Erika Kirk In Ruins as TPUSA Goes Broke? Trump Caught in Alleged Affair with Aide?

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0:38You know the people I find most mysterious in all this is Charlie Kirk's parents. These petty old guys. You hate each other. You know it's toxic as all get out. Mike, I just want to volunteer. Jen and I, you can walk in here. We're not going to jump in, but you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine, big guy. Just fine. You can call us mommy. Joining me today on iHip News is my great friend, Joanna Coles. She is the chief content and creative director of The Daily Beast and co-host of Inside Trump's Head. Joanna, how are you today? Well, I wish that people could see what's going on inside, which is I'm doing one of those little dances with my feet and my arms just going, I'm so excited to be here because I love your show.

1:21I think you're incredible. And you sort of come from nowhere. And I feel like you've changed the podcast scene. And it's really exciting. So I'm thrilled to be here and I am but a minnow in your shark's wake, Jen. A minnow. A minnow. Thank you so much. That is so lovely to hear. You know, there are so many people like me that are blue dots and red states that have lived in MAGA supermajorities and know the imminent danger. Because when you live in New York - Right. You don't sense it. You can kind of, you can get, it cracks me up when people are like, Kathy Hochul pisses me off. And I think, what a luxury.

2:02Right. The governors in these red states are taking away rape victims' rights and saying that that's what God wanted them to do. I mean, it's really dire for women. But speaking of MAGA, Trump has been hanging out with this little blonde aide. According to the Daily Beast, let's pop this up. Trump hits golf course with blonde aide amid posting spree. And I believe this is that Natalie Harp. The human printer. Yes. The human printer. Trump cannot be on his own. And we know what happens when he is on his own. He immediately starts frantically posting. And Natalie Harp is one of the women around him And there are many of them And they all look strangely the same They all have the kind of MAGA look But the other thing that Trump doesn't like to do Is he doesn't like not to have paper He likes things printed out And she figured out a way of getting a printer So she can ride around on a golf cart With a Wi-Fi printer Printing things out for him Which actually if she ever needs the job She can come to the Daily Beast because I love the idea of having someone give me printed sheets instead of constantly having to look through digital files, which always seem much...

3:17It's so much easier to have a piece of paper. You've got a piece of paper in front of you. They're antiques now, but I'm with you. I like something tangible to hang on to. What really bothered me about this, one of the other stories I covered about her, was that I always assumed when he was doing all of this posting, this crazy lie social, as I like to call it, posting, that he was alone. The fact that somebody's with him saying, yeah, post it, do it, that's really troubling how sycophantic and obsequious from top to bottom everybody is surrounding him. But he makes that a feature, right? This is not a bug of his presidency.

3:56This is a feature. We see his cabinet meetings where they all go round and one is more obsequious than the other. You saw the chart in the New York Times where they actually went through and spent time figuring out how much is information, how much is just flattery for Trump. And the crazy thing is he finds the flattery boring, which is when he goes to sleep, right? He goes to sleep in the meetings when they are like, Herr President, you are just wonderful. You are marvelous. I hope you've seen the huge banner we've unfurled on the building, the government building, by the way, the American People's Building that Trump now has his face on all over government departments.

4:36Shocking. So it's like verbal Ambien. Verbal Ambien. That's absolutely brilliant. Yes. And we know what happens to people on Ambien. Usually they overeat. Could this be why the president has put on 14 pounds since he last went for a medical? He's put on 14 pounds in the last year. That's what they've said. And so it makes me think we're probably looking at a plus 30, plus 35. You know, he had gotten thin during his felony criminal case. Right. You know, he had gotten gaunt and thin and he's facing incarceration. This was the Stormy Daniels case. Yes, yes. And then he has gained now that he's back in the White House and he's happy.

5:19Well, he's not playing golf as much, right? He's actually played golf 26 times this year, so once a week. But I'm sure when he was in his four-year legal strategy phase, he was playing golf probably three times a week, which even if he's riding around on the car, at least he's getting on and off the car, which is probably exercise for him. Do you think the cankles would impact one's ability to golf? I mean, I can't help but think that… They might weight him down. So actually it helps his swing because there's a lot of water going on there. As we know, the president has chronic venous insufficiency, which basically means that your circulation is impaired.

6:02And as we can see, water gathers at the bottom of his ankles. Yeah, I've seen it. It's not very attractive. It spills over the top of his socks and the top of his shoes. Yeah, his Oxfords. Yeah, it's like muffin top cankles. You hear that about the waist, but this is like muffin top cankles. Muffin top cankles, yes. And it's always very clear when he has international leaders, when he has other presidents, and they're sitting in the White House. And you know how they sit a bit like this. They've got chairs next to each other. And we've noticed, Erky Foster, one of our correspondents, noticed that the Air Force One, the model of Air Force One they have, gets moved around to try and block the view of Trump's cankles because it's on a low table.

6:48Oh my gosh. When you take photographs, you can't quite see the ankles. Okay. Moving along to Erica Kirk. So I would say the MAGA movement is built on different buckets of support. And one of the youth support and the evangelical base would be Turning Point. Charlie Kirk is murdered, horrible. Erica Kirk bizarrely kind of comes out with a bang, a literal bang at the funeral. fireworks, kind of WW. It was kind of a - That was so strange. That was very strange. Who would have a funeral with Roman candles? It makes no sense unless you're creating a spectacle. So you know what I think, Joanna? Once they all get in that bubble, they have no reference point as to how crazy they look.

7:34Because I know from even living in the Bible Belt that there are the megachurch people and they're all in that, the praise stuff and the funeral - in the air. All the hands in the air and all of that stuff is real normal to them. But I also know from living in the Bible Belt, like an Episcopalian or a Methodist or a Presbyterian looked down on the megachurchers like, oh, they're so trashy. Right. So they're kind of a white trash church. Yes, the white trash church. And so then when you put that on a national stage, as Turning Point did with the funeral, I think it face planted. And there's been reporting that they are creating false numbers, Turning Point.

8:11And I think they're having financial problems because pop this up, Kylie. Turning Point is trying to profit or fundraising off of letters that her husband wrote to her while he was alive. And she writes this one on the left. Charlie knew how much those little notes meant to me. And now I treasure them in a way I never could have understood at the time. I hold on to every word he left for me. And looking back, I think about the young women in the room listening to us that night at the Women's Leadership Summit. And then it's attached to a fundraiser, which is just so grifty and gross. These are my personal little love notes.

8:53I will never give them up. By the way, can you send me$50? Yes. I mean, should we give Erica Kirk the benefit of the doubt here that she is a grieving widow? No one should go through their husband being shot at her age. That said, Turning Point seems to have been really an organization built around one man, Charlie Kirk. And it's clearly struggling to survive. And we remember the recent rally that was featuring J.D. Vance and tens of people turned up. Tens of people turned up. Yeah, I think it is really in its last phases, which I think is really good for America. I hate the way Charlie Kirk died, but what he did going around spewing, not even really thinly veiled, overtly racist statements about like, if I get on a plane and there's a black pilot, I'm going to think twice about getting on.

9:52I mean, just very demeaning things. And Erica Kirk recently said that we have to stand up for, what did she say? white mailmen. And she wasn't talking about the United States Postal Service. Who I would be happy to stand up for. You know, the people I find most mysterious in all this is Charlie Kirk's parents, because they've really just been silent. I think his father was an architect. He grew up in Chicago. And to me, they are intriguing because I wonder what they thought about his son doing this. From my reading, I think they were Democrats. And so I wonder how they feel about his son. Obviously, a terrible way for your son to be killed.

10:37And they haven't been out there talking about it. They're not out there supporting Turning Point. They just seem to have stayed resiliently in the background. That is a really good take. And I haven't thought about that? Were they at the funeral? Do we know? I remember seeing them in a lineup, I think meeting President Trump, but they are not using any kind of opportunity to put themselves forward. And I suspect they must have been anxious about Charlie once he embarked on his turning point journey. And what you never see, or at least I haven't seen, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong is pictures of Erica Kirk with his parents.

11:23Now, I also thought it was very odd that at the funeral when Erica Kirk was making her speech, she never once mentioned Charlie Kirk's mother. I mean, in all of this, terrible to lose your husband, the father of your children, but also terrible for a mother to lose her son. Totally. And no one remarks on it. The parents never come up in the conversation. That is such a good take. And I haven't thought about that, but you are spot on. And I also think it's interesting that nobody, not one person surrounding Charlie Kirk has brought up gun violence. This is a very preventable death. Even when Ronald Reagan was shot and his Secret Service agent took the bullet, the wife of the Secret Service agent went out on gun control speeches and the Brady law.

12:13I think that's what that was. I think that's what it was. But yeah, named after the guy who took the bullet for Ronald Reagan. Exactly. And that was her life's work after getting shot because these deaths are completely preventable. Also interesting with Turning Point is Charlie Kirk's benefactor was this older guy in his 70s that funded all of Turning Point. And Turning Point had two causes over the course of the last four years. One was anti-vaccine and the other was pro-gun. The 70-something-year-old benefactor died of COVID and Charlie Kirk died of gun violence. The two things that they - So ironic.

12:51The two things they campaigned against. Yeah. Right. You know, I was talking to a friend the other day who has a child who is suffering from depression. And I said, I mean, I've lived here 30 years and I said in a very English way. Does he have access to guns? And he said, Joanna, everybody in the States has access to guns. And it just sent a shiver down me because, you know, they're lethal machines. It's so true. In Oklahoma, where I'm from, guns have more rights than women. Guns have more rights than women. A 14 or 15-year-old can try to walk into 7-Eleven and buy a pack of cigarettes, denied can walk in to try to buy a porno magazine denied can walk in to try to buy a beer denied can go to a gun show and buy a semi-automatic rifle or walk into a walmart and buy a semi that age yes that is shocking although i don't think there are many kids that age walking and trying to buy a porno magazine because i think it's all gone online i do too jen you're revealing us to be old we remember magazines exactly i don't think 14 or 15 year olds know what it is They think a magazine is something that has ammunition for a gun.

14:02I think you're exactly right. Okay. Staying in on the, you know, when I was on your podcast last week, we were talking about how Trump - It's so much fun. It's so much fun. If you haven't seen it, please go to the Daily Beast podcast and look for Jen Welch. Yes. We did it as a collaboration too, so you can find it on iPad. It's really good. We talk about Trump rat-fucking J.D. Vance. Yes. Which I think this is a feature of all of these MAGA people. We think like when they're sitting around the table, you think, oh, well, it seems like they all get along well. These petty old guys. You hate each other.

14:35You know it's toxic as all get out. So Pam Bondi got fired. Yes. And the day after she was fired, the image of her as the attorney general was in the trash can at the DOJ. That's right. Because she had pictures of herself all over the place, right? And the signaling was Pam Bondi's in the garbage bin. Immediately. Yes. Immediately posted online. So Pam Bondi got called back into Congress and she refused to go under oath. No video. And these are the pro-life anti-crime Republicans. You know, that's the message that they always tell you. Right. So Robert Garcia is the head of the Oversight Committee.

15:13Right. And he's from California. He's the Democrat from California. Yes. And here is him speaking about Pam Bondi's appearance. And she's trying to rat fuck Todd Blanche already. Play the clip. In that interview, and what she's saying here in her words and remarks, is that it was Todd Blanche, the current acting AG, that was leading the Epstein investigation. And quite frankly, all of the mistakes that we saw, the redactions, not protecting survivors. She continues to push that back onto the acting AG, Todd Blanche, who, by the way, was Donald Trump's former personal lawyer. Joanna. Fascinating.

15:52Right. Right. Fascinating. And Trump put her in a position, just like he did Christy Noem, he puts these people in a position where they can't go tattle. He keeps them close to the vest. So now I think Pam Bondi's in charge of AI or something. Like she has all of this science and artificial intelligence background, which is a total bullshit position. God help us. But now she's already trying to put blame on Todd Blanche. well she's also got cancer right i mean the thing that was so fascinating was that she turned up with this white bandage at the bottom of her neck because she's got thyroid cancer and i can't help wondering if we know that stress triggers all sorts of illnesses i can't help wondering it must have been such a stressful two years for her i mean she was trump's personal lawyer then she becomes the attorney general of the united states with the nightmare if you're her of having to deal were the Epstein files.

16:51And you remember how she said, oh, the Epstein files are on my desk, they're on my desk. And then people were like, well, let's have Atom. And then she was like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. Then she gives some Epstein files to some influencers, MAGA influencers, with information that is already out there. So it's not really the thing. And then eventually after Republicans themselves, and we can come on to Nancy Mace, But after Republicans themselves have demanded the Epstein files, she has to release them. And of course, what's in there? All sorts of unfavorable mentions about her boss, Donald Trump.

17:27What do you make of a lot of these people like Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, Pam Bondi, and others who were all about the Epstein files? It's Hillary Clinton and all of these Democrats in a non-existent basement. And they finally get the keys to the kingdom. Now they're inside the Death Star. And lo and behold, the person that they have completely debased themselves for is in the epicenter of the Epstein files. and then they just choose to break themselves more. I mean, just utter nihilist. I mean, believe in absolutely nothing. What do you think those moments are like when Cash and Pam Bondi, before she was fired, have, what conversations do you think they have?

18:12Well, don't you think they're just going, oh my God, I can't believe we're in the middle of this. I can't believe we have to do this. I mean, they must all just be, well, I imagine now they're all just rocking back and forth. rocking back and forth. And I do think the Iran war has pushed the Epstein files onto the back burner. I mean, I've been asking people on the Daily Beast podcast, and I may have asked you this actually, did Trump win the Epstein files? Is it over? Are the Epstein files over? We know that there were repeated interviews of people, or certainly one girl in particular, who accused someone she said was Donald Trump, of assaulting her.

18:53But it's come to nothing. Trump is all over the Epstein files, but it still seems to have come to nothing. There is no specific allegation. We know that he and Jeffrey Epstein were best friends, best friends. They tooled around together. We had that peculiar statement from Melania Trump about, I didn't know Jeffrey Epstein, never hung out with Jeffrey Epstein. My accent is not as good as your accent on Melania. But the whole thing is very odd. And it certainly created a cloud over his presidency. But I do think the story has gone on the back burner. I think for now, but don't you think, like you've seen consequences abroad from your home country, Prince Andrew, I mean, just completely sent out to the pasture.

19:42I mean, stripped of everything. Strips of everything. And there are ongoing investigations into sex trafficking around him. Yes. And don't you think that they might be cast away in the news cycle briefly for now, but they always, these files are pesky. They come back again and again and again. And I know that you have dove into this big time and I have as well, I've had talked to survivors attorneys And then the issues surrounding his suicide, the more and more you look into that, the more and more it's not really a suicide. And these aren't conspiracy theorists that are saying this. These are people that were involved in the case, knew him personally.

20:25What do you think Todd Blanche is going to do with Ghislaine Maxwell? Do you think he's going to pardon her? I think that Ghislaine will probably get pardoned at the end of Trump's run. I don't think he can do it now. I think that would be a mistake. But as we know, he's essentially pardoned her. He's moved her to, I mean, let's not forget, this is a woman who was sentenced to 20 years, 20 years for sex trafficking. And she's now in a prison camp where she has a dog. And she's essentially treated differently and in special ways to any other prisoner. So I think they know that it would cause an absolute uproar if they let Ghislaine Maxwell out.

21:11We know that Jeffrey Epstein was one of the most diabolical people to hang around this century. We know he was Trump's best friend at one point for at least 10 years. I think she gets pardoned at the end of it, and they probably try and bury the pardon. And I think that's what her family think too. I talk to friends who know her family in the UK who think that's what will happen. I think so too, because when Todd Blanche went to meet with her, it seemed like a cleanup operation. Well, and you and I both read that incredible transcript where he was almost apologetic that he was having to ask her questions.

21:50Right. Right. I mean, you would never believe this was the number two in the Justice Department. So an incredibly high profile position, incredibly senior law official representing the United States, who goes down to talk to a convicted sex trafficker, convicted for 20 years for repeated sex trafficking. And he's almost apologetic to be there. I'm sorry to bother you. Exactly. And one thing that I always go back to with Trump, he says this statement, I wish her well, I wish him well. And there's two people he said this about. One is Elon Musk when they had the big breakup, when Elon Musk took to Twitter and said he'll never release the Epstein files because he's in them.

22:36Love Elon or however, you know, it's just a petty tweet. And then with about Ghislaine and a presser, he said, I don't know, I wish her well. And it seems to me that if anybody has compromise over him, to use the Russian word, he wishes them well. He wishes Vladimir Putin well. He seems to wish the people well that have compromising information on him. Because one thing Trump is excellent at is self-preservation. He's the master of self-preservation, but he's also the master of self-sabotage, isn't he? So he wins and then he loses. He wins and then he loses. He starts a new business. It disappears on us.

23:17Think of all the things that Trump has put his name on that just no longer exist. Trump steaks, Trump champagne, Trump water, buildings with Trump on. I mean, look at the decision about the Kennedy Center that his name has to be removed. His name put illegally on the Kennedy Center now has to be removed within two weeks. Do you think that we should, as Americans, those in the DC area, go and celebrate as they take those down and video it. Yes. I do too. Because you can't celebrate something that is, you know, they needed congressional approval to change the name of that. That building was set up by Congress to honor a slain president.

24:02The idea that Donald Trump would sort of elbow JFK out of the way because he's so desperate for attention and he loves putting his name on things and there it goes. We saw it then. And also the tiny note of subversion that it's in a slightly different font, which you only really notice if you're paying attention. It's slightly smaller, I think, than the Kennedy font. I mean, of course, we should all be there to celebrate the rule of law, to celebrate the fact that you cannot steamroller Congress. Even if Congress, a lot of them are lying there saying, steamroller us, I'm lying on my back, just roll over me.

24:36I think we have to celebrate the fact that a judge is brave enough to make the decision that this was the wrong move. You can't just stick your name on monuments to someone else. I completely agree. Okay. Going back to the - We should go down and lead the charge down. We should take a bottle of champagne. We should. We need to. We should. Yes. And go live. Yes. The Daily Beast, I've had it. We'll do a live collab. Yes. Okay. Done. We'll take the train down. Done. Okay. Done. So there were Republicans that stood up to Trump regarding the Epstein files. And one of those is Nancy Mace. And Nancy Mace has her own problems.

25:13I mean, it's very obvious. But now Trump is endorsing Nancy Mace's opponent. Pop this up. Newswire is reporting Trump snubs Nancy Mace, endorses Pamela Yvette for South Carolina governor. And Nancy Mace seems to immediately go into denial about this. And now she's tweeting photos after the snub. She's tweeting photos with Trump. Pop this up. Where she calls herself MAGA Mace. And it's community noted that Trump endorsed her opponent. Well, first of all, you showed that picture of her and her opponent. How can you tell the difference between them? Because they're both MAGA women, right? They've both got that very specific look.

25:59MAGA look, yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, what did she think was going to happen? So let's remind ourselves the four Republicans who went up against Trump demanding the release of the Epstein files after Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna got together and said, let's do a bipartisan call to support the victims. And again, there are a thousand women claiming that they were victimized here by Jeffrey Epstein, and many of them girls when this happened. I mean, it's a truly terrible story, the industrial scale on which he abused girls and young women. But Thomas Massey, Ro Khanna, in a rare display of bipartisanship, say, you know, let's do this.

26:40And then three Republican women, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, get up and say, yes, we've talked to the victims. We know what this is like. And Nancy Mace has talked a lot about she said she was raped. She's talked a lot about that. We need the release of the Epstein files. Thomas Massey gone. Marjorie, well, he was primaried, so he's basically out. Marjorie Taylor Greene took herself out of it and quit Congress. Now Trump is coming after Nancy Mace. It will only be moments before he goes after Lauren Boebert. Do you remember that scene where Nancy Mace was behind closed doors with victims and she comes out and she is sobbing?

27:23It's so disturbing what these brave survivors said. It's the content of what happened to them is so disturbing. And that takes me back to Pam Bondi and her smug behavior in those hearings. And I think there is this hypocrisy inherent in white Christian nationalism. And I grew up all around it, Joanna. And there is this component of sexual abuse that is prevalent in these churches. If you look at the Southern Baptist Church, they make huge cover-up scandals, just like the Catholics. And there is this component of this purity culture that is in MAGA that also seems to pave the way for rape culture.

28:11And you see this rise of misogyny right now, this type of toxic masculinity. Well, the removal of women's reproductive rights, the lack of access to health care, women's health care, the lack of funding for Planned Parenthood, the terrible punitive. It's such a strange cult for America around sex, because on the one hand, you have this Puritan beginning to the country. You have this grotesque, violent pornography at the other end of it. And then you've got this sort of punitive thing that if you have sex and get pregnant by accident, you have to have the baby. I mean, it's not good for men either.

28:54I mean, it's definitely not good for women not to have a choice over what they do with their own bodies. But I'm the mother of sons. They don't want babies with people that, you know, it was just a brief relationship. Right. So I don't understand why this is always framed as a woman's issue. And I don't understand why men aren't complaining more because in a good world, they have to pony up for the child. Nobody wants to do that for a child that they're not invested in. I think what it is growing up around, I wasn't raised religious, but all of my friends were. I was an outlier by far. Um, the one thing that they focus on at a very young age, long before hormones is you have to be a virgin, right?