Why Miller Is Trump’s Most Dangerous Move Yet

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1:46It represents two things about Trump. because Stephen Miller is available and a sycophant and was perhaps the only person ready at the drop of a hat to step into that job. And then it goes to Trump's other instincts, which is, again, yes, to double down and appoint the person who is most abject in his loyalty, most clearly, most ready to do what Trump wants to do. And that would be Stephen Miller.

2:23Michael. Joanna. I can't stop laughing. Where do we begin, Michael? We have Stephen Miller. And as you predicted, I think in February, Susie Wiles would be out in November. And indeed, she was shown the door yesterday. We have the trailer for Melania's series, which I cannot wait to get into with you. She asks at the end, if anybody has questions, you have so many questions that she's been refusing to answer. We have Tucker Carlson, who is, well, he just appears to have lost the plot even further. So just a reminder to subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We have had so much fun this week, and we're going to have some more fun today.

3:15Michael Wolff, the Trump author. Is this week still going on? It is still going on. It is still going on. I texted Michael to say that it was our producer's 40th birthday, John Romero, and he was still excited to get into it with us. And you said, is 40 still a thing? You can't even remember that people. I said, is anyone still 40? People are still 40. I think your wife is near 40, isn't she? I was like, how old is Michael's wife? I don't think she's much past 40. Well, she's an old soul, however. Okay, an old soul. Well, John Romero is not an old soul. He's a fabulous soul. It's his birthday today.

3:56Happy birthday, John and Michael. Let's get into it. Stephen Miller. I think we have a clip of how excited he is to do the new job. Chief of Staff. It was the privilege of a lifetime to join President Trump all the way back in 2015 when he came down that golden escalator. And let me tell you, if it wasn't for President Trump, the United States of America would not exist right now. This man saved America. He saved our military from collapse. He saved our economy from destruction. He saved our border from annihilation, and he saved our country from threats at home and abroad, which would have been the end of the American dream forever.

4:45This man took a bullet for us. He faced that life in prison for us. He saved the Republican Party from the ash heap of history, and has made it stronger, more popular, and more resilient than ever before. We need to stand with the man who has stood with us and this country with every fiber of his being. It is the honor of my life to be President Trump's chief of staff. And I swear to you, and I pledge you, Mr. President, my absolute loyalty, my unwavering commitment and my total devotion to your success and the success of this country. Thank you, President Trump. Well, I want to set the scene a little more because within the past days, I mean, it feels now like a year ago.

5:32But as of this past Tuesday night, I think many of us thought, maybe everyone thought, that this would be a humbling moment for Donald Trump, that he would have to reassess, that the playing field was about to radically change. And I think maybe there's some to set the greater context here. In 1994, Bill Clinton faced a similar midterm rejection. And what he did was he brought in Republicans. I mean, he brought in Dick Morris. He brought in David Gergen. And the point was, OK, I'm way too far out there. I better come back to where the electorate seems to be. And there is, I think, a perfectly natural political reaction that or a political understanding that that's how Donald Trump, at least in some measure, would react.

6:40And of course, that's making the mistake to think that Donald Trump is typical, usual and even logical and even sane. That would be an error. And in this Stephen Miller, and that comes, so that appointment comes literally two days after the election. It is an announcement on Donald Trump's part that not only is he not going in the direction of the American voters, but actually doubling down and going in the exact opposite direction. But having said that, I want to fill in some of the details which I've been gathering in the last couple of days. And I think I can chart what happened here. So last week, the week before the election, Susie Wiles had apparently gone to the president and said, you know, that she was considering going after the midterms.

7:47And this is a kind of a kind of a bow. It's a it's a kind of giving your resignation and and and maybe your boss will take it or maybe not. It's giving him the option. It's kind of face saving for everybody or a moment of reevaluation. Should we go on? And in fact, last week, Donald Trump apparently encouraged her to reconsider, to stay. He gave a bit of a pep talk. OK, then we go into election night. And things go, obviously, as we know, seriously awry for Donald Trump. And he publicly or within a group of people in the White House, in the residence, he's in the residence. The war room is down in the map room.

8:44She's upstairs. And as it is really quickly going south, he goes after her in front of quite a number of people. And basically his reasoning is James Blair, who's the political director and is really responsible for the strategy, is Susie Wiles' person. She brought him in. He's a Florida person like she is. And therefore, because James Blair is her person, she too is at fault in this election. That's Tuesday. On Wednesday. So he begins to call around to people and talk about having a short list, offering, you know, a handful of people who he thinks might might be good at replacing Susie Wiles.

9:38And in fact, one of these conversations is with somebody I know. And then this person called me. This happens all the time. Donald Trump calls people and then they call other people, including me. And so I'm called by this person and this person says, repeats the conversation with me and tells me who the people are. And I don't want to say who the people are because that will identify this next person who I'm going to describe. But I will say that among the people on the list is Jared Kushner. Jared Kushner was on the list to be chief of staff? Yeah. Well, you don't know what is this list? Is this a list of just of names that pop into his head or is he trying to get a reading?

10:28You don't know if this is serious or not serious. But yes, that is one of the people that he's mentioned. And he's always, throughout his political career, throughout the first administration and the second administration toyed with bringing Jared into that role. And in the first administration, Jared really did have that role without having that role. At any rate, one of the other people on this list is someone else I know. I know well enough to call this person and say, hey, DJT is calling around and you're on the short list. So I told this person and there was a pause, a long pause. And he said the following, what terrible things might I have done in a past life to deserve this?

11:19So I think we have to set the scene here that this is actually not an enviable job. This is a terrible job. This is a job that only the most rabid Donald Trump sycophant, I think, would take without some serious, serious, consideration. Michael, this reminds me of 2018, Jared and Ivanka was still very much powers behind the throne. And they tried to put in someone, one of their candidates as chief of staff. And he lasted four days. Do you remember he went in, he was going to be acting chief of staff, and then he did it for four days. I want to say his name was Michael Ayers. I can't remember his name now.

12:19Yeah, you know, that's good. You're absolutely right. A chapter I have, among the many chapters that I had forgotten. But yes, that was true. Only the point being that this is an incredibly difficult job to fill, certainly at this stage in Trump's trajectory, downwards trajectory after such a drubbing. And even in the past, it's been difficult to fill because people don't want that proximity to him. They don't want the responsibility. Okay, let me go on. The next shoe that drops here is on Thursday, in which he screams at Susie Wiles, again in front of people, screams at her. And you don't, you know, when Trump screams at you, I mean, it's terrible.

13:09So Susie Wiles, at that moment, walked out. So when you described her being the show showing the door that's not exactly accurate she fled through the door she left and immediately leaked that she was out so suddenly he had to make a decision immediately he had to point appoint someone then so it didn't look like she quit um and um and the So that's how Stephen Miller comes into this, because because and it represents two things about Trump, because Stephen Miller is available and a sycophant and was perhaps the only person ready at the drop of a hat to step into that job. And then it goes to Trump's other instincts, which is, again, yes, to double down and appoint the person who is most abject in his loyalty, most clearly, most ready to do what Trump wants to do.

14:17And that would be Stephen Miller. So here we are. Michael, when you say Susie Wiles leaked that she was leaving, is that why I'm assuming, did she leak that to the New York Times? My understanding, yes. So that's why Maggie Haberman, the co-author of Regime Change, posted, she tweeted yesterday, we called the White House to check on this story and then they announced that Stephen Miller was going in. Exactly. OK, so Susie Wiles turns out to be a leaker. How fascinating. Susie Wiles has always been a leaker. The very person who's supposed to be in charge of the leakers. How fascinating. As a matter of fact, during the campaign, so I was with somebody in the White House who was leaking to me.

15:17And we were in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. And as we were looking for a discreet restaurant that we could talk, we passed, we spied Susie Wiles and Maggie Haberman discreetly in another discreet restaurant. Not that discreet, of course. And then it was this was spread around because the person I was the person leaking to me then leaked it that Susie Wiles was seen with Maggie Haberman. You're shopping for everyone else, making holiday plans and somehow trying to squeeze it all in. But if healthier looking hair and skin have been on your own wish list, here's a reason to make a little time for yourself to.

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17:46Well, first of all, he likes having his back against the wall. He likes having an enemy. Now he's got the entire Congress as his enemy. But also he doubles down. He doubles down. Who's the least popular person among any of the people? And there are a lot of them who are unpopular around Donald Trump. Oh, Stephen Miller, architect of the most unpopular immigration policies and the aggression of ICE, and he elevates him to chief of staff. But let me let me footnote that, too, because the immigration thing is important here, because the immigration thing, while you can argue that was one of the many policies that that people voted against on on Tuesday, it has also been the thing that has consistently fueled Trump's rise.

18:33So he is reverting to what has worked for him in the past. And especially it has worked for him among the MAGA base. So he's gone back to where he has been, where he began. This is back to the base. Stephen Miller is an integral part of Trump's MAGA message. But the MAGA base seems to be abandoning him. I mean, well, let's we I mean, we should talk about that. But I mean, we have to be I think we have to separate out the MAGA rebels from the MAGA base. And they may ultimately take the MAGA base. But this may ultimately be what is going on now is a war for the MAGA base with Trump against Tucker Carlson, for instance.

19:33But again, this is nothing. This is all moving pieces. This is all part of a everything becomes a variable with regard to something else. There's there's circles and moving pieces. Nobody knows where they are going to end up. But one of the other things that's going on here is Trump's propensity to appoint people around him who are unfit, of course, but who also sow chaos and dissension. And the interesting thing about the second administration has been, maybe it's the most interesting thing, has been Susie Wiles, a figure who has been able to contain that chaos and dissension. Well, the floodgates are opening now with Stephen Miller, widely hated within the White House, not only widely hated within the White House, but but considered freakish.

20:36He's an odd guy. I'm very, very spectrumy, you know, can't have a conversation. No, no personal anything with this with this guy. um well you say that that clip that clip of him sucking up to trump just now he seemed reasonably coherent on that he's very good on television appearances in terms of he lies i completely no i i actually think that that's that's totally not true even on television appearance he seems weird he seems he seems like an um like an automaton spitting out out lines i mean his eyes go in peculiar directions. You know, it's always I am a loyal. I am. You know, you think, oh, God, you know, it's very Nazi youth.

21:28You know, I think it gives everybody the creeps. I mean, it's creepy. Well, you did say that Donald Trump had referred to him as crazy and weird. So why has he put him what did he literally put Stephen Miller in the job because he needed to act quickly, it was going to come out that Susie'd stalked off and that Stephen Miller was literally there and he could get hold of him. I mean, who were the other candidates? Who were the other candidates? That's clearly one element. I can't say that because then I would identify the one person who I called other than Jared, just to say Jared is on the list.

22:07So you can imagine it's a it's a list of the people he feels Trump feels have been closest to him. But but yes, but I think Stephen Miller gets gets that job because he's available and someone has to be put into the job immediately. But at the same time, Stephen Miller also fits the bill. incredible loyalists, abject in his fealty, has never once deviated from what he believes the Donald Trump line should be. And that combines with this immigration stuff, which is extreme and, you know, I mean, off the charts. As somebody said during the campaign, they referred to Stephen's masturbatory fantasies about immigration.

23:06And that is really to deport everyone with a scintilla of brown in their blood. So strange. And does this preserve then for the time being Pete Hegseth in the job as head of Department of Defense? I mean, Pete Hegseth was frantically, I think I counted four, enthusiastic posts from Pete Hegseth about Stephen Miller, how much he loved Stephen Miller, how great it would be to have Stephen Miller, how people that Pete Hegseth knew were delighted about Stephen Miller. I mean, it was it was an egregious display of suck up. I think it's moment by moment. Nobody knows. I don't think Trump Trump knows.

23:53I think, you know, if if, you know, a minute from now or an hour from now, if he suddenly gets it into his head that that Hager's has to go, he goes. And he's on the phone constantly, everybody looking for what he should do next because he doesn't know what he's going to do next. And remember, always there is no plan with Donald Trump, no strategy. This all occurs in the minute. He's inventing he's inventing a new narrative for himself. And that's an instinctual narrative. That's his sense of how, you know, again, what does he always go back to? It's his sense on how he becomes the center of the story.

24:45And, yeah, you know, Hegseth is as likely to go as not within the next hours. So what does this mean for brown people? I mean, we saw, you know, an enormous sway of Hispanic votes in Texas back to the Democrats. This, as you pointed out, has been an incredibly unpopular policy, the policy of ICE that Stephen Miller has architected. Do they double down on arrests in the street? Do they double down on violent ICE arrests? I think they will try to. I mean, again, you know, and I've consistently tried to make this point. Let me make it again and again and again that there is a divide between what they say and what they present and what they do.

25:39And this is going to become even larger because there is going to be mighty pushback from Congress on this. Is it possible that Congress will defund ICE? Absolutely possible. But that's only part of the issue. The result of what Donald Trump says he's going to do is divorce from him saying this is what he's going to do. But we've all seen the images of ICE arresting people in the street. We saw the terrible videos of Rene Nicole Good shot in cold blood, Alex Pratt is shot in cold blood. I mean, there's no question that that's what Stephen Miller would like, and that's what he will pitch Donald Trump on a policy that should be pursued.

26:33Absolutely. But as I say, you know, this is that now they have to deal with a Congress, quite a mighty Congress, poised against them. Congress can defund ICE and just take the money away. All those guys in the street dressed in black with masks, no paychecks. So I don't think that whatever terrible things they feel about brown people is going to survive not getting paid. In the sort of spectrum of relationships. Spectrum being the key word. Where is J.D. Vance with Stephen Miller? Friends, not friends. Do we know what Stephen Miller thinks about the war? Stephen Miller thinks whatever Donald Trump wants him to think.

27:29Let's not assume he has his own thoughts. This overly complicated. That's what, remember, Stephen Miller has risen from effectively intern status over the course of Trump's career to now the highest point that he could possibly rise. Wasn't he an advisor to Jeff Sessions? So he was an advisor to Jeff Sessions in the first administration when Jeff Sessions was attorney general. Isn't that how he came into it? Well, he came in, he worked for Sessions when he was a senator. And and so he this so this is part of he comes in. Stephen Miller is part of the Bannon, the Bannon faction that comes in. So Sessions was Bannon's candidate for president before Donald Trump came came along.

28:25And then there was the shift to Donald Trump. And and so Stephen Miller had worked for Sessions. Bannon brought him into the White House. And then he became, you know, one of Bannon's people, a low-level person. And Bannon thought he was kind of nuts because at one point I asked Bannon to introduce me to Stephen Miller. And I remember the look on Bannon's face. He said, really? I said, yeah, I want to, you know. And Bannon said, okay. and um and he took me down this is so uh miller's office was in the old executive building and he took me down in miller's office and i went in and and spent some time with uh with with miller and that he seemed absolutely crazy to me i mean the eyes all over the place the kind of monologizing um um i was like okay um and then i came out and i went back to bannon and bannon said You see?

29:33So so it's been clear what that Stephen Miller has always been this peculiar person. Yes. And Trump called him, you know, crazy Stephen. What does crazy Stephen say? And but nevertheless, and it's a it's a it's a it's an important model by staying absolutely unwavering in his devotion to Donald Trump. never deviating, never second guessing. He is now the chief of staff. We grew up in a liberal household in Santa Monica and he went to Duke. It's such an amazing story. I saw a clip of Steve Bannon on the News Agents podcast the other day, which is hosted by my friend Emily Maitlis, who did, of course, the wonderful interview with Prince Andrew.

30:23But Steve I just got to say, I can't stand Emily Maitlis. And also, just a little, give me a moment. She then, she was circulating a proposal for an Epstein documentary in which I was featured, although I was, she never spoke to me and I would never have cooperated. Okay, well, I like Emily Maitlis anyway, and she did a great interview with Prince Andrew, But she had an interview with Steve Bannon on and Steve Bannon looked terrible. I mean, he looked like he'd put on a massive amount of weight, which is unusual because almost everybody's getting smaller on GLP ones. But his skin was more florid.

31:06His face is sort of swollen out like desperate damn. In Steve's defense, he has always looked terrible. No, no. I know he's always looked terrible. He looked more terrible. He looks more terrible. And I think we should just do 30 seconds on Jeff Sessions as a footnote in political history, because a man who was, you know, comfortably settled in as a senator in the South, he gets the opportunity to be attorney general for Donald Trump. You would think, again, a bit like Todd Blanche, you know, the dreams of a lawyer to be attorney general. Amazingly, he gets the hand on the shoulder from Donald Trump, comes up to Washington, immediately has to recuse himself because of the Russia investigation, and then wants to go back to his senatorial seat, whereupon Donald Trump, who now hates him because he's recused himself of the Russia investigation, basically appoints and supports another candidate.

32:08And now Jeff Sessions, whoever last heard of Jeff Sessions, a man destroyed by his own ambition, flying too close to the Donald Trump flame and like a minor character in a Shakespearean play. Well, I would say he's destroyed by Donald Trump, not his own ambition. As a matter of fact, his own ambition had, you know, had an element of selflessness to it or modesty. You know, he recused himself. He did the right thing. He did the right thing. And he could have not done the right thing and now would have been, I don't know, the chief of staff instead of Stephen Miller. Well, Stephen Miller, as you say, has got the reward for 10 years of sucking up.

33:00The reward for peak suck-uppery has gone to Stephen Miller, now chief of staff. He and Katie must be doing the YMCA dance around their kitchen with all their children. But then let's keep the window open here that what happens within Trump's West Wing is chaos. I mean, it's worse than chaos. The knives are out. The knives are out. They're sharpened on a moment by moment basis. You cannot imagine a worse environment than the Trump West Wing minus Susie Wiles. Every day your personal information is exposed somewhere online. Your email address, financial details, even your health information. It's not about being careful anymore.

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34:39That's incogni.com slash beast. OK, so what's happening with J.D. Vance? How does J.D. Vance get on with with? Well, you know, I think, I mean, J.D. Vance has a lot of decisions to make in terms of who he wants to get on with, how he has to preserve his relationship with Donald Trump, how he has to reach out and build whatever bridges he needs to build both to MAGA and to a broader Republican electorate. And this is J.D. Vance is in an impossible position and so impossible that it actually will probably mean he will that his political career, like so many Trump related political careers, will come to its end.

35:35Zoran Mamdani, the New York mayor, fired back at J.D. Vance. This is Zoran's response to J.D. Vance saying that the war was why they lost the election. Bro, you are VP of USA, not a random Twitter troll. You can't post like it's someone else's war. You started it. You can end it. Stop tweeting and crying. Start acting. That's just more what he would say. So they're both performing there. I mean, J.D. Vance can actually and somewhat, somewhat legitimately say that. And he has positioned himself from the beginning of this war as the one person in the administration who had open doubts about it. And remember, he's also positioning himself against Marco Rubio, who is tied to the war.

36:30He's the secretary of state. He is tied to it. He's a neocon. He is tied to it. So J.D. Vance is has has taken that first step. And I would say, you know, probably unnecessary step in trying to distance himself from the you know, the the the main headline, Trump headline that caused this disastrous midterm election. number one the one thing that has galvanized the mega base against him number two um and um um and and and to do the thing that any vice president who hopes to succeed the president has to do which is to be project his own independence so jd is not doing the wrong thing in is it a craven thing Well, of course, it's a craven thing.

37:27He's a politician. But, you know, now it's just part of this of this needle that he has to thread. And obviously he's going to try to thread it. Well, you can write a new book and it can be called Discommunicated, Discommunicated from Donald Trump after his last book, Communion, which seems to have disappeared. Communion has not been the success that Hillbillia Elegy was. But the reason I read the Zora Mamdani tweet is that I think we're going to see a different level of smash mouth politics from Democrats as they are now feeling the power. And once they come in in January, I think you're going to see a much more aggressive form of politics, or at least on social media, which may or may not mean anything whatsoever.

38:12But I think, you know, the party of Chuck Schumer, the party of Hakeem Jeffries, yes, lots of moderates got in, but you are going to see much more rhetoric from people like Mamdani and El-Sayed. There's no question. And as you say, well, does that mean anything at all? We'll see. Yeah, it may not mean anything. All right. But Tucker Carlson, what does Tucker Carlson mean? I mean, he has spent the last four days just railing against Trump, railing against what's happened here. I mean, he put one long supercut together of all Trump's promises, which were broken. And then he went into a crazed, just him sitting in his kitchen sink, raving away.

39:01I mean, and then that strange laugh, which I wish I could imitate. Can you imitate? No, no. I mean, who can imitate Tucker's laugh? It's so bizarre. It's high-pitched and crazed, and it sounds like elves have gotten in his head. It's so peculiar. Well, it's also unmodulated. So he uses it for, you know, in passing funny things and hugely funny and absurd things. It doesn't change between those two poles. He doesn't have, let's put it this way, he does not have a chuckle. He does not have a chuckle. And he doesn't have a guffaw. He has a high-pitched kind of, well, I don't know what it is. but I think that it would totally stop him from getting elected.

39:51I mean, you say that Stephen Miller seems crazy, but to me, Tucker Carlson seems, well, I don't even know how to describe him or indeed his journey and what's happened to Tucker Carlson because he used to feel so much more normal. I know you like him. I know he's a friend of yours. I just can't understand how anybody would vote for Tucker Carlson. Yeah, no, I find him, I mean, let's bifurcate this. Tucker has clearly gone in an unusual, if not insane, direction. Absolutely. On the other hand, Tucker is incredibly charming. He is very funny, super insightful. He is the source, by the way, for virtually the entire Washington press corps.

40:43So everybody talks to Tucker. Tucker talks to everyone. I mean, he is he is as accessible as Donald Trump. So so he is he is clearly not like Stephen Miller in any way. Tucker is an astute social player, always has been. Mm hmm. Now, now the other question. So how did he become so crazy? And let's. I mean, there are several things. I mean, there's there's Tucker, the country club Republican who then migrates to the to the Trump fold in a in a pretty intense way. And, you know, Tucker becomes a Fox anchor just at the dawn of the Trump administration. So one of the significant voices and one of the significant voices in Donald Trump's ear.

41:42So Tucker is at the same time Tucker is gossiping, supplying Trump gossip to the entirety of the Washington press corps, including me. he's also very much on a daily, almost on a daily basis, talking to Donald Trump. I'm faltering here because it's so difficult to kind of parse this. He's talking to Donald Trump. Donald Trump really likes him. And at the same time, to many other people, Tucker Carlson is propounding his incredible contempt for Donald Trump. He hates the guy. He feels him. And he's very clear eyed about who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump is crazy. Donald Trump is stupid. Donald Trump is venal.

42:33Donald Trump is corrupt. All of the things that that that we might say here, Trump, Tucker would be and from the beginning, very comfortable with. Nevertheless, he is playing the part of the Fox Donald Trump anchor. And then at some point when he's no longer a Fox anchor, he decides, and I don't know if this is a calculated decision, a moral decision, a combination of both, or just reading the ratings that he's getting, he begins to break from Donald Trump. And then the break becomes more and more and more extreme. So one of the one of the rants that he goes on this week is essentially saying that Donald Trump is gay.

43:30Mm hmm.

44:00the head of Tucker Carlson, along with the$750 million as part of the defamation suit for Fox saying that the Dominion voting machines were somehow flawed in the 2020 election. And then that surfaced all those incredible emails from Tucker, internal Fox emails, where Tucker talked about hating Donald Trump. He was thrilled he would never have to mention his name again, that Trump was out of the picture. And then, in fact, he sidled right back up to Trump. Yes, until he didn't. Until he didn't. Until he didn't. But he didn't after. It felt certainly clear that Trump was sort of done with him after Trump got reelected, because Tucker was in many of the early press conferences and many of the early meetings.

44:49Well, I don't know if Trump was done with Tucker. I mean, I think it really went the other way around. I mean, you know, Trump is not done with anybody who is abject in his or her loyalty and who has an audience. Right. But Tucker hasn't been abject in his loyalty because Trump saw the emails that Tucker was saying, oh, my God, I hate this guy. We'll never have to cover him again. Hooray, hooray. Yeah. Even after that, that certainly didn't cut off their relationship. Quite the opposite. No, no, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying, that that Tucker and and that Trump knew that Tucker had said all this stuff because everybody knew it surfaced everywhere.

45:39He still kept him in the circle. And when he got reelected in 2024, Tucker was very much in evidence. Yeah, exactly. So it's Tucker who made this break from Donald Trump. Well, his laugh, I mean, it's like a hyena on helium or something. I mean, it's just the most peculiar thing I've ever heard. And I predict that laugh will stop him from getting elected. Yeah. So and then there is the other thing. So does Tucker Carlson want to be the president of the United States? I mean, does he actually want to be the president of the United States? Would he actually want to run? Would he actually give up the thing that he appears to love to do, which is to monologize to an audience on a minute by minute basis?

46:27And I don't know. He certainly has talked about it. And he talked about this with me prior to 2024. I mean, he considered certainly on his mind to run in 2024. And he ultimately didn't because, as you remember, Ron DeSantis had been the frontrunner. And then Trump came into the race and just essentially cleared out Ron DeSantis and the opportunity of any other Republican. But will Tucker now come again, looking at 2028? Is Tucker a contender? Well, is Ron DeSantis a contender? I mean, Ron DeSantis has immediately put out there that Florida stayed red. No. And this is so the only Republican who comes out of the midterms with any kind of with without severe damage is Ron DeSantis.

47:33And I think it's very clear. I mean, I think he's he's he's he's now basically saying that he will be a 2028 candidate. And so I can see how that's going to play because things in Trump world always play as they have always played. Everything is recycled and Donald Trump will, as he did in 2024, hopelessly belittle Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis and his lifts. Do you remember how he has lifts in his boots? Oh, I do. I do. Well, Ron DeSantis, though, is, I think, fought by people in Florida to be a pretty competent governor. He's not a likable person. He's got a weird personality, I think. But he's a competent governor.

48:26Remember that? Competence? I mean, in an era where this particular Republican was at the end of the day. What do you have in mind as evidence of his particular competence other than he has gotten reelected and other Republicans? I mean, he seems competent in terms of holding the Republican Party a solid Republican Party. otherwise. Well, the economy is good in Florida when there are weather events, they're efficient at getting people cleared from the dangerous and then building back pretty quickly. I mean, I think he's a genuine hands-on competent governor. Again, I'm waiting. The economy, the thing that plows money into a state, it's been very attractive for people to move there.

49:23It has a very strong economy, Florida. And we can go through a whole range of positions, including his immigration positions, his school positions, all of the of the mega associated positions that have been overwhelmingly repudiated in this election. Well, why would you explain why the rest of the country, why Texas, for God's sake, has got one lawmaker left, one elected lawmaker left in Ted Cruz, who is the only he's the only Republican left in Texas? No, well, that's what I've said. I mean, Ron DeSantis comes out of this election because the state has managed to, the Republican Party has not been crushed in the state of Florida.

50:12So, yeah, so he's a—as he was in 2024, he emerges as a credible candidate. As a matter of fact, let's go back to 2022 when Ron DeSantis as governor was—came out of that race with a big, big margin. And very—I mean, huge nationwide numbers. They were so huge that in 2022, Nate Silver at The New York Times said that basically these numbers, while it was too early to call and many things could happen, still these numbers were pretty much insurmountable. And he would be the Republican nominee. Well, that was clearly wrong. Clearly wrong. Clearly wrong because everybody underestimated Donald Trump back then.

51:05But now he can't run in 2028. And here was a story that I told in one of my books, and it was from Tucker Carlson, and the DeSantis people furiously denied this, and I think I got a legal letter from them about this, that DeSantis and his wife had gone to have lunch with Tucker Carlson and his wife at Tucker's Florida home. And DeSantis had, in this I'd come from Tucker, DeSantis had kicked the dog under the table. Anyway, DeSantis furiously, many letters, As a matter of fact, and I believe, I actually have to check this, but I think DeSantis' lawyer turned out then to be, became Trump's lawyer in all of his...

52:12Was this Alessandro Brito? I believe. I could be wrong about this, but that's my sudden recollection. Listen, I'm not going to defend Rhonda Santos as a character. He seems a thoroughly unpleasant man. And nobody, I mean, you've resurfaced this story, which I do remember, actually, about Rhonda Santos. I think it was Tucker Carlson's wife who noticed that Rhonda Santos had kicked one of their four dogs. At least that's how it reads in the book. Nobody's going to want a dog kicker for president. Remember how Mitt Romney got into such trouble for having put his dog in the kennel and strapped the kennel to the top of the car when they went on family vacations?

52:52Because he had so many children, there would be no room in the car for his dog. He had five sons, I think, the Romney sons. So nobody wants a dog kicker. But conversely, RFK Jr. doesn't seem to have gotten in similar trouble for what did he strap onto the car?

53:34Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states. Oh, he strapped on a whale head. He chainsawed off a whale head, strapped it to the top of the car. What is it with these people? Whale juices dripping down the windows and into the car. Yes, you're right. Well, he'll and of course, he picked up the bear and left it in Central Park for the police to waste time over. Our friend RFK Jr., as you like to say, still junior at 73, very vociferous in his praise of Stephen Miller saying that he really understands the goal to make America healthy again. No one understands it better than Stephen Miller.

54:21Oh, my God. Now, I mean, the RFK thing is interesting because he has decided, I mean, he has watched careers like Stephen Miller's and decided that his career now rests on, again, abject loyalty to Donald Trump. I love the president. Thank you, Mr. President, for making us healthy again. And I cannot wait for the next episode of his podcast. Cannot wait. Which leads us to, Michael, we must, must, must, before we go any further, talk about Melania's trailer. Melania's trailer. Can we play a clip of Melania's trailer? This is for the two-parter reality show that she has done. She's only managed to squeeze two episodes out of it.

55:07But hold on. Is it a reality show? Well, it's a sort of documentary. It's a documentary, right? following on the success of Melania. I'm very excited because I'm now going to be able to repurpose my Melania bucket, although it's not being released in the movies. Of course, it's not going to be released in the movies because nobody would go and see it, but it is going to be issued on Amazon Prime. So if you want to cancel your Amazon Prime account, now is the time to do it. Let's play the trailer. Everybody wants to be close to power and sometimes could be very dangerous.

55:46I'm a mother, a wife, also First Lady. He's my priority. He will always be my priority. America deserves the best.

56:03Their phones were destroyed. It's very devastating. The media, they want gossip. For me, it's noise. On November 20th, experience new never-before-seen moments.

56:22So, what would you like to know? Melania, the series. On November 20th, only on Prime Video. So, Michael, what would you like to know? Well, you know what I would like to know. But, well, just I mean, a quick recap, you're in the middle of an appeal against Melania Trump. so the recap uh the recap and this is a always a complicated recap because one of the things about being in litigation with the trumps and the trump white house is that um is that they um win or at least they try to win by making things so burdensome so complicated so delayed that you, that A, people forget about them, their importance drifts off, and then they exhaust people.

57:24So my lawsuit against the First Lady began with her threat. Her threat, she threatened to sue me for a billion dollars because I linked her to Jeffrey Epstein, which I think at this point everybody absolutely accepts that. Well, especially after she came out with her special press conference, which even the president didn't know, distancing herself from Jeffrey Epstein. So and then we sued her there. We sued Melania in New York state court under New York state laws that say it's it's it's illegal to use a defamation lawsuit or threats of a defamation lawsuit in order to intimidate perfectly legal speech.

58:17Um, they then moved to move this into federal court claiming Melania was a, um, uh, was a citizen of Florida. So if you're citizens of different states, you get to, you get to go to federal court and it, and to get it before a Trump appointed judge, which they succeeded in, in doing. The Trump-appointed judge refused to rule on the merits of the case, but then dismissed it, essentially saying, well, you have to wait. In order to try these issues, you have to wait for her to sue you, for her to sue you rather than me to sue her. We are now appealing that. And among the issues we've put before the court is that she doesn't live in Florida.

59:09That's a ruse. She lives in New York, where I live. Therefore, it should rightly be in state court. But that's a whole loop around. In other words, that's basically a six-month loop to get back to the court where we believe it should rightly be. Well, I looked through the comments of the trailer, none of which were flattering to Melania. A few questions largely about to her question, what would you like to know? A few questions about how did she get her genius visa? I added a little plug for Inside Trump's Head. But if there's anybody watching who wants to have some mischief, feel free to go to the Melania documentary on Amazon Prime and add a comment of your own or add the questions that you would like to know.

1:00:03She says that she's a wife, a mother and a first lady. But is she first lady? That was another question I had for her. When did she last see Jeffrey Epstein? That will be a question. What happened with her friend Amanda Ungaro? That will be a question I would have for us. I have so many questions for her. But but in fact, send us your questions for Melania Trump and perhaps we'll put them all together, compile them and send them. Another question I have is, will your suing the first lady be in her documentary? Do you think that you will have made it in there, Michael? Well, do you think I will have made it in there, Joanna?

1:00:42Well, she may say, oh, Michael Wolff, he has written to me again. I give it to my lawyer. It's dangerous. Everyone wants to be close to power. And there's a lot. Remember, it's not just me who has been who has been threatened by Melania. Virtually anyone who links her to Jeffrey Epstein. But the more interesting thing or one of the interesting things I find about this is from a marketing standpoint. um she must be so this comes out and this comes out right will come out right in the shadow of her husband's incredible defeat um and and it's a uh you know i can't help but think that she is pissed about this um she's pissed about it because it's going to impact the impact of her film Yes.

1:01:42I mean, remember, she is now—

1:02:11terms with now. And that's what we're going to see play out over the coming weeks, including the president's wife, who is trying to establish her own independent career. And I think we're going to see this split screen. The country, the Democrats, the overwhelming number of people who voted in this election all see a humbled administration, a rejected administration, and are going to expect it to change because of that. And then in this other screen, we're going to see the Donald Trump world not only continue and ignore what happened in this election, but they are going to double down on Trump world issues, concerns, pageantry, ballrooms, triumphal arches, etc., etc.

1:03:22Well, we've actually got a limerick from Garfreed on Melania's Amazon opus. I'm going to read it to you. Melania's Amazon opus, A Gilded Production, an infomercial for dynastic reconstruction. Then the house shouted cut and the lawyers clammed shut. The directors cut the art of obstruction. I think Garfreep might have actually read. Well, he must have written that yesterday, I guess, when the Melania trailer dropped. Do you think anybody's going to watch it?

1:04:03Uh, well, I guess people always watch this stuff. I mean, this is Amazon. Remember, this is an Amazon thing. Amazon has invested heavily in this. Amazon is paying tens of millions and more dollars to Melania for this privilege. And we should get into that, what these tech guys who have tried to bribe the administration, um what happens to them now but um but so yeah i mean i i you know amazon amazon basically controls who watches things on amazon so they will i assume promote this unless suddenly jeff bezos says um uh says oh my god we have to we have to we have to reposition ourselves here let's bury this Right.

1:04:56I was going to say, because they could choose to surface it and perhaps they could make it compulsory viewing for anybody before you order your favorite things from Amazon or your repeated things from Amazon. You have to watch a certain number of minutes of the Melania movie or they might decide just to bury it. just to bury it deep. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think they have, they, Jeff Bezos, like all of the other tech guys who have so cravenly sucked up to Donald Trump, now have to decide where their bread is buttered. How do they approach this? I mean, I think it's, I mean, I would say it requires an extreme amount of shamelessness to go from the suck-upery to some new position in which they are skeptical about Donald Trump.

1:05:53But of course, that's not true, and they are shameless. Well, they're shameless, and they're expedient, and I'm sure they've been talking to the Democrats all along, and I'm sure they're going, you know, we had to go to his inauguration, but don't think that we're really Trumpers. you know, we love you guys and, you know, we'll figure out some way of working with you. Well, you're more partial to these people than I am, of course. And they have real issues. I'm not partial to Mark Zuckerberg. I'm not partial to Elon Musk. I'm just saying it's the way that people get business done. They play both sides at the same time and they do public things.

1:06:27Well, well, you know, just like Lindsey Graham talked to you about Donald Trump, but then played golf with Donald Trump and sucked up to him and said he was the greatest things in sliced spread. Your understanding of what people do to get business. And I am less understanding. But this is, I mean, a serious moment in time. I mean, the markets are now incredibly jittery about, about, particularly about AI. And because that's one of the underlying themes of the midterms, Trump was all in on AI, and that became a potent democratic issue, a particularly potent issue in Texas, for instance. Data centers have become potent across the country.

1:07:18On which you and I disagree rather vociferously. I mean, this is really going to be an interesting thing to see on the Tech Bros and how they reposition, what their PR strategy is for this. And I assume that's all they're talking about right now. And I don't know. You might have. You speak to these people. Do you have insight about what they're going to do? Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive save hundreds.

1:08:03Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states. Well, I think this is what a lot of CEOs do. When Trump demands that you show up, there's only so many times you can say no. Listen, it was horrifying to see everybody surrounding him at the inauguration like that. It's horrifying the way that Trump uses CEOs and businessmen on state visits. And he took them to Windsor Castle when he went to see King Charles. He insists on their presence at state dinners. It's very difficult if you run a company and you're reliant on the government for some of your contracts or whatever to not be available.

1:08:59I'm sure they're playing both sides at the same time. They talk to Democrats all the time. Look Look at Ro Khanna, who is oddly the congressman for Silicon Valley. They all have to talk to Ro Khanna. He's playing with them, too. I think that they made a profound miscalculation. I mean, there's a difference between trying to get along with the government and identifying with it. And I don't think that they have left themselves a lot of room to maneuver here. I mean, you're talking about them maneuvering. I don't think they have room to do that. They went whole hog. They made the estimation, the clear estimation, that Trump had been reelected, that this was a Trump era, that Trump was going to remake the world and not incidentally remake it to their advantage.

1:09:51um and that's i agree with that i totally agree with and they had their man david sax in there what they want is deregulation right they want as little regulation as possible you will see what's happened in california now you've got tiktok and facebook suing california saying that you are infringing uh first the first amendment and free speech by by saying that children shouldn't have access to social media. Yeah, again, another issue, another highly unpopular issue, social media, parents, social issue, social media and their children. And these guys are on the, have found themselves on the wrong side of politics, possibly on the wrong side of history.

1:10:38All I'm saying is I don't think, so I don't disagree with any of that. All I'm saying is They are playing the Democrats at the same time. And I bet the Democrats do not go after any of these people when they swing back into power. I just don't see it happening. You know, well, no. I mean, that will be an interesting measure for the Democrats. But then let's talk about that other category of sycophants and moral worms, the law firms that capitulated to Trump. And, I mean, I think that that's, again, remember what happened here is that in the first year of this administration, and again, we should see everything that's happened against that first year.

1:11:31Trump decided he had, because he's innumerate, he decided he had this radical mandate to do whatever he wanted. A landslide. I have a landslide. Everybody wants the Democrats are finished. Just look at the people who have voted for me. When in fact, it was once again a very close vote. And then he began to do these draconian things, including threatening law, threatening these law firms who otherwise might have opposed him. You know, the famous New York law firm Paul Weiss, a famous Democratic firm, a firm actively involved in anti-Trump litigation. backdooring help to the Democrats throughout the first Trump term.

1:12:24And they were confronted by the Trump administration, basically told that their access to the administration would be curtailed. And they folded. They settled. Yeah, there's a very interesting chapter about this because Brad Karp was the president of the company, right? And he was told that they would get no government contracts. And within the company, he was just, I think, outmaneuvered. And then, of course, Brad Karp himself gets felled by appearing in the Epstein emails. But it's not only Paul Weiss, a whole succession of major firms. Well, Paul Weiss was the first to go. And then, as you say, a whole succession of them also threatened with losing government contracts and threatened with.

1:13:15I mean, it was extraordinary the way that they were called on the carpet by Donald Trump, actually. And as you say, many of them folded. And then there was a group of people that left Paul Weiss to set up their own their own company. So I don't know how they come back again. You know, maybe maybe you're you're you're right in the in the world of of power and money. Everybody is always tolerant of people who have power and money. And the Democrats need these law firms as much as Trump was out for revenge against these law firms. But maybe in a newer, better world. Well, I think you've also got a different group of candidates.

1:14:08Well, they're not candidates now. You've got a different group of politicians coming in for whom this is much more black and white. You've got them saying, get big money out of politics. So maybe they won't accept money. I mean, we saw that accepting money from AIPAC destroyed Haley Stevens' campaign in Michigan. If Al-Sayed, Abdul Al-Sayed, who was newly elected as the Democratic candidate in Michigan for the Senate, You know, if he's saying get money out of politics and he's not going to accept money from business or from PACs, then you have a different kind of politics. And maybe that's what's happening.

1:14:45Well, again, I think we're going to have this split screen world of the Democrats trying to make a new kind of politics, a politics that can get them elected in 2028, for instance. And in the other screen, Trump insisting that the Trump world goes on and doing it in a way that only he can do, which continues to command an incredible amount of attention. And whatever it is, however he ramps it up, Stephen Miller and whatever is next, the invasion of Cuba and and everyone will be in that, you know, in that what's happening? What is happening? What is going on? And I think, you know, the most egregious example was obviously that of Elon Musk, you know, paid a ton of money to Trump, helped Trump get elected, 300 million poured into the 2024 campaign, given Doge, a rise with his chainsaw, sending out insulting letters to fire people, demanding people give five reasons for what to defend their job or five things that they've done in the last week that is useful.

1:16:03that his team, led by big balls, a 19-year-old, will decide is useful to the government or not. Firing people, then having to rehire them, cutting off money to USAID. All of this has had a trickle-down effect on all the CEOs and all the tech bros hanging around Trump. And it may well play out. I do think that that's been a huge part of why many new candidates have gotten elected. There is a new, it's a generational change, and there's a fury there. There's a fury. Well, I think Elon's$450 million actually managed to get people, get the people against whom he spent this money elected. Yeah, I agree.

1:16:54I agree. And I think James Tallarica was like, this isn't about me and Ken Paxton. It's about us versus Elon Musk. Now, an open question is still, what does that$450 million buy him with Donald Trump? Two more Donald Trump years. Although I noticed that the cyber truck has been canceled. You sent me a text yesterday accusing me of having a cyber truck. You said you had a cyber truck. It's being discontinued. How would you ever think I was driving a cyber truck? It's well known that you drive a cyber truck. They are so unappealing. Whenever I see them, they're hideous. There's been never a sighting of me in a cyber truck.

1:17:43I wish I had got a cyber truck just so I could park it outside your house. anyway anyway listen it's John Romero's 40th birthday today the man has turned up to produce our podcast the least we can do is is let him enjoy his birthday and I will see you back here on Tuesday and for those of you who've joined us thank you for joining us we we're in a new world we're in a new world and we will continue to go inside Trump's head to find out what's going on in there. But for now, it seems to be war with the appointment of Stephen Miller. And the Democrats seem to be up for the challenge. I will see you.

1:18:24I will not be in this studio on Tuesday, but I will be in the studio on Thursday, accompanied by my 11-year-old daughter. Yeah. Is she going to join you? I'm pretty sure she has very strong opinions. I bet she has strong opinions about data centers? I bet she does. A Greta Thunberg in the making, I'm sure, sitting in the Hamptons. I hope not. I'll see you in person on Thursday, but we'll be back for another episode of Inside Trump's Head on Tuesday. Fantastic. See you then. Bye. Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro, and Neil Rosenhaus. So the good news is we have so many B-beast tier members now.

1:19:10There are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support. Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones, like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. Then sometimes you make great ones, like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options, so you can be sure you have the right coverage. Get your quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. The secret society of semi-homemade?

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