139. Trump’s Deranged White House Speech

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0:20Big question for you. What kind of a Christmas shopper are you? Are you the kind of person that leaves it to the last minute, or have you already got it done? What do you think, Kat? Obviously, you haven't even thought about anybody's Christmas present yet. I'm a very busy man, and I believe in delegation, Caddy. Really not that busy, but I thought I would say that to make myself feel self-important. If you are like Anthony and have left it to the last minute again this year, we have the perfect gift idea for you. Make someone that you love a founding member, Caddy. Exactly. It is the perfect present for the less organized among us, Mr.

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2:41Hello and welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty Kay, with a slightly hoarse throat. Had a bit of a cold this week, annoyingly, before holidays. But you, Anthony, dressed for the holiday season. I'm glad about that. I'm dressed, okay? My shirt says, dear Santa, they are the naughty ones, okay? That would be you and our producers, Caddy. Not me. I have been an angel all year. Okay. I am at the top of Santa's nice list. Good. It's early in the morning if you had your coffee yet. I've told my first Trumpian lie today. Yeah. Okay. And here I'm coming in with a coffee, Caddy. Coming in with a coffee.

3:17Oh, my Lord. Subtle it isn't, Anthony. Can I just say, for the people who are not watching on YouTube, Anthony is wearing a wonderful Santa t-shirt, which lies. And also, he's got a two-handed sort of Viking reindeer mug situation going on. It's Rudolph. Okay. All right. I believe in Santa. Okay. So, Caddy, let's talk about lying, okay? Because I've started out with a few lies. Let's talk about lying. Who's the liar in chief, Caddy? Who's the greatest liar, perhaps, of all time? Well, I think we may be getting into that in the first half of today's show because we are going to talk about the president's speech to the nation.

3:56He gave an Oval Office address to the nation last night for 20 minutes on the state of the nation. It was a kind of mini little State of the Union types of thing before he goes off on his holidays to Mar-a-Lago. I think it was given because he's feeling under pressure the polls are down and this was an attempt to kind of get back on track and we will mention a couple of the lies that he made and then in the second half we're going to talk about the article that has been rocking Washington DC and it's a Vanity Fair profile of Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles in which she is perhaps a little bit more candid than she intended to be.

4:32um liar in chief can we go through that speech last night and just quickly run through a couple of the things that he said that are patently not true so first of all trump said inflation has stopped wages are up prices are down the whole point of giving this speech i think and the speech he gave in pennsylvania recently is to empathize with the american public and say look we are working but we understand we feel your pain this was not a feel your pain speech um Inflation has not stopped. The most recent data shows that prices increased 3 % year on year in September. Prices are not down. Measured by inflation rates, data shows that they've actually increased.

5:14Wages are up a little bit. There were good things that President Trump could have actually spoken about. Wages are up a little bit, but he kind of buries it in the absolutes of inflation has stopped. He the most odd thing, I think, in terms of what was true and what was not true. He claimed that that he's working to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals for Americans by as much as 400, 500 and even 600 percent. Now, I'm not an economist, but a 600 percent price cut in drugs. Doesn't that mean that if I go to the pharmacy, they're giving me money, Anthony? Well, they tell him that in the meetings with him.

5:52They say, you can't say 600 % because the math doesn't work. Right. And he says he's going to say 600 % because - Because what, 50 % isn't big enough? No, 50 % isn't big enough and it sounds better. And he did this to us. And again, wasn't in the White House long, but he had a Rose Garden speech. I was standing in the Oval Office. He walked out to the Rose Garden and gave a speech. I think the number was like 85 % benefit improvement. He said 96. He came back in. I said, why just say 96? He said, well, sounds better than 85. I said, but you're going to get another four Pinocchios from the Washington Post.

6:27I don't care. Repetition is the mother of memory. That's what Donald Trump would say to you. I'm going to repeat and double and triple down. So he goes out there and thinks, I'm going to give an address to the nation. All of the primetime networks, the US networks have agreed to take this. If I tell people that I've slashed their drug prices by 600%, they're going to believe that? Because one thing American voters do know is how much money is in their pocket and how much money they're spending on their insulin or statins or whatever it is that they take. So that's the big debate. That's the Marjorie Taylor Greene response.

7:06We go to the supermarket. What you're saying isn't true. It'd be one thing to say that I've closed the border and not one person has passed through the border, even though there have been people passing through the border. People may or may not accept that. But they can't say, he can't look you in the face and say your price of drugs are down when you're paying more for drugs or paying more for eggs. But, Cady, he did something last night that people should really focus on, and that is he was trying to get the culture war in there. okay he was talking about immigration he was talking about crime he was talking about men in women's sports we've had 10 transgender identified people play sports in high school in a 330 million person populated country and he was also doing something else which he's escalating in Venezuela.

8:02We have said this weeks ago, I think Maduro is gone. He's escalating, but he was also downplaying it. He was downplaying it last night. Yeah, because there had been speculation that he might use this primetime address to actually announce a policy change, right? Some big news, which is sometimes what primetime addresses are used for is to announce a big moment. They don't want to do that because remember, he's the forever war ender, but he's starting a war with Venezuela and he's trying to get Maduro removed. He wants to get into Venezuela with US oil and he wants to return. And by the way, this is a terrible thing for me to say because I know regime change hasn't worked for the United States, but I would like to see Venezuelans do better than they're currently doing.

8:48If you look at their economic data, the country over 30 years has been blighted. I'm not saying this is the right way to go about it. This is exactly the hypocrisy that other people would say about US foreign policy. But, Caddy, he did a lot of things last night. Okay. So, because I know Trump, the 1776 warrior dividend, that is literally filet mignon, New York strip steak for his base. Okay. Here it is. I'm serving it up. Medium rare, extra rare for the real meat, gun-toting meat eaters. The bonus checks that he said that one and a half million veterans are going to receive. He didn't talk about, I mean, he says he'll pay for it from the revenues from trade tariffs.

9:34See, that's another point. This is how Trump's mind works. How does that work? So here's how Trump's mind works. We took in money from the tariffs, even though we're running a huge deficit, we're going to give this money to the warriors. So he's trying to tell his base that my tariff policy works. Now let's talk about lying. Let me ask you the following question. How many people in the United States believe that the countries pay the tariffs, Katika? How many people? I mean, the polling suggests that American people believe that they pay the tariffs and that the tariffs are not good either in the short term or in the long term.

10:07Okay. Do you think 20 %? I think it's about 20%, yeah. Okay. So that's his base. His base is 20 % to 35 % and he's feeding the base, feeding the base. And it's not clear to me how this is going to work for him in the midterms, but that's the stuff he was trying to do last night. Your healthcare provider is a villain. I am your hero. Your veterans are going to get some money. You guys love veterans. I'm going to give you that. But the other thing he did, he had more, whatever he was taking last night. I'm not saying this is factual. I'm just making an editorial observation. He looked pretty amped up.

10:48He looked like he was on the same stuff that Joe Biden looked like he was on during the State of the Union a year or so back. Okay. He was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whoa. All the stuff he criticizes Biden for, he's living, Caddy. This karma is a bitch, Caddy. Can I do an Anthony here and do three things I took away? Yeah, please. Total plagiarism. Please. From you. one is that Trump is better off when he's fighting against something. In other words, when he's in opposition, this is the kind of speech that he was, if he was in opposition running for office, it would kind of make sense.

11:29But the trouble is now he's in office and he hates accepting any kind of vulnerability. He hates saying anything is not great. So hence, you know, I've slashed your drug prices. The economy is a plus, plus, plus, plus plus. He can't say, I know things aren't going well, but they're going to get better. He can't do the Churchill thing. We're going through hard times, but it will get better if we stick the course. Second thing, he seems to believe that if I shout at you, you'll believe it, which is a little sort of professor, maybe ex-husbandy. I mean, it doesn't really work, I don't think. And the third thing that's really interesting is the number of times he mentions Joe Biden.

12:11Joe Biden is living rent-free in Donald Trump's head at the moment. The New York Times had this great breakdown. Donald Trump, since the inauguration, has mentioned Joe Biden an average of six times a day. Why? Why? Because Joe Biden beat him in 2020 and - Beat his ass. That's the answer. Apparently, he's not a Scorpio, but you have told me I'm a Scorpio. I don't forget things. Maybe Donald Trump should be a Scorpio. You try to pretend you don't know the stars, but you know, the Scorpios are known to be You're getting me there, you see. I'm seeing a little bit of a Scorpio in him. This is why I have to always stay on your good side, Caddy.

12:47But let me just say this to you, because I think - Was that good? Did I do a good Anthony Scaramucci interpretation? You did. You did. I'm trying the three things. You're onto it, but what about the three big lies? Oh, the three big lies. Let's go to the three big lies, okay? Lie number one was cost of living. Yes. Right? Huge lie. Okay. Okay. Lie number two was largest tax cuts in history. Okay. The tax foundation provided comparison last night, not even close. Okay. And then he said the border, this is the one that nobody can really prove and a lot of people probably believe him. The border releases are now at zero.

13:27Okay. Not true, Caddy. Even the border patrol is saying that. And so to me, it's i'm coming to the american people i'm gonna lie to you because my staff is telling me we're not doing well i've slipped below 36 in terms of my net approval rating so that's okay i'm coming to you to tell you that we are doing well okay and that the the the beatings will continue until the morale improves is this the right midterm strategy look i don't think it is the right i I mean, I think there is a speech that Donald Trump could plausibly have given. And it's interesting that Newt Gingrich, who was, of course, famously the Republican Speaker of the House, who ran successfully in the House elections against Bill Clinton in the 90s and has been a kind of big, still is a kind of big Republican thinker.

14:19He put out this morning that this was a speech worthy of Ronald Reagan. I think that's a hard sell because it lacked the charm and the humor and the kind of empathy of Ronald Reagan, who would have managed to do this and express kind of concern for the American people. But he could have given a good speech last night. I mean, he could have taught the White House genuinely believes. And I've spoken to economists who are kind of skeptical, but they genuinely believe that the policies that Donald Trump has enacted so far, the combination of the tariffs, the investment from the big, beautiful bill, the tax cuts, will come back to show their worth around the end of the first quarter of next year.

15:03and that the American people will feel the benefits of those policies in the spring of next year. He could have given the speech that said, look, I know that prices haven't come down enough. We had this post-COVID spike. Western leaders all over the world are facing disgruntled voters who are telling them that that post-COVID spike in prices, inflation is down, but the prices never came back down. And I feel that for you. I feel that you're paying too much for your Christmas gifts and for your energy and for your childcare. And I promise you the policies we've enacted, my economists believe, stick with us, this is going to work for America.

15:43And the boom that we're seeing in the stock market will trickle down to you. Now, economists may dispute that and plenty of people will dispute that, but that is a speech he could plausibly have given, right? As opposed to saying, as he did, by the way, that was picked up by reporters just beforehand, Susie Wiles has told me to give this speech, as opposed to giving this kind of angry, I don't want to be here, I'm going to race through this because I've got a dinner engagement to get to and then shout at you and tell you everything is perfect speech. I mean, there was something he could have done that would have helped Republicans before the midterms.

16:18I don't think Republicans look at that and think, wow, this is going to be great for me in Pennsylvania. So let me give you my inside the Trump brain. Okay. And here you go. Ready? Is this your Christmas gift for me? I'm going in through the ear. I got my minors cap on. Wait, there's nothing in here. Oh, that little pea over there. That's the brain. I'm running over to the brain I got my minors cap on and let me tell you what's going on inside the brain you want to hear caddy I'm gonna kill every one of you you cannot imagine the cursing that was happening in the oval office after the release of the vanity fair video it sets up the speech okay so he's now gone crazy off before he starts it he's gone off like a bottle rocket the last 72 hours have been horrific in the White House.

17:09People are running for cover. And humor is always said in jest, my job is safe. The rest of your jobs are not safe. Who said that? J.D. Vance, because he was democratically elected. He can't get knocked off. He can't get fired by Trump. But they're going crazy in there. Then the second thing is the polling numbers are bad. They're telling them that only I can fix it. In that pea brain, it's the supremo narcissist. Only I can fix it. Get out of the way. Write me the speech. I'm going to take a crayon because that's what I usually write with a crayon. Remember that memo he sent to Erdogan? I mean, it was one of the craziest things he sent in the first term.

17:52He's got the crayon out writing over what they were writing and putting in the lies. And then the third thing is I am very pissed off. I'm very angry. And I'm seething to the point when I give the speech, I can't really contain or control my anger. And that's literally how it went down. Now, contemporaneous to that, you have to talk to me about the willing accomplices here because he goes to his staff and says, this wall of fame for the presidents isn't enough. I want to apply editorial content in plaques, in these brass plaques. You're talking about the walk outside the Oval Office that now has the photos in gold frames of all the previous presidents, the colonnade, except for Joe Biden, where there's just a photograph of an auto pen.

18:43Right. And so I'm now going to provide editorial content on everybody. Well, he is a famous presidential historian, so I guess that makes sense. And so he rips Clinton and Biden and Obama, and he says that Reagan liked him, so he likes Reagan. And DJT is a fan of Reagan. So, Katty, it is out of control in the White House right now. So that adult figure, the pro-max adult, not there, man. And they're letting him do whatever he wants. And then Monica Crowley, who I do know and work with at Fox, who's now, I guess, the liaison director and helps him get off the plane and sets the table for him when he meets with a head of state somewhere, is retweeting it.

19:31She's retweeting the plaques proudly. Look at how we're owning the liberals, President Trump. Okay, so this is certifiable madness. Briefly, it's been you had the deaths of the Hollywood director Rob Rayner and his wife and Donald Trump putting out on Truth Social that he died because he had Trump derangement syndrome, even though his son has now been child. I mean, and everybody across the board was appalled by that. It's been, I think, from the beginning of the week through now a slew of polls. It's not just one poll, but a slew of polls saying that Americans are worried about the economy and that Trump is being blamed for the economy.

20:11and then through this the Vanity Fair article and now this we've only got to Thursday God knows what's going to happen you know for the rest of the week but this has been a bad week by any standards for the White House right I mean there's no way you could claim this had been a good week and they retweeted the Rob Rayner truth social post as well I mean they they Monica Crowley retreats it i guess they think you double down on the base you own the libs trump thinks this worked for him before you ignore the polls that show that americans are worried about cost of rent and the cost of child care and the cost of groceries and you tell them that the economy is going great and that's the strategy well well no no the point is there is no strategy.

21:03We're going to do whatever Donald Trump wants us to do whenever he wants us to do it. We don't want to lose our jobs. I know we're going to talk about the Vanity Fair thing in the next half, but you have to think about the warped delusion. They think they're getting from Vanity Fair, the picture of the George Bush cabinet during the Gulf War 2003. That's what they think they're getting. And they made them look like ghouls in the picture. And there were so many different things that they did, which I'll discuss with you in the second half from an editorial point of view. But, Caddy, this is going off the cliff and there's nobody there to pull it back.

21:43And so, I'm going to predict something on this podcast. Okay. These people are getting fired, many of them. Okay. He's going to wait, but he's going to fire them. Okay. And I think Jared's coming back in for the second half of this. Okay. I do believe that. I think Trump is smart enough to recognize that he's got to get somebody that has some common sense and has some ability to fend off some of his nonsense. Because a lot of the stuff that's happening, a Jared, a Steve Mnuchin, a Gary Cohen would have said, okay, we're not doing that. Well, Trump wants to put plaques up on the wall of, well, okay, we're not doing that.

22:22Let's see if they would stop him. Because for me, I mean, I think unless Stephen Miller is moved aside because this address had Stephen Miller's, like you say, he went straight for the culture stuff. This had Stephen Miller's hands all over it. This sounds like this address. Everything in that White House is being written by Stephen Miller. If Jarrett could come in and contain Stephen Miller, then maybe they can get some of this back on track and focus on the economy. This is going off the rails and Trump is smart enough to know. He'll never admit it. Which is why he was angry last night. He will never admit that it's going off the rails, but he's smart enough to know that it's going off the rails.

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24:24Welcome back to The Rest is Politics US. That Vanity Fair article, we're going to talk about that a bit more in this half. So on Tuesday, Washington woke up to a profile of Susie Wiles that got the whole town talking. It was one of those moments where I literally walked the dog in the morning, Anthony at seven in the morning and I bumped into a couple of friends of mine who are political strategists who live locally and we were stuck there like two little you know fish wives on the corner have you seen this article so the whole of Washington is talking about this article um it's it was written by Chris Whipple who is a journalist but who has also written books about White House Chiefs of Staffs and is a renowned political reporter.

25:11He was invited in by Susie Wiles, who sat down for 11 separate interviews with Chris Whipple. Chris Whipple, halfway through this process, gets a call from Vanity Fair, says, I hear you're working on this piece about Susie Wiles, the first female Chief of Staff. We'd love to take a piece about it. Then he releases this piece and there's all these flashy Vanity Fair photographs. He goes through a TikTok of all the different days and what happens in the White House. But it is a doozy of an article because point after point, Susie Wiles contests some of the policies of the White House. She goes through USAID, says she was aghast at first because she thought USAID did very good things when Elon Musk says he was going to cut USAID slash shut down USAID at the beginning.

26:05She talks about Venezuela. She says that Trump wants Maduro to cry uncle, in other words, that he wants her out. She talks about the campaign of retribution, that they had a kind of loose agreement that after 90 days, there would be no more score settling. That doesn't seem to have happened. She says that the lawsuit against Letitia James might be a case of retribution. She talks about the tariffs and says there was a huge amount of disagreement within the White House about the tariff policy. I mean, there's almost no policy where she doesn't draw back the curtain and show how much disagreement there was within the White House.