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Joanna Coles
Have you ever had a customer service experience where everything just works? It feels like we've reached that point where every customer experience should feel that seamless. And you're in luck because Five9 is changing the entire way customer experiences work. They use AI to create smarter, more informed interactions so you can get your problems handled in a way that's more human. 59 creates intelligent customer experiences so everything feels personalized. That's just or a small part of what their tech can do. It's already changing the game for companies from Under Armour to Alaska Airlines and you can learn more about Next Level Intelligence CX@59.com Beast welcome to the Daily Beast Podcast. I'm Joanna Coles, the Chief Content Officer of the Daily Beast.
Samantha Bee
And I am Samantha Bee, chief content Officer of Checking in on Al Pacino, because apparently, according to him, there is no heaven.
Joanna Coles
Every Thursday, we're inviting listeners to the best dinner party, where we'll plunder the Daily Beast newsroom and talk about the people and the stories of the week. And we invite interesting guests, too. And this week, we're talking to our beast of the week, Jessica Lesson, a journalist and entrepreneur. She's the founder and the CEO of the Information, which is the leading tech and business publication about Silicon Valley. No one knows the tech egos better than Jessica, and the Information has just celebrated its 10th year. Well done, Jessica. And we'll get her take on Elon Musk on Mark Zuckerberg, who recently referred to himself as the most famous person in the world under 40. I guess he's never heard of Taylor Swift.
Samantha Bee
Oh, boy. Well, okay. I am very excited to talk to Jessica and also to cover all things Melania in the Download with special guest and Melania expert Mary Jordan. She literally wrote the book on Melania, and there is so much to ask, including, do we think Melania read her own book? I'm not sure that she did. We're also going to discuss the things that we are obsessed with, such as Bibles in schools in Oklahoma, and big shocker of the day, Trump profiting off of those. This really is your weekly podcast that will make you stand out at a party. We are recording this on Wednesday just as Hurricane Milton is barreling toward Florida. So we really know nothing, and it is very, very scary. Joanna, where are you right now? Because I'm looking at your background and I know we're not in our cozy studio and I'm in my living room.
Joanna Coles
While you're in your living room, I'm in Napa. But I will say, when I arrived, it was 105 degrees and it's October. It's October, so it feels pretty. It's so hot that when you go out, your eyeballs actually feel like they're pushing through a wall of heat. It's an extraordinary feeling. Anyway, it's very nice to be here in the vineyards. I've been at the. The Women in Finance and Tech conference that the Information has been holding to celebrate the very few women there are in Silicon Valley. And it's. It's astonishing. But there was a very interesting conversation with Marissa Meyer, who was the first, first female engineer at Google, and she talked about how was. She was employee number 20. So at the beginning, she was interviewing at Google, okay. And she was interviewing a lot of the people. And what she realized was they were trying to build a culture of not only women engineers, but male engineers who worked well with women engineers. And she said that they'd had an interview with a guy that she felt very uncomfortable about. And she talked to someone else, another woman who'd also interviewed him, and she said, yeah, I didn't much care for him. And so they went to talk to Sergey Brin, one of the co founders of Google, and said, look, we don't feel comfortable with this guy. And he said, all right, we'll have a third woman interview him and see what she says. And so she interviewed him. And then what they decided at the end of it was A, not to hire him, but B, that they would always have a woman on the interview panel for engineers. And Marissa said that by the end of her first four years, she had interviewed 2,000 engineers because there were so few women that could sit in on those interviews. And she was basically interviewing two people a day for four years. She said it was just extraordinary. That was so much of her job. But at least they always had a woman on the interviewing panel.
Samantha Bee
Wow, that is so interesting. Oh, my God. How many people attend this conference?
Joanna Coles
It's small. I would say probably about 100, 100 women. We also heard from Daniela Amode, who's the co founder of Anthropic, which is Amazon's big AI platform. She was very interesting. And the thing that came out of it was everybody just saying it's too early to tell the impact of AI, which felt a bit of a cop out because I feel like they're sitting there, they're taking on board billions of dollars in investment. Anthropic's been backed by billions of dollars from both Google and Amazon. And surely they must have some kind of plan, some sort of insight. If they did, they weren't really sharing it. But it was a very interesting group of women.
Samantha Bee
I know that. I read the Melania book this week, and so I know about the power of AI to write a whole damn book. And you were hobnobbing. Didn't you go to a play premiere and a party for a play? You're doing it all. You're a jet setter.
Joanna Coles
I did go to what I think was post our Clooney gala, the second sexiest evening of the fall, which was the opening of McNeil at the Lincoln Cent Conflict Alert. I have a great friend in the show, Melora Hardin, who played a character Loosely based on me in the Bold Type, which was a TV show I executive produced. She is starring opposite Robert Downey Jr. In Ayad Akhtar's new play, also about AI. AI is the theme of our world at the moment. It's called MacNeil. It's about a Nobel Prize winning author who has a sort of slow breakdown. But what was fascinating was Robert Downey Jr. It's his first role on Broadway and what was really fun at the opening was all his friends had come in from Hollywood to support. So I think there must have been a few private jets coming into Teterboro. You had the whole smartless band. So Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Will Arnett, Justin Theroux was there. Bradley Cooper has now apparently been to see the show three times. Ste Spielberg was they. Bradley Cooper's obsessed. Apparently. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson came. I know this past week. So it's just one of those shows that Robert's performance is so good, it's so compelling. You can't look at anything when he's on the stage. So it's been a good jolt because I feel like Broadway's been through a sort of post Covid. It went through a bit of a slump. All the plays seem to be very thematic and this is a play about a character, about a very flawed author and Robert is in his element.
Samantha Bee
Well, I certainly hope that you stood up mid performance and said, Robert Downey Jr. Did you know we have a podcast and can you commit to being honest?
Joanna Coles
I should have done it in the middle of the thing. Poor man. I am trying to hustle him. I am really trying to hustle him. But you have your own show. There's going to be another opening, which I'm very excited about. Another glamorous evening.
Samantha Bee
So glamorous. I'm doing three nights at the Audible Theater, which is the Manetta Lane Theater next week in nyc and we'll add a link in the show notes if you want to buy tickets to that. It is a very it is such a self selecting type of show because the title of the show is how to Survive Menopause. Act accordingly.
Joanna Coles
I love it. Act accordingly.
Samantha Bee
Act according. If you're in it, on it, under it, adjacent to it, then you are welcome to join because we are going to talk about some things and I know you're going to be there and that's exciting.
Joanna Coles
I'm bringing an entire Uber of people to see it. I'm bringing an entire Uber.
Samantha Bee
I'm so worried you're going to learn so much about Me and how I thought I was losing my damn mind for the first two years of perimenopause, and then I've since settled.
Joanna Coles
So tell me the impetus for the show then. When did you start putting this together?
Samantha Bee
You know what? It is a labor of love. I actually, even though no one has asked me to do this, I was working on a book pitch literally called how to Survive Menopause. Because it's a passion project for me. It was really consequential. It was really impactful in my own life. It was a period of. Still continues to be a period of, like, metamorphosis for me. And also I think it's really funny and stupid. So I thought, okay, I'm going to write a book about this. And in the process of writing a book about it, audible approached me and they were like, would you like to do something on a stage? And I was. Was like, hey, you know what? Yes. The answer is yes.
Joanna Coles
So this.
Samantha Bee
You like to have a show about menopause in your space for three nights. And they were like, sure. So I'm doing it.
Joanna Coles
So is this you? But it sounds like it's going to be a very intimate show.
Samantha Bee
It is going to be. It's going to be, well, if I could say this, a womb, like atmosphere. But it. Yeah, it'll be pretty intimate. It's pretty personal. But I think it's funny and I think it's. I think it's really going to be shocking for you. You.
Joanna Coles
Oh, wow.
Samantha Bee
What.
Joanna Coles
What were the first.
Samantha Bee
Shopping is good.
Joanna Coles
Okay, Shocking is good. I'm buying. I'm buying. Three nights in a row, then.
Samantha Bee
It's spicy.
Joanna Coles
What were the first symptoms you had?
Samantha Bee
Oh, God. I'm going to try not to say this every podcast episode, but I am Canadian, so I'm not prone to tantrums, really. I am actually a pretty measured person. I'm not really generally a hot takes type of person. And I do like to think about things and consider things, but the. The anger inside of me would boil. I was. I would rage boil at in a nanosecond. It was such a powerful feeling that I did think, you know, at the end of some, like, I would. I would throw. I was throwing things, like privately. My personal anger was. It was overtaking me. I didn't demonstrate it to anybody. I never really did that in anybody's presence, but it was like a private inner turmoil. And I thought, I really need psychiatric care. This is very out of character. And I literally just thought it was because I had a really, like, A. A TV job. But no, turns out I'm not. I'm still not built that way. And I've actually. I've taken care of that part of things, and I'm feeling. I feel much better now.
Joanna Coles
So what were you doing? You were kind of screaming in a room on your own.
Samantha Bee
No, I just would boil. I would boil. I felt like it was like Vesuvius. Like, something very minor would happen. Like, you know when you're in the supermarket and somebody bumps their cart into you? It's just not a big thing. But inside, my inner turmoil was so fierce that sometimes I would almost blackout from anger. I'm not kidding. And I didn't. It wasn't like I never turned to the person and screamed at, like, nothing ever happened. I never crashed my car. I never had road rage. That just, like, did not happen. But inside I was like, I can't handle this. Like, I really cannot handle this. I almost couldn't. And also, I got my period every eight days for 13 days straight. Like, it was insane. It actually was insane. Like the elevator doors from the Shining.
Joanna Coles
Let me just make sure I understand this. You got your period every eight. You got every eight days for 13.
Samantha Bee
Every eight days for 13 days is how I characterize it, because it was constant. The math does not work. Don't try to figure it out.
Joanna Coles
Okay. Okay. I was trying to figure it out. Wow, that's intense. And I find this incredibly surprising because you seem the least. Well, the least angry person I know. You seem incredibly measured. You're very thoughtful. You're organized. You're used to performing, so you're used to high pressure. So interesting and so scary. I think a lot of menopause is much more scary. I. I think I've always had it in a rage, so I might not have noticed that for menopause, but I did notice. I remember once the time I realized that something was changing was I was giving a speech and I was groping for a word, and it was live, and there was an audience of, I don't know, 2,000 people or something. And I just thought, I don't know what the word is. Oh, my God. And also, you feel with language, it's often the first sign of dementia.
Samantha Bee
This is in the show. You think you have dementia. You fully think that you have dementia. Like, I remember listening to Donald Trump talk about the cognitive tests that he was taking where he's like, chair, shoe, camel. And I was like, I don't think I could pass that test. And also, I definitely cannot draw 2:30 on a clock right now. Like, I was like, this is very scary. And, you know, you feel like you're the only person who's going through it, except that, you know, half the population of Earth is either has gone through it or is going to go through it.
Joanna Coles
Well, it's not about it. It's been taboo. It's slight movement now. But I wish this show had been around when I was going through it, because there was really very little apart from us to talk to.
Samantha Bee
Exactly. And peer to peer talking is actually very important, which is why I wanted to do the show, because it'll be. It'll end up being an audible experience, so people can just listen to it and you can share it. I think it'll come out in the spring and it's just good to know that you're not like, wandering around in the forest by yourself. There's other people like you, and you just need to identify who they are. And the minute two perimenopausal women get together, it is all they will talk about for two and a half hours straight.
Joanna Coles
Well, I think. I think this is going to be hugely successful. I'm sure it'll be absolutely sold out.
Samantha Bee
Thank you.
Joanna Coles
We'll put a link. We'll put a link in the, in the. Wherever we put a link. And I think it's going to be very successful because also you bring humor to it. Right. Some of it's funny.
Samantha Bee
Listen, if you can't laugh at the disgusting things your body is doing, like, then what. What is life?
Joanna Coles
Well, and they say that the withdrawal of oestrogen is like withdrawing from heroin. It's that dramatic on your. On your brain and your body.
Samantha Bee
Oh, yeah. It's puberty in reverse. It's not fair to not be able to talk about it. We have to. We absolutely have to.
Joanna Coles
And also it's puberty in reverse. And often you're living with teenagers who are going through puberty. So there's that double whammy in the house.
Samantha Bee
Talk about Vesuvius.
Joanna Coles
I mean, they're stealing our hormones. That's what's going on. They're just stealing.
Samantha Bee
Oh, my gosh. They're draining. They're draining me of all of my natural juices. I knew it.
Joanna Coles
What are we obsessed about this week? I know you mentioned Al Pacino earlier, but I think you have some other obsessions too.
Samantha Bee
Okay. I, this week, have been obsessed with this Bible story coming out of Oklahoma. Okay. Over the summer in Oklahoma, the state school superintendent issued mandatory guidance on how to incorporate lessons about Christianity in the Bible into K12 education. Super. With very strict rules about which Bibles would comply as study guides. Had to be King James edition, had to be leather bound and also would have to include the U.S. constitution, the pledge of Allegiance and the Declaration of Independence as God intended. I want to say I went to Catholic school growing up.
Mary Jordan
Up.
Samantha Bee
And the nuns at my Catholic school would have stood up in the church and laid an egg if they heard about this. It turns out, and this is just, you know, just a coincidence, turns out that the only Bibles that comply with this are Bibles backed by Donald J. Trump, including his Lee Greenwood God Bless the USA Bible, which is in large print for easy reading and costs approximately $60. As you would assume, the God Bless the USA Bible is manufactured in China. And Donald Trump, a man who holds the Bible upside down and couldn't name one single thing from it, gets a cut for his endorsement. Jesus wept. So what are you, what are you obsessed with, Joanna?
Joanna Coles
It's. Well, how. I can't, I can't top that. The only book I can top it with is probably Melania by Melania and by Melania.
Samantha Bee
Just say that very loosely.
Joanna Coles
Yeah, well, right. By. Yeah, by Melania or Melania. A. How do you say it? Melania. AI.
Samantha Bee
Yeah, Joanna, what are you obsessed with?
Joanna Coles
Well, I think I'm obsessed with the two people we're talking to today, actually. So I want to get to the download to unpack the biggest beast stories of the week. And finally our countdown is over. We get to talk about Melania. Melania's book. It's finally here.
Samantha Bee
I read that beast. Oh, my God. Okay, lots to discuss.
Joanna Coles
The former first lady released her memoir simply entitled what else Melania On Tuesday. The former fashion model from Slovenia, Melania became First lady of the United States in 2017 as the wife of Don Donald Trump. And throughout her time in the public eye, Melania maintained a highly controlled and private image. And much of her personal life has remained enigmatic. And I think it's fair to point out other Republican first ladies have written books. Betty Ford wrote A Glad Awakening about her struggles with alcohol. And of course, Barbara Bush and Millie Bush co wrote Millie's book about the Bushes family dog. Seriously, Millie takes a writing credit on the COVID And it's too bad that Millie wasn't around, I think, to help Melania with this book.
Samantha Bee
Yes, I agree with that.
Joanna Coles
So to join us for this conversation is the only person who knows Melania as well as Melania knows herself. It's Mary Jordan. Mary is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of the Art of Her Deal, which is an unauthorized biography of Melania Trump. And currently Mary serves as the associate editor at the Washington Post. Mary, welcome to our obsession.
Mary Jordan
Delighted.
Samantha Bee
Oh, thank you so much for being here. I read your book on Melania and it was so much more delicious and interesting than the book she wrote. And I say that in air quotes. When I finished it, my first text to Joanna was, this book was written in predictive text by a squirrel walking across an iPhone. So that is my take. I think it is like, I thought there would be something fun in it, but the answer is no. Do we think that she read her own book, is my first question to you?
Mary Jordan
Well, I know that she took a lot of care in the photographs. There are almost as many photographs as words. And as a former model and someone who image is so important, she really laid out those photos. English is not her first language, so you can kind of guess that there was help there.
Samantha Bee
Yes. Based on what I read in the book, she does spend an awful lot of her time curating photos and in fact, missed much of January 6th because she was busy curating photos and nobody told her what was happening outside. Oh, my God.
Mary Jordan
That was also debunked because other people said that they did tell her. Oh, but she said, and you know, they were leaving the White House pretty soon and she was cataloging and taking photographs of rugs and things.
Samantha Bee
Oh, my God, this book is so bland and soulless. It is just a travesty of a waste of paper. And all I could think of when I was reading it was, oh, right, she's a birther. Right. She's an election denier. So I really would love to hear your perspective, your perspective on this book. Like you interviewed a hundred people, over 100 people for your book on her. What was it like spending that much time wrestling with her as a subject?
Mary Jordan
You know, I'm not young and I was a foreign correspondent and worked in three different continents, and it was the most miserable period of my life. And I have covered very difficult things like wars. The reason was, is that Trumps and Melania sue people that write about them and they tell people not to talk to the media. And Melania has so few friends. So while, you know, you're writing about Donald Trump, who likes to sue people too, at least he, you know, there's hundreds of people that had direct interaction. She is pretty much a hermit. So there were very few targets to get real information, and that's why it took so long.
Joanna Coles
She spends A lot of time with her family, though, right? She was living until her mother died with her mother was. And obviously she spends time with Barron. We know that she's now living in New York with Barron, who's at nyu. And apparently one of the reasons that the family wanted him to go to NYU was so she could move back to Trump Tower.
Mary Jordan
Right. She loves Trump Tower. She built a spa in there. She came to America when she was 26 and landed in New York and has loved New York. So I'm not surprised about that. But I guess when they were in the White House, the Secret Service used to tell me that it was Melania Barron and her parents who were, you know, eating by themselves, talking by themselves, always in Slovenian. Donald Trump didn't know what they were saying. The Secret Service didn't know what they were saying. You know, it was very different. You know, we never had that first lady who grew up speaking another language.
Joanna Coles
And not like Spanish, where lots of people would be able to understand it. Slovenians are small, you know, small country, small language. How fascinating. That. And also the perfect way to live in the White House with Donald Trump, that you have your own secret language.
Mary Jordan
The Secret Service thought it was remarkable because they didn't know what they were doing or saying, but they're very tight. I mean, so you're right, her family was everything. Everything.
Joanna Coles
So Melania speaks Slovenian with her family in the White House, and Donald Trump has no idea what they're talking about. She says she speaks other languages.
Mary Jordan
Five other languages. Donald Trump and she have said that over and over. I spent two and a half years. Zero evidence of this. I went to Milan where she worked, talked to people who were at dinner with her. Spoke Italian. No. Italian. German. No. I mean, it's just made up. And there's video of Jackie Kennedy speaking French from the 60s. Everyone has a phone. If she were speaking one of these languages, why is there not a clip? I asked her and the White House so many times. Please give me evidence. 0.
Samantha Bee
0.
Mary Jordan
There is this streak of exaggeration among the Trumps, both her and her husband. You know, she wasn't a supermodel. She was a Runway model. I mean, I'm not knocking her, it's just. Why exaggerate everything?
Samantha Bee
She's a fabulist, he's a fabulist. They're cut from the same cloth.
Mary Jordan
She did come into the country on an Einstein, what they call the Einstein visa, though, for extraordinary talent. And her husband is an anti immigration guy and he's married to an immigrant. I Mean, they are an unusual pair.
Samantha Bee
She is so separate. Like, her level of privacy really reminds me of a story we were talking about last week about Putin's secret family who is just, like, hidden away behind these walls, and they're just living their lives in a totally sequestered environment, just driving around within the property. You just never see her. She's never anywhere.
Mary Jordan
I talked to some of the housekeepers, you know, because I was trying to, like, who sees her? What is she doing all day?
Samantha Bee
Right.
Mary Jordan
And so they said that she is super content. She spends a lot of time online. She was reading, you know, what's been written about her. She's not happy with a lot of the things that have been posted about her, which is, I think, why she wanted to put that book out. Except, of course, it's the money, really, that. The book. It's really all about that because she will make money on it. And she has asked if you. Normally, if you're on a book tour, you give interviews, but she asks CNN for $250,000 for an interview. And so it's clearly a moneymaker. But in addition to that, I think she spends a lot of time by herself online. She likes to look at fashion magazines. She spends time with her son. And she's deeply content. That the housekeepers say, though they thought it was weird, too. Like, they said, she spends a huge amount of time by herself.
Samantha Bee
I mean, obviously, it's a cash grab. I mean, it makes me so sad that there are going to be parts of the country where people are like this. She really does care about this, and it's going to end up being curriculum in somebody's school. I mean, that's awful. But you feel, you know, you feel the cash grab. There is a section. Oh, my God. There is a section at the end of this book where she describes her involvement with blockchain technologies and the development of two blockchain verticals to provide exceptional service for fans of her jewelry and memorabilia collections. And there's pictures of all the memorabilia that she sells on her websites. It's such a clear plug written by God knows who. It is actually astonishing. Just the most heartwarming stuff. There's nothing personal. Every chapter trails off. It's just like, you know, I believe in a woman's choice for what she should do with her own body. Anyway, I don't really know what happened on January 6, but I deplore violence. Any hoozers?
Joanna Coles
I imagine she spends a ton of time in a sheet mask, and probably because she always looks fabulous So I think she's lying around the White House. Well, no longer at the White House, but she's lying around Trump Tower in sheet mask. She probably has a full body sheet mask, because whenever you do see her, on the rare glimpses we get of her, she does look fabulous. And clearly that's very important to Donald Trump. He's always talking about central cast. She is, in many ways central casting for a kind of spy novel, in a sense, a first lady who speaks a completely separate language to her husband and who nevertheless looks fabulous.
Mary Jordan
Well, can you imagine what it's like to be married to Donald Trump?
Joanna Coles
Not really. Not really. I love the fact that she used to go shopping in Bergdorf Goodman, which is, of course, where he was accused of assaulting E. Jean Carroll in the changing rooms at Bergdorf Goodman. So they have a connection there.
Samantha Bee
You know, I think in the past, I think when they were in the White House for hopefully the first and only time, a lot of people projected onto her this belief that she was trapped and held there against her will. Why do you think that we have such a tendency to project onto first ladies when it's very clear from your book that she is totally politically aligned with him? That, again, she's absolutely a birther, Absolutely a conspiracy theorist. Why do people want to believe that she's something other than what she isn't?
Mary Jordan
You know, I think part of it is she looks so uncomfortable. The moments you see her in public with him. You know, photographers have caught scowls and there's some famous photo where she sees other people and she smiles and then she looks at her husband and it looks, you know, so you can kind of write captions about, I'm really with this guy. Part of it is. But, you know, she came to this country, she didn't have much. She grew up. Her mom was. Worked in a clothing factory. Dad was a chauffeur. All of a sudden, at 28, she sees Donald Trump and she's got a jet, a private jet. She's got houses in different places. I think that she may not know what her real politics were when she first lined up with him, but she's been grateful for him. And I think that lost opportunity in that book is she has a pretty remarkable immigrant story to tell. I mean, honestly, America is all about that, right? Your mom worked in a factory, and you came to this country and now you have gold toilets like in Trump Tower. So I don't know why she doesn't do that. Lost opportunity there. But people close to her told me that she never looks back. She wants people to think she always was like this, like a Fifth Avenue gal.
Samantha Bee
Apparently, she still writes letters to King Charles. Please, somebody please explain what their correspondence is comprised of.
Joanna Coles
I wondered if that was true, though. I mean, she does talk about meeting him and then, as you say, writing him letters. And I was like, really? That's alarming. Although the British monarchy's done crazier things.
Mary Jordan
And Prince Charles himself was very upset when Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accords. I mean, there's no mind sink there on the environment or many things. I mean, perhaps she sent a note, thank you for this. He sent one back, thank you for this. It could be like that, right?
Samantha Bee
Merry Christmas. The war on Christmas is over. We can finally say it again.
Joanna Coles
We know that the Queen really didn't like Donald Trump at all, felt, thought he was very rude when he came to visit on the state visit, and he was late and kept her waiting. And no one keeps the Queen waiting. But there was something in the book I thought was interesting where she discusses or she puts to rest the idea that Baron has autism. This is something that's gone on online. Rosie O'Donnell raised it and Melania revisits it to say he doesn't have autism, which I thought was an interesting way of bringing her child into the book. There's also only one mention of Ivanka and Donald's children from an earlier marriage. Mary, do they get on?
Mary Jordan
Oh, my gosh. It was war. When they were in the White House, Melania was delayed in moving in. If you remember, she stayed up in New York and people told me she was renegotiating her prenup during that time because suddenly she had leverage. It would look bad for him if she didn't come. Ivanka took the opportunity, when she wasn't there to steal some of the resources to say she was going to have a family office. So it was like office space in the East Wing personnel. So Melania, I mean, it was not a pretty picture with the two of them at all.
Samantha Bee
How many renegotiations has that prenup been through?
Mary Jordan
You know, Donald Trump famously has written about how tough a negotiator he is.
Samantha Bee
Sure.
Mary Jordan
And how anybody would be stupid if they didn't have a prenup. Right. And the lawyer for his second wife, Marla Maples, said he felt bad for Marla, how little she got. The people that I talked to at length said that when Melania married him that she really just wanted a nice wedding and a baby because he had already had Kids from the first two. So she didn't have much. And so she had a ringside seat to how to negotiate. And the number one thing is when you have leverage, use it. So she didn't have it when he wasn't in politics, but the minute he moved in, she did. So all I know is that she negotiated. She said, I didn't sign up for this, and you want me to come to Washington, you gotta do better. And you've got to give specifically more to Barron because she felt that he ignored the youngest child from this third marriage.
Samantha Bee
Do you think if. And I say, God forbid, if they end up in the White House, I can't even say the words without, you know, just quaking. That is another renegotiation. It gets put through.
Mary Jordan
I think she's very smart. I think that I wouldn't be surprised. I just don't have the reporting on the. You know, if there were. But I'm telling you, the main thing people don't get is she's smart. Maybe because she doesn't say that much and she's with Donald Trump and she was a model, but for whatever reason, people think, oh, a dodo or something. And, you know, she's not like anyone I know. She's super antisocial. She. I've talked to people who say they're at dinners with her, and she doesn't say a whole. A word the whole night, really. So she's extremely quiet.
Samantha Bee
She's not invited to the dinner party?
Joanna Coles
Well, she's definitely not invited to the podcast.
Mary Jordan
But she's smart, she gets what she wants.
Joanna Coles
But also, I wonder if that's. Because she's just used to being looked at and she knows that she does have this sort of fabulosity to her and that if she starts speaking, it spoils it. Though I'm impressed that she's managed to read the audiobook, which I haven't listened to yet, though. Sam, I am going to ask you to read something around the blockchain. I do think we need your. We do need your impression. She doesn't mention it in the book. But, Mary, what would be your insight into how she dealt with the whole Stormy Daniels trial? Because she was very noticeably absent, didn't turn up to support him.
Mary Jordan
Furious. She was furious when she originally found out, because, of course, she was right after she had Barron. That's. And also, there was another woman, McDougall. Do you remember? She was Playboy Bunny. Several people I talked to said just furious and really furious, because image matters to her. Like, she didn't like people thinking her husband cheated on her. It's interesting that she's quite like her husband in many ways. Like, they really are obsessed by image and how they look and neither of them really trust other people and neither of them need other people, not even themselves. I mean, there are obvious differences between them. She's as quiet as he is loud, but they are really quite alike. And maybe that, that's why they stay together all this time.
Samantha Bee
But I mean, they stay together technically, but they live separately. You know, separate lives, separate bedrooms, separate states.
Joanna Coles
I think that's why she wants autonomy over her own body. Right. It's why she believes that women should be allowed to choose.
Mary Jordan
The housekeepers said that even the rare times they're in the same house, they're not in the same room.
Joanna Coles
Right.
Samantha Bee
And they're not on the campaign trail together really much. And she's charging appearance fees for her presence.
Mary Jordan
That's going to go down in history. I mean, the idea that she will not go when her husband's running for president, she's the prime surrogate unless she's paid. She did it once. She got $250,000 from log cabin Republicans. Only time in this cycle so far that she's gone out there. It's really. And you know, we were talking about other first ladies write books, but not during a campaign. You don't, you know, it's later like there is an honor to running for the highest office in the land, you know, and being first Lady, I do think that this, these actions will go down in history as very, very, very different.
Joanna Coles
Well, it does sound like she's building her own divorce fund. She knows of all people how close he's come to bankruptcy on so many occasions. So she's building her own stash. I heard that she was asking when the book originally went out as an idea, she was asking $10 million for it and she didn't get that from any of the mainstream publishers. So she's published, Melania is published by Skyhorse Publishing, which published the Woody Allen book that no one else would publish and also RFK Jr some of his crackpot theories. So she's with, she's with like minded people.
Samantha Bee
All I could think of the whole time I was reading also was poor Michelle Obama having to sit in that car with her and have a light hearted conversation on the way. I can't remember if it was to the inauguration or from the inauguration when this woman had been so involved in Trump's birtherism and had meaningfully contributed to that conspiracy.
Mary Jordan
And Michelle Obama wrote in her book that it is the one thing she can never, ever forgive Donald Trump for, because it put her family in danger, in physical danger, because people said, well, Donald Trump's saying that you weren't born in America and therefore you're illegitimate president, and therefore you should be shot. So. So that wasn't a small thing. And, you know, Melania has always backed her husband up when asked about that. She backed him up when asked, you know, after the famous Access Hollywood tape where her husband is saying gross things about groping women. Ah, she said, it's just locker room talk, Boys talk. That was very, very helpful in October, right before people went to vote, when it was the famous Hillary Clinton. Everyone thought Hillary Clinton was going to win. That really, really, really did help.
Samantha Bee
I'm really recommending to people that if they want to learn about Melania, they should buy your book and not her book. And then Joanna and I will just make photocopies of her book. We have one copy that we're passing around. Yeah, we're not going to pay for it.
Joanna Coles
We're not going to pay for it.
Samantha Bee
We'll just send a photocopy of it all over the country.
Joanna Coles
I do want to give props to our executive editor, Hugh Docherty, who got the book early and then proceeded to fillet it like a fishmonger going through it, looking for the fleshy bits. It should be more of an extraordinary story than AI. I mean, Melania managed to write. I'm surprised she hasn't launched her own II actually, because Milan Ia works for her, right?
Samantha Bee
Oh, don't give ideas to this crew of people. Joanna, you take that back right now or trademark it.
Joanna Coles
Mary, how did you feel at the end of spending all that time with Melania? Did you like her? I mean, doesn't sound.
Mary Jordan
I thought she was interesting. And again, I just think, why not tell this unconventional story? I think people, you know, are you the sins of your husband? No. Except when you enable somebody who does destruction on January 6th, and, you know, you come out and say her for abortion rights. Except did you stop your husband when he was packing the court to undo Roe v. Wade? So now she's in knee deep.
Joanna Coles
Knee deep.
Samantha Bee
Knee deep. All right, I'm gonna.
Joanna Coles
She's got good knees. Good knees.
Samantha Bee
I'm gonna read one sentence from this, and it's gonna be. I'm gonna. I'm gonna brutalize it. It's really bad. I, along with a team of experts, developed two blockchain verticals targeted to my audience. That provided everything from supply and design to production, marketing, sales and delivery. Melania trump.com@usamemorabilia.com the driving force behind working with blockchain technology is autonomy. Blockchain provides a solution. Like, I mean, like who? What is that?
Joanna Coles
It's fantastic.
Samantha Bee
That's what it is.
Joanna Coles
Honestly, Sam, this is your next show.
Samantha Bee
No, it's not.
Joanna Coles
You're on the road as Melania. I know you have a great show coming up, but this is your, this is your future.
Mary Jordan
I think you should do it in the Situation room. She wrote that she was in the situation room so you could do a show about that.
Joanna Coles
Yes. Donald inviting her in to watch the assassination of one of American's enemies as if it was a kind of Saturday night special.
Samantha Bee
Yes. This book is a crime and I'm so glad that you came on here to talk about it with us.
Joanna Coles
Mary, thank you so much.
Mary Jordan
Thank you.
Jessica Lesson
So good, so good, so good.
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Joanna Coles
Yes, please.
Samantha Bee
It's perfect. Did we just score the greatest gifts of all time?
Jessica Lesson
Yeah.
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Joanna Coles
In today's world, customer experience, or CX for short, is being completely revolutionized. And one company is leading the charge. Five nine, what they're doing is really interesting. They're integrating AI into customer experiences through phone calls, text, email, chat. It's all getting smarter and more streamlined, which is a big win for brands and consumers. Massive companies like PayPal and Walgreens are already using Five9 to enable top tier customer experiences where typically you might not expect it. And because brands have seen how powerful great customer experiences can be, it tends to lead to higher profits, better customer retention, all types of business outcomes. Which is why more brands should be looking to elevate, elevate how they engage with their customers. So if you want to know how you can elevate your CX game, check out59.com beast.
Samantha Bee
That was a really fun interview. And I feel like for me, it really closes the chapter literally on Melania in my life. I have now read her book and I have read a book about her and I no longer care about her at all, Joanna. I don't even have a fleeting interest in her. You know, it's like when you would, like get caught smoking in the 1980s and your parents would be like, now you're going to smoke three packs of cigarettes in a cupboard. Now do you still want to smoke? I'm like, I mainlined her. I never want to hear her name again.
Joanna Coles
You are officially Melania.
Samantha Bee
Ed out a Melania. She wrung me out with her boring ass life and her bad opinions.
Joanna Coles
Yeah, well, I think I join you, actually. I feel like we're all done here on Melania. And it's like an obsession and then suddenly you're repelled by your obsession and you never think of it again.
Samantha Bee
It's the push pull of obsession.
Joanna Coles
All right. It's the push pull of obsession. All right? So I think it's time for a change of air and it's time to introduce our beast of the week, Jessica Lesson. Jessica Lesson is the Voice of Silicon Valley and the ultimate disruptor in media. As the founder and the CEO of the Information, she's transformed how we consume tech and business news. She's a former star reporter at the Wall Street Journal who saw a gap in the market for deeply reported subscription based journalism, and she filled it with a publication that's become essential reading for tech insiders and beyond. If you work in tech, you simply have to read the information. Jessica, it's great to have you on the pod. I love the Information. I read it all the time. In fact, there's so much coming at me all the time, I don't read all of it, but I read as much as I can. And I've often wondered why Silicon Valley isn't covered more. These founders and their companies have changed our lives. Why did you decide to cover them?
Jessica Lesson
Well, thank you, Joanna. It's great to be here with you too, Sam. I decided to cover them for that reason. I mean, these are the titans of industry who are affecting the way we live, the way we work culture. And frankly, Joanna, back when I started the information 10 years ago, they were not covered well. They were put on magazine covers and called kings. And I just simply thought, you know, no, they need to be scrutinized and their business. Businesses need to be scrutinized. And yes, they're mostly men, right?
Joanna Coles
But it used to be that there were a couple of household names. There was Bill Gates, there was obviously Steve Jobs. I read something in the Beast this week that had an email from Mark Zuckerberg referring to himself as the most famous millennial in the world. In fact, I'm going to read it. It said, while our company has a special role in the lives of this generation, this is likely particularly important for how I show up, because I am the most well known person of my generation. And I just thought, how, how extraordinary. I know you've. You've spent a lot of time with Mark. Talk about the sort of the dominant characters now.
Jessica Lesson
Yeah, well, it's Revenge of the Nerds again, Joanna. I think in, in the Valley, and that's in part because AI is the hot new subject. Although I think we have to put an asterisk next to that because there are a lot of unknowns. So. So certainly the names you hear at the Valley hotspots and the people, you know, who, when they walk into a restaurant, everyone goes, ooh, they're here. It's Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who recently raised a gargantuan round. You know, it's people like the Collison brothers of Stripe. And I say Revenge of the Nerds, you know, with some fondness because, you know, nerds can be charming, too, but the sort of young intellectual sort of peer of Sam Altman. There's, there's a whole group of them, and I think they, they certainly have a little more swagger in the Valley these days. But, you know, you mentioned Mark. Mark's having an interesting PR moment for sure. I recently saw him give an interview at the Chase center where he was sporting a T shirt he designed and a fancy new watch. And I think it appears to be working. His press seems to have turned a little bit. But it's interesting figures like him who have been here for a long time seem to rise and fall in their popularity. And I think he's probably very close to another peak of that, which is fascinating. And, you know, you have characters like Jensen Wong, the CEO of Nvidia, someone, you know, who we would not have been talking about a couple years ago. But, you know, thanks to just the demand he makes, the chips that power AI computing and are in very, very tight demand. And he's got a signature leather jacket and he's been signing autographs at developer conferences. And so there is a little bit more of that rockstar swagger coming back to the Valley these days. Now, whether that's a sign of something bad or good, we could debate.
Samantha Bee
I wanted to talk about, just kind of put this in the context of current events a little bit because we're right here recording this on the prep on the precipice of Hurricane Milton. We don't know what it's going to do to Florida. And I wanted to talk about the spread of dangerous disinformation across tech platforms and who we're holding responsible for that because, you know, we've seen this past week, members of Congress, the former President Elon Musk spreading such harmful disinformation about FEMA that FEMA is making things worse. Various reasons. Where are we supposed to turn when the tech leaders themselves are the cyber bullies?
Jessica Lesson
Look, I didn't mention Elon in the first part and that wasn't, that wasn't intentional. But honestly, I, I think people are a little bit tired of the shtick and his, I mean, with ton of admiration for his businesses. Yes, he is using his platform to spread all sorts of opinions. Some true, some not. I think that's deeply problematic and certainly within Silicon Valley, it's being met, I think, with a little more eye roll. But misinformation abounds AI has only made it worse. And, you know, the platforms, they have their safety teams, they have their kind of talking points about what they do and don't moderate. I think they do do a lot behind the scenes, but we do seem to be at this place where we kind of accept misinformation. And I don't see something that would dramatically change that in terms of new regulatory or legal pressure. So certainly a tremendous problem that we.
Samantha Bee
Have to deal with. I mean, they're fighting pretty hard. They're lobbying really hard against the Kids Online Safety Act. Like, they're really stalling this bipartisan kids safety bill in Congress. Like it's, you know, under the guise of censorship. And I just don't, I don't know how to put the horses back into the barn.
Jessica Lesson
I think on the kids issue, Sam, we'll see some action. I mean, New York and California have meaningful legislation. New York's, I think, went into effect. We saw Instagram create separate youth accounts that sort of have different default settings, something they resisted doing for a long, long time, and they just did it. So I'm, I'm a little more optimistic that might be an area. But, but I agree they're launching big fronts to kind of keep their status quo and, and it will be up to, like, getting anything done in Washington to change that.
Joanna Coles
I'm still reeling from the idea that Mark Zuckerberg is designing T shirts. I cannot imagine anyone I would less like to design a T shirt for me. And I am fascinated by his new haircut. He's gone from the Caesar, that very severe cut.
Jessica Lesson
There's no cut. I mean, it's just wild. It's like it's Mark unleashed. Yeah.
Joanna Coles
Oh, Mark Unleashed. Sounds so frightening. Who among them is having the most impact on the election, do you think?
Jessica Lesson
Potentially Elon. I mean, it's the wild card. We were at a dinner last night, Joanne, and someone joked, well, if Elon's running the State Department, you know, and we all sort of took a deep breath. So, I mean, that's the wild card. And seeing figures like Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk come out so strongly for Trump was a surprise to the Valley, even though in hindsight it makes sense given the tension with the Biden administration. And so, yeah, he's the wild card, as he is on so many subjects.
Joanna Coles
Does anything that, I mean, ready? Hoffman is a well known Democrat. Is there anything he can do to offset that? Or is Elon too powerful? And is the assumption that the reason that they support Donald Trump is Because he doesn't believe in regulation and also for taxes. I mean, these are, you know, these are the richest people in the world.
Jessica Lesson
Yeah. So for Andreessen, it's crypto and he's pissed at how Biden's handled crypto. For Elon, it's a little more complicated because both, both Trump and Biden have been sort of negative on EVs and tariffs. You know, Tesla is the most important source of his wealth, but I think it's a calculus that he can influence Trump more than he could influence Harris. And so that's what you're seeing too, and justifying these endorsements. These tech leaders are saying, well, I have Trump's cell phone. They're actually saying that. So, you know, time will tell. Or Reid and some of the liberal side of the Valley making a difference, I guess. I mean, I think they're a little more behind the scenes. They're focused on fundraising. They're certainly. I saw read a week or so ago and he seemed quite busy and talking to everyone he could. But in terms of the, you know, the unknown is if you own a platform and you have millions of followers on the platform and you say whatever you want, doesn't matter, do people listen? And, you know, perhaps they don't and everyone's already made up their mind and you're just preaching to your cult. But I think it's powerful. And you see Elon understanding that he's deleting a few more tweets. You know, he deleted a tweet noting that no one had tried to assassinate Harris, and he deleted it. So I don't know if we should praise him for the restraint or whatever.
Samantha Bee
No, we should not.
Jessica Lesson
I mean, I don't think so either.
Samantha Bee
No praise. Well, if Kamala wins, like I'm personally hoping and hopeful for that, how do you see the reshuffling of the power structures? Who will be like a rising figure or firm that could redefine Silicon Valley culture and priorities.
Jessica Lesson
So I think big picture, there remains a ton of tension between D.C. and the Valley, whoever is sitting in the White House. And that's because some of these issues need to be addressed and I think the government will. And also, you know, no one's really pro powerful tech billionaire right now. So, you know, I think, I mean, maybe Trump more so, but I think it's going to be tough either way. You know, in Harris, you know, there are some inside figures that her brother in law is a key figure, Tony west, who works at Uber, shockingly Ben Horowitz. So Andreessen Horowitz, the firm run by Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, which is.
Joanna Coles
A venture capital firm, Right?
Jessica Lesson
Yes. Some of the most important investors and backers in the Valley came out very boldly announced on their podcast they were going to endorse Trump, support him. I instantly thought, well, that's odd. Ben Horowitz and his wife are very close with Kamala Harris. That must be awkward. So it turns out that Harris became the nominee and it was awkward. And in a surprise, Horowitz announced a few days ago that personally, he and his wife Felicia are going to support Harris while not changing the institutional position of the firm. So, Sam, that suggests to me that whoever's in the White House, people will line up to rub elbows and build a relationship, which perhaps is what they should be doing for the sake of their businesses as well. But yeah, I don't think it's, you know, there are a ton of liberal figures like Ron Conway, a longtime investor in San Francisco who's shifted to the national political stage a little bit. And, you know, they'll probably be having a lot of meals at the White House.
Samantha Bee
Right. Do you think that we'll ever, as a society, learn the lesson that money and power does not necessarily confer wisdom or good intentions for humanity and our survival?
Jessica Lesson
It would be a great lesson to learn. I don't think that will be learned in the Valley, I gotta say, and with tremendous respect for all the great innovation that has come out of here. It seems pretty endemic to the place that there's this thirst for that and we can't, you know, when I started reporting, you know, reporting 20 years ago, the information, 10 years ago, the idea that we'd have trillion dollar companies, I mean, it's just, it is just absurd. And so, and I think AI is going to make the strong, significantly strong. The Amazons, the Metas, the Googles, the Microsofts. So, you know, I don't know, five, ten years from now, what we're going to be looking at.
Joanna Coles
All the people that we've talked about are men. Why is it that there are literally no women in that sort of top 30 list of the wealthiest people in the world? There are just no big tech founders. Apart from you had Daniela Amodi, the co founder of Anthropic, at the conference this week. But why are there just no women who've scaled companies like this?
Jessica Lesson
Yeah, and we had Marissa Meyer, who was incredibly well known for her work at Google, had a tough stint atop Yahoo. And back to the startup trenches. Oh, Joanna What a question. I mean, some of it is just this pattern recognition of who gets backed. You look for the proven founder, you look for the pattern recognition. You know, if it's Revenge of the nerds, you probably have fewer women. Although we know plenty of female nerds as well. And I think Covid perpetuated that. I think everyone got little more risk averse, a little more, you know, ready to back people who looked like the people they'd backed before. Now, of course, it's not. If you look across the top of business, this is not unique in all the ways that women and reasons they haven't ascended. You know, it's much, much broader than tech, but, but, but it is frustrating. There's a lot of slide backward too. If you look at the venture capital going to female founders, I mean, it's.
Joanna Coles
Something like 2%, isn't it? 2% of all venture capital goes to women.
Samantha Bee
It's horrible.
Jessica Lesson
And what's really concerned me in the last 12 months is how fewer and fewer people think it's horrible. I am now going to conferences where there's not a single female speaker in tech. And some people will say, oh, well, you know, yeah, they're not putting that token female on stage. I mean, that's the most offensive thing someone could say. But I worry that firms aren't even trying anymore because. Because they think they have permission to focus on their core or something like that. So gotta be hopeful. There's obviously tremendous talent, but I think we have to continue calling it out and calling out the companies that aren't even promoting. I mean, we had a great panel with C suite leaders from Airbnb and Square and Pagerduty, and I thought they were incredible. And I thought, wow, these women could certainly run companies and, and hopefully one day they will.
Joanna Coles
Yeah, it's an extraordinary mixture of the future and the past, isn't it? In the Valley?
Jessica Lesson
Yes, but it can change quickly in the sense that the Valley just rides these waves and they ride them really fast. And so DEI and then they were all in DEI and now we're in more of an anti DEI and now. So everything just happens at super speed because the culture spreads quickly and there's that FOMO mentality. So. So I think things can change quickly if there's pressure to.
Joanna Coles
Well, I'm hopeful that Melania, who's leaning into blockchain, apparently, according to her book Sam, has got very excited about it.
Samantha Bee
She and her team have built two blockchain verticals to optimize the customer experience on Melania Trump.com so I think we're.
Jessica Lesson
Going to Melania Trump AI has got to be a thing soon. I mean she doesn't own that. Well, how is she not? You know, she's got to stay ahead. Blockchain was so three years ago.
Samantha Bee
Oh boy. From your lips to God's ears, you know.
Joanna Coles
Jessica Lesson, congratulations on what you have built at the information and thank you for coming on the pod.
Samantha Bee
Thank you so so much.
Jessica Lesson
Thank you for having me.
Joanna Coles
Thank you for listening. Please like subscribe and share this episode with a friend you want to feel smart, martyr than or argue with.
Samantha Bee
And if you're doing that, why not send it to your weird uncles too.
Joanna Coles
Tag us on your favorite social platforms and tell us what you think. We love feedback and we'll be back next Thursday with another episode of the Daily Beast podcast.
Samantha Bee
As my former muse and now published author once said, be best.
Joanna Coles
That, as we say here, be best. See you next week. The Daily Beast podcast is produced by Sarah Demenkoft, Svea Beren Reinstein, Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder with editing by Deanna Chapman. If you've been listening to the first few episodes of this podcast, you've heard us talk about 5 9, the revolutionary customer experience platform that is redefining how customers interact with brands. Everyone wants to be treated well and have a great customer experience and in today's world, that is a huge competitive advantage. But most companies see it as just checking a box. They're missing out on an incredible brand building and revenue generating opportunity that are everywhere across businesses. All of those consumer touch points that you don't think of, those are the moments your brand can use to create an advantage. Five9's intelligent AI driven platform lets you make all those moments better and totally seamless. So if you want to build a powerful brand that people love, check out59.com beast.
Jessica Lesson
So good, so good, so good.
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Mary Jordan
It's perfect.
Samantha Bee
Did we just score the greatest gifts of all time? Yeah.
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The Daily Beast Podcast: Sam Bee’s Menopause Rage and The Trumpy Tech Bros
Release Date: October 10, 2024
Hosts:
In this vibrant episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, hosts Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee dive into a range of captivating topics, blending personal revelations with sharp political and cultural commentary. From Samantha’s candid discussion about menopause to a scathing critique of Melania Trump’s memoir, the conversation promises both depth and entertainment.
Timestamp: [12:18] – [17:54]
Samantha Bee opens up about her personal battle with menopause, detailing the intense emotional and physical turmoil she experienced. She describes her menopause-induced rage as an "inner Vesuvius," where minor inconveniences would trigger explosive anger, leading her to the brink of needing psychiatric care.
Samantha Bee [12:29]: "I would almost blackout from anger. I didn't demonstrate it to anybody. It was like a private inner turmoil."
Her vulnerability paves the way for announcing her upcoming Audible show, How to Survive Menopause, which aims to destigmatize the topic and provide support through shared experiences and humor.
Samantha Bee [16:55]: "It's going to be an Audible experience so people can just listen to it and share it. You'll know you're not wandering around in the forest by yourself."
Joanna expresses empathy and shares her own subtle signs of menopause, reinforcing the importance of peer support in navigating this life stage.
Timestamp: [20:22] – [43:47]
The conversation shifts to Melania Trump’s newly released memoir, What Else, featuring insights from Mary Jordan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Art of Her Deal. The hosts critically dissect the memoir, questioning Melania’s authenticity and the commercial motivations behind her narrative.
Mary Jordan [22:44]: "She really laid out those photos. English is not her first language, so you can kind of guess that there was help there."
Mary Jordan delves into Melania’s guarded personality and emphasizes her strategic use of image and language, suggesting that the memoir serves more as a branding tool than a personal revelation.
Mary Jordan [26:29]: "There is a streak of exaggeration among the Trumps, both her and her husband."
The discussion highlights Melania’s isolation within the Trump household, her meticulous control over her public persona, and her strained relationship with Donald Trump. Joanna and Samantha express skepticism about Melania’s claims of multilingualism and her apparent detachment from significant events, such as the January 6th Capitol riot.
Samatha Bee [40:20]: "There's a section at the end of this book where she describes her involvement with blockchain technologies...it is just astonishing."
The hosts criticize the memoir for its lack of depth and personal insight, positioning Mary Jordan’s journalistic work as a more truthful portrayal of Melania.
Samantha Bee [43:41]: "This book is a crime and I'm so glad that you came on here to talk about it with us."
Timestamp: [48:27] – [63:48]
The podcast introduces Jessica Lesson, founder and CEO of The Information, a leading tech and business publication. Jessica provides an in-depth analysis of Silicon Valley’s influence on politics, particularly focusing on prominent tech leaders like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Jessica Lesson [50:04]: "It's Revenge of the Nerds again... There is a little bit more of that rockstar swagger coming back to the Valley these days."
Jessica discusses the problematic endorsements by tech moguls, the spread of disinformation, and the ongoing battle between tech companies and regulatory bodies over issues like AI and misinformation.
Jessica Lesson [54:11]: "Misinformation abounds. AI has only made it worse."
The conversation also tackles the glaring gender disparities in the tech industry. Jessica laments the scarcity of female leaders and the minimal venture capital funding allocated to women founders, highlighting the need for continued advocacy and structural change.
Jessica Lesson [60:43]: "If you look across the top of business, this is not unique in all the ways that women haven't ascended. It's much, much broader than tech."
Joanna probes the cultural dynamics of Silicon Valley, questioning whether wealth and power inherently lead to better societal outcomes. Jessica remains skeptical, pointing out the endemic issues within the tech elite.
Jessica Lesson [57:54]: "It would be a great lesson to learn. I don't think that will be learned in the Valley."
The episode wraps up with the hosts reflecting on their discussions. Samantha declares her disinterest in Melania post-discussion, while Joanna introduces their next "beast of the week," Jessica Lesson, emphasizing the importance of scrutinizing tech and business leaders.
Samantha Bee [48:05]: "I never want to hear her name again."
Joanna Coles [63:15]: "Jessica Lesson, congratulations on what you have built at The Information and thank you for coming on the pod."
Both hosts encourage listeners to engage with their content, share feedback, and tune in for future episodes that promise similarly engaging and thought-provoking discussions.
Notable Quotes with Timestamps:
Samantha Bee [12:29]: "I would almost blackout from anger. I didn't demonstrate it to anybody. It was like a private inner turmoil."
Mary Jordan [22:44]: "She really laid out those photos. English is not her first language, so you can kind of guess that there was help there."
Jessica Lesson [54:11]: "Misinformation abounds. AI has only made it worse."
Jessica Lesson [60:43]: "If you look across the top of business, this is not unique in all the ways that women haven't ascended."
Final Thoughts:
This episode of The Daily Beast Podcast masterfully balances personal anecdotes with incisive critiques of high-profile figures and industries. Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee, alongside their insightful guests, provide listeners with a comprehensive exploration of contemporary issues, from the intricacies of menopause to the pervasive influence of Silicon Valley’s elite.