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- [00:00]
A
Spotify, It's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social? Let me introduce you to fans. And they're here with me on Spotify. Trust me, I know fans.
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B
They don't skip, they stay for hours. They don't move on. They manifest.
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A
They're not a demographic group. They're fans.
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B
Spotify advertising. You're among fans. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com
- [00:48]
A
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms at Mintmobile. And this is the way our president wants to celebrate being 80.
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B
He's got nothing else to celebrate. He's got no other achievements.
- [01:08]
A
But David, what are you saying? He's just done a deal with Iran, a birthday deal with Iran, a deal to do a deal.
- [01:17]
B
First of all, there is no deal. Nothing was signed yesterday. It's going to be signed on Friday. It's not a deal. It's not even a framework of a deal.
- [01:26]
A
It's.
- [01:26]
B
It's a sham. We call that a loss. We call that surrender. And what Trump is doing is he is surrendering to a weaker ally because a war we shouldn't have started was blundered through, contained many mistakes. And he just wants to turn the page. He will talk about anything else because this has been such a catastrophe.
- [01:53]
A
Joanna. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And it's the day after Donald Trump has been celebrating his 80th birthday, or as I like to think of it, him treading lightly into his ninth decade, where he will become the oldest president the United States has ever had. Well, last night he was celebrating with the UFC, that enormous 92 foot claw hanging over the White House lawn. Then he hopped on Air Force One, flew to France for the G7 meeting, and of course, is there a deal? Is there not a deal? Is Bibi going to play along? Who knows? Who knows? David Rothkopf knows. David Rothkopf, the Beast's global affairs correspondent, knows exactly what's going on, so no time to waste. Don't forget to press the subscription button. We are independent media, which is why we're allowed to bring you conversations you don't find elsewhere. And there aren't that many of us left, but we're independent media. Your support matters to us. So please smash the subscription button and let's get into it. David Rothkoff.
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B
Joanna Coles. How are you?
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A
I'm all right. I'm gearing up for my mom's funeral, actually.
- [03:15]
B
Oh, I'm sorry.
- [03:16]
A
So I'm. It's okay. I'm dislocated a little bit from the States. Except that I couldn't stop watching the President endlessly celebrating himself. Yesterday, his 80th birthday.
- [03:30]
B
Well, there's a lot to celebrate.
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A
He's got a deal.
- [03:33]
B
There's a lot to celebrate. He's a great man. He's the greatest. Not just American president, He could be the greatest leader the world has ever known.
- [03:42]
A
No one's seen anything like it, David. Indeed they have not. So, listen, I know. I know that you have been poking around D.C. i know you've been up and you've pressed your face against the railings of the White House to see what that 92 foot crawl looked like. Tell me more.
- [04:04]
B
Well, no, no. I mean, look, I went downtown. I live here. I went around, I looked. I went down to the reflecting pool. You remember last week? I said the reflecting pool is maybe the only thing that turned out okay. I. I spoke too soon because the reflecting pool is now filling with algae. It looks disgusting. You know. Yeah, yeah.
- [04:23]
A
It's just been done. How can that be, David? Because our president found people who'd never worked on a pool before and said they would be fantastic. How can it possibly be filling with algae?
- [04:35]
B
Well, it could be the one mistake he's made as president. But anyway, it was disgusting. And, you know, there now the White House is like. Well, you know, there was algae in the pipes. And so when you released the water, it came back in and we'll fix it. Sure they will. But then you walk over a little bit and you see this giant, ridiculous set that was so brightly lit during the event that pilots literally were turning away from landing the plane at National Airport because it was blinding them. And so several flights last night didn't land. And you saw them practicing. Yeah, you saw them practicing. There was a whole big MAGA event out there on the mall and you could go and you could meet UFC fighters and there were motorcycles, dirt bikes jumping in the air, and it was Like, I mean, really trailer park life gone wild, But. And I know that sounds elitist. It sounds elitist, right?
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A
It does sound elitist.
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B
It does.
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A
Sounds too educated. It sounds Ivy League elitist, David.
- [05:40]
B
Yeah, well, you know.
- [05:41]
A
Oh, wait, the President went to an Ivy League after he went to Fordham, right? He went to Wharton Finance, not business school.
- [05:51]
B
Yeah, he. Yeah, sure he did. Somebody got him in there. Somebody took his SATs. But let's not attack the Ivy League right now. Although there's plenty of time to do that in the future. This thing was disgusting. It was disgusting. It's a violent form that gives off. They think it's like high tea. It gives them high testosterone. It makes them all seem like real men. Because what we need in America, the problem with America, if you haven't been following maga, is we're not manly enough as a country. We don't kick enough ass. And so we need people to go to the White House to show how you kick ass. Because that's what makes America great. It's the American spirit. Marco Rubio said it's the same spirit that our astronauts had while going to the moon. Marco Rubio signed a deal with the UFC to do cage fighting, diplomacy around the world so we could send out these best and the brightest. It's true. To send out the best and the brightest so people would know us for who we really were. Sadly, it's true. Now, the event itself, though, it gave off everything that you expected it to. Mondo what I call. And I don't want to offend you here. Sde. Do you know what sd what is that?
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A
What is sde?
- [07:17]
B
Well, do you know what BDE is, Joanna? It may offend you a little bit.
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A
No.
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B
Okay.
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A
I don't know what any of these things are.
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B
Okay, well, that's a Kardashian era thing. BDE is a big dick energy. So, you know.
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A
Oh, B, D, E. Okay.
- [07:32]
B
Yeah, Right. And this gives off really big small dick energy. Because, like, what got. Like, this is, you know, this is guys trying to say, yeah, I'm a manly man. Cause I like to go and watch people kick the shit out of each other. Although, you know, why does Trump like to watch half naked men rolling around on the stage? I'll leave that for the readers to figure out.
- [07:55]
A
And didn't they use the White House itself as a kind of quasi locker room?
- [08:01]
B
They did, but they did other things which should disgust people even more. They used the military. There was an honor guard, the Air Force Thunderbird. Jet fighters flew overhead. And in the most insidious and disgusting twist, when the fighters came in out of the White House locker room, they were escorted by military honor guard that included a Medal of Honor winner. So you know what that meant? That meant that every military person in the audience had to salute because you have to salute a Medal of Honor winner. So they were ending up saluting these thugs as they were marching into the ring. Now, Dana White, the organizer of all this stuff, which by the way is run by a company which by the way, Trump owns, part of which by the way cut a deal with another Trump company to pay the people in crypto that comes from the other Trump company, which by the way was then televised pay per view on Paramount plus, which is owned by the Ellisons, which is another Trump pal affiliated MAGA operation. So all these people were making money while using Medal of Honor winners, using US Soldiers who deserved respect and to be treated by respect and the White House in order to sort of add to the zhuzh of the whole event. It was just awful. But then what happened when they went on stage, Joanna, surely you've heard of this one jerk who came out, fought the fight and then at the end of the fight said, Michelle Obama is a man, you know, totally politicizing this thing. And then there was another one who goes, and he gives a Nazi salute at the end of this thing. And then Dana White goes, yeah, this is bringing America together. Bringing America together. This is.
- [09:54]
A
And this is the way our president wants to celebrate being 80 going into his ninth decade.
- [10:00]
B
You know why? I'll tell you why. And there's a deeper reason. He's got nothing else to celebrate. He's got no other achievements. He has left his administration at this point is left with violence and the use of force. He attacks Venezuela.
- [10:17]
A
But David, what are you saying? He's just done a deal with Iran. He's just done a deal, a birthday deal. A birthday deal with Iran. A deal to do a deal.
- [10:28]
B
Not so fast there, Joanna, because here's here. First of all, there is no deal. Nothing was signed yesterday. It's going to be signed on Friday. Secondly, the thing that's going to be signed on Friday is not a deal. It's a memorandum of understanding. Thirdly, in the diplomatic terms, you probably call it a framework. Why? Because none of the hard problems have been resolved. They're all going to be resolved, allegedly in the next 60 days. Things about nukes and getting rid of enriched uranium, which means what does this do? What is this allegedly going to do? Well, it's going to Restore the status quo as of the day before Trump's beginning of this illegal war so that ships can go through the Strait of Hormuz so that hopefully people will see gas prices come down. They won't. Gas prices will not come down for many, many months if this actually results in a cessation of hostilities, which is an open question. But he didn't just get them to agree to go back to that. He gave a bunch of concessions. And it now looks like part of this deal is that the US is going to release $24 billion in Iranian assets, some of which they released right at the beginning of these negotiations. It looks like the United States has also said that they're going to work on getting $300 billion to help rebuild the country for the U.S. attacks, which should never have taken place, or the U.S. israeli attacks, which should never have taken place in the first place. Where is he going to get that money? Nobody knows. And Trump is saying, well, the great thing about this is that he's finally gotten Iran to agree not to want a nuclear weapon. And well, that sounds great, except, you know, when Iran agreed not to want a nuclear weapon, Joanna, when you were a very, very little girl in 1970, when Iran signed onto the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. But if that's too long ago to remember, and for Trump, it probably is, as his memory is dying on a daily basis in 2015, the deal that the Obama administration was part of, the so called JCPOA deal, included in its beginning, Iran saying they were not going to seek a nuclear weapon. So we're back to the status quo. We've gotten Iran to agree to stuff they'd already agreed to. And in exchange for that, we're going to pay them a bunch of money and they're going to have more ongoing leverage over the Strait of Hormuz than they had before. And this is all contingent on Israel agreeing to go along with this in Lebanon, which Israel has said in the past 24 hours they're not going to do. So it's not a deal. It's not even a framework of a deal. It's a sham. But, and here is my final point. If you launch a war against somebody and the other side comes out better than you do, and then you have to sue for peace and pay them money to get you back to the status quo in military or in diplomatic terms, you know what we call that? We call that.
- [13:54]
A
What do we call that, David?
- [13:56]
B
We call that a loss. We call that surrender. And what Trump is doing is he is surrendering to a weaker ally because a war we shouldn't have started was blundered through, contained many mistakes, and he just wants to turn the page.
- [14:13]
A
The other thing I understand is that when he threw up the Obama deal and said it was a terrible deal, terrible deal, and that he wasn't going to do, allowed the Iranians to promptly start enriching their uranium, top speed, so they have much more of it than they had before.
- [14:33]
B
That's exactly right. And what's more, this highly enriched uranium, which they have maybe a ton of, which is super highly enriched, and then there's another large amount that's enriched to 60%. Even if they get rid of it, they've spent the past few years making it. They still have the scientists who made it. They still have the centrifuges that made it. The time that nuclear experts estimate it would take from Iran to go from we need to have a bomb to having a bomb is much, much less now because Trump pulled us out of that agreement than it was in this agreement and I have to say, was the jcpoa, the Obama agreement, was that a perfect agreement? No. But nothing Trump does will end up approaching it remotely in terms of benefits to the United States or to the world. Whatever we do, we're gonna end up in a worse position. That's gonna cost us money. That is gonna leave the region less stable, that is gonna impact the global economy negatively. That is gonna impact our alliances in the region and our alliances around the world negatively. It is a fiasco. And Trump was trying to put a bow around it, cuz he wants to change the subject, literally. He will talk about anything else because this has been such a catastrophe.
- [16:03]
A
Okay, so he surrendered. It's been a catastrophe. And yet there he was, overseeing this prize UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship on the south lawn of the White House. How long is that structure staying up there? Do we know?
- [16:21]
B
We don't know. We know that Trump last week said, well, you know, they built the Eiffel Tower for an exhibition and then they left it up. Maybe we should leave this up. Of course they. That's not gonna happen. This is hideous. It looks like a giant steel spider in the backyard of the White House about to. It looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Right? It's absolutely. Or maybe an alien spacecraft has landed on the south lawn of the White House. But. The point of this UFC fight was Trump. He's got no tricks left in his bag. And so he's really scraping the bottom of the barrel. And even his MAGA faithful think he's gone too far. There was a poll over past couple of days which asked the American people or the people that they reached out to in the poll, do you think this was an appropriate use of White House grounds? And do you know what percentage said yes? 16%.
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A
16% said yes. I mean, the photos are absolutely incredible. And also just the idea of these barefoot fighters in their toweling robes padding through the lobby of the White House, coming out of the Oval Office. These are scenes that, as Trump says, no one's ever seen anything like it. And there's a reason for that, because it seems to lower the tone of the White House. And as you say, he's just trying to shock people into not paying attention to what's actually going on, which is he's the arsonist and the firefighter. With Iran, we're worse off than we were with Iran. And he's now, well, he should have arrived in Europe now. I mean, you've got to give it to the guy. Despite the fact he falls asleep in Cabinet meetings, he does have energies at the. He's at the fight. Then he's on Air Force One. He's zooming across to the G7, and all he's doing on the flight is posting, posting, posting, posting.
- [18:28]
B
Really? Yeah, he's got a lot of energy. They wheel him out, he sits in his chair, he falls asleep. He did seem to have a little bit of a spat with Melania there, which was kind of entertaining. Then they wheel him onto the plane, he lies in some bed, he tweets out a few things on Truth Social. He will fall asleep in this G7 meeting.
- [18:51]
A
I mean, he's been praising Xi Jinping and Putin, thanking them for their help in this whole Iranian deal. As we know, he's been very rude to NATO allies, saying that they should have helped him with the bombing and that they came up far too late. How do you think the conversations are going to go once these guys all start talking?
- [19:16]
B
Well, I mean, first of all, he won't listen, and he won't be in the room, and he'll be rude. And Macron has the job of sort of as the host, keeping him awake. You can just see him. Donny, wake up. Okay, this is an important part. Donny. And Trump will try to get them to pay for his $300 billion fund for Iran or some other craziness, which they won't do. They'll say, this was your war. And he'll try to get them to do more stuff that helps Putin, which hopefully they won't. Do because they realize that Putin is a direct threat to them. And Trump will get pissed off and maybe he'll leave early because he's not going to get anything out of this. And he'll come back home and then he'll be like, well, what do I do now? And he doesn't have anything really going on. The election looks bad. The most recent polls look like they're going to lose a lot of seats, even if they cheat. And by the way, they're gonna cheat, right? We see them trying to cheat. We have the Supreme Court in the next week or two, undoubtedly gonna strip away more voting rights in the U.S. we had Mark Wayne Mullen over the weekend saying, oh, no, we're going into sanctuary cities. They're violating the Constitution. So we can violate the Constitution and we're gonna stop their irregular voting activities, meaning we're gonna stop them from voting for the people they really want. So Trump, for the next five months, Trump is going to focus on what do I do to avoid having investigations that lead to me or other people being impeached or sent to jail, because this is a criminal who now realizes that there are ways around the immunity he has, ways around his pardon power that can squeeze him heavily, whether it's civil suits or state lawsuits or impeachments or suits against him for things that are not part of his official responsibilities. And he's scared. And I think this is the driving animus of Donald Trump right now, is that he is afraid that some point in the next few months or a couple of years, the chickens are going to come home to roost before he dies. I mean, he's afraid of dying, but he is more afraid of living a life where he is held accountable for the many, many crimes of many, many sorts that he has committed.
- [21:46]
A
Do you think that he feels any threat from J.D. vance? J.D. vance, as we know, is doing a bit of a cock of the walk strut because he has his new book out talking about his conversion to Catholicism. It' Communion. And cbs, under its new head of news news editor Barry Weiss, did what can only be described as a shockingly pleasant profile of a sitting vice president. There was no discussion, really about politics whatsoever. It was really all about his journey of faith. And then what did his wife think of him? And she was sitting right next to him. I'm assuming you saw it.
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B
Yeah, of course.
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A
What was your impression? I mean, you've seen lots of Sunday interviews with politicians. This is the new maga, coded cbs. I mean, there wasn't a Tough question in there by Robert Costa, who's usually a pretty robust reporter.
- [22:54]
B
Look, CBS is dead, right? It's like CBS died. Somebody picked up the clothes that the old CBS wore and are trying to pretend they're the same thing. CBS is now. It's a subsidiary of White House Communications, which is led by a guy named Steven Chung. His name begins with C. Let's call it the Chung Broadcasting System. It is just propaganda day and night, and this was propaganda. Here is a guy that even Trump doesn't like, but MAGA needs some kind of a future and they put him on the air and they coddle him and they like, oh, yes, you've written a book about being a Catholic and it's so moving that you're committed to faith. And that's so courageous. And the Pope can't stand the guy. He's lectured the Pope. I mean, he's such a good Catholic that his most prominent act as a Catholic was getting into a fight with the Pope. And you know, his wife is sitting there dutifully and people are like, well, there must be something good to him because she's standing by his side. And here's the reality. J.D. vance and his wife are absolutely. They're not atypical of Washington. They are typical. They are so ambitious. They would do anything to get ahead. They would say anything. He was against Trump before he was for Trump. He was something else before he was a Catholic, tried on being hillbilly for hillbilly elegy. And then the rest of the time he's some guy who went to an Ivy League university and was the right hand guy of Peter Thiel, a palantir who is his kind of sponsor out there in the world. He's a man of the people. He's a man of the oligarchs. And usha's like, I'll take it. If we get to live in the White House and we get to be rich, it's fine. These are vapid, empty suits who have nothing but ambition. And what we have learned is when people have nothing but ambition, no sense of public service, no sense of principles, no character that they rule or they act in high office like people with no character do, like Donald Trump. They're corrupt. They'll take whatever deal suits them at the moment, they put their interests ahead of the interests of the country. And so there was in this, they thought they were putting out a puff piece. But if you look at it and read between the lines, it's an indictment of J.D. vance. It's an indictment of his wife. It's an indictment of cbs. It's an indictment of the whole MAGA ethos that it doesn't matter what you believe so long as you provide tax cuts to billionaires.
- [25:43]
A
Wow. Well, it is remarkable that he's done such a violent 180. And as we constantly say on this podcast, JD Vance is the man that did call Trump the new Hitler. We know that Usha Vance voted for Hillary Clinton, but as you say, once you have the vice presidency dangled in front of you like a donkey, you can move towards the carrot very quickly, I suppose. Well, I'm sort of. I'm fascinated to read his book.
- [26:18]
B
Well, are you? Well, good for you. And I really look forward to hearing you.
- [26:22]
A
Not really. I feel so bad for my poor children. I forced my children to read Hillbilly Elegy when it came out because everybody was saying, oh, it's absolutely marvelous that this book has come from the middle of the country and you must read it. And one of them gave up halfway through, and I sort of bullied the other one to read it and talk about in his college interviews, which he did. I'm sure the college interview staff saw it coming, and I'm sure everybody else read it, too. And I got halfway through and I didn't think the movie was much good.
- [26:54]
B
It's such a dumb American trope, You know, it goes back to Andrew Jackson or it goes back to the great 50s movie face in the Crowd, where, you know, Andy Griffith plays this, you know, hick out of nowhere that everybody gets attracted to, and people are like, well, he's a regular guy. Except in this particular case, he was not a regular guy. His name is not even his name. He is the ultimate shapeshifter in American politics. He is literally doing anything he can to get ahead. And if you want something that is a perfect illustration of maga, then maybe JD Vance is part of it.
- [27:37]
A
What do you think the conversations are between JD Vance and ushavants? And as you say, they're just, you know, phenomenally ambitious. They just want to get to the White House. She doesn't want to be second lady. She wants to be first Lady. But are they going, oh, my God, I can't believe what he said today? Is that what JD Vance is saying to Usha for sure? Or is he saying, the man is a leader? The man is a leader UFC on the South Lawn of the White House. What more can we aspire to? He's a revolutionary figure. He's the greatest leader that ever lived. I can't imagine even the tone of their conversation. Her parents were Democrats. They were Indian immigrants. Her mother's a science professor. Everything that MAGA is against is what ushavants has always stood for. So what can their conversations be like?
- [28:27]
B
Their conversations are undoubtedly in the bedroom because we've heard this story before. I've talked to people. People in the Biden administration, very, very high up in the Biden would go home and go, he shouldn't be running again. He's lost a step. They go home and they say the honest things to each other in their pillow talk. And I'm sure they confess to each other. But then they go, but there's a higher purpose. We're trying to do this for some better reason. And look at the Trump administration. There are a lot of people in the Trump administration who ought to know better. They were CEOs of companies. They ran big investment funds. They have good educations. They have had positions of responsibility. Marco Rubio, Steve. What's his name? Scott Besant or Doug Burgum or some of these other people. And you just got to say to yourself, they've completely sold out. And you got to ask, why? Is it because MAGA is so elevating and good for America? No, because it's not. It's bad for America. All the economic data, all the social data, everything. Political data, no, they're in it for themselves. They want to get ahead. They think they can parlay this into more money after they're out of office. They can work for a hedge fund, they can work for a billionaire. They can raise money overseas, and overseas markets that were sympathetic to what they were doing. They. They've got the oligarchs at their back. And the oligarchs have a lot of power. And maybe they think that they're gonna be able to maintain power by other means, but whatever it is, it's self interest in the most raw, ugly way. And I just think it's interesting because the Republicans for the past 30 or 40 years have said they're the party of family values. They're the party of traditional values. They're the party of values. And yet what we've seen is they've thrown up all their values. They have no values. The only thing. I mean, they have a rapist, racist, misogynist, most corrupt president ever running the United States. And they're like, well, that's okay because he's advancing our interests. So essentially, they're saying, we'll take the guy with no values if he puts more money in our bank account or supports the agenda of the people who donate to us. And so I think this is the value free party that we have come to a moment where it's like the thing on the White House lawn. If you looked at it from a certain way, it was completely dystopian. If I told you this was happening in a movie, if it were in a novel that you forced your kids to read, what you'd say is, oh, my God. Oh, my God. This is the country coming apart at the seams. Wrestlers changing in the West Wing, the military being used as a prop for people who don't really fight for fixed rigged fights, celebrating the worst about America, using our biggest pedestals to do it. I think we have a real. I'm serious, and maybe this is not the kind of thing we talk about on podcasts, but I think we have a real cultural crisis in America, and it's not the one. It's not the one that the culture warriors talk about. I think we have a moral values void at the top. And I think ultimately, if they're going to be defeated, it's going to be by people who come back in and say, you know something, character matters. We want to have a sense of decency in the United States that we thought we once had before. And I think ultimately that kind of thing is going to be the antidote to this valueless, dystopian, corrupt, vulgar mob that has taken over the country. Wow.
- [32:43]
A
David Rothkopf. Well, that's a very good note on which to, I think, celebrate Trump entering his ninth decade. It's always incredibly helpful getting your perspective on things. I urge people to read your column in the Daily Beast today, which compares Donald Trump talking about having found a deal with Iran as someone saying that he's finally decided to stop beating his wife as long as she doesn't continue to annoy him. It's a very powerful column, and like all your columns, it takes a familiar idea and works it through. So by the end of it, you're ready to run out into the streets and to shout, it's our turn. Save America.
- [33:34]
B
Yeah. Well, you know, there is something about him being entering his ninth decade, Joanna, and it goes unspoken, but it may be a silver lining. And that is, according to actuarial tables, that's the last one he gets.
- [33:47]
A
So, David, in your column, it's illustrated with a photo by the photographer Jeff Butari, and it's like a crazy medieval painting, or actually a Renaissance painting. We have Trump in the foreground with the wife and Then behind him, we have Barron Trump, first time he's been seen for several months. And then we have Don Jr. And his new wife, Bettina. She's in a strapless sort of outfit. Don Jr is looking down and away. Baron is looking really unsettled and disconcerted. And it just feels like one of those paintings that you see in a museum and you're like, oh, this is what's going on behind the man who thinks he's the leader, that everybody is unsettled. And the wife looks like she just doesn't want to be there. I mean, props to Jeff Batari for catching that moment.
- [34:51]
B
Well, look, to some extent, it looks like a medieval painting because they look like some medieval idea of what a royal family looks like. That's what they're trying to present themselves at. They're trying to present themselves as the royal family, the successor to the Kennedys in the United States. And with their modern day Borgias, I mean, they're rich and unscrupulous and dangerous. At least in the days of the Borgias, you'd have somebody who'd endow a painting or do something positive. These people don't have that ability. So they're going off to a UFC match. But I find there are all these interesting subtexts to this. Like Barron, who they say, oh, no, we can't talk about Barron. And throughout his spotted educational career, we were not allowed to comment on Baron. Well, here Baron is emerging. He's got millions and millions and millions of dollars that he is investing now himself in different kinds of programs. And who's he hanging out with? Well, we now know that Barron is in contact with people like the Tate, like Andrew Tate. And we now know that because they're all POWSY, that the U.S. government put the brakes on extradition things for the Tates. They're trying to protect this sleazebag guy. And if you say, well, that's an overstatement. Remember that at the UFC match that Trump attended in Miami at the time of the negotiations, the first time with Iran, you know, they were there, the Tates were there. They're part of this world. And Donald and Melania, they don't seem to mind that their son is hanging out with the worst of them. And I think, you know, this sends a mess. I mean, Don Jr. Does the same thing. You know, Don Jr. Famous for going out and shooting elephants and all sorts of stuff like that. But. But one of the things that I think is a story that hasn't been told. And by the way, Don Jr. Who's invested in one company that the Pentagon, to do a $600 million loan to them, is also involved in the crypto business. That is one of the ways they were paying the people off during this UFC thing, which has been involved in all sorts of other shady shenanigans around this administration. And one of the reasons it is is because crypto is untraceable. And I just. I gotta tell you, this is just from, you know, my instinct. The level of corruption that is being fed by crypto deals going on in some netherworld that they don't think we will ever be able to track is, I gotta believe it's mind boggling. You know, we talk about the Iranians getting paid X out of public fund. How much are they getting paid in crypto? How much are they getting? Who is paying who off in all of this? And so when I look at that picture, I see Baron, friend of Andrew Tate, I see Don, crypto king, working in the netherworld of corruption. And that's what it is. This is the crime family of the United States, the royal crime family of the United States on parade at their dystopian vulgar festival at which they are celebrating the absolute dregs, the worst of American society.
- [38:33]
A
And of course, Bettina Anderson.
- [38:35]
B
Yeah. And you know what possesses her? Oh, yeah, Don Jr. That's a great choice. I mean, she's obviously motivated by character and. And all the things that one looks for in a person. I mean, no, she wants in. They all want in because they're at the White House and there's billionaires and they feel that they're inoculated against having to deal with the little people. And they will always have big cars and they will always fly private, and they're the big winners of life. And. Ugh. How do you look at this and not gag? How does an average person look at this and not end up in front of the White House carrying a torch or a pitchfork and saying, throw the bums out.
- [39:24]
A
David Rothkopf, thank you so much for joining us. We'll be back next Monday and we can debrief on the G7, whether or not he stormed out, which you have predicted, and how many more posts he's done and how few hours he slept.
- [39:42]
B
Okay, okay. I'm sure everybody's like, oh, I'd love a good podcast on the G7, but I suspect some other things will happen in the interim, and I look forward, as always, to discussing them with you.
- [39:59]
A
I didn't catch the spat between Melania and her husband. But obviously I'm going to go and look for it now. I just can't imagine anything weirder or less celebratory than the UFC on the South Lawn of the White House, a place I have visited many times for work and always felt in awe of its modesty, its humility. And normally that extends to the people that work in there, too. This sense of healing history, this sense of other things mattering so much more than any individual, and that the collective was somehow the greater good. Anyway, may we live in interesting times. We'll be back tomorrow with Inside Trump's head. Big thank you to David Rothkopf and of course, our production team, John Romero, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passer, Heather Pizarro and Neil Rosenham. So the good news is we have so many Beast Tier members now, there are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support. 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 special offer.