I Know Exactly What Trump Will Do to Hegseth

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1:33This news conference had an audience of one. He is defending himself to his boss, Donald Trump. You know, Trump is in a position that he likes to be in, the position that gives him the most satisfaction. Maybe I will fire him, maybe I won't fire him. Let's see. Minute to minute, he doesn't know. So that's what this press conference was about. Please, please, please, Mr. President, don't fire me. Will he be ignominiously fired? If he is fired, he'll be fired with a post. He'll know his fate when we all know his fate.

2:15Michael. Joanna. I can't stop smiling still. I can't stop smiling. And we've had so many wonderful comments from our epic four and a half hour live feed last Tuesday. Well, I guess that's what being on the winning side gets you. Well, I wonder. But I did get reprimanded. One of the things I love is our conversations with our viewers and listeners. I did get reprimanded for being such a fulsome supporter of saying that Ron DeSantis was a competent governor of Florida. I found that a little gobsmacking myself, as you know. Okay, well, I'm here to eat some humble pie or eat crow, as they say. I then looked.

3:07In fact, many people sent me details about DeSantis and the$10 million fraud, some money that appeared to get siphoned off to his campaign, which shouldn't have done. So I'm reassessing my point of view on Ron DeSantis, though I will say the Florida economy has been strong. It has been strong. It's getting less strong, but it had a moment of being pretty strong. But you're holding on there. He's not as bad as some of them. He's not as bad as some of them. All right. So we've got a lot to get to. We've got to get to Heger's and his ridiculous press conference he just had now. And I want you to know that if you're disruptive and start moving around, I'm going to have security remove you because that's what he said or that's what his people said to the press.

3:53We're going to talk about, obviously, everybody's favorite character, your favorite character and mine, Stephen Miller. We're going to talk about Dana White and what was that at the White House podium yesterday, the press briefing podium. Very strange. What is going to happen to the war? Will Susie Wilde stay loyal? And, well, Trump as a fighter. Oh, and I guess why not? Let's throw in a minute or two on 60 Minutes and Trump's performance there. If you're just joining us for the first time, Michael Wolff is the Boswell to Trump's Johnson. I think that's the right description, isn't it? I dare say it is not remotely the right description.

4:38But since you've probably neither read Boswell nor Johnson, it's a meaningless description. It's a meaningless description. But I went to a screening of Long Day's Journey in Tonight last night and met one of my absolute heroines, Jessica Lange. And I'm still a little struck from it, I would say, so forgive me. Anyway, you've written four books on Donald Trump. That's what I'm trying to convey for people who are joining us, as I said, for the first time. I'm the chief content officer for The Daily Beast. than thrice weekly, we venture to go inside Donald Trump's head to figure out what the hell is going on in there because we've never seen anything like it before.

5:20So, Michael, Pete Hegseth, thoughts? I mean, two interesting things. Interesting that this news conference indicates that they are taking this move by Massey seriously. Mm-hmm. And at the same time, of course, dismissing it, but not dismissing it enough not to take it seriously and mount an immediate news conference for Hager to defend himself. But, I mean, because the Massey thing is, as they seem to point out, performative. Massey is in his last days. It's still a Republican Congress. It's Massey's last licks, which, you know, the Pentagon and the White House could have ignored this. and it would have gone away on its own, on the fact that this Congress, that this lame duck Congress is not going to impeach the Secretary of Defense.

6:33They might with a new Congress, but this Congress is not going to do that. So that's number one. But number two, which may be more relevant, is that Hager's is, forget Massey in Congress, Hager's is fighting for his life inside this administration. So again, this news conference had an audience of one. He is defending himself to his boss, Donald Trump. And Trump is probably now, you know, Trump is in a position that he likes to be in. I mean, the position that gives him the most satisfaction Maybe I will fire him. Maybe I won't fire him. Let's see. Minute to minute. He doesn't know. But but what Trump likes to do, likes to feel and likes other people to understand is that all of the power is in his hands.

7:33And this is true about so much less than it was before the midterms of the power he had. But he still very clearly has the power either to to get rid of Hager's or to let him continue in his job. So that's what this this press conference was about. Please, please, please, Mr. President, don't fire me. Great. OK, we've got for those of you who haven't watched it and why would you watch it? No need to watch it. But Michael and I have watched it. Here are a couple of our favorite clips. This is not patriotism. This is sabotage. You know, five years ago, America was humiliated in Kabul, Afghanistan, and every enemy on earth took notice.

8:25But somehow, as the president pointed out yesterday, no impeachment vote for Lloyd Austin for that terrible withdrawal. Not even one vote. Or no impeachment vote for when he went AWOL for over a week. No impeachment vote for when he let a Chinese spy balloon fly over the country for over a week. See, President Trump ended that kind of wokeness and weakness, peace through strength, not as a slogan, but as a way of war. I mean, blaming, you know, this is nothing to do with what came before. It was pretty strange when Lloyd Austin disappeared for a week and didn't tell anybody. But I mean, I noticed a few things.

9:10First of all, Pete Hegsworth had a very dry mouth. He'd come out with a bottle of water or there was a bottle of water for him at the page. He didn't use it, perhaps wanting to avoid a Paul Ryan moment. but he had dry mouth. He looked nervous. His face was puffy. He looked like he absolutely hadn't slept. But he did look as if he practiced the speech. You know, if I were Hager's, my mouth would be dry too. Because, I mean, it is this moment in his career. It is the most important moment. Will he be ignominiously fired? And he'll be fired if he is fired he'll be fired with it with up with a post um so he'll know he'll know his fate when we all know his fate at that singular moment and will it come when he can't won't it come i mean he he has no idea because trump has no idea yet right that's such a good point all right we've got another clip here president trump is willing to do what no other president would He did the tough right thing, not for politics, but for the safety and the security of the American people.

10:21That's leadership. He did not kick the can. He kicked their teeth in. I mean, it's just the language is just so, so not worthy of an American secretary of defense. um well i i mean i i don't think that that's that that the language is worthy of donald trump um and again that's who this is about and the whole trump thing and i think we can get into that this because it it's it reflects on the stephen miller appointment it reflects on this on that weird Dana White interlude that it is about fighting. Trump. This is Trump. I am a fighter. Trump really has no other message than that. I am a fighter.

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12:12Your cat's health and longevity start with what they eat for a limited time because you are an inside Trump's head listener. Get 60 % off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash head. That's 60 % off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash head. I'm a fighter. Okay, so that brings me to your excellent Substack post this morning, which is about that very theme. I'm going to read a little bit. Because I did think when he was talking about fighting, I mean, it immediately takes you back to Butler, Pennsylvania, and his first words after being shot at were fight, fight, fight.

13:00And I'm going to read a little bit from your column. Again, for those who haven't read it, we can recommend you can subscribe to Michael's column, Howl, on Substack. And you say, Trump is a stupid man, but he is keenly attuned to a few personal narratives, among them his playboy swagger, his wealth, and his aggressive pugnacity. He's a counterpuncher, he often proudly explains. You come at him and he comes back harder. Is that what he's doing with Stephen Miller? Yeah, very much. I mean, that's always, this is part of, this is doubling down. This is, you think you're going to make me bend, but I'm never going to bend.

13:46I am and that is always, that is his singular narrative over the entirety of his political career, then there really is, if you parse it, no other narrative. I'm a fighter. I will oppose anyone who opposes me. I am this, to be a fighter, to be someone who never bends, who never admits to anything is my identity. That's what you're seeing here. That's the story that I am telling. And that's the thing that you can always be sure. You may not like me. You may not agree with my policies. You may not even know my policies. But what you know, the thing that you know, and it's greater than anything else, is that I am a fighter.

14:37Fight, fight, fight. That is the thing. And remember, Trump is such as a is a simple man and he tells a simple story. So and the story is is the simplest narrative in the third act. He's when when the hero is up against it, he doesn't give up. He comes back even harder. And that's that's actually. And let's let's remember that has worked for Trump. So the Stephen Miller thing is, and that's when he appointed Stephen Miller, and we went over the other day the exigencies of why he appointed Stephen Miller. Again, not a plan, but because Stephen Miller was the loyalest person, the most loyal, most available person at that moment when he had to appoint someone, when Susie Wiles had stormed out of the White House.

15:37But when he appointed Stephen Miller, that was his lead. Stephen Miller is a fighter. And God knows Stephen Miller, I'm not sure I would call it a fighter as I would call it in someone implacably unable and uninterested in compromise of any sort. So exactly the kind of person you don't want in the chief of staff role, which is essentially a management role. Management is the process of compromise, really. And then this Dana White thing. I mean, OK, that was not serious on any level. It wasn't serious. The expectation that Dana White would take this role. And then Trump was actually forced to say it was a joke.

16:26We should explain what the Dana White moment is. But just before we do, I just want to come back to one thing on Stephen Miller, which goes to the point of why we do this podcast and why I always find your point of view on Donald Trump so interesting. And you have written four books on him. And as you say, he's been inside your head for the last 10 years. But what I found remarkable on sort of Friday, I guess, when he appointed Stephen Miller was how much discussion there was about people saying, well, and I'm on television and in traditional sort of media about how could he have appointed Stephen Miller?

17:04But this is a, you know, a middle finger to the Democrats. Why is he doing this? This makes no sense. And you think your point of view and what we have been trying to do in this podcast is to explain what goes on in Donald Trump's head. And it's not the usual political logic. Joe Biden would not have made this appointment. Bill Clinton, when he got shellacked in the midterms, hired Republicans. That's not what Donald Trump's done here. He's taken his most aggressive lieutenant, as you say, deeply loyal. and the architect of the most unpopular policy, which is immigration and the masked men in the streets, and he's doubling down on him.

17:47And I think it's important just to remind people of that. I don't understand why people have found it such a surprise appointment, because it feels a Trumpian appointment. And just remember that it is, A, remember that this persona of the fighter has been the one thing that has consistently worked for Donald Trump. That's number one. Number two is that he has no other playbook. I mean, it just isn't there. He does one thing. And so that one thing has worked reasonably, if not incredibly well for him. and he's going to do it again. And the other thing to remember is it doesn't have a lot to do with policy here.

18:42So Stephen Miller, and you might say, well, this is an indication that he's going to double down on immigration. But then we saw on that 60 Minutes interview that he was kind of qualifying his stand on immigration. So policy is always separate from persona. Persona is fight, implacable, stubborn, never give up. And it is fight in itself. And that's the Dana White point. So Dana White is the head of the UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship. championship. And there was a UFC match a couple of months ago. Was it a couple of months ago? Well, it was July, right? It was to celebrate America 250. Already July, already quite a number of months ago on the White House lawn.

19:39Trump has always been a UFC fan. And so Dana White, who's not involved with politics, who has never been involved with, with, with been, been not a media guy, not a, not a, not a flack, basically. He's, he's the manager of this, of this company that promotes fighting. So, and that's all, all he wanted. Trump wants the identification, Dana White, a fighter. And then, and then he invited Dana White to be his press secretary and to bring along a little group of his top fighters. So it's just fight, fight, fight. And he did this on Truth Social. He puts out a Truth Social saying that because there's no press secretary post-Katy Zachariah, because she only lasted five days.

20:36Not a fighter. Not a fighter. Well, except she was busy out on very right wing media blaming the White House for not having briefed her properly. But she's, I think, well and truly disappeared now. But Trump put this out and it wasn't clear if he actually meant UFC Dana White or many people then pointed to the fact that there was a deputy press spokesperson in one of the other departments. That was just, you're just lost in social media there. It was clearly Dana White, the fighter, because he then invited the other fighters in the Dana White retinue to accompany him. So stay off social media.

21:18But then there was a conversation about had he made a mistake. But it was really a joke. But then what was really remarkable was that he then got Dana White to the podium, who looked somewhat incredulous that he was there. And they then had a sort of funny press conference. And just to note that I think Dana White in his job as running the UFC makes something like$200 million a year, as opposed to the press secretary, who I believe makes less than$200 ,000. But anyway. Anyway, Dana White's clearly not going to accept the job, but it was just the sort of moment of taking something. I mean, you know, I'm sure Trump is furious with the press over last week, as well as being furious with many other things.

22:08Everybody furious with everybody except himself. And so it was a way of sort of mocking the whole concept of the White House briefing. And let's go back to what this portends. Trump now has this thing that has this thing has happened to Trump in an existential moment in his presidency and in his political career. broad repudiation from every from almost every aspect of the country and from his own party a kind of national waking up and saying this guy is is incompetent and loathsome and doesn't deliver on anything. So now he has to, now he's got two more years in office. How does he react to that?

23:05And, and again, the usual thing, the politically, um, the politically tried and true method is that you'd then try to compromise. Um, you say, okay, um, um, that's, uh, you, You admit to your defeat. You try to target the reasons for your defeat in which you might be able to deliver some compromises with the other side. And you are then looking for, and remember, in a traditional presidency, you really are looking for the things that you can now accomplish with the opposition in charge. So in that accomplishment, when you're the president is usually measured in legislation that you can pass. OK, that's not something that Trump is interested in.

24:07That's not a measure that he acknowledges or accepts. And again, so what is the measure? The measure is the attention he receives and the persona he maintains. What he has to be, what his goal is always to be, is Donald Trump bigger, greater than ever before. This is going to be a problem for how to how to achieve that right now. But as I say, and it's always important to remember, he keeps doing what he has always done before. So we will see, I would be absolutely positive, this, not really a reversion to, but an increase of this persona of I am implacable. I give back always harder than I get.

25:12I am the UFC champion. I am the UFC champion. So I guess Heggers is also trying to do that in his speech today. What did you think of Donald Trump on 60 Minutes? I'm assuming you watched it. I did. I did. And I found it. So having said all that about him being the fighter, what we also see, and this was a kind of split screen, is a person who doesn't know what he's going to do. I mean, he hasn't found he's sort of casting casting about for how he takes the Trump narrative forward. So there was suddenly this compromise on immigration. And there was, you know, there was a sense that the you know, that the war had had had had had contributed to this defeat.

26:16I mean, it was a moment if you were, if you don't know Donald Trump, when you could have possibly sensed a kinder, gentler Donald Trump. And I will tell you, kinder, gentler Donald Trump does not exist. Yeah. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like, all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha-chings from every channel right in one spot. And turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.

27:05So did you feel that he snowed 60 minutes? Do you think they caught him in a brief moment of reflection? What do you think we saw there? I think we saw a temporizing Donald Trump. So he has not yet come up. Remember, Donald Trump is a performer. So he's throwing out things and he throws out things to see how they play. and he's looking for the line that he will pursue. And again, he's looking for the simple line that he will pursue. And he hasn't found it yet, but he will find it. Well, he found a line yesterday in that he was telling people the war in Iran was basically won. I mean, we've heard that endless times, countless times.

27:59Well, we've heard that many times. And let's, you know, we should we should come to that because that is still going to be the main the main problem he faces. An interesting thing, though, that that he reverted on on social media, basically, to the the election being stolen. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. You know, again, that's a line throwing out these kinds of things. You know, one of the things, you know, he threw out the softening on immigration to see how that played with MAGA. So all these things are testing. But the truth social going back to the election being stolen was that clear reversion. He goes back to what he has done before.

28:49I know. It's almost like he's testing it. For those who didn't read it, I've got it here. Does anybody really believe that this election was honest? How could the polls be so wrong? Some early voting dumps were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote. It's all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter, exclamation point. President DJT. What does he mean? It's all about the machines. Yeah, exactly. Because this obsession with the machines, which he doesn't understand, in which which he trusts that perhaps other people won't understand.

29:25So we have a a possible conspiracy in the machines. Now, this has been been resoundingly rejected. Fox News had to pay almost a billion dollars because it, in a moment of its own weakness and its own panic about where its audience was, subscribed to Donald Trump's view of of elections as being machine driven and the machines being being manipulated by weird foreign powers. and God knows what. But here he is. He is back to that again. Right. And Dominion, the voting machine company, strongly fought back. And as you say, they got a settlement of$750 million. And the head of Tucker Carlson, who at the time was the most popular Fox News host, had a 9 o 'clock evening show.

30:21Right. And there's another voting, and I suddenly can't remember the name of the company, who is now, continues to sue Fox. That will cost them probably another close to a billion dollars to settle. So the machines, Trump's machine narrative doesn't hold up to anyone but to Donald Trump. Right. And it didn't seem to catch fire with any of his traditional MAGA supporters. I would disagree with that, that it did. I mean, this became a MAGA tentpole. No, no, I mean this most recent one. Oh, this time. No one. I mean, he is in this intractable position, which is that this victory was so overwhelming, so overwhelming in so many places by such numbers.

31:22Nobody believes.

31:52comfortable with, that he's getting response to, that can carry this story, I am the fighter, forward. Right. So there's a sort of weird strain among MAGA, and by MAGA I mean sort of people like Megyn Kelly and Elon Musk, which is, and I don't know if they're doing it just to change the subject or whatever, but is this sense in which they're supporting Russell Brand, the entertainer, who on Monday, so yesterday, got sentenced to 10 years in jail in the UK for rape. And he's now become a sort of, I mean, it's a sense of, it gives you a sense of how sort of weird and lost the MAGA movement is, that they've suddenly come out and basically supported Russell Brand.

32:40Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, what does it get them to make Russell Brand the face of MAGA? I mean, that's completely confusing to me. And by the way, Trump has also suggested that Russell Brand, you know, has gotten a raw deal. Russell Brand, I mean, a real. Well, probably because Trump knows that he's been accused by, you know, what is it, 28 women of sexual abuse. And he's managed to stay pretty much out of it, apart from E. Jean Carroll's settlement against him. And he's probably thinking, God, I can't believe that Russell Brand is going to jail. Why didn't he fight more? It's hard to see that anybody wins by supporting Russell Brand.

33:29Yeah, I'm sort of, I mean, really stunned that the go-to here would be, of all people, Russell Brand. Russell Brand. Right, because even the Tate brothers got shown the door. And the defense here is vociferous. I mean, Megyn Kelly has elevated Russell Brand to a kind of MAGA sainthood. Yeah, it's bizarre. I don't know why Meghan's doing that. And Elon, too. You know, so there is this this thing. Let's I mean, let's do a little a little epistemology on this is that there is is, you know, the the the MAGA movement, the Trump movement has represented this this idea or ideal of manhood and of masculinity.

34:26And, yeah, OK, we we we got that. But in fact, in the midterm that that that played nowhere, as far as I can tell. I mean, that was that was a gone issue. Um, and so, so to continue to toe that line, Russell Brand as the, um, as an avatar of masculinity, um, I mean, completely, completely confusing to me. You know, of course, one of the things, Russell Brand converted to MAGA-ism and Trump-ism and conservatism and evangelical-ism. So that makes him one of their people to defend, I suppose. Well, and Russell Brand seemed to be living out Trump's philosophy, as explained to Billy Bush, that you can grab them by the pussy and you can just do anything you want.

35:27And I think it's that post-Me Too, as you say, manhood thing, as represented by the Tate brothers and these really unpleasant male characters. and I don't know why they're doubling down on Russell Brown because juries aren't supporting that anymore. The jury found him well and truly guilty. Yeah, well, I think juries tend not to support that, including the case against Donald Trump, of course. Yeah, although for the most part, actually, juries find... Juries... You actually get a very low conviction rate for rape. It's very, very low. It's way under 10%. Well, historically, that's true, But it is not true in terms of very high-profile cases and especially high-profile cases against people with some amount of celebrity.

36:21Well, and also where there are more than one accuser and there's a pattern of behavior, which was what was apparent with Russell Brand. I mean, I just don't get it. I mean, we know the message from the midterms. The message from the midterms was not in any way, shape or form, you know, we we want our our our men to be to be rapists, free and on the prowl. Right. Free and on the prowl. Let's go back, though, you know, because I think one of the interesting things as Trump tries to configure where he goes here and one of the hurdles he he has. and I don't see how he gets over it in any way, is the war in Iran.

37:09What does he do? This is not going away. So unless he, and he is now sort of in a position where he has to make some move. Can he just let this trail on unresolved, declaring that he's won, but somehow incongruously it being very clear that the Iranians have not lost? What does he do now? When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like, all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha-chings from every channel right in one spot. And turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities.

38:07Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. Well, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, too. So even when he's busy saying, oh, we've won the war, we've won the war, and it's going to wind down pretty quickly, because even he realizes the war was a big cause of why they lost the midterms and the knock-on effect of the price of gas, etc., etc., the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. There is still a crisis. Well, it's not exactly closed. Well, it's nothing like it was. I mean, quite a bit of oil is getting through, but what we have created is a precedent in which the Iranians actually do control the Strait of Hormuz.

38:56whether they're allowing oil to go through or not, they could change that course at any moment. They have control of the Strait of Hormuz, which is a significant departure from where things stood before the war began. So we are in a much weaker position than we were before the war began. What does he do about that now? I don't know. And he doesn't know. And what does he doesn't know? He's clearly got no idea. And the people around him don't have any idea, too. And they're all kind of looking to him very clearly for some sort of solution. And there was an expectation that he was going to go in and bomb Iran again.

39:47Right. Which he may do. I think all of these no good options now sit in front of him. I mean, he can begin a massive new bombing campaign against the Iranians, which would further exhaust our munitions supply. and which might well, in fact, might likely result in exactly the stalemate which a massive bombing campaign has already resulted in. So does he want to do that? Well, and again, that would be doubling down on the very thing that his vice president has said cost them the midterms. So that would be a Trumpy thing to do, to ignore the fact that it's so unpopular and to go in and have some action for action's sake.

40:39Well, yes, but actually that would probably be another option, which is I go in, I do something, I do what's limited bombing. So I do a performative bit of bombing for a couple of days. Then I declare victory and we get out. Performative bombing. His situation is how do I declare victory? And if I massively bomb and nothing changes, that's hard to declare victory. I mean, he's already that's what he's doing now and no one is believing it. So that would be just be be, you know, even in the Trump world to double down on something that that in this instance doesn't get him the victory, even the the even the ability to credibly claim victory, even if it isn't a victory.

41:36I don't know. I mean, he's not. Yes, Trump is stupid, but nobody is that stupid. Well, it was stupid enough to start a war that five previous presidents decided against because they knew it would lead to the Iranians closing the Strait of Hormuz. So he can't get out of it. And so that means to me, the most likely thing is is a level of capitulation to the Iranians. and then we declare victory. But it might be that he just lets this go on. It could be actually Trump's ultimate revenge that this situation continues on and he hands it to the next president. Oh, well, I would have thought, though, that that might bode well for Pete Hegseth because if you fire Pete Hegseth, doesn't that suggest that the war was somehow a mistake?

42:37Yeah, well, yes, but it also means that he can blame it on Pete Hegseth. Right. I suppose that's true. Were I Donald Trump? I've often thought there are comparisons. I would fire Pete Hegseth and then I would blame it on Pete Hegseth. And then I would send in, you know, Jared and Steve Witkoff to get any possible deal I could get. Right. Literally, you say to the Iranians, we just got to save face on this. You get whatever you want. Just give us some face-saving stuff here, no matter how meaningless. Well, he might well do that. That would at least be a solution for him. But I do love your description of Donald Trump not knowing if he's going to fire Pete Hegseth, Pete Hegseth not knowing if he's going to be fired, and sitting there waiting for the truth social post, which will reveal all.

43:38So I have a question for you. Mentioned earlier Susie Wiles storming off after Trump had berated her yet another time for the performance at the midterms. Does Susie Wiles remain loyal? Well, you know, loyalty is understood in different kind of ways. Does she remain publicly loyal or at least publicly respectful? Yes. Does she do everything possible in private to undermine him? Yes. it's just so unpleasant isn't it it's so it's so peculiar and and i'm assuming she's going to undermine stephen miller or try to undermine stephen miller how could she most effectively undermine well you know just i mean she's going to be um most mindful of her own interests here And one of the interests, by the way, is her daughter and her daughter's future career.

44:53Katie Wiles. That was part of the tension within the White House is that she kept promoting her own daughter. And, you know, part of the rub on Suzy Wiles, or at least the understanding of Suzy Wiles' priorities, is that she was intently focused on her own reputation and her coterie of people, including her daughter. And it was often pointed out she wasn't really that concerned about Donald Trump and the kinds of things that he said which might cause him in the administration discomfort. She could live with that. And that's probably why she lasted as long as she did, in fact. but but at the same time very protective of herself her reputation and her people so now we're in a situation in which she has been publicly humiliated um and um uh so what does she do well you know she's a you know she's an adept political player she has her self-interest to protect here what in other words what she can get out of this and continue to get and what her what her daughter and her people can get at the same time uh you know she's um uh she will look for all all um all options in which to um to put the knife in interesting well perhaps she'll go and work as an advisor to Jensen Huang, the CEO and founder of NVIDIA.

46:55I talk about a lot, understanding character, and in particular, looking at the world through the lens of the seven Dudley sins. And this story has everything, sex, betrayal, ambition, lust, power, money, greed. I mean, at an epic level. I think the more important top line is corruption. Betrayal. Betrayal. Not just that. Well, there's another interesting aspect of this. I mean, first thing, this came to light within the administration. First through a Commerce Department investigation. Well, let's just back up. Let's just back up and explain what's happened. So Jensen Wang, the founder of NVIDIA, which has basically been a massive driver of the rise of the American stock market recently and absolutely essential in the rise of the big AI companies, which now make up 45 % of the stock market.

47:57But it turns out he's been having an affair with someone, probably not uncommon for many CEOs, except that it turns out that she was a Chinese spy. The Americans knew she was a Chinese spy, but didn't tell Jensen Huang. And now the board is investigating Jensen and trying to figure out what to do. He's apologized to his family. Inevitably, they always do that. But it's a bit of a mess. And it's unclear why the Americans didn't tell him when they had the intelligence that Alice Wong, no relation, was indeed a Chinese spy. Well, we don't know what the U.S. government told him. Remember, and we don't know what Donald Trump knew exactly.

48:47And Donald Trump - Well, I think we do know because he came out or NVIDIA came out and said, we assume that if the Americans had known that she was working for Chinese intelligence, she would have told him. Well, I think in this kind of situation, it's very important not to believe, not to trust anything said by anyone. And, of course, Donald Trump and Mr. Huang speak often, seem to have developed quite a close relationship. Mr. Huang seems to have become one of Donald Trump's main connections to the tech industry, to the AI industry. And Donald Trump has become Mr. Huang's one of his major supporters and the tech industry's major supporters in government.

49:46So how is it that if the United States government actually was aware of this, that that Donald Trump was not aware of this. That seems improbable. Well, the intelligence services have said that they told him. He says he has no memory of being told. Exactly. Yes, I have no memory of that. Yes. OK, we can reconstruct that and say, of course he knew. Of course he was aware. Duh. And then, yes, he probably would have told his friend Jensen. Anyway, that's not unreasonable on any level. But the other fact of this is that this was an investigation that begun in the Commerce Department. This fact of this relationship, by the way, the relationship was with another, with a Chinese woman also named Wang.

50:48Right, Alice Wang. And the headline in the New York Post yesterday was, Wang, wang, bang, bang. Which was the front cover. That went viral very quickly. But anyway, it began in the Commerce Department. The relationship and her likely status as working for the Chinese government also was, as I understand, inadvertently established in this investigation. But then this investigation was taken over, was removed from the Commerce Department and became a Justice Department investigation. Obviously, within the Justice Department, Trump himself would have much more control over this. Todd Blanche is the attorney general, is the president's personal attorney, in fact, if not name.

51:46And they could have handled this there. Then, however, this was from somewhere in the executive branch leaked to The New York Times. So this this leak was obviously obviously not good for Mr. Wang, but also not good for Donald Trump and not good for the A.I. industry itself, which is has a lot of a lot of proponents within the administration. but also a pretty clear circle of people who are skeptical and have other ideas about this. I mean, in fact, the MAGA base has more and more proved itself to be very anti-AI and, of course, anti-data centers. and NVIDIA basically is, what does NVIDIA do? Data centers.

52:54Well, and it also makes the chips that everybody uses. In data centers. You and I have a little data center. We could go again on our data center. We're not going to go again on our data center dispute. But what do you think happens here? Why do you think... You've softened your line on Ron DeSantis. Maybe you could soften it on data centers. Well, I'm very curious as to what happens with NVIDIA here. It lost 5 % of its value yesterday. If NVIDIA catches a cold, which this may turn out to be, does the stock market get COVID is my question. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, what it has revealed is it is a very strangely built company.

53:41I mean, he started NVIDIA 30 years ago, essentially. It was a video gaming company. And then they discovered that they designed semiconductor chips, which were incredibly useful for AI. And that's how the company grew suddenly so quickly. And it's now worth, you know,$4.5 trillion, or at least it was it was becoming less valuable yesterday. But it turns out that there's no successor within the company, no obvious successor within the company. And he has a relatively flat organization with 60 direct reports. So it's unclear if you took him out, which perhaps a regular public company might do, that it would be as successful as it is.

54:27No, and I think that there's a lot of governance issues which would make it very hard for him to be removed. But I think there's also a larger picture here. I mean, he is one guy, one of these tech guys among many of these tech guys who have who have created themselves as a guys, individuals who have this enormous control over the the U.S. and the world economy. Number one. Number two, whose own money and Jensen Huang is one of the richest men in the world at this at this this point, their own money has given them entitlement at a level, you know, at a certainly at a robber baron level of entitlement or or probably greater, probably something we have never quite seen before.

55:32And they have all made, or at least a good number of them have made relationships, and I think we can fairly say dubious relationships, semi-corrupt relationships with Trump and the Trump White House. So is it all about to crater in some way? And I think, well, I think all of these guys are entering a new phase of business and life. And what does that mean for the tech industry and the economy? When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like, all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha-chings from every channel right in one spot.

56:40And turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. Well, it's a sobering, it's a sort of sobering moment for the economy, I think. But what I find really strange here is that Donald Trump keeps saying he who wins AI wins, that the battle is between the US and China. And here we have what appears to be his close friend, Jensen Wang, possibly inadvertently giving information to the Chinese. And at the same time, Trump, because of the Trump administration, they've lessened regulations with the Chinese that has given them the Chinese expanded access to Jensen Wang's products.

57:32Right. And he has maintained, Jensen Huang has maintained, we should totally let the Chinese have chips. This is ridiculous, not letting them have chips. Trump will be in China next week. It will be incredibly interesting to see how this resolves. I spoke to three CEOs yesterday, each of whom is a billionaire, none of whom thought that Jensen would lose his job over this. One of them pointed to Jeff Bezos and said Jeff Bezos didn't lose his job and he was sending dick pics on his phone, which, of course, got surfaced in the National Enquirer. My point was, well, he wasn't, you know, Lawrence Sanchez wasn't actually Chinese.

58:15And as far as we know, possibly giving secrets to the Chinese. I guess it depends what he was telling her, what their pillow tool was. So the three CEOs that you were speaking to yesterday, do you think, are they having affairs? What a great question. No, I actually don't think so. You know these people. Are they having affairs? And is every tech CEO having an affair? Yeah, it's a really, really good question. I mean, I think Jensen's leather jacket and his hair was always a signal, actually. It's a very good question. I don't think the three people I spoke to are. But you never know. You never know, do you?

59:01You never know. Rupert Murdoch, obviously a billionaire of some significance, married a Chinese woman who many people in his company, notably Roger Ailes, said was a Chinese spy. And then he divorced her and Rupert Murdoch then began saying she was a Chinese spy. Well, and interestingly, she's alleged to have also had affairs with Tony Blair, former British prime minister, and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google. So interesting that I've always been interested by that scenario. And which which scenario exactly spying or having affairs with billionaires? I was thinking more of the spying aspect of it because Wendy Deng then introduced Rupert Murdoch to his current wife, who's Russian.

59:58So Rupert Murdoch has been married to a Chinese woman and is currently married to a Russian woman. the former mother-in-law of one of the most um notorious russian oligarchs roman obramovich anyway it's fascinating trump will be in china next week obviously we'll be we'll be following him there but um it'll be really interesting to see what happens to novidia stock over the next week uh and to mr huang and to mr huang uh whose kids both work for the company interestingly Yeah, no, I think this is quite a story. Well, it's a story that's given way to tons of memes, which we're going to play some of them now.

1:00:44But I think my favorite was probably the video taking off Usher with him and, of course, celebrating his famous leather jacket. You think he's had, has he had other affairs, you think? I would like to know about Jensen. I would like the full profile of his personal life. I suspect you're going to get it. I suspect there are so many people crawling over Jensen Huang's personal life right now. There was a positively gleeful episode of the Daily Podcast this morning. We're recording this on Tuesday morning. I listened to it this morning. It's very rare that you hear them quite as gleeful as they were over this.

1:01:25But as you say, I'm halfway through the Elon Musk documentary, the Alex Gibney four hour Elon Musk documentary. Do you have a screener on that? I got a screener because I had to I had to beg to get a screener because it blinked through New York movie houses, I think possibly because it's four hours long so people can't commit to it. Well, could you give, can you give me a link on that? Because then we can discuss. And another thing that I wanted to discuss is that Elizabeth Holmes movie, which I saw, I never go to the movies, but I forced myself to go to the movie theater because everybody is seeing this movie.

1:02:11And I thought it was a masterpiece. Interesting. You thought it was a masterpiece. I was really balled over by it. And I thought, oh, my God, this is an extraordinary, one of the most, one of the more extraordinary movies I've ever seen. I thought this would have been a novel that I would have given almost anything to have written. It was just a stunning story of characters who were at odds with themselves at every point, which I think is for most humankind. We are at odds with ourselves at every point. This was just more vivid than I've ever seen that kind of thing portrayed. Interesting. Did you read the book Bad Blood?

1:03:12I did, which I didn't like at all. Oh, interesting. I love the book Bad Blood. I thought that was a guy who didn't understand anything about human beings. Go on. What do you mean? I mean, I thought he understood a lot about science and a lot about business. He just didn't understand anything about human beings. And this film, on the other hand, was all about the humanness of it, the pathetic humanness of it all. Interesting. Well, it's a different perspective on it. I found it frustrating because I think once you've created a company, I thought there wasn't enough of the crime in it. And I also think if you're getting to spend a month with someone before they go to jail, you want to know some very obvious questions about what it's like facing the idea of spending 11 years in prison when you've got little children.

1:04:10Well, I think you got that. Actually, I think that that was delivered very vividly if it was delivered in a show-not-tell way. And again, I think that was one of the novelistic aspects of this. It was all show, very little tell. Interesting. Unusual for a documentary, by the way. Yeah. I mean, the one thing I did think watching the Elon Musk documentary, and I'm only halfway through because, as I mentioned, it's a four hour documentary, but it's really interesting. And they've got incredible access to people, which may be a sort of theme between the two of them that what's so interesting about you can see everything is the access they have to Elizabeth Holmes and moving in with her.

1:05:02And Alex Gibney has amazing access to certainly Elon Musk's first wife, Justine Musk, who actually wrote a piece for us when I was editing Marie Claire about Elon. and she talks extensively about him, as do other ex-girlfriends, or she was his ex-wife. And you get a lot of information from the person that actually started Tesla, Martin Eberhardt. You'll get me a... I will do my best to get you a screener. We can discuss that because Elon Musk, I mean, not just the movie, but Elon Musk is a central figure of this age that we ought to be dealing with. Yeah. And I actually wonder if they had released it a week later after he'd been so resoundingly defeated, given how much money he put up, 450 million for the Republican Party, whether or not it would have caught on more.

1:06:02Because it was in New York theatres. I don't know about the rest of the country, but for very little time, maybe one week, maybe two weeks, I tried to get to see it in a theatre and I couldn't. But it's a really fascinating portrait into him. Okay, put it on the list. Okay, so what else? We've got two limericks, Michael. So our first one is from Paul Watson, 8809. King Magamemnon decreed that Persia be knocked off its steed. When war did not sell, the orange one fell, defeated by pride, lies, and greed. and Edits is back with another one, which got a lot of traction. He put it in the comments, or I shouldn't assume Edits is a man.

1:06:49Edits might be a woman. Edits put it in the comments and then Garfreed jumped in and said that he'd been trying to get a rhyme with two of the words here, which will become evident in a moment. And then there was a whole discussion about it in the comments, which was really fun. Anyway, this is from Edits. If ever a political duo blew its big chance, it's the sorry combination of Trump and Vance. As everybody knows, the emperor has no clothes and the vice emperor's not wearing pants. I thought those were really fun. Very nice. Very nice. All right. So we will be back on Thursday to go inside Trump's head where I think the mush might be firming up as he realizes that he's going to have a different scenario for the next two years.

1:07:38And we'll find out if Pete Hegseth still has a job. I will see you then. I'll look forward to it. Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro, and Neil Rosenhaus. So the good news is we have so many B-beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out, and we really appreciate your support. Choice Hotels gets you more of what you value. Comfort in, it's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Book direct at choicehotels.com. You're listening to a quick ad. You know what else is quick? Selling your car on Carvana.

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