What Trump Is Screaming After Ballroom Humiliation

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1:15Trump really wants the ballroom. He likes big events. He likes big audiences. The bigger, the better. the more opportunities for Donald Trump to appear before an audience. So this is not about national security. This is about Donald Trump. What is Trump's reaction to this court ruling that the ballroom, you know, is going to be stopped? They've given him the stay of 14 days. So he's on the phone with the contractors yelling, faster, faster, faster. Get this done. We've got a deadline. Build. Build.

1:53Michael. Joanna. Another Saturday. Where are we going?

2:07You know, I'm pausing on that because I'm not sure I ever leave. So the idea of going in is an uncertain place. I am in Trump's head. I have been in Trump's head for more than 10 years now, which is extraordinary. I mean, it is. That is the the I mean, and I suppose the entire world has been inside Trump's head in their own fashion. So the idea that we enter now is not true. It's that we have a we are acknowledging that that is the perspective that we all have. And and the difference that we bring actually is that the journalistic perspective that we are looking in, that this is Trump is in the White House.

3:05We're outside the White House. And that is that is how we report on him is inaccurate. First thing, you're not going to get the story if that's if that's your point of view. And it's also not true. We all have. And Trump is not incorrect about this. A Trump derangement syndrome. We have done. He has pulled us in to this syndrome. And that is his actual political strength. You can't escape this guy. OK, so for anyone new joining us, Michael hasn't left Trump's brain for the last 10 years where he's been writing about Donald Trump. I have started tiptoeing more recently into Trump's head with Michael as my guide.

3:51And, well, we just have so much to get through today. Before we get to it, I just want to ask you to like and subscribe and please share this podcast with your friends. We're independent media, so we appreciate your support. We love your comments. We pour over your comments. And if you want to write as a limerick, you can. Joanna pours over your comments. I do pour over the comments, actually. Michael goes in and out of the comments. And sometimes I send him comments. I skim. You skim. But you read books and you accuse me of skimming books. Anyway, anyway, we don't need to get into our endless ongoing feuds.

4:33But we do need to tell people that we're going to be talking about Anthony Fauci and Trump's and MAGA's sort of obsession with him. Why are they so hysterical? The Trojan ballroom, which is really got layers and layers of other things going on in it. And of course, it's just been stopped by the courts. Todd Blanche finally, finally got what he wanted, but at what cost? But I really want to start, Michael, with the fact that we should have an inside Trump's head workout. I think both you and I spend too much time at the computer and we should, what is it called, license a workout for our listeners and viewers that they can do alongside us as we discuss the end of the world.

5:24Well, I actually think it should be more rightly be a mental workout. How do you get Trump out of your head? Okay, we can do that. I know the workout that you're actually trying to get to. So let's rush to the punchline. Let's get to it. Let's get to it. We're going to do a little workout together. Fox News, 9 p.m., My View on Saturday night. You guys are whipping everybody into shape at DHS. We are. And listen, the Coast Guard is leading the way. DHS, we protect our homeland, right? Yeah. So we need to look intimidating because every single day we're going to work. There's not a day that we have a rest day.

5:59There's not a day that we have a peace day. Every day from the Coast Guard, ICBP, our mission is protect the homeland. There's always somebody trying to get in. What folks at home may not be aware of is that we didn't just have any instructor for the workout. The secretary was the instructor for the workout. So you don't want to miss what we've got coming up this Saturday night. Impressive. Like I said, she was impressive. She stayed in there. Didn't miss a rep. I was impressed. I appreciate it. First time to ever do the 9x8 workout. And it's a rough workout. That's pretty impressive. I didn't come to lose.

6:30She didn't come to lose. That is Laura Trump, who's twice tried to get her father-in-law's endorsement for a Senate seat. First in North Carolina, where she's from. Then secondly in Florida. And in fact, then she was given a show, My View with Laura Trump, on Fox. And she was doing an interview with Mark Wayne Mullen while she was doing a workout with him because she's a crazy athlete. And actually, this is her second show on Fox. Her first show got canceled. So at any one of the interesting things about Lara Trump is she has tried to make a career off of the Trump presidency, off of her father in law and not succeeded.

7:17I mean, sort of over and over again, either to run for office or then she was she was for a for a period the head of the RNC. Again, she had a show on Fox canceled. Then now she apparently has another show on Fox. She's in there pitching. But I'm not sure. This is, again, that kind of thing. Family members. He doesn't want family members to succeed. I mean, he doesn't want family members to compete with him is the point. Interesting. Well, we also have a picture of her here, which I wanted to flag. Because this is just such a funny picture. First of all, she's got fantastic arms. Laura, I salute your arms.

8:08It does look as if Eric is trying very hard to stop her from running away, as we said in our swamp newsletter this week. It feels like every day there's another story you're supposed to have an opinion about. and somehow you're expected to figure out what's actually true while everyone else is yelling at you about it. That's where our sponsor Straight Arrow comes in. Straight Arrow focuses on the facts and context behind the stories that matter without manipulation, bias, or an agenda. You're able to compare coverage across the political spectrum and get a clearer sense of what's actually happening instead of getting pulled into another media echo chamber.

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9:43Let's exit the echo chamber. let's talk about trump body types because i think it's it's really interesting that at first thing all of the women around trump all of them a hundred percent of the of the women around trump have to conform to a prescribed body type i mean they all have to be very thin they all have to be very fit they all have to wear their hair down they all have to wear their skirts short i mean It is it's just the Trump uniform uniform for for women under I was going to say under a certain age, but they're all basically under a certain age. Well, it's also it was a sort of Roger Ailes body type, too.

10:29Right. It's not not very very Fox. Yes, very Fox. I mean, only Susie Wiles is outside of that. But yes, it's a very, very clear Fox body type. Roger understood. I mean, there's something. I don't this is too deep for me into the conservative view into that cultural wherever that comes from Vegas, partly something something that is different from and part of the cultural split between what the coast, New York, what blue states see as as as a. you know as a I don't know as a recognizing women as a sexy body type as any kind of well it's a sort of cliched over feminized version of themselves but it's not just the women's bodies it's the men's bodies right I mean what's so fascinating is fascinating too yeah because Trump himself is clearly a physical slob your favorite or my favorite quote of Steve Bannon's, he looks like a giant shrimp.

11:38Regular viewers and observers will know I think he looks more like a bison because it's all sort of going on in his shoulders and as he increasingly slumps. But the fascination that he has with the sort of, I guess it's the brosphere's influence, but these kind of hard bodies, Pete Hegseth always working out, we're always seeing these guys in the gym. And now we've got Mark Wayne Mullen, a former fighter. RFK, of course. RFK famously works out in jeans, doesn't use gym pants like everybody else. And in fact, worth noting, one of the things, of the many things that Trump had against Steve Bannon is the way Steve Bannon looked.

12:20Interesting. Interesting. Well, Steve Bannon could also do with a workout. But Mark Wayne Mullen was an interesting choice because we think that Trump has been leaking about Mark Wayne Mullen not doing a very good job. Now, Lara was working out with him as the new secretary for Homeland Security with the Coast Guard. He said, because it was important, they look intimidating. I would like to venture the reason they look intimidating, ICE, that he's in charge of is because they wear masks and they stop people who are not doing anything wrong. But why do you think she was doing it with Mark Wayne Mullen?

12:55Is she trying to give him a boost? Have you ever heard of this name, Mark Wayne, before? No. I know he was a fighter, and also his family has a plumbing business. Yeah, but Mark, so he has two first names put together. This is, I mean, maybe this is a common name. I don't know. I've certainly never heard of it. Do you think that Wayne is, well, it could be a family name, Mark Wayne, but it could be um reference to john wayne yeah i don't know but they're written they're they're they're together they're it's like mary jane maybe they thought he was going to be a girl and they were going to call him mary jane and so mark wayne is almost the masculine version of that no no idea and do we know where he came from do we know anything about this guy who just sort of appeared on the scene, except that he seems to be fit.

13:47He does seem to be fit, or at least he seems to work out. We've no idea if he's actually fit, because he could be a thin fatty, although probably not. We also know that his number two that he's brought in was in fact a highway patrolman before he led Mark Wayne's security detail and now he's brought in he's being brought in as number two something that tom homens was annoyed by did any of these people go to college i i mean i know it's michael what a bougie elite question well these people go to college so you know so elite yeah no no it it it is that and the follow-up to that is does anybody know anything about anything well let's go back to So, okay, so Mark Wayne Mullen has had this job not very long.

14:42He replaced the infamous Kristi Noem, also very fit. Yes, always working out, and with Corey Lewandowski by her side. And curiously, Corey was fit, too. Everybody is. Everybody except Trump, who is the exact opposite of that. I mean, let's remember, you know, 300 pounds and stuffing himself at every single second with sugar and fat. Well, and also someone who put on in the world of GLP ones has put on 15 pounds in the last year. So he Trump is leaking his irritation with Mark Wayne Mullen and and for two reasons that Mark Mark Wayne Mullen is off message. I mean, essentially he goes around. I mean, the message from the Trump White House is without ambiguity.

15:43Immigrants are bad. They've got to go. There should be no exception. And Mark Wayne Mullen has now, over the past past week or so, given a series of of speeches in which he basically outlines exceptions. Well, it's not going to be that bad. I mean, it seems bad. Not going to be that bad. We're looking to do it, do it this way. And if, you know, Haitians can just do their paperwork, maybe they'll be OK. and Trump is saying, what are you talking about? Immigrants are bad. We want them to go. There should be no exclusions. And I think Mark Wayne Mullen had said to a group of businessmen, look, I get it.

16:26Some industries need more immigrants than others. I think we can figure it out. So either Mark Wayne Mullen is trying to appeal to a slightly less Trump base than the Trump base, or he just doesn't know how to give the message. He doesn't know how to do it, which I suspect is the case, because this seems to be a guy who wants to do anything to please Donald Trump, anything to hold on to his job. But I think it's probably confusing to him to have to speak in these absolute categorical Stephen Miller-like terms because, A, they sound so cruel and they sound so impossible to achieve. and they sound so, yeah, cruel, nasty.

17:30He probably doesn't want to be so nasty. Or do you think that that's a rather generous interpretation? I mean, is it possible that he's trying to do a JD and put some distance between himself and Trump? Because as a former championship fighter, he may also be positioning himself for 2028. Well, that seems to me quite a leap, frankly. Mark Wayne Mullin, we have never heard of. We don't even know if he went to college. People in the brosphere have heard about him, though. You know, he comes from that world, the Dana White world. He was a fighter. Yeah, sure. I mean, listen, we know now anybody can run for president.

18:15There is no barrier. College education, not required. knowing anything not required. That's for sure. That would still seem to me to be somewhat of a leap here, but why not? Yeah, I think Mark Wayne should, Mark Wayne Mullen should run for president. Why not? But also they run because even if they don't think they're going to get it, it's going to be good for their brand. It's going to give them better recognition. They might get better tables in a restaurant. They might find it easier to raise money or get a board. I mean, it just elevates people's profile. So it's now being seen, I think, as something that's additive if you have a social media profile and you want to be famous.

18:57Yes, but practically speaking, in order for him to run for president, he would have to leave this job almost immediately. And he may be fired, so maybe that's it. But then his qualifications would be essentially I had a job for a few months in the Trump administration. Maybe that's enough. But I think on a larger basis, what we're going to see is more irritation from Trump as he sees or as he suspects he sees people trying to gain distance from him. So even if Mark Wayne Mullen is not trying just because he can't stay on message, just that perception of any kind of distance is going to start to irritate Trump.

19:50And we're going to see this across the board. Everybody in the administration, including J.D. Vance, is going to start to start to seek distance from Trump, which will irritate Trump, which will cause a backlash from Trump. Audio ads that connect. Display ads that stand out. Run them together on Spotify and unlock incremental reach for your campaign. Well, if Mark Wayne Mullen does go, at least he's tried his best to keep the DHS fit. And I was actually wondering if there's going to be a gym in what appears to be a Trojan horse of this ballroom, which literally contains multitudes. I mean, it's got a military grade hospital.

20:36It's got a bunker. Now it's got a drone port on the roof, which Trump immediately started truth socialing after a court basically put a halt on the ballroom. What could possibly go wrong? A drone port on the roof of the White House in downtown D.C.? Yeah, actually, there's there's a couple of points here. This is Trump is adding on these things as justifications for the ballroom. In fact, he just wants the ballroom and is trying to say, well, there's this and there's this and there's this. It's not just the ballroom. But Trump just wants the ballroom. Having said that, it is true that the White House is kind of a front, a facade on a military installation.

21:26I mean, we don't know this, but it really is a contained military base underneath the White House that we see. To protect the president. Well, to protect the president and to protect really the full executive branch of the government. So have you been down there? Yes. When you're there, you can start to feel this. I mean, you feel the military presence. And if you have then any access to the underground or the behind the scenes, then you really start to feel the military presence. Well, it's true you feel the military presence because there are uniformed offices, offices absolutely everywhere when you go there, usually making sure that you're not trying to slip away into a different part of the White House to snoop around, I think.

22:27But I didn't realize it was a sort of military base underneath it. I suppose that stands to reason. But having said that, this is not the Trump reason. Trump really wants the ballroom. I mean, what's the ballroom? Because he wants, you know, big audiences. Another this is essentially what he's creating is a venue. That's what he wants. He likes big events. He likes big audiences. The bigger, the better. The more people, the more the more opportunities for Donald Trump to appear before an audience. So this is not about national security. This is about Donald Trump. So, Michael, what is Trump's reaction to this court ruling that he's got to that the ballroom is going to be stopped?

23:20Yeah, I mean, they've given him 14 days, a stay of 14 days. So he's on the phone with the contractors yelling faster, faster, faster. Get this done. We've got a deadline. Build, build. Can I just read you the judge's scathing report yesterday, or at least one line from it? Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the executive branch to dramatically redesign, reshape and reconstruct the White House, the people's house, to fit a particular president's desires. The panel wrote in its two to one ruling with only a Trump appointed judge dissenting. Each president is a temporary tenant, not the owner of the White House and its executive residents.

24:05I mean, this seems like pretty much of a double slap to Trump. Yeah, but just to make a slight correction there, just to say only a Trump judge dissenting, that represents one third of the panel. Right. And and that will be in the Trump. The Trump people will argue that the people who have who have the judges who have objected to this are are a Biden judge and a Obama judge. An Obama judge. So so they'll make this a political issue, obviously. But how does Trump maneuver around this? Because this must be a blow. Well, I think that's a very interesting thing, how he's going to maneuver. First thing, they have a stay on this.

24:55They now have a 14-day stay in which work will continue on this. So you can bet that Trump right now is on the phone with the appropriate contractors and trying to move things along. So he will do this as he has always done real estate projects. And remember, this is the course of his career. Big projects like this, especially in New York City, they always have hurdles that are unexpected, hurdles that go up, stop orders that have to be circumvented. This is, he's in his element. He's alive today because of trying to figure out how to build something that he's not allowed to build because he understands that once it's built, it's built.

25:48Once it's built, it's built. So it's just keep calm, carry on as fast as you can. Can you imagine being the architect on this project, Michael? We've talked about him, Shalambaronis, and Trump pushed him forward. Yeah, well, the architect is not going to be the big issue. It's the contractors on this who have to do it. The architect's work is basically done. So he has these guys coming in who are digging the holes and laying the cement and putting up the steel and whatever. And it's those guys who he's yelling at right now. And he probably will. And he probably perceives that there's some moment beyond which they cannot stop this.

26:32And actually, I'm not sure how they stop it at this point. There's a big hole there. There is nothing there. Something has to be done. Well, I think they've actually started building it. I mean, you can see the steel rods. You can see the beginning of the kind of foundations of it going in. So is the court going to say, well, you have to take that down? You have to rebuild the East Wing? Nobody knows. I mean, I'm sure Trump already has the satisfaction of knowing that this has all gone too far. that he is already significantly ahead of any decision that is going to be made. And now this goes, of course, to the Supreme Court.

27:12This is in the hands of Trump's judges. And the Supreme Court is going to be, I think, pretty reluctant to make this decision. So what will they do? They'll just toss it back and say, keep it with the court it's with. We're not taking it off. I think they will probably issue some decision that will make it possible, that will have enough ambiguities to let them go forward. Interesting. Interesting. Well, they'll have to interrupt their vacation. This is going to be on the shadow docket as an emergency for them to have to deal with. And, you know, they're probably already set off Clarence Thomas, as Hugh suggested yesterday in our Daily Beast podcast wrapping up the week.

28:00You know, Clams Thomas has probably set off in his RV already and doesn't want to have to get together with his colleagues and discuss this. Well, I'm not sure they do discuss much on the shadow docket. And I'm not sure that their way around actually won't just punt this and give Trump more time to make more progress on a ballroom. And suddenly at some point there will be a ballroom. Right. It's built. And that's been his whole modus, that you just make it. So, and actually, a question that's as interesting is what does, let's assume that there is a democratic president in 2029, an anti-Trump democratic president.

28:52What does that person do with this ballroom? Well, do they turn it into a center for underprivileged children? Do they make it, you know, a homeless shelter? How would you use it in your biggest revenge against Donald Trump, assuming you want to? Well, I guess the biggest revenge is that you would take it down. And then there will be lawsuits about that. How can you change the, you have no authority to change the White House? It's just going to look so strange and it's going to make the White House look so lopsided. And there are not, this is not the only project that a Democratic administration will then have to deal with both practically and symbolically.

29:41Well, hopefully they can fill the reflecting pool and get that back up and running because it doesn't look like they're going to be able to do that. They're now saying it's probably closed through the spring. and the Kennedy Center and numerous other projects in to which are now in the process of of changing the face of Washington DC well talk about the face of Washington and the rose the rose garden my 11 year old daughter is particularly focused on the rose garden yeah well and then there's the bathroom with which they've carpeted which the mold is I think that's his bedroom isn't it though.

30:19Isn't that the bathroom off his bedroom? Where they have to keep changing the carpet because he won't use a mat or whatever. The mould, the mould. Reaching your audience on Spotify with display ads is easy. Use your existing creative and launch your first campaign in minutes with Spotify Ads Manager. Well, you talk about the face of Washington. The face that's been at the front of Washington again this week, Anthony Fauci. Rand Paul really is going after him and trying to get him for contempt of court because he used the Fifth Amendment or pled the Fifth Amendment as many times as he did during his hearing the previous week.

31:00And so that they have a thing. So the contempt thing is interesting because a contempt thing requires the Senate 60 votes in the Senate. And obviously there have not been 60 votes in the Senate. Actually, the Senate is on vacation, so they can't vote. And anyway, there would not be 60 votes. So they have just sort of, the committee has indicated that they would submit a contempt citation to the full Senate. They would do that, but they can't do that. So that they have just forwarded this there, the committee's own desire for there to be a contempt citation to the Justice Department for prosecution.

31:46But that is not... So they've sort of bypassed Congress. I mean, they've just, you know, it's Rampold's just gone straight there. Right. In other words, so this is just more Anthony Fauci PR. Let's do anything. The name Anthony Fauci, which I have trouble understanding why the name Anthony Fauci has come to be so charged and symbolic. And, you know, I mean, we understand COVID. We understand that there were right decisions and wrong decisions, not just in this country, but in any country. And Anthony Fauci has become somehow, Anthony Fauci, this 85-year-old man, somehow the face of any of the decisions that were made during the long year of COVID.

32:42The long two years of COVID, during which children, when it was very clear they weren't at risk, were kept out of school and there was still insistent they wore marks. Well, I mean, you're taking an RFK talking point to say that they were very clear that they were not at risk. It was not very clear. Well, it was clear, Michael, it was clear that children weren't at risk. The people that were at risk were older people and they were unhealthy people. That was completely untrue. This is clear now. In hindsight, it was not clear then. And nothing was clear then. For months and months, it may have started to become clear.

33:25But for months, it wasn't clear. Nobody knew. I mean, why would it be clear? Nothing like this had ever happened before. There was actually a curious... No, but I'm talking to your point that after the vaccinations were given, a year in, it was clear that children weren't vulnerable to this virus, that the vulnerable were elderly, they were obese people, they were people with pre-existing health conditions. Well, even then, you were still being much more emphatic than you would have been at that moment in time. Yes, it was. It turns out to be, in hindsight. Actually, I was pretty emphatic at the time.

34:12I was pretty emphatic at the time, especially when people shouted at me for walking on East Hampton Beach without a mask when the next ear was coming flying from Portugal. You have one example of that. I've heard you on the beach in East Hampton numerous times. And it is East Hampton. Yes. I mean, there was all of that. So at any rate, you know, there was this interesting Dana Bash. Is that her name? Dana Bash. Dana Bash on CNN. I know what you're going to say. Her interview with RFK. Right. And I mean, again, don't get me started on CNN. And Dana Bash is really an exceptional mediocrity, which would be an oxymoron, an exceptional mediocrity.

34:59But, you know, she got into this back and forth with RFK Jr. And RFK Jr. said, well, you only believe the experts. That's where your information came from, the experts. And she kind of looked blinking instead of saying the obvious thing, which was, well, in the middle of a pandemic, the likes that no one has ever experienced, that none of us had the capacity to understand, we listened to the experts. And who else were we going to listen to? R.F.K. Jr.? And Anthony Fauci then was, for that period of time, a reasonable voice, a man with a reasonable expertise. And were there decisions that were made that were incorrect and short-sighted?

35:56And we know from Anthony Fauci's diaries that he was taken, impressed by, stunned by his own fame. All that is true. But I literally don't see how in the arc of coming to terms with this, Anthony Fauci, I don't see the logic by which makes Anthony Fauci the face of everything that went wrong. The scapegoat for COVID. No, I agree with you. So what's inside Trump's head about Fauci? Why are they doing this? Why is Rand Paul so fixated on him? Why was the first thing that RFK did when he got to H &H was to instruct them to go through Anthony Fauci's diaries and his emails and see what was in there?

36:46Well, let's look at this from the RFK. It's money in the bank for RFK. Literally, every time the word Anthony Fauci comes up, RFK sells more books. Very, very clearly. This is because he wrote an anti-Anthony Fauci book. In fact, the only one of his books has really been remotely successful. Yes. Essentially, Anthony Fauci makes RFK's career. RFK, we should remember, is nowhere, is nobody, is... Well, it's mocked. It's roundly mocked and assumed to be a fool. Yeah, it's just a fringe. She's out there. He's a former drug addict. And, you know, and he may or may not have had some terrible thing, terrible involvement with the death of his wife.

37:37I mean, it's a terrible family situation. Everything is dubious about RFK Jr. Not a player, not a figure, not anybody that anyone believed would do anything but, you know, but fade off somewhere. And suddenly the Anthony Fauci book during COVID makes this anti-vax guy, everybody, I mean, no one took this seriously, suddenly makes him a figure to contend with. So do you think it's possible, I mean, especially now, we're recording this on a Saturday morning, Todd Blanche just got confirmed this morning. Do you think it's possible that with Todd Blanche now as Attorney General, that somehow Anthony Fauci ends up going to jail for contempt of court, that actually they've successfully bypassed Congress and that they can get this through?

38:41No, I don't think so. I mean, I think this is a show. It's just a show. Yeah. And remember... And it's appealing to the MAGA base. It's appealing to Florida voters. Yeah. And remember, and this is happening at a very specific time, which is that the midterms are coming. We have no issues on our side, basically, is the Republican point of view. Everything is against us. So let's revive something here. Anthony Fauci. Oh, my God. Thank God for Anthony Fauci. Let's haul him in front of Congress. Let's make him an issue again. So he's the scapegoat. Yeah. And remember, remember also, you know, anticipating this, Joe Biden pardoned Anthony Fauci.

39:27So putting him in jail is is is extremely difficult, if not impossible and certainly unwarranted. Spotify advertising connects you with an audience that's engaged and ready to discover your brand. Launch a campaign with Spotify Ads Manager. All right. Well, Trump is also, it seems, still obsessed with birthright citizenship. I mean, it's, you know, part of the Constitution. If you are born here, you become a citizen of the US. And yet Trump is still fixed on this. It's been tossed out by SCOTUS. And I want to I want to get to that point, but I want to do a contrast first, which is that he curiously is not fixated on Fauci.

40:17This is the Republicans themselves. And and I think from Trump's point of view, you know, the Fauci thing, I don't need Fauci. You know, Trump, remember, does not recognize that the Republican Party is in jeopardy. So and Fauci him, he's always liked Fauci. He's actually said largely positive things about about about Fauci. And in fact, you know, I mean, Fauci is is part of the brain trust, as it were, that helped Trump get a vaccine. I mean, Trump's singular accomplishment in office was to push through the COVID vaccine. Yeah, Operation Warp Speed, which should have been the thing that he won the next election on.

41:08And instead he backed away from it, went all anti-vax. It couldn't have been a more peculiar positioning statement for him. So that's not one of his fixations. But it is important to understand his fixations because he is a politician of fixations, not policies, not ideology, everything. And when I say fixation, I mean that something has lodged in his head, in Trump's head, where we are, that he that he can't modify. He can't change. He can't adjust. It is always there, even if now in the case of birthright citizenship, which came back this week, birthright citizenship has been one of those things in his head.

41:57Birthright citizenship bad. And and he has pursued there was an executive order about banning birthright citizenship, essentially. And the Supreme Court said, no, this is ridiculous. I mean, in a six to three decision, this was just just a few months ago, a six to three decision said said of course birthright citizenship is a constitutional right. You know why it's a constitutional right? Because it says it in the Constitution. And it could not have been more emphatic. And in fact, everybody in the administration, the full legal battery, everybody was like, OK, you know, this is never going to fly.

42:46Why do we do it? We do it because that's what Trump insists on. This is what we have to do. We have to show up in front of the Supreme Court arguing this totally ridiculous position. Now, and then they lost and everybody breathed a sigh of relief and said, OK, let's not, you know, let's let's let's let's get away from that as fast as possible. Trump can't get away from these things. He cannot move on. I mean, we're talking about an emotional problem here on these things. And it's not it's not it's not only birthright citizenship. It's tariffs when the Supreme Court throws them out. It's Greenland, which he keeps coming back to.

43:32It's again and again, these kinds of things stuck in his head. Now, this week, with birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court ruled against him. And he said to people in the White House, as he does, find a way around it. And, you know, and they're like, what do we do? And they come up, they do their best. And the best at this point is just some cockamamie stuff, which will immediately be any court will throw this out. And but again, efforts to limit it, limit this and efforts to approach a ban on it. And why does he do this? And this is not, and I think this is really important to understand, this is not for ideological or policy reasons.

44:32This is a psychological problem. So and, you know, once there was somebody, you know, I mean, I had this discussion because it's it's one of those things that you can't, you know, it's like it's one of those what is going on here questions. And one of his aides said to me, you know, he's he's just crazy on the subject. There is nothing. That can be done. Nothing crazy on the subject. So when they say crazy on the subject, you know, that's either a colloquial use of the word here or actually not. And it becomes much more of actually a clinical use. He is crazy on this subject. And people recognize that around him.

45:15There's no change in his mind. There's no reasoning with him. There's no logic that will appeal to him. Okay, well, this morning he seems pretty crazy with Lisa McCursky, one of the two women that voted against Todd Blanche. He put out on Truth Social that she was a traitor. Nevertheless, Todd Blanche has been confirmed, as we just mentioned, as Attorney General. A bit of an anticlimax after all. You know, and I have some scuttlebutt on that. I love your scuttlebutt. In which from the beginning of this Todd Blanch confirmation, I was told by people around Trump, we have it. This is not going to be a problem.

46:01And I was like, well, you don't know what you're talking about. Obviously, there's going to be a problem. I read the New York Times. I know there are Republicans who are not going to vote for this. I mean, Republicans who hate Trump because he's opposed them in their primary bids and they've lost their careers. They're not they're going to be a significant problem for you. And and and they were right. And I was wrong. So, in other words, all of this is just has been just a show. They knew all along that Cornyn and Tillis were going to blow smoke in the Blanche confirmation hearings. But in the end, they were going to vote.

46:52And they knew all along that they would lose Collins and Lisa Makowski. Lisa Murkowski, because, you know, they have it's it's going to be much more helpful to them in there with their own particular basis. And they would it wouldn't mean anything. Blanche was going to be elected. So this is just a Republican charade. They knew about Collins. They knew about Murkowski. This was all it's literally a charade. And Bill Cassidy, who's suddenly wheeled in at the end to pretend, and he's been primaries out of his senatorship, that it's just window dressing. It's just them trying to— Totally, and nothing has changed.

47:37So we've set up the controversy that Republicans can somehow hide behind, that they weren't all complicit in this, you know, in Trump making a deal, a tax deal with himself that will save him$100 million and his family and forever and ever he'll never have to pay taxes again. And they can revive the idea of the$1.8 billion slush fund for people that were… Right. So nothing has changed. They got nothing out of their objections to Blanche, and which everyone knew. The White House knew this is exactly how it would turn out. Well, I did say we did predict that John Cornyn and Tom Tillis were creating a lot of hot air, but in the end, they would end up voting for Trump because they don't want the hassle.

48:33They They don't want to be pursued by him afterwards when they leave. They want an opportunity to make money. Yes. And while I predicted that, I always thought, well, you know, somebody is going to do something. So you have a line in your substack this week, which is a series on Melania, the first lady, the missing first lady, which I was struck by. This is a line about Donald Trump, and it's about when Viagra comes out and he says his issue is that he doesn't need a pill to help him get it up. He needs a pill to help him take it down, which was just such an unpleasant image. But it's an interesting piece about Melania and about how he likes her as a sort of, well, obviously as arm candy.

49:29And Nell Scavell and I have done a four-parter on Trump's women, which we're going to start running on Sundays. The first one debuts tomorrow. But it surfaced for us that quote that he once gave. It doesn't really matter what you do as long as you have a nice piece of ass on your arm. No, I mean, Trump is, I mean, the entire career. It's why it's such a striking thing that he actually became the president. I mean, among the things. But this may be the most striking, that Donald Trump has had a career that was dedicated to sex. You know, there's that quote he would go around for years and years saying that he wanted to beat Wilt Chamberlain's record.

50:16Now, Wilt Chamberlain's record is apparently at 20 ,000. 20 ,000? 20 ,000, good Lord. And whether that, I'm sure that that is part of... There must be a strain of an STI, which is just Chamberlain. It's have you got the Chamberlain? I'm surprised there isn't one of Donald Trump. Did you ever get that? Because don't you remember, he said at one point his Vietnam, he said this to Howard Stern, his Vietnam was avoiding the landmines of STIs when he was clubbing at Studio 54. Yeah, no. I mean, all of those Howard Stern interviews, and it's interesting that Howard Stern has now turned against Donald Trump.

50:58That's a measure of something. But for many years, essentially, Donald Trump went on the Howard Stern show and described his sex life, ebulliently described his sex life. Ebulliently? Is that the same as ebulliently? um yeah yes it is i've never heard it pronounced like that before well that's the way we pronounce it in new jersey i've never heard it pronounced like that before anyway an enthusiastic describer of his sex life and now of course it turns out a lot of his sex life was allegedly um forced upon people? Well, yeah. I mean, it was just constant. So obviously it was in all manner, shape or form.

51:50That's what Donald Trump did. And then Melania comes along. He marries Melania, not principally for domestic succor, but because she is on his arm. She does represent what he wants to wants to be known as. Now, the interesting thing is that that changes at some point. I mean, she has a child, gets older, is not interested in being that. I mean, she's interested in respectability, actually, in being a ladies who lunch in Manhattan. And he's not. And then we We know the Storming Daniels thing happens. The grab them by the pussy thing happens actually just right in the middle of right when Melania is is is nursing baron.

52:53Right. Didn't it happen after she was nursing baron? I think she's still pregnant. But anyway, right in that certainly in that that window. So. And then he goes and then he becomes the president of the United States and everyone. Actually, this was probably the most surprising thing to everyone around Donald Trump, which was how was he going to deal with this? I mean, how was a guy who is who was who is absolutely committed to his own to his to a constant sexual pursuit going to be the president of the United States? What happens? Well, wasn't that... But the fault of that was that assuming that people thought that would be disqualifying.

53:39In fact, it turns out that people like people who... Or it's not disqualifying to have a high, I guess, what he was trying to convey, whether or not this is true. Because sometimes people say it, and of course it's not true, which is why they say it in the first place, that he had a high sex drive. You know, yeah, I mean, that was sort of his position on this. But I think that that's still, I mean, this has never happened before in American history. People, presidents, politicians were held accountable to a middle class domestic standard. And also perhaps a Christian standard in terms of, you know, because you're trying to carry the evangelical vote that you're trying to present as a regular family guy.

54:34Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, salt was also a Jewish standard. I mean, there's no ideological or spiritual basis to this. It was the convention of proper life. This is about respectability and discretion and all of those things that have come to seem as this is what reasonable, not to mention good people do. I mean, we don't want to know about anything else, especially if you're the president of the United States. We really don't want to know this. And that clearly changed for reasons that I'm still not sure that people have worked out. But one of the things that it does is also have an effect on the marriage itself.

55:33So we're looking at a marriage, essentially every day looking at a marriage, even though they try to kind of disguise it, in which displays all of the tensions of an inveterate philanderer and a unhappy, hurt wife. Well, the column is a very interesting column. I read it and it gave me a perspective on Melania that I hadn't sort of thought of before. And especially this week, because I've been discussing her with Nell and she's clearly just decided to be out of the picture. Well, I'm not sure she has been. You know, she has been. There is out of the picture, and she's clearly in New York, and she's clearly not in the White House.

56:25But I think that she is waging her own particular rear guard action against her husband. Well, and I think, you know, post-menopause, which I'm assuming she is, she gives zero fucks anymore.

56:42well i'm not sure that that's true i actually think she cares i think she's she's wounded by this i think she's embarrassed by this i think it's um it's something that has it's very difficult to live with and i think she has obviously she has she has a a child she's embarrassed for the child. She's embarrassed in front of the child. And in that regard, has decided to make her own separate piece in a way, or at least make her own separate business. Well, she seems slightly revolted by him physically too, which I can understand. Well, I found it really interesting, Substack, Michael, and recommend it highly as part of your Melania series.

57:33We will be back on Tuesday. No doubt the world will have turned. There will be more for us to discuss. Who knows if Anthony Fauci will be behind bars? I don't think even Rand Paul can move that fast. But who knows what Todd Blanch is going to do as Attorney General? We will find out and we will be inside Trump's head tracking it. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast. Share this episode with a friend. You too can argue about Anthony Fauci at home or Todd Blanche or wherever you think Melania came from. Or Mark Wayne Mullen and where his name comes from.

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