This Is Trump's Sinister Plot Against His Own Aide

0:00What's in Trump's head about Susie Wiles? This asking around thing that he calls up people, and he's actually even done this to me. Everybody knows that the asking around about is the kiss of death. That means you have to say, well, you know, I think there's some issues there, Mr. President. It begins to undermine people. So does that mean the end of Susie Wiles? And I, you know, I expect that it does mean that, that after the midterms, she will be toast, Susie toast. What he is doing is sending the signal that Susie Wiles is out. He's poisoning the Susie Wiles ground.

0:47Michael. Joanna. We're both in winter cardigans. The fall is wrapping its arms around us. Gee, I don't know. That's very dramatic. Well, what a dramatic day. It actually isn't quite wrapping yet. I mean, the sun is still strong, bright. It will hit near 70 degrees out here at the beach. So I'm not giving in to fall yet. Okay, so Michael's happy in the Hamptons. I think we're taking from that. Happy in the Hamptons. Everyone is happy in the Hamptons. Everyone's paradise. Paradise, Michael. Okay, we have a lot to get to. Is Susie Wiles on the way out? Did Katie Zachariah, the new White House press secretary, obfuscate her legal background?

1:36Turns out she didn't pass the bar exam. Will she pass Michael Wolff's exam? We've got Kimberly Gilfoyland, your excellent piece on Substack. There was a fantastic line in there I'm going to get to. Poor Ukraine. Just terrible, terrible scenes coming out of Ukraine. James Tallarico on the CNN town hall stage. And, well, I mean, you know, it's just a lot to get into. All of this is on the cusp of the midterms. It's all on the cusp of the midterms. That's right. And we'll be right on the cusp of the midterms next Tuesday in L.A. at the Terrogram Bullroom, October the 20th, 7 p.m. be there or be nowhere, tickets on Ticketmaster or beast.pub slash ith.

2:32Michael, we haven't figured out what we're going to talk about yet. No, but before we get to that, and actually we should probably not do that here because we should do that offline, as they say, but Hollywood. would um so uh several last week week before last we were dissing arry emmanuel's book mildly dissing were we dissing it i think you said you weren't going to read it that's all i well i think that that qualified as a diss and arry called me up and said um uh and i quote i've read all your fucking books you better fucking well read mine so that sounds quintessential arry emmanuel So, so instructed.

3:17I did read the book and actually it's fantastic. It is. I mean, I'm a kind of a connoisseur of Hollywood yarns. And this is this is really up there with with the with some of the best Hollywood books. And the thing I always like about Hollywood and Hollywood books, it's a distillation of the worst people on Earth. I mean, it is human behavior at its rock bottom. And Ari, well, one of the nice things about Ari or one of the horrifying things about Ari, depending upon how you look at it, is that he is vivid in his descriptions of the lowest common denominator of human nature. And he delivers it here.

4:12What is the lowest common denominator of human nature? Very low, very low. And and that's this I mean, the Hollywood thing is is unlike politics where they pretend it's something else and it's always cast in a in a civic light. There is there in Hollywood and Washington are quite similar, but it is Hollywood and the true the best Hollywood books always get to the heart of the matter that people are craven, despicable and would do anything to get what they want. Okay, so Ari Emanuel, famously known, I think, as a bully in Hollywood. Is it fair to say he just bullied you into reading his book? yes and is it also how did he know how did he know that you hadn't read his book oh because he listens to the pod I mean he it was my confession on the podcast so he knows all sees all including us so maybe the question is will he come to the Teragram Ballroom on Tuesday night.

5:29Well, he should come. He should come. He absolutely should. Yeah. If you've read his fucking book, as he put it, then he should come to our live show. We don't know what we're going to be talking about because the world is turning so fast. We'll be talking about whatever's going on that week and also giving some perspective about what we think will happen in the midterms. Yeah. Well, I think we'll also be talking about what we always talk about, what's going on inside Trump's head? What motivates him? What did he get up this morning or next Tuesday morning thinking and then acting on, irresponsibly acting on, uncontrollably acting on?

6:09Okay. Well, this is Inside Trump's Head, the podcast. We go there three times a week. Feel free or please subscribe to the podcast. The reason that we can have these crazy conversations, Well, the truth is they're not crazy, but they're conversations unlike anything you will get elsewhere about what is going on with Donald Trump, how he runs America and the impact he's had, the outsized impact he's had. Please press the subscription button. Share with your friends, share with your frenemies, share with your political adversaries. Let it lead to a conversation. As we're recording this, we're recording this on Thursday morning, it's just come in over the wires, that Donald Trump has nixed the live streaming of the execution.

6:55Okay, so this is the first time I am hearing this. But just let me rush in here to point out that this is exactly what we said would happen. Right. That there was no chance that this was that he was going to carry this out. This was just a news cycle gambit. And just to, you know, that that thing. And I'm not I'm not sure I'm not sure we said this the last I think I forgot to say this when we were discussing this the other day, that he does this thing, a constant. One of the constant things that goes on behind the scenes is Trump saying to aides, put it out there. Just put it out. Just put it out there.

7:40Aides are going, but, but, but. And he says, just put it out there. And this was clearly one of those things. And clearly every single person in the media fell for it. Do you think he said that or was this Pete Hegseth just running his mouth? Because Pete Hegseth said it during a podcast. Yeah, no, I'm sure that he said to Hegseth and just put it out there. Oh, OK. So you think Donald came up with the idea, gave it to Hegseth? Well, somebody may. Hegseth may have said something about it. And then Trump said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just put that out there. So does this look bad for Hegseth?

8:26Hegseth's put it out there, apparently owned the idea. J.D. Vance swoops in and says, well, he won't be watching it. I saw one poll that said eight out of 10 Americans hated this idea. So is Trump now coming in over the top of Hegseth? I don't think that this was ever there was ever in anybody's imagination or playbook that this was going to happen. This is just Trump. It's just the Trump White House. Put it out there. Not going to happen. We don't care if it's going to happen. We're going to take the we're going to claim the news cycle on this. Put it out there. so is there any reverberation for hexeth over this because he seemed to have owned the idea yeah i i i don't think so at all i think i think trump is probably very pleased with this whole whole thing we got it everybody it it commanded it commanded headlines for what two or three news cycles.

9:35Great. Okay, you're right. I'm still looking for logic, and there is no logic. The logic is, and I spell this out all the time, but let me do it again, because it's very hard for people to grasp. Attention is zero sum. If Trump and the Trump White House gets it, Other people don't. We're in the middle of the midterms now, everybody fighting for attention. So we're going to say we're going to execute someone, a live stream and execution headlines. He gets the headlines. Someone else doesn't. And then it goes away. So days from now, a week from now, two weeks from now, nobody remembers the live stream execution that never was.

10:30And what a waste of energy there was around it and people running around saying this undermines American values when all it is is a play for attention by Donald Trump. Yeah. So why doesn't we're in the 10th year of this? How come The New York Times doesn't have a headline which says says Trump promises live execution that will never happen? I don't know. But what they did have yesterday was an incredible photo of Donald Trump in Marine One with Katie Zachariah and Natalie Harp. I think we can flash the picture up on screen. And I'm mesmerized by this photo. So, I mean, first of all, I mean, Trump looks as if he's in one of the shape of him makes him look as if he's in one of those Victorian bath chairs.

11:19Why do you remember? You know, people would perambulate along Brighton in the UK or the south of France with an elderly relative, usually with a big sort of blanket over their knees. And then you've got the two women, the two blonde women, both with, I think, hair extensions. I don't know about Natalie's, but definitely Zachariah's hair. and the two of them just sort of simpering and grinning away at him. And let me just note for the historical record that Doug Mills, the New York Times photographer, is Trump's favorite photographer, that everything often, often the tableaus are composed for Doug Mills, that Doug Mills is given a seat to get the best or a position to get the best shot of that tableau.

12:07So this is, you know, well, if not staged, again, Doug Mills was given the access to get this shot. Falls, the season that everyone gets busier, more calls, more customers, more chances for something to slip through the cracks. And staying ahead means having just the right system, not working harder. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O. It's a business phone system built so you never miss a call. All your calls, texts, and voicemails live in one place so anyone on your team can pick up a conversation, see the full history, and respond fast. Quo's optional built-in AI agent handles after-hours calls, answers questions, and even books appointments so you never miss a lead, even when your team is offline.

13:08Set up in minutes on any device, keep your existing number and add teammates as you grow. No IT, no hassle. Money is always on the line. So always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash beast. That's Q-U-O dot com slash beast. So what is Trump signaling here? I may be old. I may look old. I may have my cankles on display, but I've got two young blondes at my knee. Exactly. Remember Trump's lawyers during his various indictments and trials. I may not have the smartest legal team, but I have the hottest. So again, this is a thing.

14:00It's really, you know, and go back to all those years, those Jeffrey Epstein years of pursuing models, courting models, having models on his arms. This is fundamental to his identity. Mm-hmm. Well, what did we think of Katie Zachariah? Did you see her first performance? The world saw her first performance. Thoughts? I mean, she appears to have been given the job 24 hours before she was required to address the press. You know, I mean, I think that there's things that are probably obvious, obvious here that she that they offered they probably offered the job to a number of other people before they got to her.

14:53And then because I've seen Trump do this, I am sure in frustration he was given a set of pictures of of of young women who might fill this this spot. He saw her and he went, her, let's do her. Let's do her. And she's 41, so she's not as young as Carolyn Levitt, who was 27 when she started, I think, and leaves big shoes to fill. Fascinating detail that she's been telling everybody she's a lawyer. She was asked where she went to law school. uh trump asks her where she goes to law school and then she mumbles something about uh china in china which trump looks i think the question where did she where did she take the bar okay where did she take the bar you're quite correct and um uh yeah and that was a that was the the response that went around the world i mean of all the things that she could have said she said the most discordant that was the most discordant answer where did you take the bar china china china the state of china um i mean every every journalist in the country has been trying to figure out where she went to law school and of course it turns out that she failed the bar but she went to just just it's not everybody knows where she went so she went to law school at Pepperdine University.

16:27So it's really the question of, was she, did she pass the bar? Is she a member of a bar in one of 50 states, not China? Well, it turns out no. Turns out no. Turns out no. And of course, it seems highly unlikely that she did bar exams in China unless she did them by a sort of postal course. Now, let me just, just, it's worth pointing out there is no requirement. Not only is there no requirement that a press secretary be a lawyer, most press secretaries are not lawyers. So how this even became a question, how this became an issue is just another fuck up. She doesn't have to be a lawyer. That is germane to nothing.

17:19Now, partly this starts, I think, because Trump introduced Trump says she's an attorney. Right. And and why did someone tell? She self-identified as a lawyer. Yes. So he probably picks picks this up. And that's where that's that's how it became an issue. But it certainly didn't have to be an issue. Right. Well, and of course, she immediately became the story. Yes. And it just goes to the level of preparation here. Nobody fought this through. I mean, yes, she probably wasn't vetted. And so somebody could have said, what are you saying? You're representing yourself as a general counsel. What do you mean to say here?

18:09Nobody knows that. Nobody knows. Oh, yeah. I think she's a lawyer. Oh, yeah. I think she's a lawyer. To be fair, on her bio, on her Instagram, she says, I'm a lawyer. She says attorney. No, no. No, there's a whole thing that she doesn't say attorney. She says lawyer. OK, maybe she says lawyer. And then there's another. So she's splitting hairs and nobody cleaned this up before. Right. Well, it's also, is it possible that Susie Wiles didn't know, Susie Wiles being Donald Trump's, of course, chief of staff, Is it possible that she didn't know he was going to announce Katie Zachariah until he did?

18:53Yeah, no, it's very possible. I mean, I think my description of this, I would stand by. It's others passed and then in frustration, he said her, her. Great. OK, well, a lot of speculation that she's not going to last as long as Anthony Scaramucci. He was White House communications director and he was out in 11 days. And the question is that the Internet was alive. The interweb was alive with speculation that she would not last that long. Yeah, well, we'll see. I mean, I'm eager and that her next her next news conference will be well attended and well watched. Megyn Kelly went on a tirade about her outfit, saying that she was trying too hard, which I thought was a bit rich from Megyn Kelly, who wore famously spaghetti straps when she had dinner with Vladimir Putin before she interviewed him.

19:55And then she wore for her coverage of one of the Republican conventions. I mean, she looked very strange. She looked as if literally she was wearing a nightdress. she said that she she had every right to do that which of course she does but then it's very weird when she attacks katie zachariah who was wearing sort of perfect corporate wear i thought um this morning my wife and i were going through old the um tracing back katie zachariah on the internet. And, and she was, if you go back, she's a conventionally, she's a conventionally pretty woman, but you know, a, a, a, a not unusual blonde, nice, nice looking pre makeup.

20:45And then, and then you see this transformation of her over time in, in, in which the face becomes in just incredibly glossed and kind of... Well, Mara Largoed, right? She's become Mara Largoed in the way that Kimberly Guilfoyle has done. No, and that would have been one of those things to absolutely appeal to Trump. Trump would never appoint the way Katie Zachariah looked 10 years ago. So she had to go through this transformation into a Fox star. I mean, that's always the Mar-a-Lago. Fox really created the Mar-a-Lago look. Fair. So one person who hasn't succumbed to the Mar-a-Lago look is Susie Wiles.

21:39You predicted at the beginning of this year that you thought she wouldn't last post-November, so post the midterms. There was a piece in Politico this morning saying that Trump is doing that thing that you always talk about of him calling around and just trying things out on people. So what do you think about Susie Wiles? How's Susie doing? What do you think about Susie? So how is she doing? What are you hearing? Well, I mean, let's let's go back to what it doesn't matter how she is doing. It's a matter matter of how how she is. What Trump's impression at the moment? What's in Trump's head about Susie Wilde?

22:19And this asking around thing, which is, let me, I think I was, I was certainly the first person to paint that portrait of what he does, which is really peculiar. That he calls up people, and he's actually even done this to me. And he says, what do you think about so-and-so? So, you know, what do you think about what do you think about Steve when when that would have been Steve Bannon? And actually, that's what he did say, say, say to me. And everybody knows that the that the asking around about is the kiss of death. That means you have to say, well, you know, I think there's some some issues there, Mr.

23:10President. And then he will tell you what the, I absolutely agree. Then he will go on. And the other effect of this, the asking around, is that it begins to undermine people. So this gets spread from one person to another. What did he say? Well, he was asking me about, you know, whoever. I'm sure he's now asking around about Katie Zachariah, but he is apparently asking around about Susie Wiles. So does that mean the end of Susie Wiles? And I expect that it does mean that, that after the midterms, she will be Toast, Susie Toast. Susie Toast. So do we have a sense of, is he yet asking what about so-and-so to fill her shoes?

24:07yes he he he apparently is asking about this person or that person but that really doesn't mean he's actually asking about that person what he's done what he is doing is sending the signal that suzy wiles is out so he's poisoning he's poisoning the suzy wiles ground suzy wiles must note this. Of course. Right. So she's why doesn't she just say, you know what, Mr. President, thank you so much. I think I'm going to leave you to your own midterms. Well, because she won't. She's she'll she'll wait until after the midterms. That's just that's just what you do if you're remotely have have a scintilla of loyalty.

24:58But I would do remember Nikki Haley before the 2020 election. So weeks before the 2020 election, she bailed from her job at the UN. And why did she do that? Was the goal to make some money? No, I think the goal was not to be taken down by the ship. Hmm. With a Nikki Haley, where is she now? Well, and obviously then she went on, she broke from Donald Trump and believed that she could have an independent political career as a candidate for president, which didn't go very well. As I say, where is she now? So skids under Susie Wiles, possibly the skids under Katie Zachariah in record time. And of course, the skids have well and truly been pulled out, if that's the right expression, under Kimberly Guilfoyle.

26:04In Katie Zachariah's first press conference, she announced the astonishment of the press call sitting in front of her when asked about Kimberley Guilfoyle. She said, well, we've asked the ambassador to resign. You had a wonderful column on Kimberley Guilfoyle in Substack this week, which talked about her retailing her influence, which I thought was a wonderful line. And of course, you've talked before about watching her go full basic instinct on Sean Hannity's plane on the way down to Roger Ailes' funeral, which again is just a sort of mind-boggling scene. How did I ever, ever find myself in that situation?

26:46Well, thank goodness you did, because you got a very good book out of it. And we've been able to talk about Kimberley Guilfoyle ever since. But what do you think she does now? Does she have stuff on the Trumps? Was this – I'm still sort of fascinated by why now and why they came after Kimberley. And it seems to have come from all sorts of angles. I mean disgruntled ex-staffers. Let's add another component to this. Yes, it did. I did. Remember, so the Wall Street Journal has three successive stories, each more devastating, about Kimberly Guilfoyle. But let's just go back a bit to Don Jr.'s wedding.

27:34To Bettina Anderson. And remember that there was a leak involving that wedding when it was revealed that his reception was being paid for by a Russian oligarch. And they have since tried to cover that, smooth that over. They're going to return the money. But that was a pretty devastating revelation. So are these connected? How might they be connected? Well, one of the ways that they might be connected is that the leaker about the Russian oligarch might have been his former fiance, Kimberly Guilfoyle. And this now might be payback for that. Or let's recast this in In another way, this really isn't about Kimberly Guilfoyle.

28:37This is about Don Jr. Let's get Don for any number of reasons, including heading off any possibility or hoping to head off any possibility that he might be a 2028 contender. So you're proposing that it's possible Kimberly Guilfoyle leaked the details of John Jr.'s wedding that his father didn't attend to Bettina Anderson, who was her rival, who overlapped with her, as sort of payback. And then his camp leaked details of Kimberly Guilfoyle misbehaving in Greece. I'm just putting it out there. What a nightmare to be a member of that family. What an absolute nightmare to be involved with any of them that this is how they behave.

29:35Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Of course, it's all alleged because we don't know if any of it's true, but it does make a sort of weird Trumpian sense, doesn't it? No, and I'm really fascinated by this, the Trumpian character, which Kimberly Guilfoyle would have come to epitomize. And it is, you know, in a way, it's back to the many of the characters that Ari Emanuel describes in his book. It's without pretense, without shame. I want what I want and I'm going to do anything I have to do to get it. And the only sort of difference between Hollywood people and Trump people in this is that Trump people are kind of so unsmooth about it, so inept, so gross.

30:30Well, they're less attractive, too. I mean, the veneer of attractiveness in Hollywood actually allows people to get away with things. Well, there are a lot of ugly guys in Hollywood, I'll tell you that. Well, that's true. I was saying, but there are a lot of, you know, the interesting thing about Hollywood and the interesting thing when you spend any time there is that the people are, for the most part, more attractive. You know, it's a place where people run on the beach. It sort of does have an element of Baywatch about it. Certainly more attractive than they are in D.C. I mean, I think you're just saying that they have better plastic surgeons than the Trump people, because the Trump people certainly seem to have terrible plastic surgeons.

31:07But but I think it's I think it's it's it's more than that. I mean, it is really this this this ethos. I mean, it's a very kind of desperate ethos that the world is a bad place. And and you can you have to get what you what you get is what you take. And very much within the Trump world, that's the that's that's what you always sense. And even even maybe more particular to Trump world, we we we will never have this kind of opportunity again. We must do it now. And the Kimberly Guilfoyle thing, which kind of predates Trump because, you know, she's married to Gavin Newsom, but then she comes to New York, gets involved with Fox News and then sees this opportunity within Trump world.

32:03And it had seemed to pay off for her at several points, including that she almost, but not quite, became the president's daughter-in-law. And then failing that, she became a United States ambassador. Also an incredibly unlikely outcome. Well, and there's a sort of, I mean, Democrats aren't going to like me saying this, but there's an element of Pamela Harriman about her too, isn't there? I mean, she's a much cruder version of Pamela Harriman, who is much more sophisticated, but also got an ambassadorship, was also married to, well, she married Winston Churchill's son, right? She did. She married a governor of New York.

32:53Right. Um, yeah, no, I mean, Kimberly Guilfoyle is not an unusual character in politics or at a certain level of American life. The only thing thing that is different about her is is might seem to be a complete lack of pretense. I don't care. I don't care who knows what. I am out here getting what I can get and I don't care who knows it. So what's her next move? Well, I mean, the question is, does she go into revenge mode? And actually, it's more complicated because she would ask herself, how do I monetize my revenge? or how do I monetize not seeking revenge? So the question will be for her is how do I monetize?

33:56And that will be over and above the emotional need for revenge. And it may well be, I mean, I would suspect now, I think maybe we discussed this, that she's negotiating with them and they will have to deliver something to her in order for her not to seek revenge. Right, because she must know a lot. Revenge is going to be her chip right now. How does she play that? How does she monetize restraint or active revenge? Exactly. So at any rate, we can safely say we have not heard the last of Kimberly Guilford. We have not. And we are here for it, Michael. The moment she makes any further noises or moves, we are definitely here for it.

34:48And I really, I recommend your substat column on her because it's beautifully written and it just gets at the heart of what a novelistic character she is. And what I meant by the attractive thing in Hollywood was just that so many people go there to be actors and to, you know, to act out their fame craving and to be to be taken seriously as an actor. For the most part, you have to be attractive. So the war, Michael. I mean, OK, no, I think I think this is so so beyond put we I think we can everything we've discussed, we can we can we can now sort of in this show, we can put aside. And that's all, you know, I mean, fascinating, but ultimately not not remotely as consequential as what we discuss now, which is which is Elon Musk.

35:46private citizen, essentially closing, threatening an independent nation. More than threatening, squeezing an independent nation. So we have a couple of things on Elon. And let's go back. Elon in 2024, Elon put up$300 million to help Trump win the 2024 election. And$300 million in the context of politics, of one man putting up that much money is unheard of. That is, that$300 million was the largest individual contribution to a political campaign in history. OK. That then bought him basically the position of the second most powerful person in the White House and gave him the right without accountability to storm roll through the U.S.

36:50government, burning and slashing, which he did right up until the point that the power he was that the power he had assumed started to rival Trump's own power. And they had a fight. Then he was out. Now Elon Musk is back putting up just about 300 million dollars again in the midterms. So we can assume that he is not doing that out of the goodness of his heart. He wants power. He is buying power and he is paying so disproportionately for it that he wants disproportionate power. which he will wield with the heaviest of hands. The backdrop here is Trump, who is also trying to cut off Ukraine and trying to pressure Ukraine into making a deal with Russia.

37:48And Trump is doing this for a variety of reasons, including his desperate last minute hope to bring oil prices down and to be able to claim that he's the peacemaker in Ukraine before the midterm elections. But also because he has had this long standing aspiration to, I don't know, bond with Vladimir Putin, to do business with Vladimir Putin, which Musk also has. So you have this moment, kind of a transparent moment of these two authoritarian oligarchs trying to have their way at the expense of a country and of a people and of the international order. Freedom in Europe. I mean, Elon Musk yesterday issued a statement saying this wasn't his decision.

39:00It was the Pentagon's decision. Because Starshield, which is the defensive technology that the Ukrainians use, is paid for by the Pentagon. Yes, I think he is doing the bidding of doing Trump's bidding here. But this is Elon Musk. Believe me, Elon Musk doesn't do anybody's bidding that he doesn't want to. Well, and of course, the irony is Trump's doing this shocking deal to buy Russian diesel to offset the prices of diesel in the U.S., which have gone up because of his disastrous war with Iran. I mean, Iran yesterday, you know, well, this month in October alone has blown up 14 ships trying to get out of the Strait of Hormuz.

39:48Right. So there's actually a couple of things here, interesting things here. One of which is that this is another Trump bullshit deal. I mean, the amount of diesel fuel that we would be, that the U.S. would be getting is inconsequential, actually. But what it does symbolically is it is sanction breaking. We have these sanctions against Russia. These sanctions involve a moral position. It's a moral position which we have argued with much of the world. You have to do this. We are doing this. You have to do this. We all have to do this. And this is now sort of thrown into the crapper. Right. And something that actually America had held fairly tightly, actually, and hadn't broken them.

40:46And of course, this is just a remarkable deal that he's done with Putin. And probably, as you say, it's such a small amount of diesel, it probably won't have any impact on prices whatsoever. But it goes back to this thing, you know, what is the relationship, one of the most confounding things about the Trump era and Trump's political career? What is it with Trump and Vladimir Putin? Is it just not that the Russians helped him out during his business lows? I mean, you've talked about how the Russians, how Trump, you know, when Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump fell out over a piece of real estate in Palm Beach, Jeffrey Epstein had offered 36 million, I think, for the property.

41:32Trump gazumped him with$41 million and then sold the property two years later for$95 million, which suggested that he was laundering money for somebody. The person who bought the property was a Russian. Unheard of for properties to double in value like that, especially at that end of the market. I mean, is it not as simple as they just kept bailing him out? well i i think that that's part of it but i i think that that misses the broader picture the broader picture is this trump wants access to this kind of um uh to to money on this kind of scale trump wants to be an oligarch trump responds to oligarchs trump is i mean that's And that's the world in which he would like to live and move.

42:28And at this point, as the presidency comes to an end, this is his opportunity, maybe his last opportunity. And he is going to get like Kimberly Guilfoyle, although poor Kimberly is at a, you know, I'm kind of in her. An impasse? No, Kimberly, her sums are embarrassingly small. if she had asked for she asked somebody for a hundred thousand dollars to pay off off her amex if she had asked for a hundred million well she would be in a um she would probably be embraced by the by the trump team that's what trump is looking at access to this kind of money i mean what people often call the world's unbanked money.

43:23So he's going to segue from being president to oligarch. He doesn't give a shit about the rest of the Republican Party, doesn't care who follows him. He wants nobody, in fact, to follow him. And he's doing his best, weirdly, to lose the midterms, it seems. Yeah, well, I don't I'm trying to think if that does. Does he really want to lose the midterms um i think it's true that he doesn't really give a shit about this but on the other hand um i think he could wake up on the morning of november 4th and um and find himself in a in a in a new world which he doesn't he's not prepared for that he won't be able to understand and um the final chapter begins.

44:17We're often saying that people around Trump have an audience of one, and that's Donald Trump. Does Donald Trump have an audience of one, and that's Vladimir Putin? No, I don't really think so. I mean, I think that he wants a bond with Putin because Putin is a model that he is drawn to. The authoritarianism, the fact that he has been able to achieve such control over his own political fate, but also just the money. He wants the money. I mean, Trump is, remember, and it's always important, Trump is a simple machine. Give me the money. I just want money. And you can see everything that has happened, especially in this second term, it's just about the money.

45:21Put up the money. You want a pardon? Put up the money. You want a deal? Put up the money. You want a company. You want favorable treatment? Put up the money. and it's not complicated. Trump as an oligarch, why hasn't that been more of a conversation? And as you say, it's why he surrounds himself with these people and thinks these people are wiser than anyone else. And he looks as if he's going to get his own way. What's he made? 2.2 billion last year. And I'm sure he'll make the same again this year. The unfathomable thing is why people don't seem to care very much. I don't know. I mean, perhaps because the sums are so great that it's almost impossible to comprehend.

46:15You know,$100 ,000 to pay off a credit card, people understand that level of corruption. Billions upon billions of dollars, it becomes a different world. Um, you know, Elon Musk$300 million. It's, it's, you know, I'm tempted to say, you know, you know, cast your, your vote against Republicans in, in on no, on November 3rd or voting begins many places now, because that's a vote against Elon, but that's a misunderstanding. You know, democracy doesn't really know how to deal with$300 million. $300 million is its own power. And that's what – I don't think anybody has kind of come to terms with this.

47:09Nobody has come to terms with the level of money that is now in so many private hands. Right. Right. Well, did you see anything of James Tallarico, the Democratic hopeful for Senate in Texas? He did a town hall on CNN last night, Wednesday night. Did you manage to see anything? Yeah, I did. And I thought he's, you know, I thought he's attractive. He's impressive. He's, you know, kind of, you know, refreshingly normal. normal. He struck me as a, you know, kind of maybe an older-fashioned Democrat, as somebody who's, you know, who's a guy who has serious thoughts about policy issues, who's trying to work through things.

48:03You know, a socially liberal guy, a kind of less liberal when it comes to other issues, particularly Texas-related issues. He seems credible, plausible, and in any other world than the Trump world, likely. And in the comparison to Ken Paxton, who is another Trump figure, who is Kimberly Guilfoyle just in another guise. I mean, corrupt and he doesn't care who knows he's corrupt and doesn't have a serious policy bone in his body and is just about gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. I thought it was very relaxing watching James Tallarico because you didn't feel he was word salading it. he felt that he was very agile, quick on his feet.

49:03They had one part of the town hall where they had individuals from the audience come out and sit and argue with him on a certain point. And I thought he seemed so harder to have prepared answers, my point being there. And he seemed good. I thought he was flexible. He's intelligent. He's articulate. He's obviously thought things through to your point. But also, I didn't feel anxious watching him. There are so many Democratic candidates that you feel anxious for because they seem terrified to say what they actually believe. And he didn't have any of that. And neither does John Ossoff. No, this is a close race in Texas, very close.

49:44And he could still lose this. And the Republicans have, I mean, they have two things going for them. They have devoted an enormous amount of money to this race. And then they still have this shameless ability to pull out these culture issues, which have, I mean, it's sort of unbelievable that they have, in effect, that they have real power. So J.D. Vance going to Texas and suggesting that Tallarico is gay. And for all I know, Tallarico may be gay, but this is in the context of Texas politics that is going to move a lot of votes. I wonder how Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, feels about that.

50:47Well, he feels and he's glad he's not running for anything. And maybe he thinks, well, if it's going to win a Senate seat and keep the Senate, then that's... Scott Besson is also Kimberly Guilfoyle in another form. Gimme, gimme, gimme. This is my opportunity. I will never, it may never come my way again. Trump is an opportunity. And that is what literally everybody around Trump says. There is nobody. Let's remember this. Nobody who says, hey, Donald Trump, what a great guy. They say Donald Trump is my fucking opportunity and I'm going to take it. And that's why I like talking to you, Michael. The American presidency for sale yet again.

51:37We'll be back on Saturday with another episode of Inside Trump's Head. And then, of course, Tuesday we'll be live. We'll be live in L.A. at the Terrogram Ballroom, October the 20th, 7 p.m. Please come. Please come meet us. Maybe meet Ari Emanuel. Ari, you're going to have to come now. You're going to have to come. Michael, I'll see you on Saturday. Fantastic. Enjoy your warm summer day in the Hamptons, your paradise in the Hamptons. And Michael, do you want to thank our troops? Everybody who makes this possible, whose names I am always forgetting. Ryan, John, Heather, Rachel, and Neil. Thank you.

52:29Don't really forget them. See you on Saturday. But I have to grasp for them. But I grasp for your name too. So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now. Now, there are too many names to read out, and we really appreciate your support.