The Notorious Lawyer Who Shaped Trump’s Outlook

0:00I like things my way. My coffee, my schedule, and my treatment. So I talked to my doctor about self-injecting with the Vivgard Hytrulo Pre-Filled Syringe, which contains F-Gartigamide Alpha and Hyaluronidase QVFC. It's injected under your skin, subcutaneously. It means I can inject in my space, on my time. It's my treatment, my way. Visit VivgardMyWay.com. That's V-Y-V-G-A-R-T MyWay.com. and talk to your doctor about Vivgard Hattrulo. Brought to you by Argenics. Finding the right size rug can be hard. Enter Ernesta. Designer quality, custom sized rugs cut to the exact size of your room and delivered in as little as two weeks.

0:39Not sure of the size or the material? Start with five samples for just$10 today to see them in your own light and match to your decor. Plus get$50 toward any rug of your choice. Visit Ernesta.com today. That's E-R-N-E-S-T-A dot com. Welcome to The Beat, everyone. I'm Ari Melbourne. We begin with the way that we are seeing how rattled Donald Trump is. I've told you we've seen some top Republicans all but concede the midterms, talking about how historically usually they would lose. Now, we're not just talking about losing a House seat here or there, in case you're wondering. Everyone still has to vote.

1:15Nobody's calling anything. But they are so rattled because bright red Texas appears to be very much in play for Democrats. I hope people realize it because sometimes they want change when change isn't necessary. Sometimes they want change, even if you're doing a great job. But if they change Texas, Texas will be a disaster. It'll go. And it could go bad very fast. I will be the last Republican president in our country. We'll live in hell. So you actually have to separate two things there One is the sort of panicked bluster of a politician Who is telling everyone If you don't keep voting for his party You will live in quote hell While we're in an open-ended war And a troubled economy And an AI jobs crisis And a price inflation crisis That has him at rock bottom approval So whatever he's saying about hell A lot of voters think they're already in an economic hell That's point one.

2:23Point two, though, is what he's talking about. He's not talking about losing the House or swing districts or states that go back and forth. He's talking about Texas. And let's remember, one of the reasons Republicans are weaker in Texas is because Trump interceded and gave them this weaker scandal-plagued candidate instead of the incumbent Republican who had been reelected there many times and was probably on a stronger path. He knows that, and he's trying to, of course, distract from that and talk about what you heard there. But the idea that Texas is even closer in play, that the president has to take time acknowledging that and then saying if they do lose Texas, it'll be what he said, quote, hell or whatever else.

3:03Why are we talking about losing red Texas at all? Because that's how bad it's gotten for Trump and the Republicans. I can tell you moments after he did that audio interview, which was basically done from the White House, he then spoke at the Oval Office and said with regard to losing the midterms, quote, I'm not affected by the election. Number one, I'm not running. And then he went on to spin. This is upsetting and panicking Republicans who are experiencing the type of Trump actions that has made so many other people give up on him. He's not even loyal to his party in what is now the homestretch.

3:42We are in September. We're going through Labor Day. Seven, eight weeks left, 60 days, and he can't even give message discipline when he's doing press, let alone finding whether candidates want to come to his big convention next week. I'll get into that. But basically, you're looking at the wheels coming off. Why would you say you're not running in a race if you think there are people out there that want to vote for you and your party? Why make that separation? And why try to distance yourself from, again, what I told you at the very top of our show tonight, that this is Republicans acting already like they expect to lose?

4:17Now, if you go to Texas, the election desk now rates this as a toss up here at our network. and many other election analysts have said something similar, at least a tightening. A Democrat, Tallarico, tied in many polls with that lesser candidate, the scandal-plagued Ken Paxton that I mentioned. He's a new Republican candidate because Trump ousted the other one because he once said some mean things about the president. Then you have another Texan, Ted Cruz, talking about the worry here. I'm very concerned. It is a rough political environment right now. The Senate, I'm really worried. North Carolina, the numbers are rough.

4:55Georgia, the numbers are rough. But we have very competitive races in Maine, Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas. I mean, all of those races are within a couple of points of each other. And so it could be a, I hope it's not, but it could be a really rough election. Fact check. True. Those are all close races. And because some of them are in red places that typically go very big for Trump and Republicans, the fact that they're even close, Republican Ted Cruz referring to the fact that they're close or within a number of points, is a problem for the Republicans. Democrats would need four seats to take back the Senate.

5:41And they are watching a public that is souring on this Trump leadership. Whatever you think of Trump, if you're watching and saying maybe you were always skeptical of his ability to bring down prices. Or you always thought he was a liar. So when he said no more Mideast wars, you didn't believe him. There's a whole chunk of people who feel that way and have those memories. But politics is fluid. And life is fluid, obviously. Everybody wakes up and decides what to do. Some people become voters. Some people stop voting. Some people pay more attention. That's just the nature of it. And so whatever you've always thought about Donald Trump, the news tonight, the news that Trump is reacting to, that Ted Cruz is reacting to, is that a heck of a lot more people in Texas now are skeptical of Trump over his record.

6:26The Times says in the two years since Trump clinched his return to office, the U.S. economy has come under duress, quote, leaving families and businesses to suffer through the expensive consequences of constant global conflict and soaring government debt. And if you want to be as fair as possible, the Times kind of putting that in a nutshell, let's be clear. There are larger problems, including the debt and aspects, some aspects of inflation that were ongoing. Again, if you want to just call it honestly, there was, of course, inflation in the last election cycle. But when you broaden out and look at starting a war in Iran, having these Band-Aid sugar high gimmicks that the Treasury is trying to do under Trump, malfeasance, malpractice, corruption across the federal government, crypto disaster, AI data center questions, Trump family members on the boards and advising various companies that are on the take.

7:21You add all that together and things are getting worse as a direct result of this government run by Donald Trump, and a lot of people know it. And Trump's been undercutting his party's message constantly. Mr. President, to what extent are American financial situations motivating you to make it? They can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. He's got the midterms. I don't care about the midterms. He serviced your president about the latest inflation number, which came out this morning. Could that be a no? No, I love it. The numbers were great.

7:55You know what I really love? I love the inflation. He loves the inflation. And if you're criticizing AI data centers, which we've seen across the country, red, blue and in between, he says, well, if you're such a opponent of data centers, you're just backwards and poor. An insult that's not landing well all over the country. And then he's focused on his various petty projects. This Kennedy Center fight is going, hampering Republicans as they head into what is now the final stretch. We are in the September period. And then you have what I mentioned before. This is something you might not have heard a ton about.

8:33We don't usually hear about midterm conventions, right? We usually have them in the presidential years. But Trump had this big idea, which now he's stuck with as over 70 Republicans are going to skip an event that's just for them. It is literally just a midterm convention, which shows how far they want to stay away from Donald Trump. He's sort of physically created a nationally embarrassing symbol next week of how many are running away from him. One House Republican told Politico the event is a waste of time. And basically, the planning has been a, quote, hot mess. I want to bring in a special guest on all this tonight.

9:09Our lead off guest is Brett Mycelis. He's co-founded a network that we have talked about quite a bit in the past few years from Midas Touch. It's become really a liberal media juggernaut. He co-hosts their podcast. He has a book coming out, WTF America, The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy. Welcome. Thanks for having me, Ari. And doesn't WTF America kind of sum the whole thing up? I mean, not good times for the country and not particularly good times for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. I hear you. And what I mentioned to viewers, and I'm sure you have listeners like this, too, there are people who say, hey, I saw this coming, which is great.

9:48And I think people who pay close attention like to feel sometimes like it was worth something. But I want to turn your attention to how many people maybe didn't see this coming in Texas and other places. And now that they see it, they don't like it. They don't like this economy, the war, and a president who continues to insult them for having a voice about data centers or high prices. Yeah, it seems like on every single issue right now, Donald Trump is on the wrong side. And it's not even like a political thing to me because I'm not really like a political guy. But just like base level issues that I used to think Trump was actually decent at rating at like kind of understanding his base on.

10:24He seems to now be on the wrong side of all these kind of so-called 80-20 issues. Donald Trump is finding him on the 20 side. And the difference that we've seen right now from last year to this year is just absolutely seismic. And the year before, of course, when Donald Trump was actually elected, we are seeing his supporters run away from him. And Donald Trump bears the brunt of all that. It's all Donald Trump's fault. It is. And I think one of the issues is if Republicans are thinking that this is something that they can message themselves out of, I think they're going to have a whole lot of issues because this isn't a messaging issue.

11:00You can't message your way out of a complete and utter dumpster fire. And the problem is kind of no matter where you look right now, whether it's the economy, whether it's the Epstein files, whether it's the war in Iran where Donald Trump promised that there wouldn't be any wars. It's just complete and utter disaster. And then you see Trump focused on all these vanity projects. He seems just completely detached, completely checked out from the reality of what Americans are experiencing. Yeah. And one interesting thing about the way we live now is with podcasts and the digital discourse, you have a whole different register of conversation.

11:35You've tapped into that. We've had other guests from your network on. Joe Rogan leaned towards Trump for whatever reasons. And now, pretty independent, he says things that you would find on Midas Touch or plenty of other places. He says, we got real problems and you're still going back to try to rename stuff. Here was Rogan. But what's the purpose of changing the name? Oh, could distract you from the fact that we're in a war that we can't win in our round. It doesn't make any sense. Like, who cares? Lake Ontario. Well, it's a good name. We've had that name forever.

12:12But I mean, I think at a base level, everybody understands, you know, any honest broker understands how kind of stupid all of this is. It's stupid and it's dangerous. And at the end of the day, you know, I could ask you, like, would you want would you accept a free seat at a party in the Titanic? I would I'm going to guess your answer is no. And that's kind of the choice that a lot lot of these podcasters made early on when they maybe didn't realize it. But now they're seeing the reality that's coming before them. And now they sort of have to change course. But, you know, a lot of these folks like, you know, Joe Rogan, people forget like Rogan supported Sanders back in the day.

12:47He's kind of waffled back and forth between all of this. He was a big booster of Trump. And, you know, now you're seeing a lot of these kind of podcasters, you know, they call him the manosphere, all that stuff. A lot of these people who backed Trump and helped uplift him to the presidency in 2020 are now turning their backs on him. And, you know, I could only surmise, I can only guess what their reasons are. You know, I'm sure there's a lot of legitimate reasons that they have, but I'm sure they're also seeing their audiences really going away. And they're like, are you really supporting this guy still?

13:20I mean, you know, as you said, I do the Midas Touch podcast and we have the YouTube channel and all this. We follow the metrics. If you look at the metrics of a lot of these kind of MAGA podcaster types and stuff, their numbers are in the toilet right now. Why? Because they're not honest brokers of the information. They're trying to parrot whatever Donald Trump wants them to parrot. They're trying to play this party line and people aren't feeling it. They're like, I don't want these data centers in my backyard. Now you're calling me poor and whatever. Like, this is not what I asked for. I didn't ask for these wars.

13:48I wanted you to get the economy right. Like, what the heck is going on? Right. And there's almost this funny hangover where part of the elites, certainly on Wall Street and other places, still, they think it's like the day after the 24 election where he did eke out a win after everything that happened. And it's not. If you look at what you're mentioning, the polling today, the data today, the voting today, the reason why Ted Cruz is panicked, we're in a very different moment. And there's almost a lag. Data centers are an interesting example of that because some people are still making a lot of money in the stock market off some of this stuff and they want to look the other way.

14:23But there are costs. Even if these companies do OK, and we've been covering skepticism on that, there's costs in the real community with jobs and what what's going on in your neighborhood on this. And I want to show some of the reaction we're getting, including I want to mention from your network's interviews with some members of Congress and others on on the data centers. Take a look. The only thing less popular than Congress right now, I think, is data centers. I guess I'm backwards and poor. I guess you're backwards and poor, you say? We are investigating whether China is behind a lot of this misinformation, false information against data centers.

14:59They've been insensitive to where they're placing these data centers. We don't want them in our cow pastures. We don't want them in our cul-de-sacs. How about we put one in Mar-a-Lago? I love that. Let's put a data center up in Mar-a-Lago and we'll see how backwards and poor he is in response to that. I just still mentioned that's what we call a talk and walk. Our MSNOW reporters do that as well. You guys caught AOC, who's in demand for many interviews. And she makes the NIMBY not my backyard point. If they're so great, drop one at Mar-a-Lago. You know, it's a great point. And that was a great off-the-cuff moment by her.

15:34But, you know, a lot of people are calling what Donald Trump said about data centers and people who don't support data centers. I hear a lot of people calling that a gaffe. But a gaffe is Donald Trump calling it the Islamic Republic of Japan. That's a gaffe. What we're seeing when Donald Trump demeans people who are against data centers and when you see these Republicans who go so hard and they go, this is some sort of Chinese conspiracy and they just want to beat us and all this stuff. I have not seen an issue more motivating for people than data centers, probably since the Epstein files. This is something that is so tangible for folks.

16:08It affects them in such a it affects their daily lives. It affects their bills. It affects the environment. And I've also never seen a technology where the creators of that technology are kind of openly saying that the result of this technology is to take your jobs. I don't remember when the iPhone came out that that was something that Steve Jobs said when he announced it. But you have a lot of these tech oligarch executives right now. That's basically their pitch to people, and they want people to take it. And they want people to accept these AI data centers with zero guardrails whatsoever. And I think this is yet another example of Donald Trump choosing the 20 side of an 80-20 issue and going to bat and showing that he's a president of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires, his own people be damned.

16:55If you look at the comment sections in Donald Trump's posts about data centers, I'm talking on Truth Social, on his website. It is ugly for him. And I think that's very interesting when you see the commenters on his own website, his biggest supporters, turning against him on something like this. And he just continues to just mock and demean them. I think they're starting to see through it. Yeah, all really interesting points. And again, you're tapped in in that way, which is why we wanted to hear from you, Brett. The book is WTF America. I know we've got a lot of readers who watch the show, so you can look that up anywhere books are sold and learn more about what Midas Touch is up to and where we might be headed.

17:34Coming up, there are revelations about a man who helped shape Donald Trump's dark worldview. It's a really interesting story. We've got some tape, some really interesting footage I want to share with you. Also, I asked you earlier, what are you reading after we discuss the decline of books? You are going to see, some of you, your name and your recommendations on this very broadcast by the end of the hour, because we're going to share what you shared with me. But first, the heat on Hegseth when we're back in 90 seconds.

18:06If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. It's destroying athlete, creator, and YouTube maxer. YouTube Premium enhances how I use YouTube with awesome features like offline downloads so I can download my favorite training videos before I hit the gym. So no Wi-Fi doesn't turn leg day into loading day. Plus, I get ad-free videos, background play, and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra gains. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. I like things my way. My coffee, my schedule, and my treatment.

18:41So I talked to my doctor about self-injecting with the Vivgard Hytrulo Pre-Filled Syringe, which contains F-Gartigamide Alpha and Hyaluronidase QVFC. It's injected under your skin subcutaneously. It means I can inject in my space on my time. It's my treatment, my way. Visit VivgardMyWay.com. That's V-Y-V-G-A-R-T MyWay.com. And talk to your doctor about Vivgard Hytrulo. Brought to you by Argenix. Finding the right size rug can be hard. Enter Ernesta. Designer quality custom sized rugs cut to the exact size of your room and delivered in as little as two weeks. Not sure of the size or the material?

19:18Start with five samples for just$10 today to see them in your own light and match to your decor. Plus get$50 toward any rug of your choice. Visit Ernesta.com today. That's E-R-N-E-S-T-A dot com.

19:37These 5 ,000 sailors and Marines who are finally, for the first time in nine and a half months, stepping on solid ground. So there's a variety of emotions here. Some of the sailors I've talked to have said that they're extremely excited to finally get a much needed and deserved break. But others have told me that they would have rather just go all the way home. USS Lincoln arriving in port. That's after 286 days at sea. an extended deployment because Donald Trump started a war with Iran. The carrier has seen signs of wear and tear sailing into port. It's part of a military that is extended by this war of choice.

20:20The drain on munitions from the war has raised fears over the military's ability to put forward deterrence against other major adversaries like China and Russia. Iranian airstrikes on U.S. bases in the Gulf have created a logistics nightmare. That's reporting from the Journal and the Times. And Pete Hegseth continues to pursue what can best be called unusual agendas as a wartime Pentagon chief. His purges, which are extraordinary and large and basically upset a lot of what the military had in place, creating ongoing turmoil at the Pentagon. Hegsteth has fired or effectively blocked the planned promotions of over 80 generals and admirals.

21:05That means about 10 % of the military's top officers are now facing this kind of Trump-enabled distortion. The military screens, vets, trains, and promotes in a very careful, long-term, nonpartisan way. And while, of course, a Pentagon chief or a president might say, Well, based on what they've seen or what they want, they're changing out this or that person. That's certainly within the chain of command. What we have seen is a identity politics run amok at the Pentagon by Hegseth, often without military and national security objectives in mind. I want to bring in retired four star Army General Barry McCaffrey, an MSNL military analyst who knows this area well.

21:51Your view on both the strain on the troops, given what is still an open-ended war, and Hegseth's choices, his priorities right now. Well, let me start with the Secretary of Defense, who's a very bright fellow, has a combat infantry branch, Princeton graduate. He's been an enormous disappointment. And part of it, I think, is because his real focus is don't get fired by President Trump and conducting these culture wars, which seem increasingly aimed at not just the woke agenda the DEA, but also at women and minorities in leadership roles. He's also fired some of the talent, the chief staff of the Army, Randy George, Chris Donahue in Europe.

22:37These are probably some of the best people we ever had in uniform. You throw these people out and with their goes their experience. I tell people I'm a sort of run-of-the-mill four-star. I had five plus years of graduate-level education after commissioning, never mind four combat tours. So I think he's hollowing out the leadership right in the middle of a war, and the war isn't going very well. I basically blame President Trump for that fiasco. We're facing a situation where we have devastated their conventional air power and sea power. But we're in an unsustainable conflict with no allies and no support by the American people.

23:27And I think the IRGC, who's now running things in Iran, is trying to wait out this president and have him withdraw because of political and economic concerns. Very dangerous situation. Do you think Hegseth understands that foreign policy challenge and what Pentagon and the military needs to be ready for? No, I don't. I don't think he's thinking about that. He came in with a tremendous animus, by the way, to the Army. I think we're down to five four-stars. We used to have a dozen. And firing the chief staff of the Army, Randy George, made no sense whatsoever. However, the Army right now is involved in a major modernization campaign, trying to understand the new nature of warfare and then develop the technology to deal with it.

24:18I also don't think he has a clue about logistics. Our U.S. Navy, which is conducting a blockade right now in the Straits, is a magnificent fighting force, both offensive and defensive capability. But when we started this war, they lost their logistics bases in the Gulf. They had one outside the Gulf in Oman, which also was hit by the Iranians, in which country President Trump threatened to bomb the blank out of them. So right now, we've got a massive U.S. Navy presence, two carrier battle groups, 20 warships. They're being resupplied from Diego Garcia, 2 ,500 miles away. I'm really assuming we won't get back into the Gulf.

25:07Most of our Army, Navy, and Air Force bases have been really savaged by the Iranians. All really important. It's one of those stories, as you understand so well, General, that can fall out of public view even as it is important the longer this open-ended war goes on. So we call on you, and we'll continue to do so. General, thank you. Good to be with you, Aaron. Appreciate it. When we come back, Trump's fixer, Roy Cohen, next.

25:52America has been paying the cost of incompetence and a lot of so-called yes people surrounding Donald Trump. and we've been discussing that tonight in a number of stories and it fits across really the whole second term because this has happened more this term than it is first. In fact, if you remember what it felt like in the first term, there were aides and lawyers who pushed back. There were reports on that. There were people who cooperated with investigations and also refused outright to cross Trump's red lines. One famous example being that Trump reportedly told his White House counsel to fire the prosecutor, Mueller, and that person refused, said that's unlawful, we cannot do it, and they didn't.