Why Even Trump Is Annoyed at Melania's Doc: Wolff

Summary

Inside Trump’s Head: “Why Even Trump Is Annoyed at Melania's Doc”

Podcast: Inside Trump's Head
Hosts: Michael Wolff, Joanna Coles
Date: February 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the release and aftermath of Melania Trump’s self-produced documentary about her time as First Lady—a glossy, image-driven film that’s stirred reactions not just from the public but from Donald Trump himself. Hosts Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles discuss Melania’s depiction, the Trump family dynamic, the reception among the MAGA base, and what the film (and its timing with the release of the Epstein files) reveals about the shifting, often performative relationships at the heart of Trumpworld. The conversation weaves in larger themes of power, image, family, and the dysfunction that shapes the current administration and America’s global reputation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Melania’s Documentary: Style Over Substance

• Melania’s Control: The documentary is essentially “a Melania commercial,” self-produced to reinforce her preferred image, with Melania herself as producer, director, and star.
  • “She is not just the subject of this film. She is effectively the director... Everything in this film is there because she’s approved of it.” (Michael, 07:50)
• Gloss and Music: The film is highly watchable, full of 1980s music and aesthetics, reminiscent of a long MTV music video (“Addicted to Love” vibes).
• Personal Distance: The film highlights Melania’s separation from Donald, depicting “completely separate lives.”
  • “She looks inscrutable and completely separate from her husband. It’s very clear they have completely separate lives.” (Joanna, 07:22)
• Performative Touches: Frequent hand-holding is analyzed as “performative”—in contrast to real intimacy.
  • “Holding hands is something children do as they’re skipping along.” (Joanna, 10:38)
• Vacuous Content: The film lacks depth; Melania’s narrative is vague, focused on “global initiatives” and style choices, never truly revealing her ambitions or personality.
  • “There’s a lot of show, there’s absolutely no tell. It’s all about image-making.” (Joanna, 10:06)

2. Trump Family Dynamics: Everyone’s “Turn” to Cash In

• Family “Mooching”: Michael provides insider reporting that Trump sees all family members—including Melania—as profiting off him, which irritates but ultimately does not surprise him.
  • “He’s left with the feeling that everybody is mooching off of him... His family is a family of moochers.” (Michael, 13:18)
• Transaction, Not Affection: Melania’s documentary is framed as “her turn” within the transactional Trump family ecosystem.

3. Reception: Public, MAGA Base, and Abroad

• Commercial Flop: The film is reportedly underperforming—“estimates keep going lower,” with some markets virtually boycotting it (only one ticket sold in Australia).
  • “In Australia only one ticket was bought in the entire country. There was a kind of national boycott…” (Joanna, 05:10)
• MAGA Disinterest: The core Trump base is largely ignoring the documentary genre.
  • “My family aren’t going to go and see a documentary. They barely know what a documentary is.” (Joanna, 19:07)
• Eastern European Appeal: Some audience members, particularly of Eastern European origin, seem moved by Melania’s “immigrant dream” story, though this narrative is shallow in the film.

4. Image vs. Reality: Melania as “Unknowable”

• Immigrant Dream Narrative: The film is full of references to the “immigrant dream,” highlighting Melania’s immigrant stylists as her team—yet with little depth or real story.
  • “There’s a lot of that. There’s the enforced cooperation of Brigitte Macron and Queen Rainier… basically being competitive about who’s doing the most work for children.” (Joanna, 15:08)
• Distance from Trump: The film signals deliberate separation—symbolically emphasizing Melania as her own person with her own (modest) ambitions.
  • “She wants us to know she is extremely separate from this man. And she turns up when she has to, when they need public appearance.” (Joanna, 12:19)
• Careful Redactions: Joanna notes Melania’s fashion choices (her inauguration ball dress) as symbolic “redactions” of herself, paralleling the heavily redacted Epstein files released at the same time.
  • “Those parts of her body have been redacted... like the dress is signaling, I have been redacted from you.” (Joanna, 27:14)

5. Epstein Files Dump: Timing and Revelations

• Coordinated Release?: The timing of the massive DOJ Epstein files (“3 million emails and pieces of paper”) coinciding with Melania’s film release is seen as possible “passive aggression” by Trump.
  • “I still think that timing is passive aggressive against Milan[i]a.” (Joanna, 25:35)
• Revealing Correspondence: Wolff reads emails showing Melania’s direct contact with Ghislaine Maxwell and commentary from Trump associates linking Trump, Melania, and Epstein socially.
  • “...my little spat with Melania is her threatening to sue me for a billion dollars because I linked her to specifically Jeffrey Epstein’s social circle. So, I guess we can all just go home and. Case closed and proved.” (Michael, 31:56)
• Circle of Power: The hosts note that many public figures who tried to minimize their Epstein connections had very extensive—often friendly—email relationships with him.
  • “They were good friends is what we’re learning. They sought to spend time with each other...” (Michael, 34:42)

6. America in Crisis: Martial Law, Politics, and the World’s View

• Minneapolis and Martial Law: The hosts discuss the parallel crisis of federal law enforcement in Minneapolis, comparing it to martial law and the new norm of federal authority superseding local control.
  • “Let’s call this what it is… this is martial law.” (Michael, 50:41)
• Turbulence and Global Standing: America’s isolation grows—Europe and Canada are moving forward without US partnership, reflecting a new pariah status with direct economic consequences.
  • “Europe. Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Britain, went to China... Mark Carney... now organizing his own trade deals with China. So people are just going to circumvent America.” (Joanna, 52:22)
• Normalization of Extremes: Trump’s pattern is noted—push limits, retreat slightly after blowback, but leave the “new normal” further right each time.
  • “They go as far as they possibly can, and then, as you say, if they get away with it, then they push further on...” (Michael, 49:32)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Melania’s documentary:
  “It’s like a cross between an ad and a 1980s music video…” (Joanna, 06:15)

• On Trump family dynamics:
  “He’s left with the feeling that everybody is mooching off of him. He believes... his family is a family of moochers.” (Michael, 13:18)

• On performative marriage:
  “The holding of the hands is clearly very performative… The Queen never held Prince Philip’s hand.” (Joanna, 10:38)

• On Melania’s redacted dress:
  “It’s as if those parts of her body have been redacted. And I think they have been redacted from Donald Trump… It’s like the dress is signaling, I have been redacted from you.” (Joanna, 27:14)

• On American decline:
  “The byword now is sell America. So essentially, if you can find an investment that sells short on the American future, take it.” (Michael, 54:32)

• On global cooperation:
  “We’ve pulled out of the World Health Organization, we’ve pulled out of the Paris Climate treaty because he doesn’t believe in goodwill and he doesn’t believe in, you know, clearly he doesn’t believe in a changing climate and he doesn’t believe in, in cooperation on health.” (Joanna, 54:05)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Topic | |--------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:09 | Family “turns” and Trump’s expectation everyone profits via him | | 05:10 | Melania documentary review; underwhelming audience and 1980s aesthetics | | 07:22 | Melania’s deliberate separation from Trump in film | | 10:38 | “Performative” hand-holding and marriage image | | 13:18 | Trump’s attitude: family as “moochers” | | 15:08 | Melania’s “immigrant dream” framing and global appearances | | 19:07 | Disinterest in the documentary among MAGA supporters | | 21:32 | Scenes highlighting Melania and Barron’s distant relationship | | 25:35 | Speculation about passive-aggressive timing of Epstein files release and doc launch | | 27:14 | Symbolism of Melania’s “redacted” inauguration dress | | 31:56 | Reading of Melania’s note to Ghislaine Maxwell; Michael’s spat with Melania over Epstein connections | | 34:42 | Extensive communications in the Epstein files among powerful people, including Trump | | 41:15 | Discussion of QAnon conspiracies and their mainstreaming | | 49:32 | Trump’s playbook: push, retreat, but shifting the “normal” | | 50:41 | Federal policing in Minneapolis described as “martial law” | | 52:22 | America’s shifting global position; other nations move on without U.S. | | 54:05 | Trump’s view: world is “mooching off America” too | | 54:32 | Finance community: “Sell America”; economic consequences of global isolation |

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In Short

• The Melania Trump documentary is seen as an image-obsessed, substance-free self-portrait, with Melania in firm control of her public image.
• Donald Trump’s irritation is less about Melania specifically and more about a family dynamic where everyone takes their “turn” milking his brand.
• The film is largely ignored by core Trump supporters and is not resonating at the box office.
• The timing of the DOJ’s Epstein files release appears as a White House power play, possibly a jab at Melania’s project; those files reveal much deeper relationships between Epstein and America’s power elite than previously admitted.
• The episode concludes connecting the dots between these narratives and an America in crisis—facing internal martial law-type situations, global isolation, and an ever-more transactional, performative political landscape where image overrides reality.

Transcript

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[Michael]

Everybody in the family is at some point has to get their due. That's part of what keeps the peace here and now. This is very clearly and everybody understands this. Melania's turn. He is always then left with the feeling that everybody is mooching off of him. It's not really to single out her. Literally everybody in the family is. Is profiting off of him which is, which is really the way he sees sees this. You have, whatever you have comes to you because of me.

[Michael Wolf]

Michael.

[Michael]

Joanna.

[Michael Wolf]

I went so you didn't have to.

[Michael]

Is that a popcorn?

[Michael Wolf]

This is the, the merch popcorn that was available at the Regal on Union Square yesterday 12.99. Anyway, I bought it. I didn't eat the popcorn because it was. It had too much butter. But I'm keeping this. I'm going to put something in it. I don't know what I'm going to put in it. Maybe it's a little trash bucket, but it's kind of. I'm just showing it to you.

[Michael]

Well, what did you think? Since I did not see the movie because the Hamptons are a Melania free zone doesn't play anywhere in the Hamptons.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, it'll soon be coming to an Amazon prime account. So the whole nation actually.

[Michael]

When does it start to stream? Do we know that?

[Michael Wolf]

All we know it's in 2000 movies across the United States.

[Michael]

2000 screens. Yes. And, and apparently the estimates keep going, getting lower. It started at a $5 million estimate for the weekend. I think somebody told me we're now down to, you know, 2.1 or something like that.

[Michael Wolf]

We're down to 2 point and someone told me that in Australia only one ticket was bought in the entire country. There was a kind of national boycott of this movie. But, but I will say having sat through it that it's not quite as bad as people are saying. I found it extremely watchable. It's like Watching a Melania Mercial. And it's revealing in all sorts of ways that I don't think they intended actually. And first of all, the music is fantastic. It opens with the Rolling Stones, Give Me Shelter, which oddly isn't credited at the end of the credits. All the other music is, but it's not. It's got Michael Jackson, it's got Tears for Fears, that great song, Everybody Wants to Rule the World. All the music comes from the 80s and it very much has an 80s vibe to it. Brett Ratner, as we know, brought out of retirement after being me tooed by at least six women.

[Michael]

Retirement, I would say brought out of exile.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, okay. Out of exile, yes. Self enforced retirement because no one would work with him. He may have done this for free to get back into. Into the world of moviemaking, but he, he. It's like a cross between an ad and a 1980s music video. There's a lot of Melania getting in and out of a black SUV and then the black SUVs and the motorcade coming out. And there are Definitely references to 50 shades in 50 shades of gray. There's an amazing shot where the helicopter takes off from the top of a skyscraper. And this is supposed to sort of.

[Michael]

You've seen 50 shades of gray?

[Michael Wolf]

Of course I saw 50 shades of gray. I think I was at Cosmo editing Cosmo when it came out. So it was part of the job. Michael, as this is. As this is. But there's an iconic scene in that movie where a helicopter takes off from the top of a Manhattan skyscraper and Ellie Goulding is thumping over the music track. And it's a very sort of sexy scene. And what you have here is. It's the sort of. It's power porn and it's Washington porn. And she looks inscrutable and completely separate from her husband. And it's very clear they have completely separate lives. She's not interested in the election. She doesn't bother to watch the election. He's calling, desperate for her approval. She doesn't really give it. She's like, yes, yes, I will see it on news.

[Michael]

And just let me point out, because I think it's very important. She is not just the subject of this film. She is effectively the director or effectively she has control. So everything, everything in this film is. Is there because she's approved of it.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah, she's the producer. So it's basically. It's a self release, if you like. It's how she wants to be seen. So she is seen constantly as sort of Posing for the camera. As we know, she moved from Slovenia to be a model in the 80s, and it's basically her modeling being First Lady. So there's almost no interaction with Donald Trump at all, apart from the dinner before Inauguration Day, where hilariously, they have a golden egg with caviar. And you see Elon Musk, you see Jeff Bezos, you see the sponsors, and she says, this is all for the sponsors, this is all about the sponsors. And what she claims is that she's interested in the details and the style of, of the White House, and that's her job as First Lady. But actually all she's doing is pretending to approve decisions that have already been made by a host of stylists. And then David Mon, the event planner for the inauguration, and he says things like, well, it's all white and gold because you're so white and gold and sort of. And she remains, as you have always said about her, completely unknowable from this.

[Michael]

Well, actually, I have a question about that. Which is, which is so, so there's. What, what is this run for a hundred, some odd minutes? 140, I think I saw.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah, it's almost two hours. It's almost two hours. But I felt it went past very quickly. I mean, it's literally like watching a well produced vh.

[Michael]

Do we learn anything new about her?

[Michael Wolf]

Well, you don't learn about her ambition. What you learn about is that she loves wearing clothes that she's had specially tailored for her. She doesn't seem to be particularly knowledgeable about the clothes.

[Michael]

We've known that she's a.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, you see it, you see it. There's a. There's a lot of show. There's absolutely no tell. It's all about image making. It's sort of Melania Gander, if you like. And you learn that she seems pretty pleased with her life and that she turns up with when Donald needs her to. And then it struck me how odd it is that adult couples hold hands. So the holding of the hands is clearly very performative. We've seen her constantly slapping his hand away over the years. But I was thinking about the Queen never held Prince Philip's hand. It's such an odd thing as an adult to do. Holding hands is something that children do as they're skipping along.

[Michael]

Yes. I mean, when was the. Well, you haven't been married in a few years, but prior to that, when was the last time you held your husband's hand?

[Michael Wolf]

But it's such a strange thing for people who are supposed to be in power. You know, he's supposed to be the President of the United States, and yet actually, he seems to want to hold her hand.

[Michael]

She's, she's, she's holding his hands to hold him up? Quite possibly, yes.

[Michael Wolf]

I think that's true. I think that's true. And at the end of the inauguration day, after we've seen her, you know, with the dress and the hamburger hat and her making, frankly, tiny cosmetic changes to it, and the designer of a Pierre and Adam Lippis, they both say, oh, well, because she was a model, she knows how to talk to designers about what she's wearing. And literally, she's saying things like, can you make this a bit bigger or color more up? So it's not as if she's saying, actually very technical, you know, fashion terms. It's just like, make it tighter or make it bigger. At the end of the Inauguration day, she and Trump go their separate ways. They go up into the White House, the sort of personal quarters, and then he goes off one way and she goes off another. And she very clearly is signaling to us, the viewer, they're not in the same bedroom, and she doesn't want us, us to think that they are. That came across extremely clearly. She wants us to know she is extremely separate from this man. And she turns up when she has to, when they need public appearance.

[Michael]

Let me, I have some, some background here because I've spoken to a couple of people. Yes. Yesterday in the circle, in the Trump circle, and a couple of points were made, which is that she does not give him control over this. I mean, this is he in, in this situation, he's kind of long suffering. For instance, when she wrote the book, he didn't see this before it was, or too long before it was published. And it was already, it was already a fait accompli by the time, by the time he saw it and by the time anyone in the White House saw it. And, you know, I don't think she.

[Michael Wolf]

Saw the book before it was exactly, quite, quite possibly.

[Michael]

And, you know, so. And I asked, well, what's his mood about this? And this person said, you know, it's okay. He's vaguely irritated. They said, I said, oh, what does that mean? And this person said, well, you know, it's everybody, everybody in the family at some point has to get their due. They all believe that they're owed, and they all believe he has to deliver. And that's sort of what keeps, that's part of what keeps the peace here. And now this is very clearly and everybody understands this. Melania's turn. She gets the money, she gets the attention, and that's part of the overall deal. He is always, then this person explained, and I've heard this before, left with the feeling that everybody is mooching off of him. He believes that ever. That his family, basically, his family is a family of moochers. And that's. That. That's the transaction which he's forced to accept. But, you know, in the end, he. He is. He certainly doesn't really. He doesn't really like it.

[Michael Wolf]

So basically what you're hearing is that Donald Trump understands that Melania, his wife, is mooching off him with this movie.

[Michael]

Yes. And as everyone in the family. So it's not really to single out her. Literally everybody in the family is profiting off of him, which is really the way he sees this. You have. Whatever you have comes to you because of me.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, it's very clear that she wants us to understand she is a separate being, that she is not tied to him. She keeps talking about the immigrant dream. Everybody that she appears to work with is an immigrant. All her designers, apart from David Monn, the event planner, everybody else in it is, I think, an immigrant. And one or two of them talk about their journey. One of the stylists talks about how she came from Laos at the age of two and now working for the First Lady. She is an example of the American dream. So there's a lot of that. There's the enforced cooperation of Brigitte Macron and Queen Rainier. And there's a hilarious scene where they're basically being competitive about who's doing the most work for children. And at one point, Queen Rainier comes to Mar A Lago, and Melania sits with her and she says, I have been fostering future with my be best. And I have. When I was not in the White House, I created foundation. And Queen Rainier goes, yeah, yeah, I've got a foundation. I created a foundation. It's like piecing foundations. And then Brigitte Macron is sort of seen on Zoom speaking in French. And then we know that Melania is supposed to speak, I think, more languages than her husband has stopped wars, actually. Anyway, she jots down a note in English as Brigitte Macron is speaking in French, which I think is to indicate to us, the audience, that she really does speak another language. But we never see her speaking French. And Brigitte just chats in generalities. But what's also. Also interesting about it is that Melania never actually speaks to us the Viewer. We see endless photos of her posing and looking inscrutable with that slightly, kind of her eyes, slightly, you know, squinting. And then there is a voiceover which she reads, which has clearly largely been written by AI. There are no specificities in it. And she says things like, I work with global initiatives. I've helped foster future. But there's nothing specific in it. So the whole thing is really like watching a 1980s music video with Melania as the star. Very much Addicted to Love, Robert Palmer vibe. And I am astonished that the. And I would love to know how this works, that the bands gave permission for the music to be used. And I don't know if they didn't know what it was being used for. I don't know if Brett Ratner, how he licensed the songs. But I'm very surprised that they. Tears for Fears allowed it to go ahead. And very surprised that Spandau Ballet, any of these people whose songs were involved, allowed it to go ahead.

[Michael]

Well, there's a question for you.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah, and there's. There's also.

[Michael]

I have another. Another larger question, though. How does this play with the MAGA base?

[Michael Wolf]

Well, I don't think the MAGA base is going to see documentaries. As it happened, I ran into a friend. Yeah, yeah, but.

[Michael]

But they have to do this. I mean, they're gonna have to deal with the issue of, you know, this is. This is. And I actually spoke to somebody who saw the. Who saw the film in Manhattan, and it was filled with MAGA people. Now, that's anecdotal, of course, but nevertheless, you know, there is this thing. There is. The President's wife is just a. Has made a glamour video. How does that play with a populist crowd?

[Michael Wolf]

Well, I ran into a friend at the cinema. The cinema was largely empty. The one I went to. 4:15 showing.

[Michael]

You possibly mean a movie theater.

[Michael Wolf]

A movie theater. Sorry, a movie theater. And I ran into a friend who'd grown up in Alabama whose family are all maga. And I said, well, what are your family going to think of this? Are they going to see it? And she said, my family aren't going to go and see a documentary. And they barely know what a documentary is. They would never go and see something.

[Michael]

Well, apparently no one is going to see this documentary.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, that's.

[Michael]

That's the other issue.

[Michael Wolf]

At the end of it, I sat with the friend I'd gone with, and we were sitting, talking, and two women came up to us, and in very. They were Russian, and they said, you enjoy movie. And I said, yeah, very much enjoyed it. Because I did quite enjoy it. I mean, with understanding what it is, I enjoyed it. It's very watchable. And they went, very good movie. Very good movie. And when he left, my friend was like, oh, my God, they're Russian agents. They're Russian agents. But I think they were just two women who'd come to see someone from Eastern Europe who's lived the crazy immigrant dream to. I mean, what an extraordinary story. And of course, none of that story is actually told in the movie. It's literally about the 20 days where she has to decide some outfits and approve David Mond's already tasteful plan for the inauguration dinner. So you don't see anything that's actually interesting. And you see one moment where they're getting ready for Jimmy Carter's funeral. Jimmy Carter's funeral is the same day as her mother died. So it's a year's anniversary. And so there's a scene where she goes to St. Patrick's Cathedral to light a candle. And what's fascinating there is the excitement among all the clergy who sort of flocking around her.

[Michael]

Let me clarify this, because there's something I didn't know that Melania is a Roman Catholic.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, or at least her mother was a Roman Catholic. But she goes to light a candle at St Patrick Patrick's Cathedral, the Roman Catholic cathedral in. In New York. And of course, celibate priests, one of whom is quite hot, come bustling up to her and immediately offer her a blessing. And they're like, can I give you a blessing, Melania? And she's like, oh, yes, please. And then they, quote, do all this stuff, and none of it looks remotely authentic. She's just looking like she's playing the role. The whole thing is just modeling. But it's like a very good extended Robert Palmer video.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Steve]

I don't know what's going on.

[Michael Wolf]

And they definitely live separately. Oh, and there were a couple of other things that I noted. A couple of shots of Baron. There's a wonderful conversation that she has with Donald where she. She's flown in from Mar a Lago to meet him in D.C. for the. Carter's. Jimmy Carter's funeral. And they're talking. Donald Trump says, oh, my God, you look like a movie. You look like a movie star. You look like a movie star. Which she does coming down the stairs with her big glasses on, which she wears all the time. And then she says, have you spoken to Baron? And he goes, we have conversations. We have cute conversations. Cute conversations. Here I talk to him, and then she goes, I love him. He's an incredible mind. And then it's as if they didn't even know that the other one was in touch with their joint son. So that was a sort of interesting inkling. And then there's a moment where they're talking about whether or not they're going to bring the inauguration indoors, which of course, they end up doing partly because he wants to avoid the anxiety around crowd sizes and partly because it's very cold. And I was in D.C. that day, and I can confirm it was very cold. But she is anxious about whether or not they're going to get out of the car. And the Secret Service say, you're going to be absolutely fine. Don't worry. And she says, well, it's going to be clear where we're getting out of the car. Are you sure? Given what's happened over the previous year, I. E. The assassination attempt, you know, I'm anxious about this. And then she goes, and Baron won't get out of the car. I know that Baron will not get out of the car and be seen in public. So that was a sort of interesting moment, too. Anyway, if. If when it comes on Amazon, I think it's. It's worth a watch into the synthetic relationship that becomes clear they have.

[Steve]

So I.

[Michael]

And what's the takeaway from that? Do people understand that? Do we. I mean. I mean, we're still. Remember the. The perception, certainly the MAGA perception is that Donald Trump is. Has a very happy marriage to a very glamorous and attractive woman.

[Michael Wolf]

I think what you come away with is she's a team player when she needs to be. She's obviously mooching of him with the opportunity to do this movie. There's a wonderful moment where actually the camera lingers on the inauguration. If you remember, the Democrats, the previous presidents come in. Obama comes in on his own. The Bushes are there, the Clintons are there, Joe Biden's there, Kamala and Doug Emhoffer there. And there's a moment which actually I hadn't seen before, where Joe Biden and Kamala are standing next to each other and there is an iceberg between them. It's worth seeing it just for that footage that they look absolutely furious with each other. And then you also see there's a moment where Joe Biden greets Donald Trump and you can almost see his vindication in the greeting. See, I told you if I didn't run, you'd get Donald Trump. And here he is. And you can actually see it playing out when he greets Trump. There's a moment of vindication there.

[Michael]

And there is in the movie, let me assume, no mention of Melania's relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.

[Michael Wolf]

Surprisingly, no mention of Jeffrey Epstein. No mention of Ghislaine Maxwell. And I think on that note, perhaps I should just read the note that came out from the Epstein files yesterday. As we know, the same day that Melania released a movie about herself, the Justice Department released 3 million emails and pieces of paper or whatever, files about the Epstein files. I still find the timing. I. I still think that timing is passive aggressive against Milan.

[Michael]

Well, you know, if the. If the people I have been speaking to in the White House are correct about this, in their estimation of Donald Trump's feelings about the mooches in his family. Yeah, I. I think. I think it makes sense for him to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, release it today.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah, I can't help thinking that. So on the one hand, here she is modeling what she's pretending to be, and he knows that she's not the first lady in the sense. The traditional sense of the First Lady. Right. Because he lives with it. His lived experience is Melania is not in the White House, so he knows that. So I think this is his way of passively, aggressively trying to squash her thing. And it reminds me of that quote from Gore Vidal. You know, it's not enough to fly first class, others must fly coach. And there is a sense of that with Donald Trump, that it's not enough for him to have everything, others must have less.

[Michael]

Yeah, no, that whole idea of everyone in his family profiting off of him, which, by the way, they are.

[Michael Wolf]

Right, totally. She would never get this. This movie made otherwise. And so is Brett Ratner, and Brett Ratner makes little cameos in the movie, too, which is obviously his way of trying to get back. I wanted to add, because what. What struck me about the release of the Epstein files and all the redactions in it is that Melania's dress, which was designed by Herve Pierre for the inauguration balls, is as if parts of her body have been redacted. So you may remember it's a white tube of a dress, but it's got black sort of zigzags across the front, and they literally go across her breast down, and then sort of across the lower part of her. Of her body, and it's as if those parts of her body have been redacted. And I think they have been redacted from Donald Trump. It's like the dress is signaling. I have been redacted from you.

[Michael]

I I have redacted myself from you. And a word from our sponsors.

[Steve]

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[Michael Wolf]

Or should I call you Steve? Since it's a new year, maybe we.

[Steve]

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[Michael Wolf]

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[Steve]

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[Michael Wolf]

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[Steve]

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[Michael Wolf]

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[Steve]

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[Michael]

Deserve if you're the Purchasing manager at A manufacturing plant. You know, having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift and you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Michael Wolf]

Who here loves when their nails are done perfectly? Me. I'm Sarah Gibson Tuttle and I started Olive in June because let's be real, we all deserve to have gorgeous nails. But who wants to spend a fortune or half their day at the nail salon? That's why I created the gel mani system. So you can have that salon quality gel manicure right at home. And guess what? The best part, each mani only costs two dollars. Yep, you heard me, two dollars. No more 60, 70, 80 dollar salon trips that eat up your day. Now you can paint your nails whenever you want, wherever you want and trust me, you're going to be obsessed with your nails and everyone is going to ask you where you got them done. And here's a little something extra. Head over to oliveandjune.com and get 20% off your first gel mani system with DIY Gel 20. That's code DIY Gel 20 for 20% off your first mani [e-mail] DIY Gel 20. And we're back inside Trump's head. For those of you trawling like us through the Epstein files, you might have missed this one, which is a note from Melania to Ghislaine written on 23rd October 2002. Dear G, how are you? Nice story about GE in NY Mag. You look great on the picture. I know you are very busy flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down. Give me a call when you are back in ny. Have a great time, exclamation point. Love, Melania.

[Michael]

And just let's point out again that the background to my, my little spat with Melania is her threatening to sue me for a billion dollars because I linked her to specifically Jeffrey Epstein's social circle. So I, I guess we can all just go home and. Case closed and proved.

[Michael Wolf]

Case closed and proved. All right, so what else is there?

[Michael]

There's a, there's a there. We should, we should read that other very telling email. I think we don't know who sent it. Somebody sent it to Jeffrey Epstein and describing Donald Trump and Melania on the first weekend they spent together. Do we have that email?

[Michael Wolf]

I do. Funnily enough, I do have that email. I prepared his earlier. So we have no idea who this is from. It's sent on Wednesday, November 9, 2016. So the day after the election, and it became clear very quickly, as you will remember, that Trump was going to win and Hillary was going to lose. And it sent to Jeffrey Epstein. We don't know who it's from. And it goes, I simply cannot believe this victory. No one called it. We all thought she would win. She must be happy, though. I don't know why he would be happy. That Donald Trump. That Donald Trump as well.

[Michael]

The only thing that I can. That I might surmise is that Jeffrey Epstein was one of the few people who consistently predicted that Donald Trump would win. And everybody else said, oh, you're crazy. This is ridiculous. So this was. He was kind of making little bets with people.

[Michael Wolf]

Oh, okay. All right. And then so the person writing, and I'm assuming it's a man, says, you must be happy, though. I remember flying back with Donald on his plane. The first weekend I went to visit you in Florida was the weekend he met Melania. And he kept on coming out of the bedroom saying, wow, what a hot piece of ass nuts. Anyway, hope you're enjoying Saudi. Any idea who wrote that?

[Michael]

I have no idea, but Saudi. This was the period in which Epstein was spending. Spending a lot of time in Riyadh as an advisor to mbs.

[Michael Wolf]

Okay, interesting. Well, what else have we learned from the release of the Epstein files so far? I mean, there's 3 million of them. Impossible to search through them this quickly, but what's your impression of the dump so far?

[Michael]

Well, I think one of the things that we've learned is all of these people, obviously, including Donald Trump. Trump, who have tried to indicate in every way that if they knew Epstein, they barely knew him. They passed him on the street once, that kind of. That kind of thing. But it turns out that all of them, all of these people who we have heard from, who have denied having any kind of significant relationship with Epstein, from Bill Gates to Elon Musk to Howard Lutnick, had extensive relationships. They were good friends is what we're learning. They sought to spend time with each other. There's enormous numbers of emails about scheduling, how can we get together, how can we. I can meet, you fly in. Everybody has private planes. So that's the other thing that we're seeing the light of the life of the private plane set. But again, it's these people spent time with Jeffrey Epstein because they wanted to spend time with Jeffrey. They appeared to. They appeared to enjoy the time they spent with Jeffrey Epstein.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah. There's a fascinating one by Howard Lutnick. Now you will remember that Howard Lutnick lived next door to Jeffrey Epstein and said that he'd only ever once really talked to him. He'd gone to his house, Jeffrey Epstein had showed him a massage bed, and Lutnick and his wife had been sort of repulsed by this and decided not to ever go back again. And in fact, it turns out that there's a letter that's in the Journal this morning.

[Michael]

This is, according to Lutnick, that they saw this, they were repulsed. They would say, oh, yes, this is beyond the pale.

[Michael Wolf]

Exactly. But in fact, lo and behold, there's a letter sent on December 19, 2012, so four years after Epstein's been held in jail with his sort of strange deal he did with Alex Acosta in Florida. And it goes. Hi, Geoff. We're landing in St. Thomas early Saturday afternoon and planning to head over to St. Barts Anguier on Monday at some point. Where are you located? What is the exact location for my captain? Does Sunday evening for dinner sound good? I have another couple, Michael and Marcy Luhrmann, with me on my boat. And each of us has four children. Two 16s, two 14s, a 13, a 12, an 11 and a 7 year old. Thanks, Howard. So incredible that he happens to be taking two 14 year olds. Yes, well, not just his family, but the, the Lermans. And he's taking four teenagers. I don't know what gender they are. That might be of, of particular interest to Jeffrey Epstein. So Mr. Lutnick must have conveniently forgotten that six years ago he was hustling to get to Jeffrey's for lunch. It's, it's. These things are intriguing. These things are intriguing. So as is Elon Musk trying to get there to spend Christmas or New Year's there.

[Michael]

Yeah, no, I mean, again, I mean, what we see here is this portrait of, of this circle of very good friends, very good billionaire friends. I mean, that is the circle. You're not really in the circle unless you can get there by private plane.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, you talk about the plane, but the other thing that people got excited about was the fact the guy owns an island. Right? Because there are many people that have planes. There aren't that many people that own an island.

[Michael]

The other point about, about this is that there is so much here. This is, this is obviously an example of Flooding the zone. So there is too much for any one person to focus on. And there's a lot here. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that it's like, whoa. You know, and weirdly, they included and then, and then removed a schedule of tips that came into the FBI hotline. And there seems like there are scores of them with people identifying exactly the situation in which Trump raped them or raped somebody they knew. I mean, it's kind of like, I mean, I mean, it's obviously, it's obviously tapped into a, a whole world in which people have projected their fantasies onto this story. I mean, this could not possibly be true unless it is fantasy.

[Michael Wolf]

The right.

[Michael]

Unless it is, of course, true.

[Michael Wolf]

I'm not sure that I'm not, I've seen some of those, and I'm not sure the fantasies is the world I would use. I mean, I'm sure there are some kind of political opponents who have been set up to trying to frame him. That's different to fantasy.

[Michael]

Well, if, if that I, I read it different. I mean, there, there, there's enough there that you can't tell what the motivations are. But a lot of it reads to me as a, as literally as paranoid fantasies of, of people actually believing this idea that there is a, A, a circle of evil in which is occupied by these powerful men who are pulling strings and, and, and who are raping and murdering, by the way, Trump in, in many of these things, Trump has murdered several people, burying them in, in, in peculiar places. I mean, it's, it is a, it's in, it's certainly a down the rabbit hole picture of, of. Well, it's down the rabbit hole interpretation of the Jeffrey Epstein story, which is already down.

[Michael Wolf]

Right. I mean, how much further can we go? Going to come out?

[Michael]

Yes, we've, we've found the way to go further now.

[Michael Wolf]

But, but there is, it's like the alt. You see that the FBI must have rolled their eyes a lot of this stuff coming in because it's the most QAnon of QAnon conspiracies. But actually, the, the friend I ran into in Alabama yesterday that a lot of her MAGA school friends believe all this because they grew up thinking that they might be raptured every time they went to the mall. So if you grew up, if you grew up thinking that, that, you know, you would, you're going to the mall, it's a Saturday. But it could be the end of the world and you will be part of the rapture actually believing that there is A conspiracy of men murdering children is not that, that big a leap. In fact, it's not a leap at all.

[Michael]

Well, it's a leap of sanity, frankly.

[Michael Wolf]

I don't know.

[Michael]

There are a lot of insane people, but we don't elevate them to, to reasonableness. So I, I would, I would, I would challenge, I would challenge this. Yes, people, people are crazy and they believe totally ridiculous things, but we don't have to accept those as, as, as a, as a possible version of reality.

[Michael Wolf]

No, no. I mean, you look at some of this and you think the FBI must have seen this complaint come in and just roll their eyes and thought, oh, nut job. This is total nut job.

[Michael]

No. Now the interesting thing, though, is why they would have included that in this release of, of data and then actually taken it back. So, I mean, I can only read this by saying, I think, think that they said, okay, let's just throw, you know, they want everything, let's include everything. And, and, and this is, this is just going to confuse things even more. But then somebody from the White House called up and said, what are you doing? It's this. They're saying that Donald Trump murdered people and buried the bodies.

[Steve]

So.

[Michael Wolf]

Just like, who's paying attention to this stuff? But also, I'm always mindful that you say everybody in the White House hates everybody else. And so, and of course, people hate Donald Trump even when they're working for him and sucking up to him. So I'm sure a lot of them want this stuff out there in the same way that they want to release the files to spoil his wife's movie.

[Michael]

Yeah, I think it's more complicated than that. Remember, if they, if they, they don't want to lose their jobs and they don't want a. The last thing that everybody wants is a storming, raging Donald Trump that is truly unpleasant. Once more commercial.

[Steve]

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[Michael Wolf]

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[Steve]

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[Michael Wolf]

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[Michael]

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[Michael Wolf]

And Michael Wolf and I are back inside Trump's head, I must say. The Daily Beast did a fantastic story this week of Kristi Noem in one of the Cabinet meetings. He called out absolutely everybody else apart from Kristi Noem, and she's just sitting there giving the s wide eye to another cabinet minister as she's talking. And it's just, you just see her being increasingly isolated.

[Michael]

There are three things, three things that are going on at this moment in Trump world, which is Melania, the film, Melania, the, the movie, the release of the Epstein files, and Minneapolis, which they cannot escape. I mean, Minneapolis has become, well, it has become like the Epstein files, the thing that might well pull down this administration.

[Michael Wolf]

Right.

[Michael]

And, and they don't know how to cope with it. I mean, clearly. And there's a set of, of, of mixed signals. You know, Trump is saying, Trump was suddenly pulling back from this and we're going to have an investigation and we're going to do this. But then yesterday, he seemed to back and double down domestic terrorists. The same, the same thing. Now, I mean, one of the interesting things is what is there any kind of method here? And I think part of the method is the standard Trump. The standard Trump book, which is, is we go, we go in, we go in heavy, we get a lot of pushback, and we retreat from that. But even the place that we retreat is so much beyond where Americans would have expected anyone to be. I mean, essentially, we have created a formula for martial law.

[Michael Wolf]

Michael, you made a good point to me this week. You said the Trump White House governs on the basis of what it can get away with, which I thought was a really good line to explain their policies and their ambitions. They go as far as they possibly can, and then, as you say, and.

[Michael]

If they get away with it, then they, then they push further on, and then they get to the point where it is too much and then they scale it back. But they were, but they are yet beyond where they otherwise would have been. I mean, so we've basically normalized the situation in which, which we put federally controlled troops into American cities, blue cities, by the way, and with authorities to supersede the local police and local politicians.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah. And I read one fact today which said that the local police in Minneapolis, there are 600 of them and there are 3,000 ice ages there at the moment. The local police force there have already spent their overtime budget that was put aside for the entire year in January alone, trying to monitor situations. And now people are calling them and saying, oh, there's a car in the road. I don't know where it's from. I'm worried ICE agents are going to come and get me. It's just a terrible situation.

[Michael]

And let's call this what it is. I mean, the Trump administration calls this immigration enforcement, but this is martial law. I mean, this is what martial law looks like in Every way, shape and form.

[Michael Wolf]

Right. Masked men, unaccountable, pepper spraying people shooting people in cold blood. And the local police.

[Michael]

And also local. Yeah. And even on a structural basis, the idea that a federal, a federal.

[Steve]

A.

[Michael]

Police force, which is what this is, an internal federal police force, takes over your city. The city no longer has the ability to police itself. No longer has the right, apparently.

[Michael Wolf]

Meanwhile, three weeks ago we had Venezuela. Last week we had Greenland. Again, this sense of the news cycle moving so fast that nothing matters anymore, nothing sticks. Don Lemon arrested. Now he's out. They're charging him. And the process of that is the punishment, I think. I mean, nobody thinks that Don Lemon is seriously going to be found guilty and jail. But this is just harassment, the process of it. Yeah, it's harassment. It's annoying to have to deal with. He's going to have to pay a lawyer. It's distraction. Yeah.

[Michael]

No, and again, that's like in my situation, of them threatening to sue me for a billion dollars. I mean, what is that other than harassment? Now, of course, I can turn around and give them. And I have turned around and I am making life more difficult for them, thank God.

[Michael Wolf]

Meanwhile, the world is viewing America more and more as a pariah state. I mean, Europe. Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Britain, went to China to have his first conversations with the Chinese for, I think, eight years, seven years. Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, now organizing his own trade deals with China. So people are just going to circumvent America is such a home goal.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Michael]

No, no. And at great cost. I mean, the dollar is. The sanctity of the dollar slips or becomes weaker every day. The costs of borrowing go up. We are creating this idea, and this is kind of an old idea, 1920s idea, an idea completely discredited on so many levels that a nation can live alone. And that means that there's a whole kind of range of things that Donald Trump is. International bodies, global understandings. The idea of any kind of global cooperation is anathema to him. That is what he is trying to break. He doesn't believe in this. He's not comfortable with this. He thinks it's somehow at our expense rather than, as every other indicator would show, not only not at our expense, but has been a foundation of our success.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, to go full circle, not only does he think Melania and his family are mooching off him, but the world is mooching off America. So we've pulled out of the World Health Organization, we've pulled out of the Paris Climate treaty because he doesn't believe in goodwill and he doesn't believe in, you know, clearly he doesn't believe in a changing climate and he doesn't believe in, in cooperation on health.

[Michael]

No, there was this, there was a story possibly in the Times or the, or the Washington Post that, that in the financial community, the byword now is sell America. So essentially, essentially, if you can find an investment that sells short on, on, on the American future, take it.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, we're not selling short on the American future, Michael. I'm never going to sell short in America. I'm a huge believer in America. That's why I moved here.

[Michael]

So you think that invest your bullish on American investment strategy is the right one?

[Michael Wolf]

I think we're going through blip right now and I think that, that great things will happen after the midterms, but.

[Michael]

In the great things will happen after the midterms, really?

[Michael Wolf]

Well, I refuse to believe that. I mean, I mean, I think going to destroy America.

[Michael]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't know. I mean, the, the, the midterm that, I mean, the midterm question is, I mean, it's a question that we should be focused on, obviously, because this is, this is the midterm year. But, but then the further question is, even if the midterms go in the, in the Democrats direction, what does that mean for, does that denude Donald Trump? Does that neutralize Donald Trump or does that set up a greater conflict for Donald Trump to prosper off of?

[Michael Wolf]

Well, I do think it will. Well, let's hope. But assuming the Democrats win back the House of Representatives, I'm assuming that Congress will become more robust. Congress has basically been absent without leave for the last year. And I am very encouraged by the new generation of political leaders in the Democratic Party that I have been interviewing for the Daily Beast. I'm really energized. Energized by them. Graham Platner in Maine, if he manages to scrape through, will, I think, take down Susan Collins, Jasmine Crockett.

[Michael]

James, you are much more optimistic than I certainly am about these Democrats or any Democrats, but more power to you.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, I think we just have to, we have to deal with what we have. And I do think there is a new very energized generation of young leader that is looking for power and looking to use it and is not going to be schumering away. We haven't even talked about the potential shutdown.

[Michael]

There is a weekend shutdown just by, by, because, because they're not in, they're not here. Of overlapping schedules. But, but the Democrats again have sold out this position. I mean, in which they, they have basically said, so let's be very specific about, about this, we will remove the issue from the overall funding which was the thing that gave us leverage. We will so the issue of funding Homeland Security will stand on its own and we haven't resolved it. All we have agreed to do and all the White Houses has agreed to do is negotiate on, on about homeland Security funding on a separate basis. They haven't agreed to anything thing. And so fundamentally what's happening is the Democrats are saying we're going to trust you on this.

[Michael Wolf]

Well, that's a mistake. Don't they have two weeks to discuss it?

[Michael]

They have two weeks to discuss it. Yes, to negotiate. And what happens at the end of those, those two weeks? I mean remember, the leverage was the government funding the government. They now no longer have that leverage. They've given that up.

[Michael Wolf]

All right, Michael, so I'm not sure there is an easy out of today's conversation, but Garfried, our in house laureate, our limerick laureate, has come up with a couple of rather good ones which I thought I would read us out on. There once was a White House in shambles run daily by AIDS in a scramble. Morons, they'd say while dodging the blame, just trying to keep Trump pre handled. As Melania cashed in her fame with 40 million riding her name. The movie went bust, the ethics went dust and DHS played soldierly games.

[Michael]

What more can you say?

[Michael Wolf]

Garfried, thank you. And we'll be back on Tuesday for more Inside Trump's head.

[Michael]

Yvette Johnson, Methinks Betsy o' Farrell Mills and Lyns Chelby, Max Qbitt, David Sherry, Thomas Moore, Maria Voltain D. Kujer Watts. Okay. John H. Overrocker, Deb K. Ostrander, Sandra Clark travels with Carl, Andrew Beaver Capinator Harry Clark, Dawn McCarthy, Daniel Do Lover M. Griner, D. Stone, Fulvia Orlando, Herbie, Andrew Mellor, Tattnall, Val Love, Francesco, Will Hutchinson, Andrea Hodel, Bocock D.C. sharon Shipley, Connie Rutherford, Karen White and Heidi Riley. Thank you all.

[Michael Wolf]

Do you want to thank our team?

[Michael]

Devon Ryan, Rachel, Heather, Neil.

[Steve]

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