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- [00:00]
A
China was the point of Trump's political enterprise. China was responsible for all of the problems in America. This was Trump's central issue, was the Central issue in 2016, remain the central issue when he came back into office. So. But in 10 years of the Trump era, we have only seen China become more powerful, even economically, politically, and in their military. That's what Trump has accomplished. He probably does understand, man, these Chinese. This has been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. We're really kind of screwed here. Here we are. Hugh.
- [00:52]
B
Michael.
- [00:53]
A
I'm Michael Wolf, and I am here with Hugh Doherty, who is filling in before Joanna Coles.
- [01:00]
B
And I am privileged to be with you, Michael.
- [01:03]
A
How are you this morning?
- [01:05]
B
I'm, I'm very well. The sun is shining. I don't have a Trump mobile phone, so, you know, something we, I think we're going to talk about, and I don't have access to $1.7 billion in government funds, but otherwise, it's great.
- [01:19]
A
Trump is back from China.
- [01:21]
B
He is.
- [01:22]
A
Lucky him. Although I think he would probably rather still be in China.
- [01:27]
B
I think he would. I should just say before we dive in, first of all, thank you to everybody who's been reaching out to, to express sympathy and feeling for Joanna. And, and it's just, you know, as we've discussed before, she's dealing with a family situation and her. I know she feels everybody's supporting.
- [01:51]
A
So, okay, China, China, China, China. You know, and I was, I was recalling the other, I think, in a, In a Instagram post that I did that when one of the early conversations I had with, with, with Trump about his presidency, and I specifically said to him, I said, I said, okay, what's. If you had one goal, the overriding goal of your presidency, what is it? And I quote, china, China, China. And, and I, you know, and I also was, Was remembering, went back through some, Some old notes and Steve Bannon, who was then in the White House, then the, arguably, this, this the second most important person in the White House. And I was very friendly with Bannon, and I said, and I sort of said, come on, how do you justify your support of Trump? And Bannon, who I thought of as incredibly insightful about Trump, so I had no idea how he could justify this, but he said, because Trump is the only guy who's right on China. He is the only guy who isn't sucking up to the Chinese. And, and Bannon quite explicitly said, I'm here. I'm in the White House because of Trump and China. Okay, so we've just had an uninterrupted fest of Trump sucking up to the Chinese.
- [03:35]
B
Right.
- [03:36]
A
And I mean, I don't see how you can characterize what happened in China as anything more than a, a win for the Chinese and an embarrassment for Trump.
- [03:54]
B
And it's kind of worth running through some of the things that, well, some of the things that Steve Bannon was talking about to you 10 years ago and in the interim that have been pretty much abandoned here there was trying to remove Chinese students from American universities and colleges was one of the things that was discussed. That's not happening. Ban on China buying farmland in the United States. Trump was very explicit that that would crash the farm market. And the big thing hanging over, of course, is tariffs.
- [04:34]
A
One of the things I was noticing the Times, as the New York Times coverage this morning, in which they presented this in another tortured Times rationale as a change in strategy rather than capitulation.
- [04:53]
B
I think technically capitulation is a change in strategy. It's just, you don't, it's not a positive one.
- [05:00]
A
But their implication was that he would somehow get to his goals in this. He went from no more Mr. Tough Guy to now Mr. Nice Guy. And that was going to get him to somewhere where he might want to be. And in a sense, actually that's true because his goals are always inside Trump's head to creating a situation where he can claim that he has won. And it would have been significantly more difficult to claim he had won if he had gone there and he had a showdown with Xi, if they had come out of this with it being clear that between the two countries, there was pretty much no room to find good news. And I think you can argue that there probably isn't any room to find good news. But Trump does this other thing, and it's interesting that he can go from pure confrontation to pure sucking up. And it reminds me of, of the North Korea situation in which we went from fire and fury to suddenly Kim Jong Un was his best friend. I think he still maintains that he's one of his best friends.
- [06:43]
B
On the plane back from China, Trump was suggesting that he'd be visiting Kim at some point. And they are friends. And we remember, of course, he said that he used to say that Kim would send him love letters, which seems, you know, seems an exaggeration for a third generation communist dictator within the Trump circle.
- [07:06]
A
Trump aides, they actually refer to, they refer to this as a nice party. Oh, now he's going to have a nice party. And again, we are not there Are no goals here. The goals are really irrelevant to the fact that Trump can come out of a situation and, and say I won, which he's doing now. It's all great, everything is perfect. Nothing to see here. All good.
- [07:34]
B
Well, he went on Brett Baer on Fox News show on Friday night. They pre taped it in Beijing and we're going to talk about some other aspects of this later. But he described it as neutral, that it seems like a kind of state of nothingness if you're talking about it as neutral. But that's clearly how he's elevating from having achieved basically nothing. And it's worth a couple of reminders. He said that they were going to announce a huge Boeing and General Electric order. General Electric providing the engines for aircraft. He said that that would be announced. He says that China has agreed by 200 and he describes them as big, beautiful Boeing planes, 777s and 737s. Anyone who flies will know, of course, that a Boeing 737 is not a big plane as the smaller one. But the Chinese haven't confirmed this and we just don't know. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Boeing haven't confirmed it. General Electric haven't confirmed it. But he is out there selling this as a victory on Fox News and therefore to people who trust him, it would appear that he's got, they will, you know, they will believe he's got a victory. And similarly on soybeans.
- [08:55]
A
Yeah. And one of the issues is that is that AIDS had gone around before this and said that, that they were going to come out of this with, with a deal for 300 planes.
- [09:06]
B
Yes.
- [09:07]
A
So, but, but again, suggest that if
- [09:11]
B
they like them, they would buy more, which seems kind of obvious. But, but again, this sort of idea of the spinning of it beginning, I was going to say the second that he landed in the US but actually had begun before he was, you know, because he did these sit downs in Beijing. He was spinning in the middle of
- [09:29]
A
these meetings, you know, so I mean, again, and overall, let's, let's remember China was the point of chumps of Trump's political enterprise. China was responsible for all of the problems in America. The Chinese state subsidies had undermined both the American and the world economy. This was Trump's central issue, was the central issue in 2016, remained the central issue when he came back into office. But in 10 years of the Trump era, we have only seen China become more powerful economically, politically and in their military. So that's what Trump has accomplished.
- [10:27]
B
You're inside his head and you're the Virgil leading us through his head. But do you sense that he understands that this is a complete flip flop or is this the sort of, the constant state of mind of Trump is always in the present and he's sold himself that this is a victory.
- [10:48]
A
Clearly it's always in the present. But what he has sold himself on and what goes on in his head is how do I cast this? How is this? I mean, there's no policy ground here, there's no moral ground here. Ultimately there is only how do I come out looking, looking better than I might otherwise look from, from this. And, and so I think he probably does understand, man, these Chinese. This has been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. We're really kind of screwed here. So how do I look, me personally look less screwed? And I, I, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I would say that he doesn't accept that. He has a remarkable ability to just invert reality on these things. And for having, and for a lot of people to kind of go along with this, you know, there's, you know, Kim Jong Young, his best friend, little
- [11:54]
B
rocket man, as I believe he was initially, and no once, once upon a time.
- [12:02]
A
But then the other thing is it's always, look, what's the silver lining here? And what's the silver lining is always how much money can we make off of this? Life is a transaction. And so how do we get something? I mean, even if the overall deal is not looking good, maybe there's side deals we can, we can get. And I think that we're going to
- [12:30]
B
see likely side deals galore, particularly given his entourage. We had a series of high profile CEOs and we discussed Elon Musk last time, the ever popular. But Eric Trump was there and there's no doubt that taking, I'm not suggesting that there's any corrupt action here, but taking the President's son to a place which is an environment where business is going to be done is kind of the key to the, this is the Trump mindset, isn't it?
- [13:09]
A
Let's be more specific. Taking your son who runs your business, that was the thing. Trump in his, in his, hardly a divestiture, in this kind of fig leaf of not looking like he was still a guy. The President of the United States, who was also running his personal business, put his son in charge. And now in this thing, I am the President of the United States. We are going to China. We are going to China in the hopes of bringing Deals home. I'm going to bring my son who runs my business. I think that about sums it up, doesn't it?
- [13:50]
B
Eric himself has been tweeting about this. I joined this trip for one reason, as a loving son who adores my father and wouldn't miss being by his side for this incredible moment. And that doesn't rule out making any deals, I would just point out. But it's, it's, it's a family business.
- [14:11]
A
It's a, this is a just as acastis. There once was a time, not that long ago, when the perception of conflict was regarded as the same, as a conflict. Obviously, indubitably, we have the perception of conflict here.
- [14:33]
B
And to get to the perception of conflict, it's actually been a huge week for, for conflict or the perception of conflict for the Trumps, hasn't it? Because Trump is on the verge of settling a lawsuit with before.
- [14:52]
A
I want to get to that, but I think do the. Let's go on with Eric Trump on a kind of favorite team of mine when they're suing the media.
- [15:04]
B
It was actually a great chance to talk Melania, right?
- [15:06]
A
Yes, always a great chance, always an opportunity to talk Melania, who has threatened to sue me, but in a reversal jiu jitsu, like I have sued her. But now Eric Trump, yet another member of the Trump family to threaten the media with lawsuits. And again, let's state the background here. At no time in modern history has the President of the United States of America or anyone in his family sued the media in Trump time. It is kind of de rigueur. Everybody sues the media. Everybody in the Trump family is suing the media or threatening to sue the media. Many people in the Trump administration, Kash Patel last week particularly, threatening to sue the media. And now we've had another one. So Eric Trump essentially is now threatening to sue Ms. You know this. MSNBC is now msnbc. Eric Trump is threatening to sue ms, whatever it's called, because they have said essentially what we just said, that there is overwhelmingly the, at the very least, the perception of a conflict.
- [16:42]
B
Yeah. And just to fill in some of the, you know, the sort of the factual background here, I was counting on
- [16:49]
A
you for the factual background.
- [16:53]
B
Eric was very upset and appears to have tweeted this or tweeted this from Air Force One. In fact, he was very upset that Jen Psaki, who presents the 9pm hour on Ms. Now and of course was Joe Biden's press secretary in the White House. She had a segment about his engagement with a crypto company called Alt5 or Alt5 and pointed out that he appeared to be on the board of Alt 5. He was announced at an event at the Nasdaq as going to be joining the board. And he was then described in SEC filings as a board observer, meaning that he could go to the board but couldn't cast a vote. And the relationship between Alt 5 and Eric Trump was via. I'm just going to make sure I get the name right. World Liberty, which is the Trump family crypto firm. Anyway, Jen Psaki went through these details and pointed out that he's on a trip to China and that he's doing crypto business around the world. Eric Trump joined the family habit of suing the media or threatening to sue the media on this post and said he called this monologue blatant lies. He said, I've never been on the board of all five, not now, not ever. And I have zero business interests in China, no properties, no investments, nothing. So, you know, sounds once again it's, you know, the Trump versus the media. But the factual background is he's denying being on the board and yet there are public statements that say that he is on the board.
- [18:38]
A
You know, and as I said, this is certainly without question. There's no way you can construe it as anything else but the perception of conflict.
- [18:50]
B
Mom, can you tell me a story?
- [18:52]
A
Sure.
- [18:52]
B
Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car. Was she brave?
- [18:56]
A
She was tired mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required. Did you have to fight a dragon?
- [19:04]
B
Nope. She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually.
- [19:07]
A
Was it scary? Honey? It was as unscary as car buying could be. Did the car have a sunroof? It did, actually.
- [19:13]
B
Okay, good story.
- [19:14]
A
Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on Carvana.
- [19:19]
B
Delivery fees may apply. This is only one of the Trump family businesses that's in the spotlight this week. And the other one is Trump Mobile. And Eric denies that he has any engagement in China. But for those who have been following, and maybe you're among these people, I don't know. Michael, if you have ordered yourself a Trump T1 mobile phone, it's. It's a special pricing plan of $45 and $47.45 every month. But this was announced with great fanfare last year that the Trump family were going to have Trump Mobile and they were going to make these mobile phones in America. Fast forward to now and People who had put down their hundred dollar deposit to get their gold plated Trump T1 mobile have been, 600,000 of them have put down $100 each and there's no mobile phones yet. So this is actually causing some problems for Trump Mobile. And they have announced that in fact they're going to begin shipping their phones and it appears that the phones are made. I'm sure we will be able to guess in China.
- [20:40]
A
Fantastic. You know, we are without the vocabulary to describe this kind of grift, this kind of not even perception of conflict, but clearly, obviously conflict. And I mean, I cannot help but think that this comes back, that the midterms coming up, that this is going to catch up with him, that they, that they know this is going to catch up with them. And in fact, for them, it is a race. How much money can we make before it catches up to us? And they were also this week spreading the wealth around, the, the grift wealth in establishing, what is it, a $1.7 billion fund which as far as I can tell, is meant to compensate people who might have been run into problems with the Justice Department because of things that Trump had done. Is that some, is that basically it?
- [21:50]
B
That appears to be it. It's kind of socialist, right? It's redistribution of wealth.
- [21:59]
A
Well, it's redistribution of wealth to people who are our friends. So we've set up a special slush fund. I think that's what we used to call these things for people who are our supporters.
- [22:17]
B
And again, this is, I mean, it's absolutely astonishing that it's happening. And just, let's just take a step back. The starting point for this is that Donald Trump, as a private individual, had sued the government of the United States. Head of that state is Donald Trump, for $10 billion because he said he had been harmed by the leak of his tax returns during his first term and he was looking for $10 billion in compensation for this. And we've talked about numbers. I think 10 billion sounds big. So he probably went for 10 billion. This has been in front of a judge, a federal judge down in Miami, Kathleen Williams. She's an Obama appointee and therefore, in the minds of the Trump people, suspect. And she has been asking, how on earth can you basically sue yourself? Isn't this just one giant conflict of interest? And I mean, is there an answer to that? That is not. Yes, this is a giant conflict of interest.
- [23:24]
A
No, no, this is actually a substantial area of legal thought now that the unitary executive cannot be engaged in any lawsuit. It's just not possible because you are the ultimate arbiter of that lawsuit.
- [23:44]
B
Just worth pointing out as well, that Trump is the person that has embraced this. What had been kind of a theory on the right in sort of, I'm thinking conservative quote marks, but legal thought on the right, among the kind of federal society types, had embraced the idea that the president is the executive and that's all there is to it. And the flip side of that would be that clearly the president can't therefore sue the executive. But here we are.
- [24:19]
A
Yeah, no, and again, here we are. It is almost patently, I mean, I can't read this in any other way. We have an opportunity to take money off the table. We would be ridiculous because of. That's because we're business guys. We understand this. Not to take this, this opportunity. Yes, this might come back to bite us in the ass, but if we have taken off, if we have taken enough money off the table, we're ahead. We're not going to get this opportunity again. Although, although confounding. They did get it again.
- [24:59]
B
Yes. And the, so the, so we started with 10 billion and they're now offering a settlement of 1.7 billion to take it out of this court. So this judge has no oversight over it. And there's 1.7 billion, as I said, was redistribution because Trump is willing to share this wealth with, among other people, literal criminals, people who had been pardoned by him for their activities at the Capitol on January 6th. And just remember, to accept a pardon, it is a convention that you have to accept that you committed the crime. So this 1.7 billion is going to be. It's a magaslosh fund.
- [25:42]
A
Again, where we are is just grab it, if we can.
- [25:46]
B
Grab it, take it, grab it by the billions.
- [25:50]
A
So he's back from China and he's going to face this, you know, I mean, he's going to come back and he's going to face the grift issue, but more immediately, he has to face the Iran issue. Yes, there it is. And that's why, I mean, I think, I think that he was probably. This China trip and he, I mean, he seems to have. This was a nice party because he probably felt great about being in China because he doesn't. This was X number of hours. He didn't have to have to dwell on the Iranian situation. And the Iranian situation is, you know, I think, I think probably potentially fatal for him. I mean, it is a war of his own making, a situation in which, in which he could have avoided instead he embraced, and now he is locked in place. He doesn't know what to do.
- [26:49]
B
And he did raise this with Xi, didn't he?
- [26:52]
A
He says he did. And he actually came out and then reported that Xi was agreed with him, which I'm sure is not remotely true. I mean, for Xi, it's a. The Iranian situation has actually probably been altogether a net plus for them. So, you know, I mean, of course the Chinese also, you know, their oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz also. But nevertheless, if Xi is looking at this from a global perspective, his fundamental nemesis, the United States of America, is now tied down in this situation without any apparent plans for getting out of it. And that's what's gonna have to shut. So Trump is. Is. This is directly on his plate. What does he do in Iran? Literally, what does he do? And to some, you know, that has to be what is inside his head right now, right at this moment. And what is there is. I don't know what to do. I can go back to war. We can go back to bombing the Iranians. And the problem with that is immediately the cost. We're running out of bombs and we're achieving so far in our 13,000 targets, whatever it is, we have not achieved our goals. So do we continue that, risk more money, exacerbate the problems of no more bombs, and yet come out again at the same place that we are now?
- [28:49]
B
How does he get to a place where he's trying to. Where he can present this as a victory? Because it seems like the line is fine.
- [28:58]
A
I mean, remember that, that. That assumes that there's some logic here. What Trump is gifted at is being able to get to a place without logic. So he will just pronounce victory, we have won. I mean, so that's what he's trying to do right now. How do we do this? What is the way that I can best present this as a situation in which I, Donald Trump, have won a war? And that seems. And it seems to me that will seem impossible. But this is Donald Trump, right?
- [29:45]
B
And we've heard impossible before from Donald Trump. And here we are, we're still talking about him, but the lines that he's been trying out. Because one of the things that we know about Trump is right, he iterates, he tries something, and he sees what the response from the crowd is, but he hasn't come across a line that really seems to resonate with, I'm saying, the crowd. He's actually not been in front of any crowds for some time. He hasn't you know, he's tried saying, well, we sent our navy to the bottom of the sea, and unfortunately, the street of Hormuz is still closed. He talked about how they decimated their missiles, and it turned out that literally they had decimated their missiles until leaks have suggested that 90% of their missile sites are, in fact, still functional. So how, how does it, in general terms, how does Trump come up with these lines? How does he iterate? What's, what's he looking at to get, to get inspiration for something that's going to be a victory or presented as a victory?
- [30:49]
A
Usually I can, I can go a distance on that, having spent as much time as I have with Donald Trump, but I can't in this situation. I mean, I don't know how he gets out of this. I don't know how he can reach any sense that this is a credible. Even Trump's usual incredible rationalizations I don't think are going to work here.
- [31:21]
B
And that kind of links to the key, the key point of this. Right?
- [31:26]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:27]
B
Military failure is a domestic cost. For the first time, I think in his presidency, there's been a direct linkage between something abroad and some, something at home that people can feel.
- [31:42]
A
No, I mean, I think this, this, this is, you know, I mean, let's be careful of this because I've done this many times before. The watershed moment. He's not going to get out of this fix. Speaking of January 6th, in so many occasions, it was like, okay, there he is. Not going to happen. And yet it does. Still in this situation, I don't know. I don't see it. He can either go back to war, which will be worse for him, or retreat. And I don't see, and I don't see how he can try to wrap that in whatever ribbon, but I don't think anybody's going to buy that.
- [32:35]
B
The top issue that it raises, obviously, is the economy. There's a laundry list of problems that he's got back home.
- [32:46]
A
So he comes back China, he has to face Iran. But it's not only the only Iran that he has to face. There is almost every other Trump policy, which is, and they are all problematic. He has to now look in the eye.
- [33:07]
B
Top of that list. Well, the cost of living, the cost of fuel. Just, just this morning, the average cost of a gallon across the United States is $4.51.7. That's almost, I believe it's almost double where Trump had psychologically been talking to people. Oh, we're on our way to $2 a gallon and now we're on our way to $5 a gallon. But that's just one of the issues around the economy.
- [33:43]
A
One of the things, I mean the other overriding issue is inflation. Inflation is back. It is at the highest rate during his tenure, the highest rate since Joe Biden's tenure. And inflation was the thing. Why did he win the presidency in 2024? Inflation. So there, so he's got that everything is going up. The affordability, the affordability issue, which is actually separate from the inflation issue. But these are, these all converge in a sense that the economy is, is that he has done nothing to improve the economy. And in fact he has, under his, under his watch it has gotten worse. So that's problem number one.
- [34:31]
B
And we've actually got a clip that speaks to that because he was on, I said he was on Brett Baer and Brett, Brett Bear presented him with his words about, about the economy and inflation and whether he cared about Americans, Americans financial interests. And it's pretty remarkable response. I think it's worth playing.
- [34:53]
A
When you hear Trump voters, Alex says I voted for you three times. He just, he can't handle the costs and he's not for this foreign conflict. I hate it, bro. He's not for the foreign conflict. But Roy in Pennsylvania, he's a retired farmer. He can't handle the fuel going up and he's just, he says he's going to come down very fast. Look disappointed. I'm just telling you what they say to him. Roy. Alex, we got a problem. We just hit the highest stock market price ever by the way. Then when I went in, now again, it's higher with the war. It's higher than it was when I went in. Think of that. I agree. The 401ks at their all time high. There are more people working right now in the United States of America than at any point ever in the history of our country.
- [35:41]
B
So is that a good answer?
- [35:44]
A
Well, I think it's the only answer and it's a fallback answer. I mean, I can't explain to you why the stock market keeps going up. If you it that seems improbable and illogical for Donald Trump. It is the sign that there is underlying health. It is a sign that many Americans, despite what they are saying, are in fact prospering. It is, you know, it is the go to place that, that he has returned to again and again. And you know, I hate to say this, but it has paid off for him. Will it pay off now? Will it pay off I don't think so, because basically everybody. I mean, I actually think it will have the opposite effect that, that the stock market has increased the wealth of a very small group of incredibly wealthy people who are part of Trump's coalition. These are the people that he speaks to all of the time. These are the people he literally speaks to. He's on the phone with these people and they're saying, great, everything is fantastic. I mean, you know, we've just, we're not, we're, we're not, not worth $4 billion anymore. We're now worth $8 billion or 16 billion do. And those are the people who Trump is filtering his perception of the American economy through. So I think that is going to be very dangerous for him. On the other hand, it's not only the economy. The other major issue which is roiling everywhere within the Trump coalition is immigration and ice. I mean, ICE has been the most visible and glaring signifier of what and who Trump is and of Trump values. Masked men going in and pulling people out of their homes and captured all on video. So, and they know this within the Trump administration and they have tried to dial this back. That's been the term of our. Let's dial ICE back. Except that there's a very strong MAGA constituency that in fact wants more deportations. And this week they've announced that they're going to go after green card holders. So again, there is that thing. I mean, and it's an interesting thing, and it mirrors the anti vax position that it is hotly held by an important part of the Trump coalition and widely despised by most Americans.
- [39:00]
B
Just to put that in some sort of personality and personnel, here you have, Stephen Miller has become the face of this fanatical pro zero immigration, that's a bit convoluted, fanatically anti immigration position. And there are very noisy influencers and voices in MAGA who respond to videos of roundups of people at Home Depot or of the horrific scenes in Minneapolis saying, this is what I voted for. And it's the noise that kind of captures the MAGA coalition here, isn't it?
- [39:41]
A
And let's go on to another favorite issue, an issue of Trump's own making, which is also incredibly unpopular. Incredible, inviting, incredible blowback. Which is the ballroom.
- [39:58]
B
The ballroom.
- [40:00]
A
I mean, why would Trump have done this? I mean, in a way, I guess it is like the grift. You do it because you can and worry about the consequences later. It is very important to him to be memorialized with a permanent structure. If he puts The Ballroom up. Nobody is going to take it down. And it will be the Trump Ballroom. He will be. This is his legacy. He's really not capable of thinking of the other kind of legacy, a legacy of historic trends and a legacy of policy accomplishments. He needs a building, a very, very large building, a building that overshadows everything else that's legacy to him.
- [40:59]
B
It's almost like he thinks of FDR as a manor road in New York is named after, when everybody else thinks of FDR as man who quite possibly saved the American Republic in the 30s and then won't survive to the end of World War II, but set the conditions for the victory in World War II. It's kind of like he doesn't get, as you say, the idea of a legacy being about building a society or a country that appears to have bettered people's lives.
- [41:30]
A
He wants them. Yeah, totally. That's girl stuff to him. He wants a physical structure and a massive physical structure. You know, massive is one of Trump's favorite words. So anyway, so he's gotta. He's gotta face that again. I mean, and remember, this is all in the context of the coming midterms. I mean, the economy, Iran economy, Ice Ballroom, and we're not finished yet. Then there's health care. A kind of underreported story is the massive hemorrhage and coverage that's going on because it is so expensive. Health care prices to insure yourself have doubled and tripled and quadrupled in some places. So. And what do you, what do you do? You. You literally can't afford it, so you have to, you have to go without. Without health insurance.
- [42:31]
B
And in especially those rural areas, the hospitals are closing as well. So people are visibly seeing this. They understand that things are not getting better.
- [42:42]
A
Yeah. And so healthcare being, being the, you know, one of those core issues is like, gas, the price of gas at the pump. We all have to deal with this issue. There is nobody, not one single American, who doesn't at some point have to come to terms with how he or she is going to pay for his or her health care. And now many can't. The answer is, I can't pay for it. And then on top of that, there is RFK Jr still Jr at 72, who has become the face of the federal government's. I'm trying to think of the word. I was going to say failure, inability. But it goes beyond that. It goes beyond almost mendicious efforts to manage health care in a way that does not answer the healthcare needs of
- [43:43]
B
Most people, and in part the, the presentation from RFK Jr. And Dr. Oz, who runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid is to talk about fraud. And it's fraud, it's fraud, it's fraud. We kind of were back at Doge. That doesn't seem to resonate more widely that people don't. Do people really believe that fraud is the reason that things have gone up in price so significantly?
- [44:14]
A
I don't think it matters what people believe. I think they, you know, you broke it, you own it. Yeah, I mean, that's going to be the conclusion here. And again, in the context of the midterms, people are going to vent their anger. And then there's my favorite issue of all, which is the moron staff around him. And we had a good one.
- [44:38]
B
We just touched on a couple of them there. But there's, there's a cast here that's like, I don't know, it's like the list of characters at the beginning of War and Peace or something. You're like, oh, there's another page and another page. But I believe there is one that you are, I think you're the foremost expert on. In fact.
- [44:58]
A
Oh, you want to go to the Natalie Harp. Before I do the Natalie Harp, which I do want to do. Let's just mention that Kash Patel, the ever popular Kash Patel who can't. What is it called? What would be the. Well, I guess he can't walk a straight line, but he just got flagged for snorkeling in Pearl harbor with a Navy SEAL escort in an off limits area around the wreck of the Arizona. I. What are these guys thinking? Who would do this? Is it so necessary to go snorkeling? And if it is necessary to go snorkeling in, in the. This, this, I mean, this area is essentially treated as a cemetery because there are all kinds of kinds of hundreds of entombed American soldiers from the attack on Pearl Harbor. Oh, Cash. Oh, Cash.
- [46:08]
B
And actually that is not even the only thing that Cash did this week that was intriguing, remarkable, or I should say that was revealed to have done this week because in fact he did this months ago and it finally leaked out, which, you know, the fact that it's leaking obviously suggests there's problems. But among the other leaks that have come out about his movements is his flying around of his girlfriend. She is a 27 year old aspiring, I think is probably the best word, country, country music star Alexis Wilkins. And it turns out that he took her to a concert in Philadelphia and they Went obviously on the FBI jet, the suite that they, that they witnessed, that they went to this concert for, went for $50,000. And where did this money come from? You know, so it's, he is, he
- [47:06]
A
is somebody, you know, and he's also another example. This is my opportunity. This is not going to come again. I am going to take it now, consequences be damned.
- [47:19]
B
Including, of course, his we were discussing last time, his, his remarkable merchandising ability.
- [47:26]
A
Yeah. But I think this is super important because it really goes to the heart of all things Trump. My opportunity is now and I am going to take it, consequences be damned.
- [47:40]
B
It's almost like it's the famous Tammany hall quote. I saw my opportunities and I took them. It's an endless cycle of people. Which brings us though to. We've already previewed Natalie Harp.
- [47:55]
A
You know, this is particularly interesting to me because she has come back into the news because she is, there's a focus on Trump's Truth Social posts. Again, that's been sort of head smacking to me because, you know, he's been posting on Truth Social for more than four years now. And all of the posts, all of them are outlandish to the point of psychosis. And only now, again, is the media, the media, Jesus, taking notice of this, taking notice of the evidence that the President of the United States is off his rocker. But together with that is the backstory that, that these posts are often posted by his aide, Natalie Harp. In my book about the 2024 campaign, all or nothing I wrote she was actually one of the main comic and absurd characters in the book. So I mean, she came in, she worked her way onto the Trump, into the Trump staff. She was a low level staffer and through her devotion, absolute groveling, devotion to Trump, became one of his most important aides, the person who is with him pretty much more than any other, glued to his side. One of the ways during the, during the campaign that one of her first jobs became that she would follow him with a portable printer and print out emails to him and articles that were about him, laudatory articles. And that gave her the wherewithal to basically control the information flow to him. And then she became the person controlling much of the information from him. So she was in some ways the real Trump. And she's a young woman. I think she's maybe 31 or 32 now. And there was, during the, among this, this, this came out and this was supplied to me by, by Trump aides who are all singularly appalled by her appalled and they gave me the letters. So in. In this printout, this printout of material that. That she would give Trump, she would often insert love letters to him. Some which I. I reproduced in. In my book. All appalling. All. Well, they gave not only the aids pause around him, but also the Secret Service who began to say, hey, you know, this is. Does anybody really know what's going on here? This is not a good situation. These are not. These are not. These are signs that we want to pay attention, that we are paying attention to. And Trump would wave this away and he would say, she just loves her president. Um, and at any rate, that is. Is who runs the country.
- [51:41]
B
We couldn't be in safer. We couldn't be in safer hands. In fact, I was just going to point out, there's one scene that has become kind of notorious. There's a picture of her in a golf buggy behind Trump's golf buggy, and she's got the printer with her. Who carries a. Who carries. Who even knew there were portable printers anymore?
- [51:59]
A
Well, you know, one of the interesting thing is, is that the staff, the Secret Service and the staff, I mean, really became up this during the campaign and tried to figure out, what can we do? And one of the things that they decided to do was they took away her golf cart. Therefore, they thought, okay, well, that's going to sever the connection. But in fact, what she did is she put the portable printer on her back in a knapsack and then ran after Trump on the golf course. And since we will never be able to top that, I think this comes to the end of our show. So, Hugh, thank you so much.
- [52:41]
B
It's an indelible image. Yes.
- [52:45]
A
And I don't know, Joanna will probably be out the better part of this week, so I will see you again. I'm a pleasure to be with you, Docherty. Thank you for. For being here. Our team, Ryan, Rachel, Heather, and Neil, thank you so much.
- [53:11]
B
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.