Why Trump's Slimy Humiliation Is Driving Him Mad

Summary

Podcast Summary: Inside Trump’s Head — “Why Trump’s Slimy Humiliation Is Driving Him Mad”
Hosts: Michael Wolff & Joanna Coles
Date: June 24, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode drills deep into Donald Trump’s latest obsession—the troubled state of the Washington, D.C. Reflecting Pool—arguing that his fixation has become both a symbol of his diminishing control and a window into his psyche. Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles dissect the personal, political, and psychological implications of Trump’s behavior amidst a tumultuous backdrop: sliding poll numbers, geopolitical crises, and a White House increasingly defined by chaos and distraction. With their trademark mix of reporting, first-person anecdotes, and sharp humor, Wolff and Coles reflect on what drives Trump, the burdens facing all modern politicians, and the eerie parallels between myth, dementia, and power.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Reflecting Pool Obsession and What It Reveals

• For the past week and a half, Trump has reportedly devoted the majority of his working hours (60–80%) fretting over the algae-infested, decaying Reflecting Pool—neglecting major national and international issues.
• Wolff reports:
  • “All his anger, all of his rage, all of his demands, and now his need for vengeance. Someone must be responsible. … This is an insult to the country and a challenge to him personally. … Even for people who work with Donald Trump every day, it’s a weird moment.” (04:56–07:04)
• Coles proposes Trump’s hotelier background may drive his desire to control the pool, to which Wolff replies the fixation could be symptomatic of cognitive decline, likening it to dementia’s narrowing focus on small, controllable details.
  • Quote: “This is one of those dementia things. You close out the rest of the world and you focus on these problems, which are really minor, and you turn them into obsessions. … This is becoming an obsession.” (07:30–08:19)

2. Losing Control: Trump’s State of Mind and Political Weakness

• The obsession arises against the backdrop of dropping poll numbers, a “precarious” peace deal, and growing midterm anxieties.
• Wolff sees the reflecting pool as a metaphor for Trump’s shrinking sphere of influence.
  • “This ought to be within my control. But even this is not in my control.” (10:16–11:59)
• The hosts connect Trump’s current behavior to his past, notably his aggressive intervention in the Wollman Rink renovation in NYC, suggesting that he’s mentally returning to moments of past triumph.

3. Dementia or Personality? Where to Draw the Line

• Coles presses Wolff on whether Trump is showing clear signs of dementia, referencing Dr. John Gartner’s view of the decline in Trump’s language.
  • Wolff expresses reluctance to diagnose but allows “something is not as it should be. The President … has chosen to focus almost exclusively on the reflecting pool. That’s odd.” (10:16–10:50)
• Mary Trump’s observation: her uncle now shows “exactly the same look she saw in her grandfather at the age of 80 when he started displaying dementia symptoms.” (14:30–15:01)

4. The Impossible Burden on Modern Politicians

• Analysis widens: Is Trump’s predicament unique, or is the job itself now unmanageable for anyone?
• Wolff: “The demands of leadership have so expanded that it might not be that there is anybody who has all of the talents required to achieve office, stay in office, be successful in office.” (23:20–26:43)

Modern Political Skillset (as listed by Joanna & Michael, 34:29–36:59)

• High-quality media and social media performance
• Personable, relatable presence and authenticity (embracing and owning mistakes)
• Superior executive function and managerial excellence
• Old-fashioned political instinct (counting votes, achieving majority)
• Brand management and guru-level flair for new politics
• Bureaucratic savvy (specifically, dealing with government bureaucracies)
• Personal countenance that engenders great loyalty
• Killer instinct (“the ability to say to your friends … you’re fired”)

Coles: “Superior executive function—almost impossible to find, I would say, at this point.” (35:03)

5. Leadership Depressions: Are We Out of Options?

• The hosts debate the idea (from a Democratic donor) that future presidents should come from outside politics (e.g., Peyton Manning or Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillon).
  • Wolff: “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. … Doug McMillan and Peyton Manning not only will never ever ever become President … but no one will ever regard them as serious possibilities … other than this single person you spoke to.” (30:13–31:53)

6. Keir Starmer’s Resignation: How Did Trump Know First?

• Trump seemed to “scoop” everyone on the British Prime Minister’s resignation via Truth Social.
  • Wolff explains that Trump got the tip from Nigel Farage, who “has been in almost constant touch with Trump in the last couple of weeks.” (19:27–20:56)
• Coles and Wolff reflect on Farage and the peculiarities of British and American political gossip loops.

7. Ukraine, Russia, and the New Face of Modern War

• Ukrainian forces have stunned observers by using drones to inflict unprecedented attacks within Russia itself.
• Wolff draws a contrast to America’s surrender in the Iran war:
  • “The war in Ukraine … is experiencing yet another extraordinary turnaround. … Within the past six, seven months, the Ukrainians have mastered drone technology really at a level no one had foreseen.” (38:31–40:34)
  • On US foreign policy: “The United States, the most powerful military might in the world … has been, dare I say, defeated.” (40:34–40:47)

8. Dictators, Domesticity, and Power: Book Recommendation

• Joanna recommends How to Feed a Dictator by Witold Sablowski, noting its insights into the private, domestic lives of tyrants—and the parallels to Trump’s own eating habits as chronicled by Wolff.
  • Colorful stories of Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot, with Coles drawing a link to Trump’s famously disordered diet: “lying in bed with his slimy burger dripping off the edge of his plate, tossing the wrappings on the floor or reaching for a carton of ice cream …” (44:47–46:47)
• Wolff clarifies that, in the White House, burgers come on a plate, but hotel suites end up “littered with candy bar wrappers.” (46:47–47:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On obsession as decline:
  • “The President of the United States … has chosen for the past week and a half at least, to focus almost exclusively on the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. That’s odd.” (10:16)
• On the impossible presidency:
  • “The demands of leadership have so expanded … it might not be that there is anybody who has all of the talents required … The issue is not any one of these people … the job … goes awry for anybody.” (23:20–25:43)
• On Democratic donors’ ideas:
  • “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. … Democratic donors are some of the, have some of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard.” (30:13–30:46)
• On Trump’s eating habits:
  • “It’s the wrappings of the candy bars … hotel rooms that aides always remark on—the floor is littered with candy bar wrappers.” (46:47–47:16)
• On US military status:
  • “The United States, the most powerful military might in the world … has been, dare I say, defeated.” (40:34–40:47)

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Key Timestamps

| Time | Topic/Segment | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------| | 00:58 | Wolff introduces Trump’s Reflecting Pool obsession | | 04:56 | “All his anger … is devoted to the pool.” | | 07:30 | Potential dementia? | | 15:00 | Mary Trump’s dementia comparison | | 18:10 | Wollman Rink anecdote | | 19:27 | Trump gets Starmer tip from Farage | | 23:20 | “The problem with politics is politicians.” | | 34:29 | Modern political skillset breakdown (list) | | 38:31 | Ukraine war, drones, leadership | | 44:37 | Book: How to Feed a Dictator | | 46:47 | Trump’s eating habits — the burger/candy detail |

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Tone and Style

The conversation is candid, irreverent, and analytic. Wolff and Coles blend reporting, personal anecdotes, sardonic humor, and references to both history and pop culture. They are unsparing in their critique of both Trump and broader political dysfunction, while maintaining a perverse curiosity about the spectacle of power and decline.

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Bottom Line

This episode offers a penetrating and at times darkly comic look at Trump’s current psychological state, the state of U.S. and U.K. politics, and the wider crisis of political leadership. For those seeking insight into where power, ego, and decline meet, or why character is ultimately destiny, this conversation is essential listening/reading.

Transcript

[Michael]

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[Joanna]

No judgments.

[Michael]

But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try.

[Joanna]

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[Michael]

See full [e-mail] the discussion that I'm having with people is that 60, 70, 80% of his time is devoted to the reflecting pool. This is against the background of a peace deal, which is very precarious. Polling numbers which are continue to drop looking at the midterms calamity. But he is focused on the reflecting pool. This clearly has become in his mind and hence in the White House, an obsession. And the fact that this too is not within his control is making him crazier and crazier by the moment. Michael Joanna. Still in Cannes, I see.

[Joanna]

I'm still in Cannes and guess what? This is actually a wine glass full of water. But I have, in defiance of your instructions, been drinking.

[Michael]

I would count on nothing less. The great middlebrow experience.

[Joanna]

Middlebrow experience.

[Michael]

But the news from the Croisette.

[Joanna]

The news from the Croisette is, you know, we live in complicated times. No one knows what to do. It's couldn't be a better example of the first line of William Goldman's memoir, nobody knows Anything. It feels like that moment right now.

[Michael]

Just for some background here, Joanna is in Cannes at the Cannes Lions Festival, which is about the advertising business, which is fundamentally about the media business, the business we obviously work in. But and always a harbinger of what's going to happen or of what, of people who have no idea what is happening.

[Joanna]

Right. So I would and it's a celebration of the creative side too. So there's a lot of hustling going on, but then there's a kind of layer.

[Michael]

But since there hasn't been a creative thought in the advertising business for two generations, it's an equivocal experience, to say the least.

[Joanna]

Well, what I would say right now is everybody's chasing YouTube. It's all about YouTube. What's YouTube doing? How can we do what YouTube's doing? Do you think we're as good as YouTube? So there's a lot of that going on, but also, everybody is still very much talking about, is this war over what is Donald Trump happening? Everybody who I've spoken to who's European here is what is America doing with Trump? How did this happen? Is it as bad as it seems? So I'm very curious to know what's happening. We have so much to discuss Today, Michael. It's 10 years since Brexit. So I wanna talk about how did Trump know that Keir Starmer was leaving before Keir Starmer did? I want to talk about that.

[Michael]

I have a good story about Trump and Brexit, so let's remind me.

[Joanna]

Okay, I will remind you. I want to talk about Ukraine because we know that there's been an increase in attacks on Moscow from the Ukraine with drones. I mean, biggest drone attacks for some time. But really, I want to know what's happening with the reflecting pool. I mean, when I left, it was American flag blue. It was all going to be absolutely marvelous. And now it appears to be a fetid pool of algae. And anybody, or algae, as you say, algae, whatever, however you pronounce it, algae. And whoever goes near it, whoever tries to pick up a piece of the floating paint that separated itself from the bottom of the 2000 long foot pool, gets arrested.

[Michael]

You know, well, I've been talking to people close to Trump about this, and there is kind of a level of clear concern because Trump is devoting almost all of his time to the reflecting pool. All of his anger, all of his rage, all of his demands, all. And now, and now his need for vengeance. Someone must be responsible. Someone is responsible for this. It's clearly not Trump. Let's get them and let's punish them. Let's arrest them. This is a, it's an insult to the country and a, and a challenge to him personally. And I'm really not exaggerating this. The discussion that I'm having with people is that 60, 70, 80% of his time, and remember, he doesn't work that much. There's not that much time he's working anyway, is devoted to the reflecting pool. That somehow this has gotten into his head as the thing that stands for everybody else. And let's remember this is against the background of a peace deal, which is very precarious. His polling numbers, which continue to drop, looking at the midterms calamity, but he is focused on the reflecting pool. Now, we can obviously make a little nod here to Narcissus and his reflecting pool, but this is, you know, I think it has there in these conversations that I have, you can tell that they kind of stop in a way to suggest they don't quite know what to make of this. I mean, that it is, even for them, even for people who work with Donald Trump on every day, a weird moment.

[Joanna]

And it's a weird moment because he's so thoroughly obsessed. Is this because he thinks of himself as a sort of hotelier builder, and this is actually something he should be able to do?

[Michael]

I think that that probably is involved with this. But, you know, and I think,

[Joanna]

you

[Michael]

know, I've said before that I'm against diagnosing people, but, you know, Jesus, for anybody who has seen this before, and I have seen this before, and so many people have, this is one of those dementia things. You close out the rest of the world and you focus on these problems, which are. Which are really minor, and you turn them into obsessions. I mean, and this clearly has become, in his mind, and hence in the White House, an obsession. What is the largest problem in the world today? It is apparently the reflecting pool.

[Joanna]

And why can't he just delegate the reflecting pool to Doug Burgum, the Secretary of the Interior?

[Michael]

There is the question. And the fact that he has not is an indication of something extraordinary and, yes, possibly dementia, possibly just a sense on his part that everything else has become beyond his control. And this is, or at least ought to be, within his control. And the fact that this, too, is not within within his control is making him crazier and crazier by the moment.

[Joanna]

That's interesting, because I know we have discussed at length your refusal to believe that he has signs of dementia.

[Michael]

Well, no, I mean, I think he obviously has signs of dementia. I'm just not comfortable with moving that to a diagnosis. I mean, you have that guy on, Dr. John Gartner.

[Joanna]

He says that because Trump's been in place plain sight for so many years, you can actually diagnose the decline of his language, which is key to understanding someone's mental state.

[Michael]

That's what all television doctors say.

[Joanna]

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[Michael]

I mean, there is. I mean, there is. What are these? We can say here something is unusual, something is not as it should be. Something is weird. The President of the United States of America, engaged in all kinds of crises which get larger and larger, has chosen for the past week and a half at least, to focus almost exclusively on the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. That's odd.

[Joanna]

Is it? Because there's a July 4 deadline, 250 years since the beginning of America, and it now looks like it's going to be more.

[Michael]

Well, theoretically, but I think. And that's how this began. I mean, he had this idea, I'm going to make the reflecting pool, I'm going to paint it a bright blue for the 4th of July. Good enough. And then painting this bright blue seemed to somehow, somehow create the algae problem. I don't know. And that then became, in his mind, this obsession. And again, I think it is. This ought to be. Everything's out of control. This ought to be within my control. But even this is not in my control.

[Joanna]

But one of the reasons it's not in his control is because of the sloppy contract process. If he'd actually bothered to go through a proper bidding process, and they actually had a group of people who've done this kind of monument before.

[Michael]

I don't think that's the issue at all. I think that the issue at all is the President of the United States should not be engaged in the minutiae of the reflecting pool, of course, and to the exclusion of everything else. Don't worry. I mean, this is somebody else's job. And the fact that he has made it his job and is an indication of something not good. And it may be.

[Joanna]

But Michael, he does that with everything.

[Michael]

Yes, he does do this with everything. But this goes to an extreme, which actually goes to the dementia consideration. That's what happens in dementia. The kinds of things that you might otherwise do become. Become. Crowd out everything else. So, I mean, that's what. That's what surfaces in a. Dementia symptoms. Yes, that was a trait, you might have now, it is the only trait you have. And this, this is, I mean, again, the people around him, the people that I am talking to say, whoa, this is a, this is a little, this moment is a little unusual even for Donald Trump.

[Joanna]

Even for Donald Trump, because you would think that he might want to focus more on the war. But we know he doesn't want to do that because of the memo of understanding, which really doesn't have any understanding in it, possibly the memo of misunderstandings and of a worse situation than we were in before we went to war.

[Michael]

Yeah, let's step back. He can't usually the Trump response, in situations in which he's not looking good or he can't control or things are not going his way, he changes the stories, creates another narrative. This is what he's been so good at, even though he creates another crisis. But this is different. At this point, he's not out in front of this. He's retreating from it and he's retreating into this small thing so effectively, he is so in his own head that he has lost sight of the bigger picture. You know, the algae becomes the most pressing and existential problem facing.

[Joanna]

Well, and of course, Mary Trump, the president's niece, with whom he's just finally settled their long, long legal dispute, says that she sees in him exactly the same look she saw in her grandfather at the age of 80 when he started displaying dementia symptoms. So who knows whether or not that's what's going on here. But clearly an over focus on something which amid everything else he has to deal with is not as important.

[Michael]

I think the thing to note here is that so much else has gotten out of his, out of his control. He's not in a good place politically. He's not in a good place. And this is in contrast. Remember, we've had 16 months of this term and for most of that time, or at least a year of that time, he was the dominant guy. I saw some publicity for the, you know, this new book about, about the Trump presidency, the Maggie Haberman book, you know, talking about him as the most powerful president of the modern age. And I think it's, it's already that, that that thesis seems already out of date. He is clearly a president who is arguably like all other presidents at, at some point is, doesn't know what to do, is kind of standing there in some amount of nakedness. And I think we should mark this as a certain turn in this presidency. He's kind of lost one of the things in thinking about the reflecting pool What I have reflected on is that there was a moment in Trump's New York history, a pivotal moment, when there was an ice skating rink, Wollman Rink in New York, and Wollman Rink was the city of New York had made many promises about the upkeep of the rink and they didn't deliver on. And Donald Trump, still quite a young man at this point, stepped forward and said he would do it, he would pay for the renovation of the rink and. And he would do it within a very short period of time. And he actually managed to do this. And this was the moment that kind of gave him the can do. I can cut through the red tape, I can accomplish anything. I'm a guy with his feet on the ground and God damn it, get government out of the way and let me do it. And then he put up signs calling it the Trump Wollman Rink, although its name had never been changed to the Trump Wollman Rink. But I think that this may be, again, it's a kind of a dementia thing that he's returned to this moment in his life, a moment, a moment of great success, a moment in which part of the Trump mythology was born. The only problem is, of course, it's not quite working out as it did once long ago.

[Joanna]

So you have a substack later today, dropping today. We're recording this on Tuesday about the nature of politicians and whether or not politicians, the demands on them have changed and they have to pivot to meet that. But one of the things I found curious was that Donald, Donald Trump, for all his potential dementia symptoms, managed to truth social out on Sunday night that the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, was resigning before anybody else knew. Keir Starmer hadn't even resigned at this point. He would come out later in the morning on Monday and make a rather moving speech saying that he was leaving. And then as he got to the end of it, as so many politicians were do, standing outside that familiar black door at number 10 Downing street, voices begin to quaver at the end of the speech and his did, as he thanked his kids and he thanked his wife for their support. A, how did he know, how did Trump know that that was happening? And B, and then I want to talk a little bit about the changing nature of politicians and whether or not anybody can now do this job, these jobs, these big jobs.

[Michael]

Well, I mean, it didn't take a genius to know that this was going to happen, but this was.

[Joanna]

Well, actually, a ton of people said it wasn't going to happen. I mean, Your friend Alistair Campbell on the rest is Politics UK said it wouldn't happen for several weeks. I think a lot of people were taken aback by it.

[Michael]

And I would say that that Alistair who, who I saw a couple of months ago in the, in the UK said it would never happen the then. So he's. But, but no, I mean, I think by Sunday night it was pretty, it was pretty clear that this was, that this would. Would happen in the short term. But Trump's information, precise information on this comes came from Nigel Farage who was, you know, who's. A, A, you know. I mean, I don't. How would. Nigel Farage. Yeah, I don't. This is. Trump said this on the basis of what Farage told him. Whether it was true or not is irrelevant to Donald Trump. So he just happened. This is just a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Joanna]

But don't you think it's possible that they. You don't think it's possible that the Brits had told the Americans and told. And American intelligence had said to Trump, keir Starmer's going to resign tomorrow. Do not say anything. And he couldn't stop himself and he blurted it out on Truth Social. That to me had more of a ring of truth than Nigel Farage telling me.

[Michael]

Well, I know the Nigel Farage thing has happened, that Nigel Farage has been in almost constant touch with Trump in the last couple of weeks of the. Of the Brits having a meltdown. I mean, first thing, because Trump enjoys the gossip. He enjoys the fact that Keir Starmer, who he has not been fond of recently because of the war, was in jeopardy. And Nigel is always looking for ways to get close to Trump. Supplying Trump with this kind of gossip about his enemies works for them both.

[Joanna]

Okay. And we should just remind people that Nigel Farage is the head of the Reform Party, which is the far right party in the UK but before we

[Michael]

do, whose career has been. Has been supported by Trump since. For the past 10 years. Really.

[Joanna]

And whose appeal to the popular voter is that he's frequently, if not always, photographed with a pint of beer in his hand. And when accused of being an alcoholic, he simply says, I am a boozer, which is different to being an alcoholic. And it's just such a wonderful word, boozer. And again, it's that thing of he's the guy that people think they want to hang out with down at the pub. But.

[Michael]

And I have spent an hour or more in a room with Nigel Farage and Steve Bannon in which Nigel Farage was so drunk he couldn't sit on the seat.

[Joanna]

Wow, that is quite drunk. That is almost as drunk as you once describing you saw. Who is the Washington. Who's the D.C. attorney General? Jeanine Pirro.

[Michael]

Oh, yeah.

[Joanna]

Judge Jeanine.

[Michael]

Totally, man. That was. Yes, that was even more of concern because I thought, oh, my God, I'm gonna have to deal with this.

[Joanna]

Okay, well, happily you didn't. All right, I want to read. I want to read the beginning of your sub stack. Here we go. A problem with politics is obviously that it allowed Donald Trump to become president. But it's hard not to conclude, too, that the problem with politics is politicians. Any politician. Okay, can you explain what you mean?

[Michael]

You know, I think that the demands of the. Of the job, the demands of leadership have so expanded that it might not be that there is anybody who has all of the talents required to achieve office, stay in office, be successful in office. So Keir Starmer is out. As the last four prime ministers before him were quickly out, he will be likely replaced by Andy Burnham, who had been the mayor of Manchester, now as a Labour Party, a Labour Party celebrity hero, and will probably replace Keir Starmer and become the Prime Minister. But, and this was, you know, I began to think about this. There was a substack piece by a writer by the name of Ian Leslie, a terrific writer who wrote the book, last year's book, about John Lennon and Paul McCartney and their relationship. A fantastic book and kind of one of those. I mean, moving to the extent that that relationship, you suddenly start to think, well, the 20th century was not all bad. But he's also a good political writer, and he wrote about Andy Burnham. He said that there was no logical reason to believe that Andy Burnham, if becomes the Prime Minister of the UK will be any more successful than Keir Starmer or the four prime ministers before that. The issue is not any one of these people at this point, but the issue is that the job, the demands of the job are so myriad and complex and almost in some sense contradictory that it goes awry for anybody. And then I began to think, well, that's probably also true about Donald Trump, you know, and we see him, we see right now, or at least many people are seeing as. As this, as things go south for Donald Trump, they are going south for him because. Because he's a monster, because he's preposterous, because he's unfit in. In any way. And I think that that is probably true. That is certainly true. But it is also equally as true that this would probably go awry for anyone. I mean, it went awry for Joe Biden, the exact opposite person of Donald Trump, and it went awry for Donald Trump the last time he was president. So even in this country, we have had, you know, this is probably the third presidency in a row that's going down the tubes.

[Joanna]

And is this, what is this, is this a social media phenomenon? Why now? Because surely this is something that's been true of the presidency. Certainly because it is such a big job.

[Michael]

Because probably it becomes harder and harder that the expectations for leadership grow ever bigger, the resources to be a leader ever slimmer in a period of low economic growth. The expectations. You just don't have the skill set to manage these kind of expectations. In order to get to be president, you have to be a kind of media star. But to succeed as a president, you have to be a keen backroom, bureaucratic player. And not even these things, there are a whole set of other demands. You got to be a sympathetic figure. You got to be a killer. At the same time, um, you have to, you have to be a brand manager, you know, which, you know of kind of Maga or Maha or Mamdani right now is the, is the, is doing an extraordinary job of being the brand manager for democratic socialism. But these are all skill sets that, that, that all of these skill sets have to be present at the same time and in the same person.

[Joanna]

But, but isn't this the point of delegation? Isn't this the point of having a cabinet? Wasn't that the genius of Barack Obama hiring Hillary Clinton to be a Secretary of state? That actually you don't need to be all these things and any leader, any good leader knows they can't possibly fulfill everything.

[Michael]

Well, that's just, that's actually another job that you have to have. You have to have the ability to hire good people. So you have to be an exceptional manager. And most people actually are not. So, I mean, Donald Trump has hired exceptional boobs, but most people, most presidents hire relative mediocrities.

[Joanna]

Fair. Well, I was talking to, I was talking this week to a big Democratic donor who said that he thought, you know, I was pestering him for. Who do you think is the. Is going to run? Who should the next leader of the Democratic Party be? And he said he thought it couldn't be a professional politician that good, though JP Pritzker or Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro might be. Actually, at this point, that's not going to work. And what the Democratic Party should do is look for Someone outside of politics who's been extremely successful in another line of business. And he proffered two people. One was Peyton Manning and the other was Doug McMillan, who was the CEO of Walmart. Not a well known figure, but someone who has got extreme managerial experience as Walmart's the biggest or certainly was the biggest employer of people anywhere in the country. Which prompted someone else to say, yeah, Doug McMillan's social media game is really, really rivaling Mamdani's right now. And I couldn't tell if this was a preposterous idea or actually a rather good idea.

[Michael]

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And in my, in the, in my experience, Democratic donors are some of the, have some of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard. And it's an interesting thing. You know, Republican, big Republican donors are, are almost always focused on their self interest and, and it's really about who can get elected, who's going to give them what they want. Democratic donors I always find is it's all about their cocktail party game.

[Joanna]

What does that mean, their cocktail party game? Do you mean like they can say I'm hanging out with so and so?

[Michael]

Yes, I'm hanging out. And they like to sound like they know that they know what they're talking about and it's all. And they are the authorities because they know so and so, because they've given such and such. They know so and so and therefore they have the authority to spout off and to say ridiculous things. And that is really not that true. Among Republicans it's always, it's much more surgical, much more strategic because it's, for them, it's about how can we make more money. So I mean, that may be more corrupt, but it is often more effective than the Democrats, blah, blah, blah. I can tell you Doug McMillan and Peyton Manning not only will never, ever, ever become the President of the United States or hold any elective office, but no one will ever regard them as serious possibilities to do so, other than this single person you spoke to.

[Joanna]

Okay, and then in which case, how does someone like Graham Platner, who I actually quite like, despite the fact that he's got all sorts of controversy around him, but I think he's a sort of breath of fresh air. How does someone like that get chosen then? I mean, if Peyton Manning, you don't think can make it. Admittedly, Graham Platner's running for Senate, he's not running for President. But if Peyton Manning can't get a,

[Michael]

he has a made it yet.

[Joanna]

We should actually take a bet on whether or not Graham Platner brings Susan Collins to the end of her political career.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Joanna]

What do you think? You think he's not going to make it?

[Michael]

I think he's not going to make it.

[Joanna]

I think he might make it, but by a very slim, Slim majority, I think.

[Michael]

Then we're both saying the same thing.

[Joanna]

No, we're not saying the same thing because that seat is important enough to swing it one way or the other, potentially for the.

[Michael]

I know, but. But you can't say he might make it. I'm saying.

[Joanna]

No, I don't think it's. I think he'll make it. I'll think he'll. I think he makes it, but with a very slim majority. But I think he makes it.

[Michael]

Well, obviously it will be a slim majority, but. But you think he will be elected.

[Joanna]

I think he could be elected overseas. No.

[Michael]

Could. You can't say could be. He could be.

[Joanna]

I think he would. I think he would. I think he will get elected over Susan Collins.

[Michael]

Okay. And I think he won't.

[Joanna]

Okay, well, that's. I'm going to jot this down as our. Yeah, okay. Come November, we'll remember this.

[Michael]

But I also think that this is a pretty good example. Graham Platner possesses some of those things which. Susan Collins, which. The former governor, whose name I cannot even now remember, who ran against him in the. Did not. Which, which is an extraordinary media game. And you know that. That kind, that kind of candidate that, that, that bursts through the clutter precisely because he is all of those things that he's now getting. Getting. Well, how much that are. Yes, that are now causing him a great deal of problems. So again, you have those things. This is what you have to do to be nominated, and this is. We're talking about in a primary, but those are the things that might not get you elected.

[Joanna]

All right, I'm going to whip through the list of things that you think are now essential for every politician to have, because you actually list them in this substack. So one, high quality media performance and a sharp social media game. So perfect example. Someone like Mamdani. Two, personable, relatable presence. I would say that's Graham Platner. Authenticity means you've made mistakes, but you cop to them. And I get that his mistakes are kind of pretty mistakey. They are, as Dennis Potter, the British playwright, would say, the mistakest of mistakes, but nonetheless, he's owned up to them. Three, superior executive function. Very hard to find. Clearly, Donald Trump doesn't Have it clearly, Keir Starmer actually voted in as a technocrat and someone who'd completely cleared out his party of the unelectables. So finally got Labour elected after I think, 14 years of conservative rule, but to be bounced by his own very ungrateful party two years later. But superior executive function, almost impossible to find, I would say, at this point. Managerial excellence and the ability to hire and shepherd a talented team. Not dissimilar to the previous point. Old fashioned political instinct and ability to count heads and achieve something greater than 50%. Nancy Pelosi's great talent, brand guru flair for whatever particular new politics you're selling. So Trumpism, maha ism, democratic socialism, 7, bureaucratic savviness. Isn't that the same as superior executive function?

[Michael]

No, no, no, no. I think bureaucracies and dealing with government bureaucracies is a special learned talent. I mean, and I think you could say that was Biden's singular talent.

[Joanna]

Oh, interesting. Okay, fair. I'll let you have that. All right. 8. A personal countenance that engenders great loyalty. Joe Biden definitely had that.

[Michael]

Too much of it, probably.

[Joanna]

Right, right. Because people should have said, joe, we love you, it's time to go. And at the same time, number nine, final point, a killer instinct, which is what Obama had the ability to see, the right timing, to go up against the Clintons and to see, this is his chance. And that may be what Platner has going up first against Janet Mills and secondly against Susan Collins.

[Michael]

Yeah, but a killer instinct, that's not really, I mean, I mean, Platner in that instance is taking a, you know, I mean, he's a risk taker in that I suppose you could say. But a killer instinct is the ability to say, to say to your friends and people who have helped elect you and people who have, who have. Close to you say you're fired. I mean, that actually is a Trump thing. Trump created that sense because he had a television show that he could do that, but has never shown any indication that he could. That that's. That that is actually what. What he does.

[Joanna]

Well, and still remarkable that the only people that have been fired from the Cabinet, despite the presence of Pete Hegseth, is a women. He's able to fire women, but he can't fire men.

[Michael]

Yeah, well, he's fired. I don't even think that's the problem. I mean, his problem is that he's always doing things for what he needs instead of for what he needs to accomplish.

[Joanna]

So that brings us to someone we haven't talked about for a bit who turns out to be a remarkable leader. And that's Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I mean, last two weeks, hammering drones on Moscow. Four years after the war began, four and almost a half. I mean, this thing has gone on longer than the First World War.

[Michael]

Well, let's compare these two wars that have now occurred at least in the last number of months, simultaneously. The war in Ukraine and the war in Iran and the war in Ukraine, which is experiencing yet another extraordinary turnaround. And this would be probably, I guess, the second extraordinary turnaround in this war. The first turnaround is the expectation that Russia would sweep in and overwhelm the Ukrainians. They stood up and for. For an extended period, the first real year and a half of the war, not only fought the Russians to a standstill, but clearly fought the Russians to an incredible Ukrainian advantage. And then the war kind of plateaued and it was at a standstill. And now recently, within the past six months, seven months, the Ukrainians have come back, have mastered drone technology really at a level that no one had foreseen them capable of. And no one had foreseen that drones itself, that technology would be capable of. And now has. I mean, Russia is in a. At an extraordinary disadvantage versus the Iranian war, in which the United States, the most powerful military might in the world, in the history of the world, has been, dare I say, defeated.

[Joanna]

Well, it's surrendered. The president surrendered essentially with worse terms than we had before we went to war. I mean, how can we see that, sadly, as anything other than as a defeat for the U.S. yes.

[Michael]

So, but to go back to, I mean, the Zelensky thing and the Zelensky thing, I think there's another clear element here. Zelensky and the Ukrainians had the support of the US And Europe through the Biden administration. Trump. Trump was returned to office. And one of his pledges is that he would solve the problem in his first night in office.

[Joanna]

When you put it like that, it sounds even more ridiculous than it. When he said.

[Michael]

It always sounded ridiculous. But yes, and he has backed off from this. He has. Let me remember that. That Oval Office meeting where he dressed down a dress down Zelensky. And we have pulled back our support incrementally ever since. I mean, although we have never entirely pulled it back. So Trump was always a kind of a weird thing in the middle here. I mean, he never abandoned Ukraine, but he never supported it either. So forcing Ukraine to basically stand on its own, basically to focus on its own weapons game which has allowed it to not only survive, but, relatively speaking, prosper and. And put the Russians in an extremely difficult situation.

[Joanna]

Yeah, it's interesting because the British Defense Minister just resigned with his number two. This was last week, before Keir Starmer resigned, saying that Russia would likely invade the UK and Europe in the next few years and that they didn't have the resources to withstand that invasion. And yet that seems highly unlikely, given the stalemate that's gone on with Ukraine and the fact that they can't get that finished.

[Michael]

Yeah, no, I mean, let's clock this. Upwards of a million Russian casualties at this point. I mean, extraordinary.

[Joanna]

Well, and they're emptying the jails and sending prisoners to the front.

[Michael]

How Vladimir Putin remains in power isn't. Is another mystery. And I mean, you know, just through the means of despotism, I would say. But even that probably cannot go on forever and ever. And especially as if the Ukrainians are able to turn their present advantage into yet a further advantage, attacking Russia itself on a constant and continual basis. Which brings up all kinds of other scary and existential questions.

[Joanna]

It does. Well, that brings me onto a book that I would like to recommend, actually, not least because it's about dictators. But every single one of them has now left office. And of course, when they were in office, it felt like they were insurmountable, that they would never leave office. But of course, regimes do change. And this is an old book. It's been out for some time. It was actually suggested by one of our viewers, and it's called how to Feed a Dictator.

[Michael]

At least not suggested by a big Democratic donor.

[Joanna]

Not suggested by a big Democratic donor, suggested by a fan, a Daily Beast podcast fan. It's by Witold Sablowski. And actually, what's interesting about it is it's that domestic insight into what people like in their downtime and the things they found soothing and how they behaved to people who turned out to be very important to them because they were feeding them and they didn't want to be poisoned because by these people. And they also wanted to be fed well. And it has all sorts of interesting details in it, like Saddam Hussein, for example, having a group of friends for dinner saying that he had cooked the meal and then packing the meat that he'd cooked for everybody with very, very, very hot sauce, so that when they ate it, they immediately started weeping and breaking out in hives, and they all had to pretend that they liked it because he was that kind of a guy. So he was having a joke with himself. Then, of course, he feeds it to his chef. And his chef has to say, this is completely inedible. It's impossible. What on earth have you done with this? And Saddam realizes that his chef is one of the few honest people around him. So it's actually filled with fascinating little details. Pol Pot, it turns out, used to just love smiling over a bowl of soup, presumably smiling over the extreme damage he was doing to his country. But I really recommend it for those who want a different kind of a history. It's a really. It gives wonderful domestic insight into people's habits. And, of course, it feels very relevant to Donald Trump's own eating habits, which you have chronicled, where he's lying in bed with his slimy burger dripping off the. The edge of his plate, and then he's tossing the wrappings on the floor or reaching for a carton of ice cream, which he eats in one.

[Michael]

It's the wrappings of the candy. Candy bars.

[Joanna]

Well, I'm sure he throws the wrappings of the burgers on the floor, too. Right? I can't believe that he puts those in the bin and doesn't worry about

[Michael]

the candy wrappers that comes on a plate. In other words, they get the burgers. The. In the White House, this is all through. He doesn't get takeout at his door. The White House waiters bring up the hamburger. But it's in the hotel rooms that aides always remark on that the floor is littered with candy bar wrappers.

[Joanna]

Well, either way, it's just. It's just odd. But I wonder. I think I mentioned this to you before, having spent a lot of time in the fashion world, where people would frequently be flying back and forth to Europe and taking Ambien. Ambien would sometimes trigger them raiding the minibar. And there were many stories of models and fashion editors who would wake up in the morning smeared with chocolate wrappers because they had, in their sleep, eaten everything they could get their hands on.

[Michael]

Yes. Now, to make that more vivid, the idea of. Of waking up in the morning and smeared with brown stuff is the. The point.

[Joanna]

I know. Smeared with Mars bars and Snickers. I think it's also reflection on people who've got disordered eating. And when you take a nighttime sleeping aid, it sometimes triggers strange behaviors. Anyway, it was every fashion editor's fear that they would wake up and discover that they had added an unnecessary 12,000 calories by eating their way through the minibar and they couldn't remember anything about it.

[Michael]

I would be more disturbed to wake up smeared with brown, but.

[Joanna]

Okay. So, Michael, we will be talking again on Thursday. All being well, by which point, I should be in Paris, which is experiencing the hottest days ever. Ever in the history. Europe is going through an incredible heat wave. I will say, even in Cannes, which is set up for very hot weather, it is unbelievably stifling here well into the 90s, and you can't really get a break from it. There's no. There's no breeze. It's incredibly still and slightly humid, and everybody's going around with a sheen of sweat upon them, which would make you repulsed. You would be like, oh, no, stay away. I'm not going to embrace you. But I know in the Hamptons, you have a delicious breeze off the Atlantic.

[Michael]

Delicious. And today we're waiting for a storm. At this very moment, the sky is. The sky is darkening by the minute.

[Joanna]

Oh, a lightning storm. Yeah.

[Michael]

Well, some kind of storm, yeah.

[Joanna]

Okay. Well, I hope you don't get washed away or blown away back to Kansas, Michael.

[Michael]

Yeah, that would be. Or washed. I think it would be to be washed out to sea. Yeah.

[Joanna]

Not a great way to go. All right, if you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast. We rely on your support, and the only reason we can bring you conversations as independent as this one is through your support and the fact that we are genuinely independent media.

[Michael]

Thank you, Ryan, Heather, Rachel, Neil and John. Why is this so difficult for me every time? This is the challenge of this hour of conversation to remember the people to thank my challenge.

[Joanna]

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.