This Is Why Jeanine Pirro Defied Trump: Wolff

0:00If it went before a judge, it would be thrown out. She could be sanctioned on this. I think she just said, I can't. There is just no way even I, a loyal, abjectly loyal Trump functionary factotum, I can't do this. Let's not call it honesty. I think it's incredulity. I think she said, I'm in a terrible corner here. Some people suddenly say, I have a reputation. I have a reputation. I'm Judge Jeanine. I have a reputation. There's an old expression, there is some s*** I cannot eat.

0:42Michael. Joanna. We have new positioning of the microphones. It's weird. It's a little weird. Yeah. I know, I feel like I want to reach out and I can't. It's almost as if we're in a jail. It's like my shoulder is speaking. Your shoulder is speaking. It's also a bit like, you know, when you see those TV shows and there's someone behind the glass on a phone talking, you know, a criminal, and they've got a guest, a visitor. It's a bit like that. I feel like you're in jail. I mean, the person is in jail and you're the murderer. Yes, the murderer. I wasn't going to say the murderer. But the glass and then they're on the phone.

1:22It feels a little bit like that. Anyway, we have a lot to get to this morning. Janine Pirro, Max Miller. What did Trump say to Max Miller? What's happening in the Paramount deal? David Allison wants us to know. He's not MAGA, even if Barry Weiss is MAGA-curious or MAGA-coded. And Todd Blanche, will he or won't he? Ascendant. Reascendant. And we've got Abdul El-Sayed and Hayley. Hayley-Ber. Not Hayley Biber. I wouldn't say Hayley Carpenter, but who is Hayley Carpenter? Sabrina Carpenter. Hayley Stevens in Michigan. It's a white noise last name. It's a white noise last name, but she's not got a white noise voice, actually, Hayley.

2:10She's got a Michigan-y voice. I guess that's where she's going to be defeated on that basis. Anyway, there's lots of Mishagas in Michigan that we're going to talk about. We're recording this on Tuesday morning and we have no idea what's going to happen. But we do know. Melania, we can get to Melania too. We can also get to Melania. Always, always. Always. And the polls. Money in the bank, Melania. Money in the bank. Monetizing the presidency. Why not? He is, so why shouldn't she? If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast. Share it with your friends. Just like it, please. We need your support.

2:42Independent media. All right, let's get into it. Janine Pirro, what's going on there? She looked so dejected when she left the White House, pulling her little bag behind her. What was that about? Why didn't she have someone with her? She literally walked out in like flat, weird flip-flops with a kind of, or mules, flat mules, with pulling her bag behind her as if she'd been made homeless, which is odd. Or an airline stewardess. Or an airline stewardess. Her father actually sold mobile homes. And there was something about - But not mobile bags. No, not mobile bags. Not travel bags. But she looked dejected.

3:19What's happening? What's happening? Well, you would. I mean, to go in, let me just set the scene of what happens when you're called into the principal, Donald Trump's principal office. Right.

3:35You're, first thing, you don't say anything. You're there. You're literally called on the carpet and he literally goes crazy on you. And why is it? Why do people find it so frightening? Does he just yell and yell and yell? Is the spit coming out? Like, what is the kind of? Well, you don't get in. Not necessarily. He's he's not necessarily out of control, but he is. You don't get to say anything. So it's his show entirely. And he is he's he's he can be pretty devastating. He's mocking. He's contemptuous. He belittles you. You don't get out of there without feeling like you have... It's humiliation.

4:20You're an adult woman. Even Janine Pirro, who has been... Humiliated many times. Humiliated many times, but she's obviously had a substantial career. She is a person of certainly on the right wing of some substance. And then she goes in there and she's reduced to nothing. You are nothing. You can do nothing. Okay, so let's set the scene for why he called her in, because those who haven't been following it as closely as we have, this is to do with the reflecting pool. I mean, the snort. Well, it's ridiculous. the entire government has become, the Trump government has become focused on this reflecting pool.

5:10You have to, at some moment, take a step back and say, this is ludicrous. And actually, that's what Jeanine Pirro did. So that's her sin. She took one step back and thought, oh my God, can we really pretend? So - Do we know that she did that? Because how do we know that she's not covering something else up? Oh, this is the Joanna Coles conspiracy theory. It's incredibly, I think everybody was surprised, frankly, shocked with the vehemence with which she came out and said, this is not an act of vandalism. This is poor contractor work. Okay. This is, let's repeat that. This is not an act of vandalism.

5:55It is poor contractor work. Right. So she just said not only the truth, but the obvious truth in opposition to what Donald Trump is saying, which is that this reflecting pool, which he is obsessed about, I mean, really, really, he has gone down the rabbit hole on this reflecting pool. He's going to produce a reflecting pool that is blue. Right. American flag blue. And it has not worked out in any way, shape or form. And a normal president, a normal person would have would have said, OK, well, you know, you know, there are some problems here and quickly stop talking about it. OK, there are some problems here.

6:46There's nothing but problems here. And he can't stop talking about it. Therefore, it became who do I blame? And he blamed who? The vandals. What vandals, for what reason they're vandalizing, and then this particular vandal who turned out to be a former Olympic contender. A kayaker. A kayaker. Kayaker. And having called attention to this reflecting pool, constant attention to this reflecting pool, it's not unexpected that people would go down and look at this fiasco and, in fact, grab little pieces of this thing that's peeling off everywhere you look. Like the inverse Berlin Wall. Yes. You try and get a little bit of the Berlin Wall when it was coming down.

7:43That dates me, but. No, I was there when the wall came down in Berlin in front of the wall that week, 1989. Extraordinary. Yeah, it was extraordinary. And I've always regret I didn't get a piece of the wall. You could miss getting a piece of the rubber. Yeah, the rubber coating. So they came, Trump demanded these vandals, this kayaker, peeling off a little of the Trump mess, be indicted. This is in Washington, D.C. The U.S. attorney in Washington is Janine Pirro. Janine Pirro is a former district attorney in Westchester County, then a television judge. I think she had a couple of posts in her television.

8:36She was on the CW and then she was on Fox News. And then went to Fox. Justice with Judge Jeanine, I think it was called. And then she became an active Trump supporter, partly because of the New York connection, partly because she's, of course, a right winger. And then, of course, I spent one evening with her in the Hay Adams Hotel as she proceeded to get drunker and drunker and drunker to the point that I have never been with someone so drunk. Was it just the two of you? For a period, it was just the two of us. But then Steve Bannon's PR person and Steve Bannon's PR person then brought two other people.

9:18So there were a few other people there at various points, but it was largely me and the judge. But it wasn't a date. It was she was a source. Yeah. No, we were talking. I was writing Fire and Fury. And the Hay Adams Hotel, it was a very good place to do this because it's right across the street from the White House and people would come over. And it's got a bar downstairs, hasn't it? Yeah. It has a bar and a dining room. Yeah. So the thing that people might have forgotten about Janine Pirro, which I remember because I moved here and was fascinated by the fact that she was the lead, I guess, district attorney in Westchester and her husband got found guilty of tax evasion for a million dollars.

10:06So he ended up going to jail. Trump eventually pardoned him in 2021. But I was fascinated that you could have someone, in theory, prosecuting the law whose husband went to jail for tax evasion. Well, it was an anomaly. Was it an anomaly? It doesn't usually happen. And then it became, I mean, that was a substantial embarrassment for her. I mean, she was on a trajectory for a political career, senator, governor, and that she was derailed by that. Well, and then her husband went on to have an affair with someone who she thought about taping, and that also surfaced. And then he ended up having a kid with someone else, at which point she'd had enough, and they got divorced.

10:54And she's had enough, but she still wasn't giving up. No, she wasn't giving up. And in fact, it turns out that her career has been much better, if you count working for Trump and being the U.S. attorney in D.C., as better than it was when she was married. But in instance, I mean, she was not a U.S. attorney in the first Trump administration, which was somewhat more restrained in the ass licks that it hired. But she was pretty ass-licky over the Dominion and the election was stolen when she was working for Fox. She was very much in that chorus of he didn't, Joe Biden didn't win. But then in the campaign, in the second administration campaign to turn the Justice Department into Trump's personal law firm, he went out of his way to hire these people who were abjectly lackeys.

11:54Right. No pretense otherwise. And that was Judge Jeanine in any way, shape or form, except the reflecting pool. Well, and interestingly, because when she first went after Davy Hearn, the Olympian canoeist, and of all the people that you would arrest, how you would arrest an Olympian. I mean, amazing luck for the reflecting pool, who I now come to anthropomorphize because I feel so sorry for it. But amazing that it turns out to be an Olympian that they foolishly arrest. And when she initially goes after him, she behaves as if this is the most egregious crime in America, and she is going to bring justice.

12:39And now on a Friday afternoon, they release the fact that this is a contractor error, and then Donald Trump pulls her into his office and screams at her. She does, yes. She releases this fact. So she makes herself the face of this apology. So why is she doing that? Well, just a slight step back. When Trump brings the National Guard into Washington, and that was, when are we talking now? Six months ago, eight months ago. This is part of the ICE and the immigration push. and they arrest all kinds of people and all kinds of people and she indicts them. And then almost to a man, to a case, these cases are thrown out.

13:34They're all released. And I think then, even then, you saw that she was chastened, I think, by this. So now we come up with this case even more preposterous. It's just flatly not true. It is obviously not true. If it went before a judge, it would be thrown out. She would be, she could be sanctioned on this. I mean, she is. So Trump, I mean, understand the operation here. Trump wants this done, but she has to do it. And she has to do it in her name. So I think it just got to be too much for her. I think she just said, I can't. There is just no way even I, a loyal, abjectly loyal Trump functionary factotum, I can't do this.

14:31So you think she's had a burst of heart-clutching honesty here? Because I'm not seeing that from anyone else in the government. And I find it unlikely that Jeanine Theroux would be that person. I think it's incredulity. She couldn't get over this. I mean, somehow in her mind, I think she said, I'm in a terrible corner here. I mean, I am going to look. I do have some kind. You know, some people suddenly say, I have a reputation. I have a reputation. I'm Judge Jeanine. I have a reputation. Judge Jeanine have a reputation. I mean, this is the woman that said that Donald Trump had won 2020. I mean, she went to, you know, she was battling Dominion.

15:15There's an old expression, there is some shit I cannot eat. Right. And I think that she just came to the end of the road. And I'm sure she now regrets it, by the way. But I think she had a burst of clarity, a burst of just, can I do anything else? I got to get out of it. And she really blamed the Interior Department. She just said they gave her completely the wrong information. So she threw them under the bus. I mean, I want to believe what you're saying, but I can't help wondering if there's something else afoot. It just seems so unlikely that Jeanine Pirot would reach the piece of, to use your phrase, shit that she cannot eat.

15:56And then she went before. And then the further proof of this is that she went, she was called into the White House, called onto the carpet, berated, and will probably be fired. Right. another woman in the parade of people who've been fired? Why hasn't there been a single man who's been fired? The men are just as incompetent as the women. Yeah, I am. I mean, maybe somehow they are even more abjectly loyal to Donald Trump, although I can't imagine the men. So if Janine Pirro is fired, what happens to her? Does she go back on Fox? Does she go to CBS? Yes, Barry Weiss could hire her at CBS. Barry, that's an idea for you.

16:41Judge Jeanine, she could brighten up the breakfast show. It's good. Right? Yeah, no, I think that's good. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we're recording this on Tuesday morning. This morning, Axios reported that Donald Trump had called Max Miller, the congressman in, where is he? I knew you were going to do this. The congressman in Ohio who is in the middle of a horrible custody. Who is the son-in-law of the senator from Ohio, the Republican senator. Senior senator. The senior senator, whatever that means. Bernie Moreno. I think it just means he's been there longer. Bernie Moreno is the Republican senator from Ohio, and his daughter is married to Max Miller, the congressman from a district that includes a piece of Cleveland, I think.

17:47And anyway, just think about this. Anyway, he's in a very close race. But also the nepotism here. Do they all marry each other? It's the right-wingers marry the right-wingers. What about Troy Jackson in Maine who's married to his second cousin? Or they're not married. He has two children with his second cousin, the guy that stepped in for Graham Plattner. And apparently that's very common in Maine. Yep. But she's not a Democratic political – she's not the senator. No, no, she's not. But it's just when you said, are they all related to each other? That's all. But no, the situation in Maine has nothing to do with the situation.

18:34There's no parallel here. There is no parallel. But it's Tuesday and there's so many important elections today. I'm feeling a bit feverish. You're right. I'm making unnecessary connections. The congressman from Ohio is married to the daughter of the senator from Ohio. The Republican congressman married to the daughter of the Republican senator, who he then did various things to. Well, they're in the middle of a hideous custody battle and divorce. And she's accused him of throwing her against the wall when she was changing their baby, of breaking the child's collarbone. Yes, all kinds of things which he denies.

19:17His previous girlfriend who worked for Donald Trump, Stephanie Grisham, dated him for a bit and then outed him and said that he was an abuser. So this is the second time this has happened to him. Now, Bernie Moreno has had some problems too, correct? Well, Bernie Moreno has refused to say anything about this divorce case, which has been going on for two years. The accusations have been going on for two years. No, no, no. Until this weekend when he came out and said, Max Miller is not fit to be a congressman. At which point, Max Miller said, the only reason you've said this and the only reason you've avoided saying anything is because you had your own media circus.

20:06And his own media circus was to do with the fact that it was uncovered that he had a profile on a thing called Adult Friend Finder, where he was looking for a young man to travel with and have good times. Good times. So then it turned out that the allegation was that one of his interns had created this profile for Bernie Moreno, the senior senator. That's because that's what interns do to curry favor with their bosses. Any of our interns do that. They will be out of here. So we don't quite know the truth about it. The important point, which I'm not sure that we've gotten to. Very possibly we haven't gotten to.

20:56Is that Max Miller has until tomorrow to withdraw from the race. If he does not withdraw, then he is on the ballot and he is potentially beatable. I mean, this is a very, very close race. Even in Ohio, which is a red state, this is a close race and closer still because Max Miller is nobody's friend at this point. So Donald Trump calls him and says that he says to Max Miller, this isn't looking good for you. This is leak to Axios, but this is Donald Trump. So the leak may be different from the actual event or actually what he said. So you think it's possible he's leaking something that he didn't say?

21:57Very possible. I mean, remember, he has to please Bernie Moreno, the senator from Ohio. I mean, he doesn't want, he's already got enough problems with people in the Senate, with Republicans in the Senate. So he has to please him. At the same time, he always has a soft spot for. Rapists? Well, well. Alleged rapists. Men who have been accused by women, as he has been accused so many times. Right. So is it possible that Donald Trump said to Max Miller, hang in there, boy, and then said to Axios, I told him he's got to go. Yes, that's exactly. Right, of course. That's exactly right. And we will know the answer to this of what happened today.

22:53Because Max Miller, if Donald Trump said to Max Miller, you got to get out, Max Miller will get out. And that has to happen today. if Max Miller doesn't get out, that will be because Donald Trump said, you hang in there, boy. You can write this out. You can write this out. It's a domestic. This is binary. And we will find out which one is true within hours, actually, maybe even as we speak. So if Max Miller stays in the race, Donald Trump has encouraged him to stay in the race and said, you can brazen this out. Just do what I do. Do a Brett Kavanaugh. Just go full anger. Yeah, exactly. He said, you know, I mean, it would just be, yeah, forget about it.

23:35Come on. Okay. All right. So you mentioned the Senate. He doesn't want to piss off Bernie Moreno. It looks today, and again, we're recording this on Tuesday morning, it looks as if the Senate are about to confirm, Todd Blanch, that John Cornyn from Texas and Tom Tillis, the two holdouts, because they said they wanted written proof that their$1.8 billion slush fund had been closed down. they're now satisfied that that's happened. Or they say they're satisfied. Right, but the point is they've caved. Yes, they've caved and have got almost nothing for it. They were issued apparently, I mean, so Todd Blanche has issued two letters, which are, there's some dispute about how binding they are, And I think that the conclusion is that they are not very binding.

24:30So Donald Trump will do whatever Donald Trump wants to do. I mean, and he's already, I'm sure he's, Donald Trump is already pissed off that he actually had to even make a feint in the direction of saying that these things, that he's not going to get these things. In fact, he has basically said just the other day, he said, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do this. Doing it anyway. We're doing this anyway. But the more egregious, this is already egregious, this$1.8 billion stuff. But even more egregious is this IRS settlement in which the Justice Department has agreed, essentially given Donald Trump immunity on his taxes.

25:23And his family. And his family. Yes. And so there was a little bit. So they kind of wrote. So Todd Blanche has kind of said, well, that would be not apply in the future, just in the past. Just in the past. So they get a retroactive pardon essentially for any tax crimes. No. Tens of millions of dollars could be worth$100 million to. How would it be worth more than that? I mean, Trump himself has said he made$2.2 billion last year. I'm sure that there is some Jeanine Pirro husbandry going on there. Yeah. I mean, I think that the specific issue is a holdover tax issue in which there is. That's actually the amount of money that is at issue is$100 million.

26:15I saw that, but I couldn't help wondering if it was more. I'm sure that there's more. And we have said this all along. I mean, the issue here is that these guys held out, you know, Cornyn and Tillis, like, you know, we're somebody, we've got backbone. As we're leaving the Senate, we finally discovered our backbone. And we've discussed that even if Todd Blanche is not confirmed, he would go on to be the acting attorney general and be a threat to these guys. These guys do not want that. I mean, and essentially, they have clearly spent the last number of weeks trying to figure out, okay, how can we position ourselves as being good guys and against this?

27:12But at the same time, how do we confirm this guy? Because we don't want this hanging over our head. Right. And also it's got the, I mean, assuming because I think Tom Tillis is 66, John Cornyn is 74. They've still got money earning years. Tillis resigned or retired, but John Cornyn wasn't expecting to lose his seat, wasn't expecting Trump to primary him as effectively as he did with Ken Paxton. So he may well want to make some money now. Yeah, no, no, completely. He doesn't want the Justice Department coming after him. Exactly. So this is, I mean, this is raw politics that we just see here. They were never going to not confirm this guy.

27:55The question is how do they get what they want, which is to say, look like they're significantly stronger than they are. Right. And yet not be pursued by Trump and the Justice Department. Yeah, it's kind of, as you say, it's just pure politics and it's just revolting to see it like that. All right, so the polls are literally the lowest they have ever been. This is the most unpopular president since the polls began. You know, people in the comments keep asking me what I mean when I say literally, which apparently I say often. And now you have picked that up. I have picked up your bad habits. What do we mean when we say literally?

28:43We mean literally. Yeah, we mean that the no president has ever been lower in the polls than Donald Trump. Nixon in the week before he was resigned. But that's it. He's bottomed. He actually, the interesting thing is he hasn't bottomed out. He could go lower. It keeps going lower and lower and lower. He is the most unpopular person in America. So what's inside his head when he hears this? Okay, set this against, and I have a sub-stack piece today on this very subject. I'm glad you asked. Okay, well, I'm very glad to hear that. I will look forward to reading it. I haven't read it yet. Has it already dropped?

29:27Yes. Yes, it has. I missed that. And I sent it to you. Well, then I just didn't read it. At any rate, the background of this is you have to understand, really, it's important to understand, it's kind of gobsmacking. Every White House is governed by the polls. They don't think about anything else, really, except the polls. and any little movement dictates what they're going to do. And you can say, well, that's terrible. And why would they do this? And nobody has any backbone. But it's also democracy. I mean, this is what we're doing something unpopular. How do we make it more popular? And everybody is hooked to these posts.

30:15It's not just the president or other elected people. It's aides in the White House. It's cabinet members. If the polls suck, somebody's going to get fired. Often, many people are going to get fired. Okay, this is entirely different in the Trump White House. Nothing. It is, we are, the polls say what they say, and because I'm Donald Trump, I say, I don't believe him. Right. So it just is that, I mean, I think that there are two levels here. There's literally, I don't believe them. And I have good reason not to believe them. Remember 2016, nobody ever said I was going to be elected. I never thought I would be elected.

31:00And I was elected. So the polls were wrong. And the polls are often wrong. And also Donald Trump does this other thing. They come to him and they say, this is the polls and this and that. He says, bring me better polls. So why are the polls often wrong? How come we haven't got better polling? I understand why Donald Trump sort of thinks that. I don't know, Joanne. Well, it actually could be, and Donald Trump would, his explanation would be people love me, they don't admit it. Because, you know, they're liberals and they don't want to, you know, it's the elites. And so it's a secret revolution, and there is some validity to that.

31:45But the other aspect of it is that I'm Donald Trump and I'm the president of the United States. And what is the point of being the president of the United States if I have to bend to the polls? I mean, I would rather not be the president of the United States. I mean, or the literal reason to be the president is so people can't tell me what to do. That is me. And that is my persona. That is what I'm selling. And so I remember during the 2024 campaign, he was going after Kamala on a moment-by-moment basis, and everybody on his team was going, oh my God, no. You have to, Mr. President, really, we'd be better off if you talked about the economy.

32:37and then he would do two words about the economy and then he would be going immediately back to piling on Kamala. And then he would ultimately say, because they would say, you know, you're wrong. This is people like there to be an enemy. They need conflict. I'm going after, they need a face. So he always thinks that he knows better. Polls come in, no, no, no, no, ignore. I know better. And in instances, there have been enough instances where that's true. Yeah, that's very interesting. And I wonder, I mean, I can't help wondering because there's such a feeling in, you know, among the Democrats that I speak to that it's going to be a blue tsunami in November.

33:24And you just wonder, I wonder if there are still people that like Donald Trump enough to not give certainly the Senate to the Democrats. I mean, the House does look like it's in actual facts. Well, it is going to be. This is going to be a democratic election. They are going to win, certainly the House, maybe the Senate. But that won't sway Donald Trump either. I mean, he'll just go on. And then it will be either because it's rigged. And remember, that's also the case. When he lost in 2020, and instead of being chastened democracy, this is the people have spoken. No, they didn't speak. It was rigged.

34:09So he's just living in his own reality. Yes, there is no situation in which Donald Trump can be chastened, in which Donald Trump can be think, I've got to make a change. I've got to adapt. I've got to modify, mollify, whatever. No. Okay, so are we not at war with Iran? He seems to be changing his mind. I saw you did a very good Instagram post on this, that we're literally caught up in the wake of his whims. And one day we're at war, the next day we're not. He's about to bomb them. The Iranians have asked him not to bomb them, so he's not going to bomb them. I mean, it's just chaos. Is this a demented policy?

34:53Is it just a chaotic policy? Why is it so bad? Well, let's look at something else. It's a policy based on having no information whatsoever. So it is just the guy who basically operates in a vacuum. I mean, he knows. I mean, he comes into this office, the presidency, knowing nothing about being president. All of this. Well, he knows a bit because he got more done in his first eight months. Well, he only got more done by doing it and doing things that have now come back to bite him in the ass. Which is why it's so low in the pulse. Nothing is thought through. Everything is done reflexively. Everything is a knee-jerk reaction.

35:44Everything is a reaction, and it's a reaction on the spot. So, you know, why are we in this war? Well, it was suddenly, you know, Bibi Netanyahu came to Washington and said, you could win. And he just came off of Venezuela and thinking, oh my God, it feels so good to win. Let's go win again. And, of course, that didn't, because it was an entirely different situation. The Strait of Hormuz, we're back to the Strait of Hormuz. But he didn't have enough information, didn't listen. Well, he doesn't listen. He can't listen. He doesn't take in information. So, therefore, that kind of, that central fact, this could go grievously wrong, doesn't cross his mind.

36:33I mean, little crosses mind. The mind itself, which is what we're here talking about, is a child's mind of desires and indecision. Well, and also I think he's thought that he can somehow, by the sheer force of his personality, will what he wants into being. So he wants to will a victory into being with Iran. But he can't because it's a country and because there are other people in the Middle East and it's not all about him. But he's unable to see beyond that. Unable to see, I think, is the thing. And it just doesn't have the – I mean, these are complicated issues. And you can say what you want about American foreign policy and all its various failures over many decades, but that also includes an enormous number of successes.

37:26And it's a very complex matrix that you're dealing with at all times and well beyond his capabilities. You know, and he has, you know, obviously he has access to the best intelligence in the world, but he doesn't listen to it. Yeah. I mean, he just doesn't listen to it. It just doesn't, because you can't get him information. So here we are. So we're in this thing. We don't know what. Last Friday, we were going to all-out war again. And on Sunday, it was like, no, no, it's okay. We're negotiating. They want to make a deal. They want to make a deal. And this is this, how many times have we gone through this exact same thing?

38:17So there is no consistency here. There is no pattern. There is no plan. I mean, this past week, he was on Ukraine and Russia. It was like, Ukraine, Russia. I like Putin. I like Zelensky. What's a guy to do? But as we know the war, and we talked about this a little bit last week, the war seems to be spreading. Ukraine bombed an Iranian ship. It's now spreading out to other countries. There was a piece by, I think it was David French in the New York Times today that you pointed out that said, we may be not sleepwalking. We may be wandering into a third world war here. Yeah, no, no. I mean, you can begin to describe the constellation of factors that bring so many other countries into this that the conflict just expands.

39:16It's not reduced, it's not limited, which is finally the point about a foreign policy establishment of a well-informed foreign policy establishment, that you may not be able to maintain the peace at all times, but you're trying to limit the damage, limit the fallout. And this seems to become greater and greater by the day. Well, and also we've got, what is it, 120 ambassadorial posts not filled. So that's 120 knowledgeable people on the ground, not creating soft relationships, not constantly whispering in the ear of the people running the country. I mean, the British ambassador used to go to, well, certain British ambassadors used to go to number 10 three times a week to sort of fill in what they thought should happen and was happening.

40:11And it would be helpful if. So to have that many jobs empty also seems like a huge disadvantage on the home front. I don't. And so somebody, it's interesting to imagine what Marco Rubio, who is, again, a relatively sophisticated foreign policy player. What is he doing? What's in his mind trying to deal with this president? This know-nothing president. And that's literally the thing. What's the problem here? The problem is he knows nothing. And he won't listen. So what is Marco Rubio doing there? Does he think he's trying to mitigate the damage that Donald Trump is doing? I mean, last week you said they all go back from Camp David and they all sit there with their wives and, or in Scott Besson's case, his husband, and just say, fuck Trump.

41:07He's a nightmare. You can't imagine what's going on there. You cannot imagine what it's like to have to listen. Yes, absolutely. And what they are thinking now is, okay, this is bad. How do we limit bad? It will never get better than it is. It will probably get worse. So what do we do? And the answer is essentially, we make a deal in which we give the Iranians the Strait of Hormuz. That's what this is going to be. And the$300 billion sitting in a bank account that was such a... Yes. In other words, we're going to be at a significant deficit within the Iranian situation than we were when the war began.

41:51And we'll pretend that it's a victory. Of course we'll pretend, yes. And then when other people point it out, we'll just say that's fake news, fake news. It's all bullshit. There it is. Except the only problem with this is that the Iranians are not cooperating. Right, exactly. Exactly. So I was just going to say, what is going on? Well, we don't know. Nobody seems to know. The Iranians don't seem to know. Well, they just say, we have the advantage. So keep pressing the advantage. It's what anyone would do. And they know it's bad for Trump in the midterms too, and they can sit it out, whereas he's facing another election.

42:27Exactly. Totally. I mean - Did we just agree on something? It's highly unlikely that that's possible. All right. So David Ellison, writing this morning in the New York Times, wants to assure us or reassure us that he's not MAGA. David Ellison being the guy who is the son of Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, who is trying to create this merger between Paramount, his company, and Warner Brothers Discovery. The$200 billion father and the$200 billion son of the father with$200 billion. Well, I think it's fair to say he's playing with his father's money. Is that fair? That is fair. Yes. So what has happened is they have, I mean, it's still an extraordinary story.

43:18So last August, they closed the deal for Paramount, a deal that they basically got because they had the support of Donald Trump. Larry Ellison is a major Trump supporter. in September. And David Ellison... When you say they got the Paramount, what are you saying? Skydance was Paramount. So Skydance was David Ellison's company, a movie company. Right. A very small company, a nothing company. So David Ellison has limited experience in the entertainment business, limited management experience. Nevertheless, he took over Paramount, which includes CBS and a host of cable stations, including MTV, Comedy Central.

44:04And so he, in one leap, one leap of his father's money, he vaunted to the top of the entertainment industry. That's in August. In September, then, he announces, or Paramount announces, that they are going to make a bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, an even larger company, significantly larger than Paramount. As a matter of fact, if they acquire with both companies would make them the largest company in the entertainment. So this is a classic case of a minnow eating the whale. Yes. And a minnow with limited experience, but with his father's amazing amount of money. So that's where this – then they announced this deal for Warner Brothers Discovery, but then Netflix announced a competing bid.

44:59So over a number of months, they fought that out. There and the Ellisons had two advantages. The Ellisons' senior money, so he is essentially a very willing and docile shareholder. And they had the support of Donald Trump. And in order to get this deal through, the federal regulatory hurdles was going to be intense. Basically, Donald Trump said, I'm going to help you get this through. So Netflix gave up. So therefore, they basically won, or they thought they had won. But then the various states got together and sued them. sued to stop this deal. On the grounds that it would be a monopoly? Yeah, on pretty tenuous antitrust grounds.

45:59I mean, antitrust is not a state issue. It's a federal issue. But there were enough lawsuits here and enough bad press to... Well, to make the careers of a few attorney generals of the state. I mean, AGs look for cases like this where they can make their name. They're often young people wanting to get higher in politics, and this can be a wave for them. Yes. No. And it was a long. What they could do is waylay this deal for a long time, long enough to possibly kill the deal. You know, because the people at Warner Brothers Discovery are sitting there, you know, they're, you know, the company, these companies are not performing at their best when they don't know what the future is going to bring.

46:47Correct, right. So, but then the Ellisons, it's not necessarily calling their bluff, but it's sort of calling their bluff. And they said, okay, we'll delay the close of our deal for, I think, up until next spring sometime, something like that. And with the understanding that they would go to trial as quickly as possible. So I'm going to tell you what's going to happen with this whole thing. Okay, let me just understand one thing. So the AGs are bringing the case on tenuous antitrust laws. Right. And the other specific issue that they have highlighted, which David Ellison's piece in the New York Times today addresses, is the issue of news.

47:40Right. Now, this is a kind of an anomaly here because this will be an entertainment giant of which news is a very, very small part of their portfolio. But that portfolio with this merger would include CBS News, 60 Minutes is part of that, and CNN. And of course, as we've talked about before, that the thing that's been, I think, perhaps unexpected for David Ellison is the blowback he's got over the changes at CBS News because he put in Barry Weiss, who had created a newsletter called The Free Press, in to be the editor in chief. And Barry Weiss, who's a talented newsletter creator, turned out to have zero management experience and has really, I think it's fair to say, humiliated David Ellison in a way that he probably could not have foreseen.

48:43Otherwise, he wouldn't have hired her. Yeah, I might qualify that a bit, that anybody, any disruption in these legacy news organizations creates enormous amount of blowback. and these are vipers and they'll bite you. And also we should point out that CBS News has churned through six presidents of CBS News in I think six years. That is not a place where news presidents go to stay. Now, another important element there is that the news side of this is what is dearest to Donald Trump. So Donald Trump has shepherded the Ellisons along here on the prospect of winning what for Donald Trump would be an ultimate battle, the battle for CNN.

49:34In Donald Trump's mind, again, where we should always be, where we always are, is this CNN is his mortal enemy. This has so many layers for him. It's an obsession. It's right up there with the reflecting pool. Yes, even bigger than the reflecting pool. Yes. And so that's what's going along. And I mean, that's what's pushing this along. And that's what the Ellisons know. So they have, this is CNN is the chip here that is going to, it is both helping them with Donald Trump and hurting them with the various states and the various AGs, all by the way, blue states and democratic states. So this is, you can see this actually writ large as about Donald Trump.

50:33Now, the other thing, which is kind of odd, is that CNN, which has become so central to this, is, you know, functionally, I mean, it's almost as if thinking about CNN as we once thought about CNN. I mean, CNN is a much diminished enterprise. It's diminished in audience, it's diminished in revenue, it's diminished in influence. You know, it's part of cable television, which is fast shrinking. And it's one of the arguments that basically the Ellisons are making in terms of antitrust. You know, David Ellison is saying, you know, this is a legacy media organization at a moment when legacy media organizations are collapsing.

51:18So just to be clear, the issue here for the antitrust is the assumption that there will be a merging of CBS News and CNN. So you take one news station out and you make it more, probably more MAGA coded. Yes. Yes. So you want to know what's going to happen? Tell me what's going to happen. I have no idea what's going to happen. I wish you could tell me what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz. But tell me what's happening in the Strait of Paramount. They will go to, the trial will approach, and the day before, or two days before, hours, an hour before, they get to trial. Nobody is going to want to go to trial on this.

52:00The Ellisons are not going to want to go to trial. The AGs are not going to want to go to trial. No one's going to want to go to trial. Nobody ever wants to go to trial. Except the lawyers. The lawyers want to go to trial. So what will happen is that they will spin off CNN the day before the trial, two days before the trial, hours. Interesting. That will solve the problem. The AGs will agree to this. They'll say, OK, that's a settlement. We won. And the Ellisons will say, OK, yeah, CNN. It's not really the business that we're in. Right. Well, that's very interesting. So we should be watching this.

52:38Yeah. No, we could buy CNN. We could buy CNN. Well, Barry Diller, our partner in the Daily Beast, has made it clear he would love to buy CNN. I think you and I are going to CNN. Well, that would be fun. That would be fun. Although I think in truth, Michael, we have bigger audiences. is. We actually have a much bigger audience than anything on CNN at this point. I mean, CNN, that is a really curious situation that we continue to think of CNN as CNN, but it hasn't been CNN for quite some time. But it has a great brand. It's internationally known. Well, yes, it has all that, except that no one watches it and no one listens to it and no one pays attention to it.

53:26So it's one of those things, it's a disalignment of brand and reality. So I was at a dinner last week where almost the entire conversation was about the new correspondence on CBS's 60 Minutes. And then someone else said, they've only got six weeks to get their new show, their new version of 60 Minutes on the air, which doesn't seem very long. I mean, to make television, television takes forever to make. It takes a lot of people. What is your prediction for how it bounces back? I don't know, but it's weird that you go to dinners and people talk about television news. Well, it was a dinner of journalists, but people were passionate about it.

54:13People were very passionate about Ross. I know, because then they should be. Ross, do that from their times. I mean, that is really their issue, their problem. And they still continue to exist in this bubble of thinking that this is as important as it used to be. I mean, that's a reality problem. But what's interesting is that the brouhaha around CBS and about Barry Weiss has been the thing that has dogged David Ellison since this deal has been in the office. Well, it's only the thing that we think dogs him because these are the people that we know who are concerned about that. I mean, the thing that has dogs him.

54:57It's not just us. It's, you know, the entire media has been watching what's going on. Well, the entire media is because that's about them. Outside of the media, actually, there are much larger problems that David Ellison has had with this, the Netflix issue, which ultimately was an issue of who's going to pay more money. The regulatory issues, which ultimately an issue of what Donald Trump is thinking, not to mention they have a sprawling cable business that is hemorrhaging every – as we speak here, it's diminished even more. I mean, this is the movie business. Oh, my God. I mean, actually, I think it's fair to say that this deal is only happening because Larry Ellison has just money to just doesn't it's what would be called a non-economic deal.

55:56A non-economic deal. So whatever. I mean, the news component of this, the Barry Weiss component, I'm sure David Ellis is saying, yeah, Barry Weiss. But nevertheless, the Barry Weiss component allows him to solve the Donald Trump component of this. So he's probably not unhappy with this. And, you know, 60 Minutes, again, 60 Minutes is not 60 Minutes. We say this as though it's the most important piece of news in the nation, as arguably certainly the most important piece of television news it might have once been. It is not now. It's like some horary, you know, who watches it except, you know, except very, very old people.

56:41All right. We've got two limericks this week. Garfreed is back from a brief vacation. Garfreed, welcome home. Where was he? I don't know where he was, actually, but he took a break. I hope that's maybe in the limerick. It's not in the limerick, actually. Garfreed, you may want to do a limerick about your vacation. I think Garfreed should start to do limericks about himself. Trump's gravitas, nothing but costume, and Camp David is shrouded in gloom. With his loyalists grinning and his doubters all spinning, he goes marching to war, self-foredoomed. Is foredoomed a word? Probably a limerick word.

57:20And then we've got Edith, who's a presidency that burst into power is instead this year tending to sour. He's headed for a downfall that looks more like a clown fall as he squirts himself in the face with his own flower. It's good. Squirting himself in the face with his own flower. Thank you. And do you know what I've forgotten to do? I've forgotten to print out the alternate covers some of you have done for J.D. Vance's book, Communion. A lot of people thought we hadn't read it. We so read it. It took us forever to read it. We struggled reading it because it's a hard read. I can't believe that.

58:01We spoke about it for quite some time. I know. I know we did. We definitely read it. Several hours of my life. I'll never get back. Anyway, if you have been, thank you for joining us. Someone sent us two books on truth, science, faith, and trust, picking up from our conversation that we had last week about COVID and Anthony Fauci. So we wanted to thank Elaine Miller for sending us both The Road to Wisdom, which is by Francis Collin, who is a former head of the NIH. And this is a pro-Fauci book. I don't think it's a pro-Fauci book, is it? I don't know. I think it's a sort of pro-science book. I don't know.

58:46Well, we can read it. Thanks for not being mean to Anthony Fauci. That's nice. Isn't it? Yeah, I feel bad. It seems like an opportunity to have been mean to him. Yeah, you're mean to everybody else. Anyway, thank you very much, Elaine Miller, for sending us these books. We're now going to have to read them. What a Tuesday. We've got a lot to watch. We've got Ohio to watch and find out what's happening to Max Miller. and we've got to find out what's happening in Michigan and who wins, whether or not it's Abdul El-Sayed or Hayley, what did we say her last name was? Stevens. Not Bieber, not Hayley Bieber.

59:28Well, we'll be back on Thursday. It's rather an exciting week, isn't it? Yeah, no. I wonder, Max Miller, well, we'll speak later today. It's a countdown. It's the Max Miller countdown. The Max Miller countdown. The Max Miller countdown. Always good to see you in the studio. Always good to be here. All right. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Would you like to thank our team, seeing as you're in the room with them?

59:55Ryan, I couldn't do it without you. John, you make all the difference. Heather, oh, my God. Nobody like Heather. Neil, Neil the lawyer. And Rachel, who I don't know. who you haven't met. 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.