Hi friends and fellow students, Americans living abroad can legally vote in the U.S. election. Register or get tailored support at votefromabroad.org. Look state deadlines are super close, so don't waste another second. Go to votefromabroad.org now and click "Request My Ballet" as to receive it by email. All you gotta do is fill it out and send it back in. Don't miss this chance to shape the future. Don't delay. Votefromabroad.org. Donald Trump is the king, he's not the president, he does not behave like a president, he believes that all decisions flow from him, all benefits flow to him, everything is about him and it's about his family. Here we are in 2026 with Don Jr., which is paid for in large part by a crony of Vladimir Putin. Paid for by Russian money, that whole world which is tied in to MMA, boxing, corruption, Russia, oligarchs and it's all tied together in this one story and it's so useful because it reminds us the roots to this corruption run incredibly deep. Helps us have these independent conversations, we're independent media, and well we need your support. Let's get into it with David Rothkoff, so much to discuss, it's not really the first lady now, come on seriously, is she because she was there greeting the Irish over the weekend on Trump's visit to Dune bag, who paid for Don Jr.'s wedding, well it turns out it was a Russian gentleman and you can just see him in the background in the photo. And of course AI, are we all about to die? David Rothkoff has the answers, let's get into it. David Rothkoff is with us. Hi Joanna. David I've been thinking, should we start pacing this podcast? Should we pause this podcast? What if 10% of the people listening or watching this podcast, something happens to them, something happens David, should we be pacing? I think we should be pacing. Well, that's because you're a sensible person, but you know when there worries like there's a 10% chance that the world will be destroyed by AI, the president says, let's keep going. So let's not pace it, let's go for it, let's invite global destruction. Well, before we have global destruction, I would like to get to the end of this podcast and there are, there's a menu of things I would like to discuss, not least is Natalie Harp, the new first lady in effect. Don Jr.'s wedding on some Baharman, is that the right, Bohemian islands that turn out to have been paid for by a close chum of Vladimir Putin. I want to talk about the drone footage of the Bohem, which not only looks like it's going to dwarf the White House, it looks like it's going to dwarf, no white, I mean this is going to dwarf Disney, it's so enormous. Of course, we can talk about the end of civilization, why wouldn't we? We're doing a podcast after all. And who's going to save us David? Is there a note of hopeium at the end of this podcast? There might be, there might be. Cool, I can't like to hear about all that. And let's hear it for Vertigo and Gustio, which is the narrow, mouthed, world snail that is holding up Donald Trump's efforts to extend the ballroom at his Dune bag facilities, where he spent the weekend. Did you follow the president's trip, David, I suspect you did? Of course, they followed the president's trip, it's always great to see the president out getting some exercise, interacting with people in different countries, blowing up U.S. foreign policy, hanging out with his pal Natalie. It was a full weekend of Trump being so Trump-y. Go on. Well, I mean, you know, I mean, you know, let me start at the high end, you know, he did go and say that, you know, he wanted to see Ireland reunite it, which I thought was kind of interesting. And contrary to UK policy for a long, long time, he did, you know, take a lot of questions, which he gave really weird answers to on a whole range of things that we'll talk about later, including AI and so forth. And he did bring Natalie along with him. And then he attacked Melania. I don't know, has he ever done this before in his past? Well, let's, let's get a clip of that before we come onto his idea of a united Ireland literally uprooting the last 100 years of intense diplomatic negotiations between Ireland and Britain more than 100 years. But let's first get into his domestic arrangements. My wife is here, my wife is here in spirit, she's watching right now. She said, say hello, because she's very friendly with these two people and said, well, what don't you come with me? I said, she said, well, that's a seven hour trip. Maybe I'm not that friendly. I said, put on your, I said, put on a make America great again, Hatten, come on, let's go. Uh-oh. So he says, my wife is here, but she isn't here. Then he quickly corrects himself and says she's here in spirit. It looked to me like that was a husband whining about his wife not being with him. And then, of course, cut to this clip. And though we have Natalie Harp, the president's special assistant with his family, it's shaking hands as if she were the first lady. Is Natalie Harp the new first lady? Hi there, first of all, I don't think Trump does. You know, what I heard that first clip where he said, my wife is here. The thing that struck me is, I don't think he, you know, I'm like, I think he's just confused generally all the time. Oh, you don't think he knows where he is, so he's like, I don't think he's here. He's like, I'm giving my speech, my wife is, oh no, my wife isn't here. Well, maybe my other wife is here. Well, you know, their wives, let me make a joke about it. I'll move on. And it was just, you know, it was really, it was really Trumpian weirdness. The reality is, it's hard for him. There has never been a president who has actually married to somebody whose wife was less involved in his business than Monty is. You know, there have been president, I mean, Grover Cleveland wasn't married at first and he had his daughter act as first lady. But in this particular case, the president has a wife. She just is absolutely without leave, she's not showing up. And so, you know, he's got to deal with that. It's a little bit weird, particularly since this was not, you know, I mean, he called it a diplomatic trip, which is just a ripoff of the American people because it wasn't a diplomatic trip. It was a trip to one of his golf courses and he stuck some diplomacy onto it. But that's why his family was there. That's why Don Jr. was standing next to him, greeting these government officials, which is weird in and of itself and we'll get to that a little bit later also. But then of course, Natalie is playing an increasingly public role. And particularly if you take it in the context of the conversations you've had on other podcasts here at the Daily Beast, you know, when she, you know, was put on to the other plane, it alienated some people on the White House. When she approached the president at his Formula One rally, it alienated some other people, including apparently a millennia. And yet is he moving away from Natalie? Or is he embracing her and pulling her closer to the center? And I think the answer from this weekend is she's moving closer to the center. She's moving closer to the center and he's explaining that his actual wife didn't want to come. So therefore he's justified in leaning internationally, I think. I thought it looked like he was laying the ground for public sympathy for him. He's always like the ground. Why don't you care about other than public sympathy for him? Totally fair. So what do we think? You're right. He was there for a golf tournament at Dunebeg, one of his facilities, which he's frantically trying to expand. He bought it, of course, as he buys most of his properties when it was in financial difficulties and hurrah for, as I said, the narrow mouth world snail, because it's endangered by his efforts to extend facilities at Dunebeg, so I'm sure he was going to probably encourage people to just get on and who cares about the snail. The snail is defiant. You could relocate the snail to RFK Jr's brain. Where they would feel very comfortable having a hat, they would fit right into the worm tracks there. Exactly. You've probably heard us talk about one skin before for their best-selling skincare, but now they're bringing that same breakthrough longevity science to their scalp serum. OS one air whether it's
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That's 15% off. 1skin.co with code beast, and after you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. - What did we think about his suggestion that the last 150 years of earnest diplomacy to get a separated island, an actual island, and then Northern Ireland attached to the UK? What do we think about his efforts to rebuild Ireland? But again, was that anything other than him thinking, why aren't they both the same country? This makes no sense. It's a little lump of the UK. - Well, you know, when he says stuff like that, we analyze it. Is this a foreign policy initiative that he's discussed with his National Security Council? We doesn't really have one of those, so probably not. Is this a foreign policy initiative he's discussed with his advisors? Well, he doesn't listen to his advisors, so probably not. Was this something corrupt because he's the most corrupt president ever in history? Well, I'm not sure how this plays into the corruption. So sometimes you've got to come to a different conclusion with Trump, and it's hard to do because of the corruption and the malevolence and all that other stuff. Sometimes he has to remember he's an idiot. And in this particular case, he's just an idiot. - He just doesn't. - He doesn't, you know, he just doesn't know what history is. He doesn't know what's right or wrong to say. He doesn't listen to advisors, and he's like, well, they speak funny and they speak funny, so maybe they should all be speaking funny together. And, and that's, you know, because we are really in the shoot from the lip phase of the Trump presidency. - Ooh, shoot from the lip. - Shoot from the lip. That's good, shoot from the lip. - Well, he's losing all the inhibitions that, you know, having a more functioning brain might have given it, where you stop and you say, is this the right thing to say? He doesn't care anymore. - He doesn't care anymore. - And, and, and between not caring and not knowing the difference between right and wrong and not knowing any fact, then you end up with this kind of nonsense. - Well, what he's also done is created this sort of amorphous, semi-official, official, social, these trips that are to his own properties, as you say, paid for by public money. I'm sure that the American taxpayer paid for the flight over on Griff's Force One. Don Jr. was there, the kids were all there as if it was a sort of family trip with Grandpa. And of course, Don Jr. is in the news this morning. He sent us a fascinating piece from Pro-Publica. I mean, you know, really worth reading about how Don Jr.'s wedding was in fact paid for by a friend of Putin's. - Well, yeah, let's, let's break that into two pieces. One very brief. One is a little bit longer. The brief piece is this. Donald Trump is the king. He's not the president. He does not behave like a president. He does not take the counsel of advisors. He does not take the counsel of the Congress. He does not believe in the Constitution of the United States. He is not motivated by the interests of anything other than himself. He believes that all decisions flow from him, all benefits flow to him. Everything is about him and it's about his family. And so, you know, traveling around with his family is what a king might do. And I'm sure, you know, there, you know, there were seats on the Katari plane that he got that says, you know, son of the Amir, you know, I mean, it's like there was son of the shake or whatever it would have said. And he's just used to living in that world. The Don Jr.'s story in Pro-Publica, though, is much, much, much deeper and more profound. And I really urge people to read it. 'Cause here you have this super rich guy who's made hundreds of millions of dollars just in the past couple of years, caching in onto his father's presidency, having a wedding in the Bahamas, which is paid for in large part by a crony of Vladimir Putin. It's paid for by Russian money. He read it the island. He paid for the fireworks. Well, Donald, John Jr. doesn't need to pay for that. You know, a couple of things on this. One is, Trump didn't go to this wedding. I now believe having read this story that somebody said, you can't go to this wedding. You can't go to a wedding that's paid for by the Kremlin. This will cause you more problems than you need to have. So first of all, I think that's an element of this thing. But secondly, there is in all of this a kind of a glimpse into the deeper corrupt inner core of Trump and Trumpism. Because this Russian, and let's just say it a few times here, because Trump doesn't like us to say Russia, Russia, Russia, right? But this just reminds us that with Trump, it's not Russia, Russia, Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. It's always Russia. It's always been Russia. And when did it start being Russia? 40 years ago, when Trump started to realize that he could build big buildings in New York City and fill them with people who would never take the apartments, but who were buying the apartments in order to launder their money. And there are many instances of Trump welcoming Russian investments in his various buildings or getting Russian financing for his buildings, because they were being used essentially as money laundering engines for foreigners who wanted to have their cash someplace they could get at it if they couldn't get on the cash that they had in their own governments. But it goes even deeper than this, because this Russian guy is a boxing guy. He's the head of the International Boxing Federation, and he's really into boxing in some of the other things associated with it, like gambling. Well, who else is into that? Don Jr. Don Jr.'s investing in things like prediction markets. Don Jr.'s investing is very into the whole MMA thing. Who else is into it? Don Sr. Was this something new? No, the very, very origin roots of Donald Trump go back to Roy Cohn, his lawyer, mentor, who was indicted multiple times for all sorts of crimes associated with boxing promotion, whose father was a boxing promoter. When Donald Trump went to Atlantic City, he decided the only way he could make money is by dealing with boxing promoters, Don King Jr. being a very, very shady guy who he got in bed with. And in fact, helped him get involved in politics. The two of them gave money to Al Sharpton very, very early on in order to build sort of good will in this whole thing. But Donald Trump was involved in boxing just as today that has morphed into MMA and the big thing on the South Lawn and his support for sports gambling and his support for what's going on with prediction markets. And it all goes back into the core, the corrupt heart of who is Donald Trump. And there is a guy, you know, you read pro-publica, the very origin of all of this stuff is a reporter who worked for a place called the village voice, I don't think it exists anymore. And the reporter was a guy named Wayne Barrett and early on in the 80s and 90s, Wayne Barrett started writing about Donald Trump and he started writing about Trump and Roy Cohn. He started writing about Trump and boxing and how the sort of semi criminal under element of this whole thing really suited Donald Trump's views of power and money. He started writing about Trump and the Russians. And here we are in 2026 with Don Jr. having a wedding underwritten by a boxing promoter who's pals with the Kremlin. And all of it says we've come no distance on the inner world of Donald Trump. This is who he is. This is why he celebrated July 4th with an MMA event on the South Lawn of the White House.
This is when the war started in Iran. Where was he? He was with Marco Rubio at an MMA event in Miami. This is how his son, Baron, is so into the Tates and that whole world, which is tied in to MMA and boxing and corruption and Russia and oligarchs. And it's all tied together in this one story. And it's so useful because it reminds us that the roots to this corruption run incredibly deep. The new season is always a good excuse to upgrade your routine and if you've been thinking about giving your hair or skin a little more attention, Irish store is worth a look. The Irish store Elite combines lasers and LEDs to deliver red light therapy across the scalp while the Illumina face mask uses red infrared and blue light and what's particularly interesting about the Illumina is that you can use all three wavelengths simultaneously. Both are designed to be easy to work into your routine at home. The Elite can be worn while you're working, reading or relaxing, relaxing and the cordless Illumina mask takes just 10 minutes a few times a week. And right now, Irish store is offering some huge discounts on their red light therapy devices. You can save on customer favorites like the Irish store Elite helmet and the Illumina face mask. Just head to irastore.com and use code dailybeast. That's
[email protected]. Give your hair and skin the upgrade they deserve so you can feel confident and refreshed. Well it's also interesting that this weekend, he said, you know, he lectured Vladimir Zelinsky saying, whatever you do, don't go after diesel, you can't go after diesel facilities in Russia, you know, go after another target. What do we know about Umar Krumlev, who is the guy who paid for most of Don Jr's wedding? I mean, that wasn't always his name. Was it? According to the story, he had a name change. Yeah, originally his name was JD Vance, but then somebody, no, no, no, he liked JD Vance. He changed his name and he got closer and closer with the Kremlin and he got, you know, various concessions from the Kremlin and that turned into this boxing promotion thing and it started with boxing promotion in Russia and then it extended to boxing promotion internationally and he became the head of the international boxing promotion group. But the key is you don't get in Vladimir Putin's Russia to get the concessions, to get the business, to become the oligarch, unless you're doing work for Vladimir Putin. And nobody who's as close as this guy is to Vladimir Putin is doing it purely for, you know, business reasons because Putin is constantly asking them for favors. And this is the thing, you know, when people say, oh, Russia, Trump, the Trump's not a Russian agent. He doesn't have to be. There are all these people who are influencing them, him, who are working on behalf of the Kremlin, including Don Jr., including the NRA, including many of the donors in the Republican Party. And this is just one more example of how Russian influence touches them and then, of course, the fact that they ask for Russian help in the election twice, not once, the fact that he's looking, you know, that look at his record on Russia, as you say, what is he doing with Ukraine, whatever he may say about Selenska, he cut the aid that we add to Ukraine. He has never liked aid to Ukraine. He got impeached once for withholding aid to Ukraine. And now he's telling the Ukrainians don't attack the Russians. It's as bad for the world. When, in fact, of course, the Russians are the ones who attack Ukraine. Russians are the aggressors. The Russians are the war criminals. And the Ukrainians are just defending themselves. So, if you're right, and the reason that Donald Trump senior didn't attend his son's wedding, let's just repeat that, that the father doesn't attend his son's wedding, second wedding. So maybe he thinks, well, I was at the first, I was at the first, because he's been advised you cannot do this, this would look terrible for you, although he doesn't really seem to care about anything looking terrible for him. Why do you think, or perhaps they did, and Don Jr. chose to ignore it? But why wouldn't someone advise Don Jr. not to do this? Well, I mean, first of all, Don Jr. is not a government employee, but secondly, somebody probably did advise him not to do this. You know, Don Jr. is a defense contractor for the United States. He's owning shares and companies that are defense contractors for the United States. I would think this would raise big red flags. If I were a Democrat and I were looking into areas to investigate, if they won the House or the Senate or both in November, I would say, well, gee, shouldn't we look into the fact that Don Jr. is providing drone technology and other technologies to the Department of Defense and is flying around with the president going to diplomatic meetings? But he's also in bed with this Russian oligarch who is in bed with Vladimir Putin. That's the kind of thing you would think that would be looked into. Now, of course, in a normal government, somebody in the Defense Department would have raised a red flag. The Inspector General would have raised a red flag. The White House Council would have raised a red flag. The Attorney General would have raised a red flag. And of course, in this government, the job of all of those people is to enable Trump and to enable Trump's family to be as corrupt as they want to be. It's such a depressing scenario. Well, shout out to Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Miyersky for the peace in pro-publica. And as you say, really worth reading, it just uncovers the depth to which the Trumps are in bed with the Russians. And perhaps it explains why Donald Sr. didn't end up going to his son's wedding. I am. The other thing, though, that I would say here is, and it's just an interesting footnote. Is that Donald Trump's level of growth and evolution as a person is zero. The Donald Trump, you've got in the '80s and the '90s and the 'Auts and the teens and it's the same guy. He's interested in the same things. He behaves the same way with women, he violates, you know, standards and behavior in the same way. He's just as vulgar. He's just as caught up in the same kind of demimonde underworld as he has been the whole time. If you lived in New York City as I did in the 1980s and you saw Donald Trump with Roy Cohn and Don King and building these buildings with the Russians coming in who were back then not viewed as oligarchs, but just kind of Russian mob. And he said, "Well, what kind of president would he be? He would be this. He would be exactly this." Well, he would be that with possibly a layer of fronto temporal dementia. Well, yeah, and the fact is that Natalie Harp wasn't born at the time, so she doesn't know. All right, so David, another of his extraordinary things, and again, it goes back to his buildings in the 80s, is the ballroom. Drone footage this weekend started circulating, "Can we show some pleas?" So just look at this thing. Well, what's that little building next to? That's the White House. Yes. What is it? I mean, Donald Trump is determined to leave his thumbprint footprint. But look at this. This building is twice as big as the White House. Right. Which we've always known. We've always known that the ballroom and the sort of bunker, it's 90,000 square feet. The White House is 45,000 square feet, so it's literally twice the size. But when you actually begin to see it taking shape like that, it's still shocking. What's that? First of all, from a historic preservation point of view, and of course, he ignored all of that stuff. It's an atrocity. Okay, he is violating, he is vandalizing, he is debasing a symbol of the United States of America, the White House. Then on top of all of that, he is using that grotesque structure as a vehicle for corruption. Because a lot of the money that is being donated to that structure is coming from people who want government favors. And so they give a certain amount of money and they get contracts and we now have cases where this has actually been the case. Then on top of that, he's using it as yet another vehicle to destroy the budget deficit. Because only some money is coming from these outside sources. Maybe half a billion dollars is coming from the taxpayer for everything under the ground. And it's all illegal. So in some respects, the White House ballroom is the perfect monument to Trump. It's big, it's ugly, it doesn't belong there, it's in bad taste, it's illegal, it's corrupt, it's destroying the budget, it's undermining America.
and traditions, and you know, the big question, and I really think it's a big question, is does the next president leave it there? What do they do with this thing? Do they get rid of it? That would cost a lot of money and be considered wasteful. Do they change its purpose, you know, so that it becomes a place where we, you know, focus on, I don't know, public social needs, like, you know, healthcare or something like that. I don't know what they're going to do with it, but right now, what we know is that there is going to be, whether we like it or not, this big ugly blot on Washington, right next to the White House, for a long time, and it's going to remind us of how far a stray we went during this really, really dark period in our history. - Well, we should ask listeners and viewers, actually, to write in and suggest things for the next president to do with it. I mean, you could turn it into a library. I'm trying to think of the thing that would be the most untrumpian. I mean, you would, you know, fill it with books, because obviously he hasn't read one. Or you could make it a historical, a presidential historical library. And I guess you refuse to call it Trump, right? He will call it the Trump rule. We'll all know it's the Trump rule, but you have to rename it something more neutral. - Yeah, I have a suggestion. May I make my suggestion? - Please, might your suggestion. - Yes, I think it should be called the Barack Hussein Obama Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. - Aha, very good, very read it. - You know, and I think we should use it to promote programs that promote American diversity as a source of its strength, possibly including new programs to attract new immigrants to the United States. - Producer is nodding fervently here and he's giving a thumbs up. He likes that idea very much, John Romero, yes. If you're listening or if you're watching this podcast, please writing, 'cause it's a real, it really is a, it's gonna be a contentious issue. Do you leave it there? Do you repurpose it? Do you take it down? And of course, we don't know yet whether or not it will continue. I mean, the other possibility is there's a court order that says, no, you have to halt and it sits there, you know, open to the weather. - We already know what he's gonna do if that happens and you know how we know because of another story on your list. Just skip ahead to your Kennedy Center story. - Go on, yep, go on. - Because, you know, Trump handles bad news. The way any mafia boss handles bad news. And when the court said you can't do what you want with the Kennedy Center, he started defunding it, winding it down, attacking it. And now we've gotten this week to the stage of, it would be a pity if anything happened to this little art center of yours, buddy. You know, it's the mobster coming in and what they're saying is, if they don't allow Trump's name to be put on this, they won't be able to raise money for it. Therefore, it will go bankrupt because it's in bankrupt state already. It must be shut down. And because, you know, it's in such terrible shape, it can't be occupied. And so they come up with means within the sort of rough ambit of power that they do have to fuck things up if they don't go the way they want. - Well, Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, who is, I know, both a friend of the DSR, deep-to-take radio network that you run, and she's a friend of our Daily Beast podcast and a frequent guest, has always made the point that Trump is a nihilist and that if he can't have something, he would rather destroy it than have anybody else have it. She thinks he's going to do it with America and he's starting off with the Kennedy Center, but talking about destroying what a freak out over the last few days about AI. Total freak out from the founders of the big AI frontier labs to Trump saying whoever wins AI wins. - Again, you know, I spent a lot of time in AI. We do a number of podcasts in AI, I've been working in AI-related stuff for a much of my life. My dad worked on the early stages of AI stuff at Bell Telephone Laboratories. So I've been immersed in this stuff for a long time and I will get to the AI specifics. But just to pick up on your last point, Donald Trump should be called the Doomstay president because Donald Trump is not just the most corrupt president in our history. Donald Trump is not just the most incompetent president in our history. Donald Trump is not just perhaps the stupidest president in our history, but there are a number of areas in which Donald Trump is embracing disaster that tied directly to Mary's point about nihilism. You know, with regard to AI, what happened last week was that a number of people in the field have said, you know, there is a greater than 10% chance that AI on its current trajectory will result in the destruction of the planet Earth. There's end of human life on the planet. There's a score that they use in AI world called the P Doom. There are a number of people within this industry who feel that the likelihood of global catastrophe from AI is 10% or more. You know, if all the astronomers in the world said there's an asteroid heading for the planet Earth and the likelihood that it would destroy the planet Earth was greater than 10%. That's all we would be talking about folks. We would be freaking out that there's a greater than 10% chance that life is gonna be ended by some asteroid. Well, all the people in this field have said this and you know what Donald Trump said this weekend? Donald Trump said, I'm not worried about it. He said, I don't wanna get involved. And you know, you would say, well, that's a little bit crazy. That's a little bit maybe nihilistic, maybe stupid, but it goes further because it's not the only area in which he is embracing doom. Look at this week, we're going to remove the regulations that stop power companies from generating gases that are destroying our climate. He has done this over and over again with other areas. He has said climate change is not a real crisis. Well, climate scientists will tell you, this is one of the biggest problems we face. What is he doing? Is he dealing with the problem or make it worse? He's making it worse. What about pandemics? A million people died in a COVID pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of them, according to scientists, based on bad policies of the Trump administration and what is he doing with regard to the threat of pandemics and epidemics and diseases? He's increasing the threat of pandemics and epidemics and diseases by fighting war against science, by getting rid of vaccines and so forth. This week we've learned he's embracing a new policy and nuclear weapons and the new policy is to make them more usable, to get rid of the distinctions that exist between the use of nuclear and conventional weapons, to put more money into nuclear weapons. So take all of those things. Take AI, take climate, take the pandemic, take nuclear weapons in every one of these cases where there is an existential consequence. For all of us here on the planet, Donald Trump is choosing to make things worse. That's why I call him the Doomsday president because he is inviting Doomsday and the psychological reason for that is precisely what Mary Trump says it is. He's a narcissist and as far as he's concerned, once he stops existing, he doesn't care what happens to the rest of the world. - Do you think he doesn't even care about his children or Natalie? - Well, he doesn't care. Let's do this by a bit of deduction. Do you think he cares about Tiffany? No, I don't even think he knows Tiffany's day. So let's set Tiffany aside. Does he care about Ivanka? I think he loved Ivanka and she rejected him. She's the one great love who's turned him away and she's off with Jared. So I don't think he cares about her as much anymore. Does he care about Don and Eric? Well, I don't know. Would you care about Don and Eric? And then there's Baron. Baron has been taken away from him. Nobody knows where Baron is. Baron's being held by Melania in a basement someplace. So the only young person he has any contact with is Natalie. Does he care about Natalie? Maybe. Would Natalie ever challenge him and say, you're going to destroy the world and I'm not going to have a future once you're gone? He'll go, well, should you have a future once I'm gone? So there is a lot of psychopathology at the core of all of this. And, you know, I mean, he didn't go to Don Jr's wedding, did he? Well, interestingly, Eric Trump went asked if he knew who Uma Cremlev was, said he'd never heard of him. I find that hard to believe that you wouldn't know who was financing your brother's wedding. He's standing behind him in the fucking picture. Look at the pro-pub, look at the picture. David, we have to have some hopium here. The Doomsday president, I totally take [BLANK_AUDIO]
Your arguments for it is the no hope. I mean, we do have what we're 50 days out from the midterms Is it possible that the Democrats despite themselves will be able to seize back seize back the house? Let me ease into that. Okay. First of all, I was at a dinner this weekend with a bunch of Democrats. You and your dinners David Your dinner sounds so much fun I mean, they usually are, but I gotta tell you this was a little bleak. These were people who know and their sense was It's it's not a sure thing that we we get out of this with a democracy That what Trump is doing to undermine the elections in terms of whether it's mail order or sending troops in or Jerry Mandarin or getting the howard luttnik to track Voting machines because they have foreign parts in them or having Todd Blanch intervene That while all of those things won't work some might work and that the reality is with regard to the November elections It's not whether or not we're gonna have free and fair elections To some degree we won't the question is how free and fair elections these will be And and how much he's going to be able to interfere and this has led to a pretty bleak outlook with these people the the ray of hope is the the the public outrage at a bad economy and losing their health care benefits and another endless war and But you know attacks on education and all the bad things that are happening to them will lead to a wave election and that in 20 25 seats in the house That are swing seats the Democrats will pick up 10 15 or 20 and they'll pick up the majority in the house They might pick up enough to pick up a majority in the Senate It's gonna be close because you know at the end of the day John Federman that big boob will switch over to the Republican party If needs be right so it's it's it's gonna be close But that if the Democrats get into the house They will be able to put their breaks and some of the worst stuff Trump is doing and then literally Less than two months from today, Joanna We are gonna be in election 20 28 mm-hmm and election 20 28 is already taking shape and over this weekend We had a guy who's running for the Senate in Georgia John Assoff a young promising candidate give a speech that I would encourage everybody to go listen to Because he really took it to Trump and he took it to the corruption and he said we can't continue And he said we have to hold them accountable and he said what the American people really are caring about is getting a government That doesn't work for billionaires, but that works for them again And he said it with such clarity that throughout the Democratic Party there is hope because he's not the only one I'll hold that thought because we have a clip from John Assoff's rally See Georgia deserves so much better than Mike Collins And America deserves better than Donald Trump America deserves better. I can't help wondering if some of the panic around AI is projection On Donald Trump you say he's the doomsday president But I wonder also if there should be pacing of Donald Trump if there should be a pausing of Donald Trump And that's what the midterms will be I think that's a really smart observation I did a podcast on our network. We do want an AI every week called Consciousness With Alondra Nelson who ran a lot of these issues in the Biden White House And she said that a lot of this freak out on AI Has many factors one of which is fear of AI bubble one of which is huge reaction across the country to data centers But I think part of it is that Donald Trump makes Dooms seem possible Donald Trump makes the worst case scenario seem possible because every day we seem to be Living through the worst case scenario But when you look at John Assoff This is a guy who if he ran for president In 2028 and we're inaugurated in January of 2029 I think you would be 41 years old He is young He is articulate. He is strong. He is from a red state He is smart He is listening to the people of Georgia. He gets what the mood is in this country, which is The system is raved. It's working for the rich It needs to work for me And he is part of this movement that's not all progressives or You know ideologically Fits into any particular bucket because James Tallerico in Texas is part of this movement Mamdani is part of this movement But so is Mikey Cheryl the governor of New Jersey is a former aviator Abdul Osiet and in Michigan is part of this movement But so is JB Pritzker the billionaire governor of Illinois There are a lot of people out there who are rising up Listening to the people saying the right things and there is still a chance There is still a chance that they won't be able to corrupt the election so much That we get an outcome that reflects the will of the people That the will of the people is no longer interested in what Trump has to offer That they are seeking a change and that between now and 2028 We can not only hold Trump accountable But we can move toward that change with new leaders And that to me is the real hope and I frankly find also an incredibly compelling candidate Well, David it's 50 days to go So we will see what the American people say and whether or not the mail-in voting Situation gets resolved is currently unclear There's a lot of chaos which Donald Trump has managed to sow over whether or not mail-in votes Of valid in certain states and as we know it's actually incredible 30% of people vote by mail-in ballot So it's a lot of people Well, yes, it should be right people we we should be a country If we're really a democracy That is committed to make it easier to vote not harder to vote We should be talking about how we can vote online As other countries have begun to do but we're not doing that because the Republican party Feels that if the majority speaks they lose and so they are on a war against make it easier to vote Well, David, let's hope we're here next Monday to have another podcast and we haven't the world hasn't collapsed We don't quite have a time frame for the end of civilization Although I think the is it Jacob Coxon who left Anthropic and said you know within 10 years We might come hurtling to the end But he he did and there are a lot of people who say worse things and there's some people who say better things and frankly The fact that all the people in the AI industry have been said well, let us regulate it You know Honestly, that's that's performative right the last people you want the world to regulate Bank robberies are the bankrupt You know, we're a long way from getting how we manage this AI thing But at least we're finally having discussion about some of its real risks Well, David thank you for joining us and I'm sure this is a subject we're going to be talking about for For months to come but if you have been thank you for joining us leave us a comment and what you think about David suggestions for Well, for what we do with the White House the the ballroom and indeed do you believe that AI is going to Create a doomsday scenario and is trump a doomsday president if you have been thank you for watching Don't forget to subscribe to the daily beast and a big thanks to our production team John Romero Ryan Murray Rachel Pasahedipus our own Neil Rosenhaus so the good news is we have so many be beast tier members now There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support
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