Why Miller Is Trump’s Most Dangerous Move Yet

-On Thursday, he screams at Susie Wiles, again in front of people, screams at her, and 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 appoint someone then, so it didn't look like she quit. 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, and that would be Stephen Miller. Michael? 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. So, we're going to start with you. We're going to start with you. And we're going to start with you. 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. Michael Wolff, the Trump author. Is this week still going on? It is still going on. I was 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. 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. Happy 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 This man took a bullet for us He faced down 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. But 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 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. And, 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, 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 that she was considering going after the midterms. And this is a kind of a bow. It's a kind of giving your resignation 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, she'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's 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 be good at replacing Susie Wiles. And 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, yeah. Well, you don't know what is this list. Is this a list of just names that pop into his head, or is he trying to get a reading? You 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? So I think we have to set the scene here that this is actually. Not an enviable job. This is this is a terrible job. This is a job that if that only, you know, that that no that no one that only the most rabid Donald Trump sycophant, I think, would 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. It was he was going to be acting chief of staff. And then he he did it for four days. And I want to say his name was Michael Ayers. I can't remember his name now. Yeah. You know, that's that's. Good. Yeah. I mean, you're you're absolutely right. And a chapter I have among the many chapters that I had forgotten. But, yes, that was 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. OK, let me go on the next the next shoe. The next shoe that drops here is on Thursday in which he he screams at 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. So 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. So suddenly he had to make a decision immediately. He had to point appoint someone then. So it didn't look like she quit. And and the person. So that's how Stephen Miller comes into this, because because 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 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. 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. 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, let me during during the campaign. So I was I was with somebody in the White House who was leaking to me. And. We were in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. And as we were looking for a discreet restaurant that we could talk, we we passed. We 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, too. I restore makes it easy to bring clinically backed red light therapy into your routine at home. Even during. 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Oh, my goodness. It's also intricate and Byzantine. It's so strange. OK, so Stephen Miller is there. Everybody is taking this as a sign of Trump basically issuing war. And as you have always said, what does Trump do when his backs against the wall? Well, 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. So 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 he's gone. He's gone back to he's gone back to where he has been, where he began the this is this is back to the base. Stephen Miller is that is a is an integral part of Trump's message 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. But again, this is not 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 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 so 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. He's an odd guy. I'm very, very spectrum. You know, can't have a conversation. No, no personal any. Anything with this with this guy. Well, you say 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 actually think that that's that's totally not true. Even on television appearance, he seems weird. He seems he seems like an like an automaton spitting out outlines. I mean, his eyes go in peculiarity. You know, it's always I am a loyal I am, you know, you think, oh, God, you know. you know, it's very Nazi youth. You 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 Suzy stalked off and that Stephen Miller was literally there and he could get hold of him. I mean, who are the other candidates? Who are the other candidates? That's clearly one element. I can't I 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. So you can imagine it's a it's a list of the people he feel 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 from from what what he believes the Donald Trump line should be. And 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 they referred to Stephen's masturbatory fantasies about immigration. And that's that is is really to to deport everyone with us with a scintilla of brown in their blood. Mm hmm. So strange. And does this preserve them 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. I 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 Haggars 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 of how, you know, again, again, what what does he always go back to? It's his sense on how he how he becomes the center of the story. And yeah, you know, Hegseth is as likely to go as not within the next hours. So what does this mean for 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 vice that Stephen Miller has architected. Do they double down on arrest? 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. And this is going to become even larger because there is going to be mighty pushback. From from Congress on this. Is it possible that Congress will defund ICE? Absolutely possible. But but that's only. You know, that's only part of the issue. The the result of what Donald Trump says he's going to do is a divorce from him saying this is what he's going to do. But but we we've all seen the images of ICE arresting people in the street. We saw the terrible videos of Renee Nicole Good shot in cold blood. Alex pretty shot in cold blood. I mean, there's there's no question that that's what Stephen Miller would like. And that's what he will pitch Donald Trump on on a policy that should be pursued. Absolutely. But as I say, you know, this is that now they have to deal with a with a 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 in the street dressed in black with masks. No paychecks. So I don't think that they're there. There's what what what whatever terrible things they feel about brown people is going to survive not getting paid. In the sort of spectrum of relationships. Spectrum 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. Let's not let's not. Let'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 in? Well, no. 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. And then there was the shift to Donald Trump. And set. 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. Bannon's people. He was a low level person. And Bannon thought he was kind of 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. I said, yeah, I want to, you know. And Bannon said, OK. And and he took me down this. So Miller's office was in the old executive building. And he took me down to Miller's office. And I went in and and spent some time with with with Miller. And he seemed absolutely crazy to me. I mean, the eyes all over the place. The kind of monologizing. I was like, OK. And then I came out and I went back to Bannon and Bannon said, you see. So. So it's been clear. What? 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, it's a it's a I mean, 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 newsagents podcast the other day, which is hosted by my friend Emily Maitlis, who did, of course, the wonderful interview with Prince Andrew. But Steve Bannon looked terrible. I just got to say, I can't stand Emily Maitlis. And also just 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. OK, well, I like Emily Maitlis anyway. And she did a great interview with 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-1. But his his skin was more florid. His face was swollen out like a desperate dam. 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 over the Russia investigation, basically appoints and supports another candidate. And 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. He was 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. 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. The 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 non-discrimination. The knives are out. The knives are out. They're sharpened on a moment-by-moment basis. You cannot imagine a worse environment than a Trump, 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. It's about the hundreds of data brokers who are trying to protect you. And it's about the hundreds of data brokers who collect and sell your data without your consent. But they can't harm you if they can't find you. And that's where Incogni comes in. Incogni automatically sends removal requests and follows up across more than 420 harmful sites, helping get your personal information removed from places you may not even know exist. Incogni can find where your information appears online, and recurring removals help keep it from coming back. You receive. You receive monthly progress reports and risk assessments showing where you were exposed and what has been cleaned up. To get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan, go to incogni.com slash beast or click the link in the episode description. That's incogni.com slash beast. Okay, so what's happening with J.D. Vance? How does J.D. Vance get on with the. 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. 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. Zoram Mamdani, the New York mayor, fired back at J.D. Vance. This is Zoram'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. You started this war. You started it. You can end it. Stop tweeting and crying. Start acting. That's, that's, that's just more, more what he would say. So they're both performing there. I mean, J.D. Vance, J.D. Vance, J.D. Vance can actually and somewhat, somewhat legitimately say that. I mean, he has positioned himself from the beginning of this war as the one person in the administration who had open doubts about it. 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. He'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 MAGA base against him, number two. And, 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 J.D. is not doing the wrong thing in, is it a craven thing? Well, of course, it's a craven thing. He's a politician. But, you know, now, and 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, he 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 Hillbilly Elegy was. But the reason I read this or our 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. But 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 Al-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 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. I mean, and then that strange laugh, which I wish I could imitate. Can you imitate? 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 in and hugely funny and absurd things. It doesn't change between those those two poles. He doesn't have let's put it this way. 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. I 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 in in an unusual, if not insane direction. Absolutely. On the other hand, on the other hand, Tucker is incredibly charming. He is very funny, super insightful. He is the source, by the way, for for virtually the entire Washington press corps. So 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. 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. I mean, there's there's a lot of people who are in 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, 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. So 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 to kind of 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 individuality. He has an 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. Donald 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. 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 reading the 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. Kind of, you know, again, just just extraordinary not to call Donald Trump gay, but extraordinary in this journey that Tucker Carlson has been on. Well, and when you say he he left Fox News, we should remind people he was fired as part of the settlement that the Dominion voting machines got against Fox News. They wanted the head of Tucker Carlson, along with the seven hundred and fifty million dollars 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 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. Well, I don't know if if if if Trump was done with Tucker. I mean, I think it really went the other way around. I mean, I mean, you know, Trump is not done with anybody who is who is who is abject in his or her loyalty and who has an audience. Right. But 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 that didn't that certainly didn't cut off their relationship quite the opposite. No, no. 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. He 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, his life's like a hyena on 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? The love to do, which is to to monologize to an audience on a minute by minute basis? And 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 and he ultimately didn't because because, as you remember, Ron DeSantis. Had been the front runner. And then Trump came into the race and just just essentially cleared out Ron DeSantis and the opportunity of any other Republican. But with Will Tucker now come again looking at 2028, is Tucker a a contender? Well, it's Ron DeSantis, a contender. I mean, Ron DeSantis is immediately put out there that Florida stayed. It stayed red. No, and this isn't. So the only Republican who comes out of the midterms with any kind of with without severe damage is Ron DeSantis. And 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 out that way. But I think it's very clear. And so I can see how that's going to play, because things in Trump world always play as they have always played. They everything is recycled. And Donald Trump will, as he did in 2024, hopelessly belittle Ron DeSantis. And 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 candidate. He's not a likable person. He's got a weird personality, I think. But he's a competent governor. Remember that? Competence? I mean, in an era where this particular Republican was until now. What do you have in mind as his evidence of his particular competence, other than he has gotten reelected and other Republicans? I mean, he seems competent. 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 zones 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 economy. It's the amazing thing that plows money into a state. It's been very attractive for people to move there. It 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 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? Because 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. So, 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, 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. But 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. And. And the DeSantis people furiously denied this and. 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- This is Alessandro Brito. I believe, I could be wrong about this, but that's my sudden recollection. Well, listen, I'm not going to defend Ron DeSantis as a character. He seems a thoroughly unpleasant man and nobody, I mean, you've resurfaced this story, which I do remember actually about Ron DeSantis. I think it was Tucker Carlson's wife who noticed that Ron DeSantis 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. Because 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. Conversely, RFK Jr. doesn't seem to have gotten in similar trouble for, what did he strap onto the car? Oh, he strapped on a whale head. He chainsawed. 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. 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 gold. The gold. To make America healthy again. No one understands it better than Stephen Miller. Oh, 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. 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. But hold on. Is it a reality show? Well, it's a sort of documentary. It's a documentary, right? It's another 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. A new two-part series. Everybody wants to be close to power and sometimes could be very dangerous. I'm a mother, a wife, also a first lady. He's my priority. He's my priority. He will always be my priority. He's my priority. America deserves the best. Their homes were destroyed. It's very devastating. They want gossip from me. It's noise. On November 20th, experience new, never-before-seen moments. So, 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 wait. I mean, a quick recap, you're in the middle of an appeal against Melania Trump. So the recap, the recap, and this is always a complicated recap because one of the things about being in litigation with the Trumps and the Trump White House is that they win, or at least they try to win by making things so burdensome. It's so complicated, so delayed that you, that A, people forget about them, their importance drifts off, and then they exhaust people. So 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 knows. 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 illegal to use a defamation lawsuit or threats of a defamation lawsuit. I don't know if that's the right word. I don't know. They then move to move this into federal court, claiming Melania was a was a citizen of Florida. So if you're citizens of different states, you get to you get to go to federal court and 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. That'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. She 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 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? Well, 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 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, 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. And it's a, you know, I can't help but think that she is pissed about this. She's pissed about it because it's going to impact the impact of her film? Yes. I mean, remember, she is now. Well, what did she think was going to happen? Surely she didn't think that they were going to have a huge victory at the midterms. Well, I think. there's a difference between a huge victory and a complete absolute humiliation and historic humiliation. And I think that is, I mean, that is what everybody within Trump world is coming to terms 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. But, and I think we're going to see this split screen, you know, the country, the Democrats, you know, 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, political rooms, triumphal arches, et cetera, et cetera. Well, 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 director's cut, the art of obstruction. I think Garfreed 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? 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, um, tens of millions and more dollars to Melania for this privilege. Um, and, um, 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. I was going to say, cause 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, to bury it. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think, I think they have, they, Jeff Bezos, like, like all of the other tech guys who have, who have so cravenly sucked up to Donald Trump now have to decide where their bread is buttered. How do they, how do they approach this? I mean, I think it's, I mean, I would say it's, it's, it requires an extreme amount of shamelessness to go from the suck upery to, um, uh, to, uh, to some new position in which, in which, in which they are skeptical about Donald Trump. But of course that's not true. And they are shameless. And, um, 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, uh, 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, yeah, you're more partial to these people than I am, of course. Um, 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. Well, 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 bread. Your understanding of what people do to get business. Um, and, um, I am less understanding, but, um, this is, this is, I mean, a serious moment in time. I mean, the markets are now incredibly jittery about, about, um, particularly about AI. And because that's one of the underlying themes of the midterms, Trump was all in on AI and the, um, and that became a potent democratic issue, a particularly potent issue in Texas, for instance, uh, data centers. Well, they've become data centers. On which you and I disagree rather vociferously. I mean, is this is really going to be an interesting thing to see on the tech bros and how they, how they, um, how they reposition what their PR strategy is for this. And I, I assume that's all they're talking about right now. Um, and, uh, I don't know, you might have, you speak to these people. Do you have insight about what's going on? Well, I, I think that, I think this is what a lot of CEOs do when Trump demands that you show up, uh, you, there's only so many times you can say, no, I will 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, you know, he took them to, you know, to Windsor castle when he went to see, uh, to see King Charles. Uh, 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. Um, I'm sure they're playing both sides at the same time. They talk to Democrats all the time. Look at the, look at Ro Khanna, who is oddly the, um, Congressman for Silicon Valley. They all have to talk to Ro Khanna. He's, he's playing with them too. I think that they made a profound miscalculation. I mean, there's a difference between trying to get a long with the government and identifying with it. Um, 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, uh, that Trump was going to remake the world and not incidentally remake it to their advantage. Um, and that's, I agree with that. I totally agree with them. They have their man, David Sachs 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. Um, yeah, again, another, another issue, another highly unpopular issue, social media, parents, social issue, uh, social media and their children. And these guys are on the, have found themselves on the wrong side. On the wrong side of politics, possibly on the wrong side of history. All 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, just don't see it happening. You know, well, no, I mean, that's an, that will be an interesting measure for the Democrats. Um, but then let's, let's talk about that other, other category. Of sycophants and moral, um, worms, um, uh, the law firms that capitulated to, um, uh, to Trump. Um, and I mean, I think that that's, that's, that's, uh, again, remember what happened here is that in the, in the first year of this administration, and again, we should see everything against, uh, everything has happened against that first year. Trump, Trump decided, he had, because he's innumerate, he decided he had this, um, this radical mandate to do whatever he wanted, a landslide. I have a landslide. Um, 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. Um, and then he began to do these draconian things, including threatened law, threatening these, these law firms who otherwise might have opposed, um, uh, you know, uh, the famous New York law firm, Paul Weiss, a famous democratic, uh, firm, a firm actively involved in anti-Trump litigation, um, backdooring help to the Democrats, throughout the first Trump term. And they were confronted by the Trump administration, basically told that their access to the administration would be curtailed. And they folded. 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, I 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 company. So I don't know how they come back. Again, you know, maybe you're right. In the world of power and money, everybody is always tolerant of people who have power and money. And the Democrats, 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. Well, 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. Well, 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, whatever he ramps it up, Stephen Miller and whatever is next, the invasion of Cuba. 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, for to defend their job or five things that they've done in the last week that is useful that 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. There are, 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 that Elon's $450 million actually managed to get people, get the, get the people, get the people against whom he spent this money elected. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I think James Tallarica was like, this isn't about me and Ken Paxton. It's about us versus Elon Musk. Now, now the, in the, an open question is still what does that $450 million buy him with Donald Trump? Two more, two more Donald Trump years. Although I noticed that the cyber truck has been, you sent me a text accusing me of having a cyber truck. You said you had a cyber truck. It's, 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. There's many, they are so unappealing. I look at whenever I see them, they're hideous. There's been never a sighting of me in a cyber truck. I 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 were 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. I 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. Oh, she's, 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 on, 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. I big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro and Neil Rosenhouse. So the good news is we have so many B beast tier members. Now there are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.