I Know Why Mad King Trump Loves to Sue: Wolff | Inside Trump's Head

Trump's attorneys know that they have to bring offerings to him. That's what keeps him, that's what keeps him happy. You're feeding the beast. You know, Trump doesn't stay happy for very long. So it's like everybody's always rushing around. Okay, he's unhappy again. What, what do we bring him? And so obviously to target one of his enemies, that's a great bone. But it is not even that. It's, it's to bring him the headlines about the targeting of his enemies. What is relevant is that the identity, the enemy has been identified public, publicly identified, held out there. And the story, the narrative, the story is for all to see. Michael. Joanna. We are color coordinated. We've both got brown on this morning. This is my first brown T-shirt, I think. Except for the fact that I don't have brown on. I have blue and white. We're not remotely color coordinated. All right. Well, it looks brown on my camera unless I've developed color blindness. Good news. Good news, Michael. We've got a lot to discuss. We've got the Kennedy Center. We've got the whole thing. That you could read that as bad news. Matter of fact, the good news will come one day when we say we have nothing to discuss. It's all over with. It's past. Life is back to normal. Well, we can discuss if it's ever going to get back to normal. But what I was thinking was we have a lot of new things to discuss because in the last 24 hours, we've had two judges put a red light up to Trump's plans on the Kennedy Center and the IRS slush fund. So we'll come back to that. But what I was actually going to say was good news. Our president is in excellent health. No better health like it. The best health in the world. Except that he has put on 14 pounds in the last year. What's that about? We know what it's about. Big Macs. It's about quarter pounders. It's about, I mean, it shouldn't be a surprise. The man eats terribly. He doesn't exercise. That is going to equal 14 pounds. And 14 pounds is probably a lie because he lies about his weight. He lies about his health. We actually, he went into, he's into Walter Reed. He comes out with a health report. We have no basis on which to rely on that report. Except for the fact that it does seem like he does gain weight. Well, this is Dr. Sean Barbabella saying that he's in excellent cognitive health. Well, of course. But his doctors, you know, Trump's doctors are different from other people's doctors. Well, they probably have some different kind of medical education too. Yes, they're definitely. But 15 pounds in a year is a lot of weight. Is it comfort eating? What's, I mean, 15 pounds, and especially actually at that age, at that age, normally people are losing weight. I mean, he's about to enter his ninth decade. And so he will be proud of the fact that he put on this weight. And he does seem to be proud of it. I mean, he talks about other people taking the weight drug. I think that's what he calls it. The weight drug. The fat drug. He calls it the fat drug. Yes, but not him. And, and I think that there is, you know, this is back to Make America Great Again goes back to that kind of, you know, the 50s and 60s moments when men of a certain accomplishment actually like to be fat. I remember when I was a kid, the men around my father, businessmen, they were fat. And they were proud of it. Roger Ailes was. The father of Fox News, Roger Ailes, proud to be fat. And Roger Ailes is the person who memorably said to me dismissively, your people live in, this would have been 2016. Your people live in 2016. My people, and he meant the Fox audience, they live in 1965. And I think, and that's, that is first thing, I think a very perceptive way to see his, his audience and his business. But it's also a insightful way to see Donald Trump. I've totally forgotten, by the way, to ask people to press the subscription button. We are trying to get to a million viewers, subscribers, subscribers, I should say, by the end of the year. If you haven't subscribed, please do. There aren't that much independent media around. We are independent and we rely upon your support. OK, so just do you think he's going to double down and eat twice as many burgers? Does he want to put on 30 pounds by this time next year? You know, I've seen the man eat burgers. I don't know how you could eat more. I just don't know how you can stuff in anything else. All right. Well, they're not going to have a burger stand at the Kennedy Center because he's washing his hands of the Kennedy Center, he says. We know that Donald Trump's favorite thing is to put his name on anything, on steak, on water and champagne, on the side of a train, on the side of a plane, but in particular on buildings. As you frequently pointed out, it's actually one of the things that he's done successfully is throw his name everywhere, but not so fast on the Kennedy Center. A judge has said this is not OK. You did it without any kind of congressional approval. And Donald Trump sent out a blistering truth social saying then the Department of Commerce could have the Kennedy Center and he had washed his hands of it. Well, the other thing that he is another favorite thing, in addition to putting his name on buildings, is to express his petulance. So this is what we have. We had the name on the building. Now we have Donald Trump, petulant Donald Trump. I'm giving it back to you. You deal with the Kennedy Center. But this will only be temporary until he figures out another way because then there will be double down Donald Trump and he will double down on some way to figure out how he can put his name back on it. This is going to be in his head. This is going to rankle him. I need my name on the Kennedy Center. I deserve my name on the Kennedy Center. In fact, it should just be the Donald Trump Center and forget Kennedy. Right, exactly. Why hasn't he even done that? I'm just going to read for those of you who don't follow truth social as closely as I do. I'm just going to read the beginning of his petulant post. Shockingly, a judge appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, Christopher Cooper, first line singling out the judge, as we know to make this incredibly personal, ruled that the Kennedy Center, which was going to close in early July for large scale renovations and construction due to years of neglect, decay and poor maintenance, and which was to be transformed by the Trump administration into the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the world, is not allowed to close for these renovations, which would not be possible to properly do without such a closure. One of the things that they are going to do now, and this goes to the whole bifurcation of the American justice system, is that they will shop for a Trump judge. In other words, they have a ruling by an Obama judge, now they will find a Trump judge who will give them the ruling that they want. It almost now is predictable. You can do that. Trump judges will deliver Trump justice. And equally, non-Trump judges will take the other side. Right. I mean, he adds in the first paragraph of that, additionally, Judge Cooper ruled that the 36-member board of trustees, remember that he just basically fired the board and then put in his own people, including Usha Vance and including Susie Wiles, which unanimously voted to add the name Trump onto the former Kennedy Center, making it the Trump Kennedy Center, did not have the right to do such an addition and the name Trump must be removed. And then he goes into a sort of whining rest of the post where he's just complaining bitterly about it. And I mean, this is important. I mean, the judge makes an important and, shall we say, obvious point that these bodies appointed by Trump, bodies that are supposed to have an independent function, are no longer independent and there's none at the Kennedy Center. It involves almost every governmental body or semi-private body that has been appointed by Trump must deliver what Trump wants. Right. And I just want to remind people of the talent that quit the Kennedy Center. So Renee Fleming, who stepped down as the artistic advisor at large, Shonda Rhimes, who resigned as the Kennedy Center treasurer and trustee, Bella Fleck, Peter Wolfe, Philip Glass, the Hamilton cast pulled out of a run there, the New York City Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet. It just goes on and on. Nobody wanted to perform there with that board and under the Trump Kennedy Center. Right. But that's the point here. From Trump's point of view, that's all good news. What he has attempted to do, I mean, very quite explicitly, is to change the whole cultural equation. And he doesn't want those people. Those are liberals. Those are Democrats. Those are lefties, whatever. He is his his vision is this is it is not only the it is when he says it is the Trump Kennedy Center that is, in fact, meaningful. It's not just that he wants his name on the building, but he is he is making a statement. This is a MAGA Center for the Performing Arts, which means basically no arts. And well, it means Kid Rock every night. I mean, basically, he had his way. Yeah, it would be Kid Rock. It would be UFC. It would be the opening of the Melania movie. Perhaps that would play on a continuous 24-7 loop and it would be Les Miserables. And yet I think there was a sort of, you know, Shonda Rhimes makes drama for everybody. Scandal, Grey's Anatomy, Bridgerton. His viewers watch those. Hamilton revolutionized Broadway. So the idea that MAGA voters or Republican voters only want to watch Kid Rock is wrong. I disagree with that. I think they only want to watch Kid Rock. I don't think they like that. I don't think they go to Hamilton. You know, the Shonda Rhimes thing, maybe some somewhat, but I don't think so. I mean, I think Republican voters have Netflix and they love Bridgerton. They love Shonda Rhimes shows. Shonda Rhimes shows speak to everybody. I think you're totally wrong, actually. And I think that's a big discrepancy here and a big misunderstanding. And that's why Fox News succeeded. I mean, the idea that Fox News watchers would watch that other stuff is really, it's a hard alignment. I mean, these are two different worlds. And I think your view is a pretty typical liberal view that, in fact, we share something. We don't share anything. It's down the middle. And that is something, by the way, that Trump understands, which Democrats don't understand. Interesting. Well, it's also interesting thinking about the people who've pulled out of the concert that's spaced to celebrate his birthday and the 250th anniversary, Martina McBride, who definitely speaks to both sides of the aisle, has pulled out. The Commodores, the best song ever, Easy Like a Sunday Morning, they've pulled out. Even Milli Vanilli, which is a cover band of a cover band, the people that we're going to play, because there's only one Milli Vanilli left, they've pulled out. So I actually disagree with you. I think music and Shonda Rhimes shows speak to Republicans and Democrats alike. That's what good stories do. That's what drama does. I think lots of Republicans went to see Hamilton and they absolutely loved the music. Those are Republicans who don't vote for Trump. I really want to insist on this point because I think it goes to the problem with the Democratic Party, of which no doubt you and I represent in part, in which they don't understand what a split has occurred in this country, what two parallel cultures are, that the Democrats have not been able, have lived in a world which doesn't speak to the other half of the country. I mean, that is the fatal proposition here, not Donald Trump. Well, one of the things I'm very curious to come to a bit later on in the podcast is Usha Vance's new episode. I missed one of the episodes of her podcast, which she issued on Mother's Day with her own mother. And again, quite subversive. But I'm not sure if they're speaking to Democrats or Independents or Republicans. She's safely not speaking to anyone, apparently. And we know the numbers. We know the numbers. The numbers are very public and they are embarrassing. And I promise you that podcast is going to go away the minute she has that number four baby. However, let's come on to that. So we've got the Kennedy Center slap. He's got to take his name off the building in the next two weeks. That's what the judge, the Obama-appointed judge, has said. The name has to go within two weeks. And also, it shouldn't have closed for renovations. He made the decision without consulting the board. He even admitted that. He was like, yeah, yeah, the board, we got to the board too late. But it doesn't matter. The decision has already been made. Yeah, no, and apparently, I mean, everyone's been fired. Everybody's been fired. Nothing is booked for next year. Everybody's been fired. There is no one to run a building that is theoretically closing in a matter of weeks. And Rick Grinnell, who was running it, has gone on. We remember the former ambassador to Germany, a friend of Trump's, who memorably said Trump was basically like, he's gay. He can do the Kennedy Center because it's about the arts. He's now being put in charge of the concert for the 250th anniversary, the concert that everybody's pulling out on. So poor Rick Grinnell is used to people pulling out on him. This is not the only bad news that non-Trump judges have delivered to Trump this week. Correct. We have the halt of the slush fund. Pray continue. I wonder, actually, when I saw that, I wondered if this was unexpected. It should not have been unexpected because it's so egregious. But I think it was. I mean, I think that they thought that this was a fast one that they could transparently pull. And I think they're surprised that they got dinged by this in a very serious way. I mean, essentially, the judge, again, you know, not a Trump judge, said... I think Clinton appointed, right? Clinton appointed this judge. That this was all fraudulently arrived at. Or the judges asked for an investigation to determine if there was fraud here. Right. And this, I mean, several people have brought cases against this slush fund. And this is just to remind people, he sued the IRS for $10 billion saying that they had humiliated him by releasing or one of their contract workers had leaked some details of his tax returns. And then he agreed to settle essentially with himself. So he sued his own IRS and then agreed to a settlement with his own IRS of $1.776 billion, which would be doled out by a five-person commission to people who claimed or could prove that the DOJ had been weaponized against them. The Biden DOJ had been weaponized against them. So several people have brought lawsuits against this, including two policemen who were injured at January the 6th. But this particular case has been brought by 35 former federal judges who are outraged at what they see as the misuse of the law. And as the judge said, a lack of candor about what was said in the courtroom. There is the fundamental issue here, and this is an issue that essentially challenges, Jesus, everything. You cannot file a lawsuit in which you are the decision maker on that lawsuit. I mean, that this would be like a judge in a court, a judge sitting on a court files a lawsuit and then gets to be the judge on the case, which is effectively what the president has done. He sued the IRS, which is an agency that he has control of. So therefore, he sues the IRS and then he gets to decide that the IRS has to settle with him. It's Lewis Carroll like, it's Alice through the looking glass. But happily, it appears to have been stopped. And now there's a conversation apparently going on. And I'm curious to know if you've talked to people about this, where there's been more backlash to this slush fund, the $1.8 billion slush fund, especially because people are outraged at the idea it might go to January the 6th protesters, that they might drop it in exchange for refunding ICE. This is, wait a minute, I think that this is, I'm confused here. This is the issue in Congress. This is the issue that they have not issued the funding that the White House is asking for ICE because it is tied into also this fund or having to act on this. So we don't know what Congress is, whatever Congress will do is always a problem because they do ultimately what the president wants them to do. So the more pressing question is, what will the White House do with regard to appealing this, dealing with this decision or appealing this decision? And I think actually the same thing goes for the Kennedy Center decision. They will go into this and try to figure out how they can get before a Trump judge. Again, that's the larger issue here, this total bifurcation of American justice. Do you think this plays well for Todd Blanche? I mean, it's very interesting how he's out front in these decisions and suddenly you feel like he's overexposed. This is going to go very badly for him. And then, of course, we had Pam Bondi blaming Todd Blanche in her behind closed doors meeting with Democrats late this week, blaming him for the mess she claims around the release of the Epstein files. Let's discuss this because something clicked into place for me when I saw about this Pam Bondi testimony. So from the beginning, I was always kind of wondering why didn't Todd Blanche get the top job? Right. Why is he acting? You mean when she got fired, why was he acting? No, not at all. Originally, he's the lawyer who is closest to the president. He's the lawyer who demonstrably is most willing to carry out Trump's demands. He's the lawyer who is closest to Boris Epstein, who is really the person closest to all of Trump's legal aspirations and planning. So why didn't he get that job? And I didn't know the reason. I mean, I never kind of came to a conclusion about the reason for this. But the Pam Bondi testimony, when she's essentially saying she had very little discretion here and Todd Blanche was in charge, what clicked into me is that I remember in the first administration, in the earliest days, as a matter of fact, even before they got to Washington, Trump wanted Rudy Giuliani to be his attorney general. That was it. Rudy's going to be the attorney general. And then the people around Trump, MAGA people, Steve Bannon said, what are you talking about? Rudy is at best a moderate Republican, if not practically speaking a Democrat, and pro-abortion. He is never going to get confirmed by a Republican Senate. So what they did, the alternative then was to offer Rudy the second-in-command job, exactly as Todd Blanche got it. And they would put some MAGA-approved person into the attorney general slot. But Rudy would really be calling the shots. Can we just remind people that they then put in Jeff Sessions from Alabama as the attorney general, who promptly recused himself on the Russia investigation, and then Trump basically went all out to bury him. Right. So anyway, Rudy declined that. That wasn't, you know, Rudy felt he was much above that. He deserved to be the attorney general, etc., etc. But Todd Blanche agreed to that. So it's essentially the same structure. Pam Bondi, an acceptable Republican MAGA person, gets the top job. Todd Blanche, a former Democrat, probably still a Democrat, and, you know, from New York, gets the job that will let him be the real Trump conduit. So I had a certain amount of sympathy for Pam Bondi, you know, in a kind of naked, hapless admission that she did not have the authority here, that it is Todd Blanche. And I think it has been Todd Blanche, probably will continue to be Todd Blanche, unless, as you suggest, he is too exposed and is now suddenly in a position that he's going to be the one who gets blamed for all of this. Yeah, I suddenly thought, oh, especially with the two decisions yesterday, this is going to play out really badly for Todd Blanche. I think it will play out badly for him in the long haul on a macro level anyway, but immediately it feels like it's playing out badly. Why do you think he hasn't been given the attorney general job post-Pam Bondi? Given he's doing all the work. You know, I assume this is just Trump ******* with somebody. You know, this is, you're going to have to prove yourself. You're going to, I'm going to squeeze you for what you can give me now. And clearly he is giving. I mean, he is now, you know, on top of Trump's list of demands is going after Trump's enemies. And these are all preposterous investigations and possible indictments. But Todd Blanche is pursuing them anyway because Trump wants them to be pursued. It was interesting to see Pam Bondi yesterday with her white bandage across her neck, as we know she's developed thyroid cancer, which is treatable. But I can't help wondering if she thinks, gosh, I mean, it must have been the most, I imagine the most stressful year of her life, having to deal with the Epstein files and just being the attorney general in this crushingly busy year for Trump, where he's trying to do everything he can to get his own way. And I wonder when she stepped down, A, if she knew she had cancer and B, if there is some sort of karmic. I mean, there's two women working for Trump who've now got cancer. Susie Wiles has got breast cancer, Pam Bondi. So you're a proponent of cancer as metaphor. Well, I'm a proponent of the body keeps the school, actually. And I just, I mean, I wonder, I just wonder. I mean, I wonder if she wonders, too, if this is why she got cancer because it was so stressful. It sort of sounds like a kind of RFK diagnosis here. So I might resist that. But we do know that stress triggers things. Stress definitely triggers things. I don't know what that means. Stress triggers things. That sounds very unscientific. But I do think that she had a rotten year. Absolutely. And I think working for Trump and one of the interesting things is everybody knows this. Everybody has seen that everyone in the past has had a terrible time working for Donald Trump. And it always ends in tears. And yet they go to work for him still. Yeah. Go figure. And yet, and he manages to eat the wrong, the wrongest of wrong diets. And as we know from his doctor, Sean Barber, Bella is in perfect health. But come back to, I mean, Todd Blanche, a totally fascinating figure. And I think when this story is written, the story of Trump's second term, Todd Blanche will be a pivotal figure. But so the president made him open a criminal investigation the other day, which we talked about on Thursday, into his leading nemesis in, you know, I mean, I think kind of may be the leading nemesis, which is E. Jean Carroll. And now this is preposterous on every level. And you might ask why Todd Blanche would have done this, not figure it out some way to get around this. And also why Donald Trump would have pursued this. And I think it's, this is a central, it's central to understanding what's in his head, because it's all about who his enemies are. That's the thing that most motivates him. You know, and it's because he functions in a world, other presidents function in a world, in a political system and a historical system, see themselves as part of this, as part of this much larger thing. Trump doesn't. It's all about him. It's all one on one, which is, you know, I mean, I mean, it really goes to his complete misunderstanding of the job he's in. At the same time, it really is, I believe, part of his appeal. So, you know, politics as this abstract thing, he manages to convert, reduce to a, to personalize it. Well, and it's how he runs his foreign policy, right? He wants to be, and he keeps saying he's friendly with Putin. He trusts Putin. Putin trusts him. He trusts Xi Jinping, that Xi and he are friends. He gets on great with them, as if his relationship is more important than anything else. Yeah, no. And I think it's that thing. It's what people, you know, I mean, we find this appalling. And I think many people in the country find it appalling. And certainly the numbers, his polling numbers now indicate that at the same time, it is exactly the thing that makes so many people pay attention to him. So many people follow the story instead of turn off to the story. Right. And do you mean because it's also very relatable that everybody has enemies? Everybody is, well, I'm not saying everybody's motivated by their enemies. Well, I would say it's more, it makes the story, it personalizes the story. You know, abstract stories, stories about policy, stories the way Democrats present them, present the story of power in politics are not relatable. They're not followable. They're not even understandable. But this is, I have an enemy, E. Jean Carroll. She's a rotten person. I didn't do it. Which is another. She's not my type. Yes, which is another thing that I actually think that in his mind, he believes he didn't do it. So it's, you know, it becomes a very powerful me against somebody else. And that's drama. That's a reality show. And E. Jean Carroll has doggedly armed herself with, you know, phenomenal lawyers, Roberta Kaplan, Robbie Kaplan, and just doggedly taken it one step after the next through the court system, which have all found in her favor. So does this just get tossed out? I mean, they're going after her, claiming that she perjured herself by saying that she didn't know there was any external funding for her case against Donald Trump. This was actually litigated in both her cases. I mean, Trump's legal team raised this. And each time the judge said, no, that's irrelevant. It's nothing to do with this. So they're going in the back door through a criminal charge. What happens? Does this just get tossed out? Yeah, no. And there's an interesting thing. So Trump expects his attorney, Trump's attorneys know that they have to bring offerings to him. That's what keeps him. That's what keeps him happy. So that's so interesting. They have to bring him offerings of what? Like legal strategies. Yeah, yeah. If you're feeding the beast, you know, Trump doesn't stay happy for very long. So it's like everybody's always rushing around. OK, he's unhappy again. What do we bring him? And so obviously to target one of his enemies, that's a great bone. But it is not even that. It's to bring him the headlines about the targeting of his enemies. So the reality of whether this is an investigation that proceeds, an indictment that is obtained, an indictment that holds, irrelevant. What is relevant is that the enemy has been identified, publicly identified, held out there, and the story, the narrative, the story is for all to see. So if you're writing this as a reality show or you're plotting it out, it's the C subplot. There's always an A, you know, there's the A plot, there's the B plot. And then there's a sort of subplot running along the bottom. And this is one of those. OK, we're going to go after E.G. And at some point it'll get thrown out. But it doesn't matter because I've had the headline. The dopamine boost of knowing that I'm going after E.G. Meanwhile, I don't know how E.G. Carroll keeps going with this sort of venom against her. But I guess she's determined to stick up for what she knows happened to her and what a jury agreed happened to her. And I just want to recommend once more the documentary about E.G. which comes out this, I think it comes out on June the 1st officially, or perhaps it was this week officially, but it's really an incredibly good watch. And it really explains the whole story in a very human and to your point, relatable way. I wonder if he's watched it. I wonder if Todd Blanche has watched it. What did you think of Todd Blanche when you saw him in court? I remember you saying that Trump would frequently, you know, hold up pictures of his lawyers and say they may not be the best lawyers, but I do have hot lawyers. Yeah, well, and he didn't mean Todd Blanche. Oh, he didn't. OK, that's really. He meant Alina. No, he meant Alina Harbaugh. And that the lawyer in Virginia who just got who they put in. Lindsay Halligan. Lindsay Halligan with all the hair who tried to bring who tried to bring a case against James Comey. And it was thrown out because she hadn't even read the full charges to the grand jury. Right. You know, Todd, Todd, I always felt a little sorry for Todd Blanche. I mean, he was I mean, he he seemed put upon in court. He still seems put upon now. He seems like the guy who, yeah, OK, I got to do I got to do this. I got to come up with some art argument here. And he was always kind of shuffling and I mean, and and never quite getting to the point and getting tangled up in his own arguments. I mean, this was in Trump's in the indictment and ultimately conviction in New York about about the Stormy Daniels case. And the prosecutors were fantastic. And Blanche was hesitant, could never get it out of his mouth. Trump would yell at them. Why can't you get it out of you out of your mouth? Was this when Trump yelled at them? Have you heard of Perry Mason? Yes, exactly. Can't you be like Perry Mason? Exactly, exactly. And they all were there, all long suffering, all having to sit around this table at the breaks while Trump would ream them out, including Todd Blanche. Most of all, Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche was the lead lawyer on this. Yes, I think in last Thursday's podcast, I mistakenly thought that Todd Blanche was actually defending Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case. And of course, it was the Stormy Daniels, E. Jean Carroll, Stormy Daniels, tomatoes. Yes. No, yeah. Alina Haba was in the E. Jean Carroll case. Great. Alina Haba. There was a memorable moment when he really reamed her out. Alina Haba. And I mean, it doesn't, it shouldn't be that memorable because every one of these lawyers gets it. So another question, why would they put up with this? These are adults. These are professionals. These are people who can easily find some other way to make a living. And yet they put up with this. Beyond, there's something on your screen. I was just going to say, I think people have been used to seeing my marmalade cat. I actually have a little white cat, too, who suddenly hops onto my knee. They like to come and torment me when I'm podcasting. But she has what's known as a- I can only see the tail. Yeah, I know. The tail is confusing. And she has what's known as a lion cut, which is where they leave this plume of fur at the end. But this is her. She's actually a very sweet little cat. I actually thought you were dusting in the middle of our- Oh, that I was multitasking on the podcast. Yes, for people who are listening to this, they're probably wondering what we're talking about. One of my cats jumped on my lap and you could just see on the video her tail. So it looked a bit strange. I do want to refer people to Ucha Vance's Mother's Day episode of her story time with the second lady. I think we might have a clip because she has her own mother on, Lakshmi Chulakuri, who is a science professor. Hello, I'm Ucha Vance and welcome back to Storytime with the Second Lady. I'm so glad you've joined me again to read together because when we read, we grow. Do you like reading with your parents at bedtime? In our family, we read together every night. My parents also used to read to me when I was a kid. So I'm excited to introduce today's extra special reader, my mom, Lakshmi Chulakuri. She's a wonderful mom and a great storyteller. She's also a scientist who teaches college students. She's also a science teacher who teaches college students. Why does Ucha sound like such a dope here? I mean, every word is a kind of strangled and obvious and nothing that you would say in the normal course of saying anything. It's a different kind of podcast format or art form than I've ever come across before. Her mother then reads from the Just So stories, Rudyard Kipling, about how the camel got his hump. It's illustrated with completely different illustrations than the actual book. I know because I had that version of the Just So stories. And also, this is a government who's done more to defund science and science research than any in living memory. And Ucha's mother must know that. And of course, she wants to support her daughter. But the cognitive dissonance of watching these two pretending they are doing this for a children's audience, no child is going to sit and watch it. I mean, who's come up with this? It's terrible. Well, somebody is writing this script, the most pedestrian, unthought out, let's remove all personality. Let's make this sound as phony as we can possibly make it. What is the point of this? You're absolutely right. It's impossible. And yet, it's impossible also not to think that Ucha's injecting her own subversive subtext into it by having her mom on who's a science professor. I don't know what to say. At one point, her mom talks about evolution and explains what evolution is. And you think, oh, good, because MAGA evangelical voters probably don't agree with this. A lot of them will be creationists. So, I mean, I can only think that it's her own little subversive way of staying true to her democratic parents. And the fact that she voted democratic in the 2016 election, according to her friends. Well, and this is curious, too, because we just had, I think there was a story that hit yesterday or early this morning, which is essentially about Trump's ambivalence about J.D. Vance as his successor. So this is now starting. This is a little bit of a, more than just a little bit of a drumbeat. This is now broken wide. And I assume that this is a leak from the Trump people. And it's a shot over J.D.'s bow. It's what we are going to start to see from here on in is Trump pulling the strings of these people, this warning thing. Your fate is in my hands. And Trump is going to tie this in his head to the Paxton victory in Texas. I can do it. I have control over the Republican Party. The party will do what I want the party to do. You, J.D., I am your audience of one. And also, he wants 100 percent loyalty. Yes, absolutely. A hundred percent loyalty. And what we know is how fast J.D. Vance, it might not have been him, but his crew leaked the fact that he was the so-called grown up in the room over the discussions about Iran, and he didn't want to go to war with Iran. He thought it was a bad idea. So Trump immediately sent him over to Pakistan to then head off peace negotiations or head start peace negotiations, which didn't go very well. And it's a horrifyingly long flight from D.C. or wherever J.D. Vance was. And now he's put him in charge of fraud. He's had to get up there and say he's going to get on top of fraud. Well, I think we're going to see the slow torturing of J.D. Vance. Now, that's at the benefit of Marco Rubio at this point. But we'll also see down the road the slow torturing of Marco Rubio because Vance will be brought back. So all of this is just going to be about Trump's torture and all to the point that one of these Republican potential successors will not be a successor because he doesn't want a successor. Right. He's going to leave scorched earth behind him. And he'll be like Joe Biden saying, I'm the only person that can beat Donald Trump. Wait a minute. Donald Trump. Well, do you remember that Joe Biden? Well, Joe Biden became convinced that he was the only person. His selling point was, I am the only person that can beat Donald Trump. And Donald Trump thinks he is the only person that can beat whoever the Democrats put out. No, no, no. That's a misunderstanding. What it means is that Donald Trump is the only person who can beat Donald Trump. So the idea that someone, one of these people would have the temerity to think that they can replace him is what he will make sure does not happen. Yeah. It's the thing that Bob Iger did when he was CEO of Disney. He didn't like the fact that someone came after him. He put Bob Chapek in the job and then lobbied to get rid of Bob Chapek. The board agreed with him. And he came back and he would have been better off staying away from Disney. He had a miserable second time around. Although this has not been true for Trump second time around, he's enjoying himself. And Trump will return to Mar-a-Lago as he returned to Mar-a-Lago once before as the once and future Republican president. I wonder if the reason that he's put on weight is because they paved over Jackie Kennedy's Rose Garden, put in a Mar-a-Lago style terrace with umbrellas, and he keeps hosting dinners there. And he's also been rushing back to Mar-a-Lago at the weekends for all sorts of fundraisers. So he's obviously doing a lot of eating. I did hear one thing, which I was curious to know if you'd heard about, which is that after his China trip, he was advised not to fly as much, which is one of the reasons he didn't go to the Bahamas and why he stayed in D.C. for the last couple of weekends. Do you think that's a possibility? No, that's what they're putting out for whatever to justify why he didn't go to the wedding. And that's a wedding cover. That's a wedding cover that Trump was told he shouldn't fly. But I would have thought it might trigger more anxiety about his health. You know, I mean, one thing does not. Two things can be true at the same time. Very true. And the Daily Mail has some photos today, I noticed, of Don Jr. and Bettina Anderson. And well, you know, it's fascinating. Anyway, anyway, a resounding thumbs up from our comments about doing a book club, Michael. So we have to think about how we actually do this so people have a chance to read the book. And perhaps we can talk to some of the authors of the books if they're still alive, because we can also do books from authors who've passed on. But our goal is to select books that really help people understand what's going on through the lens of similar characters. Or what is our goal? I don't know. I hate book clubs. I hate the whole idea of book clubs. Well, I've never even been in a book club. So I don't think we should have. But I like the idea of books. So however we're going to proceed, I think the books that are adjacent to this story, to the Trump story, are exceedingly important. I mean, obviously, I've written quite a number of them. So we're not going to start with your book. But in one of the things, a book I do, and I think I have recommended it before, but in terms of Iran, which we have not talked about, but which we, I mean, I'm grateful not to talk about it because there's actually nothing to say because everything goes on. It remains locked in place. He just cannot find a way out of this. The Iranians appear to be doing everything to keep him trapped in it. But a particular book, which is about the Iranian revolution in 1979, but sheds enormous light on how the Iranian regime thinks, how this came to happen, and how little understanding the U.S. has ever had of what is going on in Iran, is a book called King of Kings. One of my great reading experiences of the last year. And who's it by? You know, I was afraid you were going to ask that question. OK, we've got to get our acts together for this book group. Yeah, no, it's by Mr. Anderson. I just can't remember his first name. Scott Anderson. It's Scott Anderson. I can't remember any names anymore. God knows. Julianna Coles. Oh, that's not your name. Joanna Coles. What even is that? But we have to think through, and we can do this next week, not on our actual podcast, how we make this work. Because I do think it's incredibly helpful to have books that explain how we got here. First thing, you have to read the books. But we can count on me to do this. And then they should come up naturally in conversation. In my conversations, which are the only conversations I basically ever have about what is going on at this point in political time, I think I'm always coming back to what the books that you ought to know about that give some foundation to this craziness. Well, and you say we haven't discussed the war. But of course, it's the shadow that hangs over all of this. And he can't ignore it. He can't just pretend it's fixed. Because the energy shock is rippling out throughout the world. There are still 1,500 tankers, as we've said for the last three podcasts, sitting in the Gulf, just waiting to exit the Strait of Hormuz. And there doesn't seem to be any way for them to do that right now. It's a remarkable situation. No. The interesting thing that's going on now, and the basis of this, is that the Iranians are trolling Trump. There was a story yesterday or today about the hardliners resisting Trump and resisting a peace deal. And so this will just be one more thing. I'm sure the Iranians are putting this out there. I'm sure that's their story. And this is another thing, another way to troll Trump, another way to threaten Trump, another way that they will ultimately get an agreement that will be to their benefit. Right. But my point is, the real consequences for countries across the world that are living these real consequences now, in terms of not having as much access to fuel, all sorts of fuel, jet fuel, you know, gas. No, I mean, he's profoundly screwed on this issue. And he is now thinking, OK, how do we go to the Trump playbook to get out of this? What's the distraction here? What's the way to declare victory? The way to declare victory is going to give the Iranians what they want. So how do we spin that? I mean, he's not going to come out of this with a victory. So what does he do? And that's, I think, uppermost on his mind at this point. Well, someone pointed out, I use the analogy of David and Goliath, and I said David's catapult, and someone pointed out, actually, it wasn't a catapult, it was a shepherd's sling, which I think might be accurate, actually, that it was a shepherd's sling. So thank you for pointing that out. We will be back on Tuesday and we'll figure out how we should get the book club to work and interested in what would work for people watching and listening right now, too. Do you want a month to read the book? How should we do this? And it's the anti-book club of book clubs, because I'm not in a book club either. And I've always resisted invitations to it because I thought, actually, I would never end up reading the book. But I will commit to reading the book. And I, too, want to understand how on earth we got here and how America progresses from here. And the book was, just remind people? King of Kings. And it's really a history of the last 50 years of Iran. No, it's not. Oh, it's not? Straight from the last 50 years of Iran. Go on, what is it? How would you sum it up? It's about the revolution in 1979. It's how the Shah got thrown out, how the Ayatollah and the mullahs came in. We don't seem to have heard very much from the Shah's son recently. Do you remember how, at the beginning of all this, he was sort of out there hustling to get back? And he seems to have gone quiet. Hustling would be the word, yes. I said hustling, didn't I say hustling? Yes, and I'm accepting it as the accurate description of the Shah's son activity. He's a hustler. Well, look at that. We ended on an agreement, Michael. All right, I will look forward to seeing you on Tuesday. Skip out into the Hampton sun and have a good weekend. See you on Tuesday. Michael, do you want to thank our team? Ryan, Heather, Neil and Rachel. Thank you, as always. And John. John, our new addition to the team. John Romero, welcome. 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.