year from now or two years from now or three years from now and say these things are all going to be, they're all going to be just as good. If that's true and the open source pick whatever version 9 of this particular Chinese model that's great at coding, it's is $0.02 for, you know, 10 million tokens. And anthropic and OpenAI are, you know, trying to make money and are spending all this money on compute in the US and data centers and blah blah, blah. And they're $10 for the same amount of tokens, enterprises are going to go, well, I want to pay 2 cents because I'll be much more profitable if I pay 2 cents. So there's a, there's a sort of reckoning that's on the very near term horizon here for whether OpenAI and anthropic and Grok and Gemini from Google and Llama from Facebook are going to be profitable businesses or something else happens. And that something else is arguable. What is it? Do they go into some sort of new business model where they're like, oh, we can't charge for token use anymore, you know, we can't charge $200 a month for XYZ, we have to be in the, I don't know, workflow automation business or something. Or do they go to the US Government and go, hey, you need to take a stake in us. And then, you know, yes, we can't charge as much as we are charging to enterprises because people will just use open source models. But you should only use us at very expensive rates for the Department of Defense because otherwise the Chinese models will hack into our Department of Defense systems and blah, blah, blah, all by way of saying if these things are all commodities and OpenAI and Anthropic are spending as much money and Facebook, sorry, and Meta and Google and Grok are spending as much money as they're spending, they're not going to be able to be profitable doing what they're doing. They'll have to do something else. And whether that's the government regulating stuff and only using US models for government contracts or something else happens or they go into a different business, who knows. But it seems to be true that these things all are headed to being commodities.
- [73:59]
Joanna Coles
And are they all going to be assuming some American companies do survive? Do you have a sense of which one at the moment is in the lead? If you were to put money on it? If you were to go to Belching,
- [74:17]
Ryan Reynolds
yes, but it changes. I mean Anthropic is the answer, right?
- [74:20]
Joanna Coles
Okay.
- [74:21]
Ryan Reynolds
They were smart about the way they were, they were smart about the business to go into. They've got a great team, the product works. Mike Krieger there, who was the chief product officer now I think is the chief science officer, was co founder of Instagram, is a fantastic, I mean all these teams have great people, but he's just, he's just very, very good. But having said that, it changes. You know, a year ago it looked like it was open AI. Now Grok's got a great coding model and just has the, you know, has the ability to go bring in the cursor folks there and have. Who are obviously great at this and build out the GROK coding model. So. So we'll see. They, they. They certainly keep leapfrogging each other. It looks like Anthropic's in the lead right now.
- [75:07]
Joanna Coles
The digital world was supposed to bring everybody closer together. We appear to be living through what we're told is an epidemic of loneliness.
- [75:16]
Ryan Reynolds
It's definitely pushed people further apart.
- [75:19]
Joanna Coles
Right?
- [75:19]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. I mean, all you need to do is go to a restaurant and look at couples who are both on their phones.
- [75:28]
Joanna Coles
Right?
- [75:28]
Ryan Reynolds
Like, while they're sitting there right across from each other on a date or whatever. Like, it's.
- [75:35]
Joanna Coles
So is there a solution? Can tech provide a solution for that?
- [75:40]
Ryan Reynolds
AI's making that worse, too, as we're already seeing. You know, people are like, well, I'm just going to have an AI girlfriend because it's not going to, you know, she's not going to tell me she doesn't want to go out with me. I'm never going to get rejected, and I'll just develop this relationship with this AI. You know, you would have thought that was. That was still years away. It's happening all over the place already. You know, people have these relationships with. With some AI bot, which seems crazy to probably you and me, but it's happening everywhere. And we'll just get. Obviously there'll be more and more of that, so there will have to be some sort of a societal, like, hey, man, enough is enough. Like, no one's talking to any. We're not talking to each other anymore. The new inventions are making this worse, not better. Like, the glasses are like, wait, now when I'm. Now when I'm looking out at the world, it's going to have a layer over it that's like popping up the next dance, like, dance move. Or like, oh, that's Rebecca. You know, and then, Then you've got people like, I don't want to talk to anyone wearing these glasses because they, like, are creepy. And meanwhile, the creepy people are like, look. I know. Well, no, I know. That's Joanna Coles. Right. It's crazy, but it's not going to get. That's not going to make it better.
- [76:47]
Joanna Coles
Right. Okay, so. So you actually not. You're not two thumbs up on human communication going forward? Or do you think. Do you think we'll figure out I'm
- [76:56]
Ryan Reynolds
two thumbs up on communication going forward? I mean, look, if you can think and you know that, like, hey, AI AI is here to make it all easier for me and so I don't have to try. And then you tell, you know, that you go, okay, I'm not going to use it for stuff like that because I don't want to stop thinking. So I don't use it for things like, give me the answer. I use it for things like, hey, I'm trying to figure this out. Like, you know how, like, give me the first step and how to do that. To think about how you would go do. Do something like this, even for things like cooking, I'll just say like, hey, how would you. If I was trying to do this and this and this with. In this particular meal I'm trying to make, how would you think about getting started with this? And, and why? And then I'll, oh, that's interesting. And I'll think about it.
- [77:44]
Joanna Coles
Okay, so you use it as a kind of companion, not an answer. We are on a text exchange, which I find hilarious. It's a group of four of us. It's incredibly well informed. I'm the least informed person, but. And I'm wondering if that's also the way that social media goes, that people just inevitably form their own little groups.
- [78:05]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, I'm seeing more and more of that. I think that's a hopeful outcome. And I have several of those kinds of communities. There's little groups that are great, little WhatsApp chats.
- [78:16]
Joanna Coles
They can be international and then you can get different perspectives from people, which I found really valuable with the ones I have in Europe.
- [78:23]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, someone will probably. Someone will come up with some sort of platform to make that easier. Not that WhatsApp's hard, because it seems like the right way forward for having thriving conversation again.
- [78:38]
Joanna Coles
Okay, we have a question here from a viewer who says, is the Internet dead?
- [78:42]
Ryan Reynolds
It definitely seems like it's headed in that direction. The short answer is I think the Internet is dying because people are just going to these AI platforms now and asking the question and they don't have to go search.
- [78:52]
Joanna Coles
So if the Internet is dying, what do OpenAI and Anthropic and GROK and everything? What's the new stuff that they search?
- [79:02]
Ryan Reynolds
They have to pay or find their own way to use these data companies like Micro One and Handshake and Mercore and others to go help them aggregate the data they don't have. Like, for example, I need to learn about oncology and I don't know anything about this particular pancreatic cancer mutation. But here's a PhD candidate from the University of Washington who's written a thesis on this. We'll go interview him and pull all that data into our platform. And now we know everything that person knows. So there's a lot of that going on.
- [79:43]
Joanna Coles
And they'll be going and creating new information. Right. Okay.
- [79:47]
Ryan Reynolds
That is actually happening right now.
- [79:49]
Joanna Coles
So final question, will social media sites ever be able to actually clamp down on bots? I mean, I've completely stopped on X now because it's all bots.
- [80:02]
Ryan Reynolds
The short answer is it's possible. The longer answer is it's, it's expensive and hard. So this is just a question of the willingness to do it. And I think that Elon is learning that it's a lot, you know or finding out. I don't know whether he's learning, he's finding out that it was not as simple as you. It's not as simple as you think it is.
- [80:23]
Joanna Coles
Dick Costello, it's always good to see you and it's always good to get your opinions. Thank you for coming in to talk to us.
- [80:29]
Ryan Reynolds
Happy to do it.
- [80:34]
Joanna Coles
Big thanks to Dick Costello for joining me. And next Friday I'll be talking about the future of sports and technology with Vivek Raunadive, the co owner and the chairman of the Sacramento Kings. And great fun to sit alongside courtside if you have the opportunity. If you want the chance to have your prediction read and responded to live on air, leave us a comment with the hashtag America250 on this YouTube YouTube video or head to Beast Pub America250. Reminder that by posting with America250 you agree that the Daily Beast may include your comment in PMI US sponsored segments on the Daily Beast podcast and to other potential PMI US uses. So if you have been, thank you for joining us and a big thanks as always to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro and Neil Rosenhaus. So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now there are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.
- [81:41]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [82:08]
Hugh
Gift.