I Know Why Trump Keeps Getting It Wrong: Rothkopf | The Daily Beast Podcast

Says that he had a brain worm eat half his brain, but that's ideal for Trump. Trump has a bowl full of nuts in his cabinet. because then he's not threatened. He's got a bowl. full of brain walks in his house and is like, you want to be in my cabinet? Here, hold this up here. You know, you have a secretary of education. who thinks I, as a kind of steak sauce. Everywhere you look, they're idiots as far as the eye can see. He is the world's best funded graffiti artist. He is trying to tag everything with the name Trump before his cankles.

or his swollen hand, or whatever it is that ultimately gets and gets it. There is no graffiti artist in America who is doing more. to face this country than the president of the United States. I'm trying to close. This is the Daily Beast podcast. Welcome. And today's guest is every Monday, David Rothkopf, the ultimate Washington insider. who speaks to people at the State Department. He speaks to people in the intelligence services and has a bead.

of what's going on. Amid all the spin. But before we open. David's microphone, just a reminder to please subscribe to The Daily Beast. We are independent media. Not many of us left these days, so we appreciate your support. And also always feel free to to leave a comment about what you think. But no time to waste. Let's get into it. David Rothkopf, the author of American Resistance. I'm pretty sure you were out there for No Kings Day. Let's get into it.

David. David, or as I like to think of you are Eminem of the Swamp. I know you're wearing a hoodie. You could put the hood up. Yeah, I could. Put the hood. Here, though. There we go. That's a much better way to start. Starting Monday, I expect that you spent all day yesterday. recovering from protesting. No. Kings. Correct. Oh. Of course. Look, you know, I mean, we can we can make fun of it. Actually, one of the weird things about the protests this weekend is how,

frankly, I think kind of lukewarm the coverage was after the protest. This was the largest public demonstration. in the United States in our history. So that's 8 million people on the streets, right? 8 million. It could be, you know, there are some that. It was 8 million. And then there were a few more. So it could be approaching 9 million people. 2.5% of the population.

A number of which they pick kind of carefully because political scientists. say once you get about 2.5% of the population out into the streets, that's a tipping point. That's a sign that regimes like authoritarian regimes, can start to fail. And and that's where we were 3000. demonstrations, demonstrations on every continent. And, you know, they were wild, not just because you had, like, dancing brigades of.

pigs and lizards and inflatable costumes and all sorts of placards. But it's gotten to the point where there were the people there. to protest for democracy. There were the people there to protest against Ice. There were the people there to protest against the war. In other words, you know, it's kind of an agglomeration because there's so many things to protest. But, you know, the big point is people are getting up and getting out. And I, you know, I wrote a column for you yesterday in which I quoted.

Timothy Snyder, the professor who has said, democracy is not a noun. It's a verb. And the point is, you have to work at it. And we stopped working at it in this country. We got complacent, and it's brought us to the brink of or beyond the brink of authoritarianism. And now, at least there is this stirring where people are saying, no more. We have to work at it. We have to fight. They have to restore it. And that, you know, I mean, it's a good but it's Monday morning.

It's a good way to start us off with a little bit of hope. that there are enough people who care that they actually spend. their weekends doing that, where you were probably at a spa. Not just a spa. I was getting. A seaweed. Wrap. What's so outrageous? Outrageous, David Rothkopf and sexist, if I may make so bold. I hate sports because I hate the music. I can't bear that kind of music. I'm not sexist. I've been to a spa, I've never had a seaweed wrap, but I've been to a spa.

I can send you some seaweed wraps in the post. if you like, from our local sushi. You can wrap yourself and then you can eat yourself. End of it. But I loved I loved the big papier maché, effigies of Trump and his cabinet, which were going around in D.C.. I thought they were. They were fantastic. I suppose one of the issues is that if it's a little bit. like the entire country went to marriage counseling, isn't it? I mean, democracy's a little bit like marriage.

You take it for granted until you hit a rough spot. And I when you said that. Timothy Snyder said that democracy isn't a noun, it's a verb. I thought being married is a bit like that, too. That is exactly right. You know, I had a friend once, and she. When she did college, she went live with a couple in England, sort of lower middle class couple. Okay. This is this is not something super depressing. No, it's not that depressing.

Every morning. before he went off to work in the colliery or wherever he was working. He would be working class if he was working in a colliery. Unless it was running the colliery. Just pointing. Well, look, let's just go with the story, okay? You know. It's Monday morning. I'm feeling hope. David. 2.5% of people. Well, I'm going to give you a uplifting story. The guy every single morning of his marriage. went downstairs before his wife got up. And he set the table for breakfast. And when he set the table underneath her cup, which was turned over,

he left her a note every day of the marriage. Just a note to start her day. What kind of a note? Like, please pick up the dry cleaning. If you are a. very cynical person, I don't want to know how you were scarred this way. The point is, he was making he was making. an effort, you know, every single day, the marriage. And I thought it was a great, a great manifestation of what you were just saying. And you have to do the same thing in democracy.

You can't just sit there. You don't just have a democracy. You work at a democracy because there are all these forces, people accumulating power and wanting everything for themselves. That unless they are constrained, pushed back against laws are passed, the right people are put in office, they ultimately gain the upper hand. And in the past 40 or 50 years in the United States, you've seen, big companies, big, you know, groups of rich people, certain subgroups.

that have taken advantage of their support by those people, take control of this country in a way that was never intended. And so these people there turn it up on Saturday, they were turning up. They were saying, no, no seaweed wrapped for me today I'm going to the street. I'm going to make a paper maché, you know, effigy of. Trump or Hegseth or, you know, any of the other, you know, criminals who are running this administration.

And it's it's it's good. It's a big it's a big deal. And, and all you have to do to know. that it was the right thing to do is read the rest of the news. So the founding fathers I don't think anticipated it's fair to say truth social. You say that, you know, over the last 40 years big companies. have managed to elbow the rest of us out of the way so they get what they want. But arguably Donald Trump has elbowed the big companies. out of the way to get what he wants, which is inordinate amounts of attention.

And currently he's focused on is he or isn't he going to put. boots on the ground in Iran? We woke up this morning. to another Truth Social post, which of course. we know there's nobody on Truth Social. That's the other irony. His own social network. There's nobody on it. But of course we all have to pay attention to it and the media covers it. What is your prediction of what's going on here? Do you think he will take any notice whatsoever of no King's? Do you think he thinks no Kings is all about him?

So it's great because he just wants attention. And do you think he has any idea of what he's thinking of doing next with Iran? Well, let me break that statement a couple of parts. First of all, the Founding fathers may not have known about Truth Social, but they did know about the core idea under it. And you know that because Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, who hated each other, went into the first government. of the United States, and both of them took money and hired propaganda.

as Thomas Jefferson, as secretary of state, hired a guy, put him in the State Department to write anti Alexander Hamilton pamphlets, and Alexander Hamilton did the same with another pamphleteer of his own. So they were using the technology of the day. to fight the same kind of battles that Trump is fighting. And of course. You know, that's a great perspective, actually. I mean, the trouble is, they traveled the pamphlets, traveled more slowly, and there were fewer of them. But I guess what, it was a smaller population, too.

It was a much smaller population. You know, the majority the majority of people in the United. States saw one pamphlet, the big. bestseller of, the American Revolution. Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Which they would get in their house and they'd read it out loud. and it said, you know, that this is the case for Revolution. And this one pamphlet actually made made a difference. Truth social obviously is not risen to that level. And, and common sense.

has essentially nothing to do with true social. But because it is the rantings of a mad king, everybody in the country goes and they repost it. and people know what it is, and he is using it to pass laws. And now it's public policy. And you're right, you know, over the weekend he's using it, to, you know, say, this is what I'm going to do next in Iran. And, you know, that's from a from a operational security.

perspective, that's not great as they call it in Washington. OpSec. You know, OpSec is never been a strong suit. This administration, they, they were on social media chains talking about. battle plans in the middle of a battle, as we recall from signal gate. But in this particular case, they saying if you don't do what we want, we will attack your power plants. Other people are leaking that, you know, into the media. that we will go and we will send boots on the ground to grab,

their enriched uranium. This, by the way, is one of the most insane ideas. that has ever been floated, not just because it's being floated, which is bad enough because, you know, they the Iranians, they know they know about truth social. Right? They're watching Truth Social. They're making fun of Donald Trump in the you know, the public spokesperson. is making fun of, of of Trump's public persona on a daily basis.

But they're watching this and they know that most of this uranium, at least was in the middle of a city is fine. And it it's going to be very hard to get to it. It's buried underground. There are lots of people around it sending troops. And again, it will produce many, many deaths on our side. But these are canisters of. radioactive gas.

In some cases. It's not just, you know, like little hunks of uranium and, they're vulnerable and they could fall into the wrong hands easily. The Iranians have every reason now to disperse them across the country. Bad idea. That makes them all less secure. But, but but, David, David, let me just push back for a second. Surely they would know that the Americans would want the enriched uranium. So it's not as if that's a surprise to them. I mean, Trump, Trump putting out there on Truth Social.

that we're coming after they enriched uranium can't be a surprise. They know that that's what the Americans. They know they know it's an option. The question is, you know, to to many people it seemed like, an unreasonable option, such. an unreasonable option that it would be considered an unlikely option. But as we sink deeper into the quicksand of this incredibly stupid war,

this incredibly dumb decision to go in and launch a war against Iran, the options available to Trump become worse and worse. And they involve things like going after the uranium or going after Kharg. Island, or sending boots on the ground, or trying to take the point, at the Strait of Hormuz, where they have some control over what's going through. And Trump has thought throughout that the Iranians.

will collapse at these threats. And the message the Iranians are saying is, no, this is existential for us. We are willing to fight it out. We are willing to take the punishment. We know that we have time on our side, just like. the Afghans did in a 20 year war, just like ISIS and al-Qaida did in that 20 year war. Well, and just like they did over eight years with the Iraq war. Well, yes, except you know that. Right.

And and some of the division that was dealt with. in that war continues to foster and to to fester. So the the point is, Trump is. using a weapon, a cudgel, a threat. that has historically proven, to be ineffective in these kinds of conflicts. And he doesn't know it because he doesn't have advisors, because he doesn't. listen to anybody, because he doesn't know anything about history,

because it's all about him and how he's perceived and whether he is, in his own mind, perceived as somebody. who's being, powerful, not even effective, but powerful, and it's leading to one bad decision after another. And I have to say, the people I talked to in Washington, that the people who cover the Department of Defense, people who are senior. military people, people in the defense and and in the diplomatic communities, they're sort of hunkering down, expecting that there is another shoe to drop here,

that the Iranians will not give in to Trump's demands and that at. some point in the not too distant future, there will be American troops. on the ground getting shot at in Iran, and that none of the UN. boots on the ground scenarios turn out very well for the United States. And, you know, just to go back to a point we made, I think it was a week ago. You know, Iran is 92 million people.

It's 3 or 4 times the size of Vietnam. When we went into Vietnam to fight a long war. there, we had 500,000 troops and we lost. We had hundreds of thousands of troops in the Middle East for the. the wars of the prior part of this century. And we lost having military strength, that running successful. military operations does not ensure a successful outcome.

And when somebody says, well, look, you know, our fighters are doing. these amazing things and our bombers are doing these amazing things. And, you know, our Navy is doing these amazing things. Yes, maybe we've done this before. We've run good operations before. It doesn't change the political situation on the ground. It doesn't change what people believe. It doesn't change. The, the, the motivations of the people.

that we are fighting in these cases and that's why we keep losing that. We've been losing wars of this kind. since the 1960s. David, aren't you underestimating our not so secret weapon. that we didn't have in Vietnam or, in the Iraq war? And that is the dealmaking team of Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner. Yeah. No, you're you're so right. These are our two great geniuses.

They are a little distracted. Come on. The deal guys. Or deal guys. And and I think that when the history of this period is written, they will have gotten a lot of good deals out of it. as it happens, none of them will be good for the US. But what cuffs kid Kushners fund, Latinx kids. They're all right. Deals. All the time while they're going in negotiating these things that Lord knows. what crypto flows are coming from,

what oligarch in the Russian government into the bank accounts of our leaders. And, you know, there's a time when saying something like that would be considered wild calumny. And how could you say that every single listener on this podcast. believes Trump is getting crypto flows. Trump is getting. flows of illicit dark money with Cortez Kushner. It's this, they believe to the the marrow of their bone.

that our president is completely corrupt. But it's not just that Metcalf and Jared are doing good deals. while they do bad deals for the US because they have no experience, right? They don't they don't know what the fuck they're doing. We have another secret weapon and I'm surprised. they haven't brought them up yet. No, I would just say, why haven't we done? And I think there's. a lack of imagination here, but possibly I would suggest for the negotiations. They think the supreme leader coin.

I mean, that would be useful for the Iranians. You mean like a like a meme coin for the Iranians? Yeah. Of course, for for Khomeini. That we haven't seen yet. Son of the Ayatollah, who was. I mean, you could have an iota ayatollah coin. I mean, this could be a way of them coming out of the darkness, the sanctions darkness and trading over bound over borders and. Wait, wait, how do you do the Ayatollah biopic with with, Amazon.

Yeah, that's a great idea. We could. Yeah. Jeff Bezos could give them a good $40 million deal. I mean, then they're suddenly coming out of the sanctions darkness and competing. That's true. And Melania can do the opening. Hello. My hello. My friend, the Ayatollah. Yeah. Even though we haven't. seen him, I, I'm very curious to know who we're supposed to be negotiating with. But you said I'd overlooked another secret weapon. Who is. It? Well, first. First of all, Trump. It is true. Social. This morning, said that we are negotiating with a new group.

of reasonable Iranians, which obviously means we're not. Right. I mean, we read this. It's a complete lie. And the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard, believes that, you know, it is constantly refuting Trump's assertions in this regard. And I think getting some pleasure out of refuting it. Now, the person I was referring to is your favorite in the administration, which is, you know, our, frat boy in the Pentagon.

Oh, yeah. Skaggs textbook or keg. System, which is the best nickname for any of them. Donald Trump. is so good at nicknames for people, but kegs breath is very good for me. Yes. But, you know, as as laughable. as this, this hair gelled. American doll. He's an American girl doll. An American boy doll. Right? He is. Lethality. Can't write.

He, you know, he's a Ken doll, but he's with tattoos. But as as as laughable. as he is because he's so incompetent, and he gets on the. I mean, the SNL, you know, poor performance of him by by. Colin Jost. Is is pretty funny because it's so true. Because it's just angry. You know, you're kidding this story, right? He did this again over the weekend. You know, the press is getting this story wrong. But remember, every time you get the story wrong, there's a warfighter out there who's going to pay the price, you know.

And but all he has is, is, is anger and. and. Prayer. David. He has prayer. Wow. That's what I was getting at because this guy is. the white. Christian nationalist and all white Christian nationalists. And in the past week, what have we seen? He's bumping, from promotion lists, black men and women, because a white supremacist, he is holding a prayer breakfast.

He just held a prayer breakfast where he asked God to give us the ability. to be as lethal as possible, to kill as many Iranians as possible. And no, you know, you we might shrug that off, but, you know, didn't shrug it off in his Palm Sunday remarks. The Pope? Yep. The Pope said, praying for the deaths of people. Your prayers will not be answered.

You have blood on your hands. You know, Pete Hegseth is being slammed down by a pope. from Chicago because what he is calling for is so repugnant. He's eliminating different types of religions. from having the ability to worship within the military. Well, of the. Whole, you know, the whole First Amendment is the separation of church and state. And Pete Hegseth is dragging the church back into this. But, you know. He's got these big tattoos of Crusader crosses.

on his super manly chest, hairless family chest, and, and and, you know, he is trying to turn this war into a crusade. He is describing our enemies as being enemies of God. He is describing our strength. as being doing the work of God, which permits us to do anything. And one of the weird perversions of his fucked up tiny mind.

One of the things that Pete Hegseth, is constantly getting at is the idea that. because God's on our side, we can commit war crimes. Yeah, right. Because God is on our side, we can do whatever it takes to kill people. And that's why it's okay to blow up speedboats in the Caribbean. And that's why it's okay to kill a thousands of innocent. Iranians, which, you know, this is an illegal war, and we have already killed thousands.

of innocent Iranians that murder. And Pete Hegseth is saying, yeah, but it's the will of God. But we've never seen anything like it. in any other administration in American history. If somebody rolled out this white supremacist, Christian nationalist stuff, they would be out the door in seconds. Well, and without Congress signing off. on this extraordinary use of money,

to fund this war to which we know is the complete opposite. of what Donald Trump actually campaigned on, although, you know, to expect logic from Donald Trump is is perhaps too high a bar. But but one thing I'm reading Jeffrey Solon. Burke's book at the moment, or is it Jeffrey Sonnenfeld book. Started well. Yeah. I'm reading Jeffrey. Sonnenfeld book about Trump at the moment called The Trump Ten Commandments. And one of the commandments that these are sort of he's being ironic, but sort of leadership rules that Trump has is to constantly promote.

very underqualified people into jobs so that he doesn't. have to deal with a threatening power base from from someone else. And, Sonnenfeld uses hex as the ultimate example because he, he was a major, you know, promoted to run the Department of Defense. And I wonder what it's like for damn Cain, who himself was promoted, who is a third star general now in charge of some four star generals.

So that that's also an interesting sort of, over promotion. But I wonder what it's like for Raisin Cain, as he's known. to take orders from Pete Hegseth. I mean, it's such a peculiar, it's such a peculiar inversion of military power. And the point of the military is it's hierarchical. And there are layers, and you and it's experience led. Well, first of all, it's civilian life, typically. And so the person is ultimately taking,

directions from is. a five time draft dodger, Donald Trump. Right. Okay. Fair, fair. It's even more grotesque than you describe. But before we get into Jeff's on it found, book. And I would like to I sort of. stuck on your Jeff Sonnenburg and I and I have to tell you, an old Jewish joke. Oh, God. I was going to cut that out. I was thinking that I did it. No, no, no, you're going to you're going to want to have the Easter, and the old Jewish joke is that Jewish guy and a Chinese guy.

getting along really well, and the the Jewish guy. goes, I'm really pleased that we're getting along so well. And the Chinese and I'm surprised. And the Chinese goes, why are you surprised? I think I was well, you know, Pearl Harbor and the Chinese guy goes, Pearl Harbor, you know, you know, I'm Chinese, I'm not Japanese. I didn't do Pearl Harbor. It's, you know, the Jewish guys. Well, you know, it's all the same. And and the Chinese guy goes, well,

you know, I'm I'm really surprised we're getting along so well, too. And the Jewish guy goes, oh, yeah? Why? And it goes, well, the Titanic and and. and the and and the the Jewish guy goes the Titanic. What are you talking about? And he says, well, Goldberg. Greenberg. Iceberg. It's all the same. Okay. So all right, I'm going to leave that in. I was going to cut it out because it was a genuine mistake.

But it's a that's worth having in there on a on a Monday. We all need jokes, Jeff. The NFL is a friend of mine is a good guy. He's written a book, which I think I have some real problems with. because although he likes to think it's. kind of this balanced assessment of, you know, how Trump has gotten ahead, you know, it's gotten, you know, some people, you know, he has the endorsement, for example, of the the head partner at, or former cop.

Yeah. Paul. What? Paul Weiss on the outside of it, there are a bunch of sort of Trump boot lickers who are saying this is okay. And what I find is that in doing a management analysis. of a guy like Trump, you attribute to Trump. strategic power is capabilities, thoughts, skills that he doesn't have. And the reality is Donald Trump. The thing that distinguishes Donald Trump.

is that he. he is actually an irrational actor, that he is actually nuts, that he is actually dangerous, that he is fundamentally evil, and that even if he is picked up in his brief time at at the Wharton School. and over the course of a career in business, a few little business activities, and because he was in business, we tend to excuse him and say, well, this is how business people operate. It's not true. This is a malevolent force in our lives.

And suggesting that somehow, you know, there's something to learn from how Trump behaves. It's like suggesting that we ought to, you know, take a study for our next management. Course. Caligula, you know. Well, also, I mean, six of his companies have gone bankrupt. So would you invest in this person? No, of course not. And look what JP Morgan did. They debunked him after January the 6th, which,

of course, Trump is fighting and we'll probably lose. But, to hold him up as any kind of. leadership, example is, is, is I think really bizarre. Plus the fact that he was floated by his father so started. with an enormous advantage which he managed to fritter away. So not only he was floated and then he is, you know, one of my favorite scenes in the Trump story. is he is literally losing money in the casino business, which nobody does.

Right? You can't lose money. The house always win. Right. And a rigged business to the point. that his dad had to go to Atlantic City and buy. $3.5 million worth of chips. as his way of pumping cash. into his son's failing casino. Where he was hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein. Well, exactly. But this guy, I mean, to to suggest that there is anything businesslike.

about Donald Trump other than his rapacious ness. or his corruption is to misunderstand Donald Trump. Every business he has had has been a con, and it's been a con. that is wrapped in bad business practices and alienated partners. Inside, you know, a. kind of twisted view of the entire world. Okay. So let let's just go back on track for a second.

Because I just. Want this this off track. I had no idea that we were off track when I started talking about the Titanic. Back. Yeah. Well. Well, I wanted to. I wanted to pull you back because another of the incompetence. that's in a job of enormous importance and should have someone of competence. running it is, of course, the FBI and Kash Patel. Kash Patel got his own private Gmail, emails hacked by the Iranians. Again, another humiliation.

And strangely, the ones, at least I read, were all kind of dull. I was hoping for something a bit more interesting, but. But why would I expect that? He's such an idiot. I mean, he's such an idiot, you know? I mean, and so is access, you know, these are guys. Or you could be in a room with a thousand people. and you could say, let's pick somebody for the US government, and they would be number 998 nine and number one,

and I don't care who the other thousand people are, you know, they're kind of drunk party boys who literally do not understand. what they're doing or where, you know, we have the image of Cash Patel. on his plane flying around his fake country and western. star girlfriend, giving her FBI protection going off to the Olympics. He has done so many things that would get anybody else fired. It's ridiculous. But he has looked like an imbecile doing it. And now the Iranians, who presumably did this hack,

you know, have come up with, you know, his secret files. You know, that, which again, you know, Hegseth was the one who is out there. on social media and signal gates sending secrets to the world. And here you have Kash Patel vulnerable because of the way he uses, his various, you know, computers and devices and so forth. And what do we learn? We learned that Kash Patel's it it it interestingly did with the way.

this administration is set up when you began and said, well, there's one area we haven't talked about here, I immediately thought, oh, well, she's about to go to Michael Wolff's comments about RFK. Choo choo. Who? You know, who even Trump is now apparently calling, according to Michael Wolff, calling around and saying, do you think this guy's nuts. because he's nuts, you know, but who would have known he was nuts?

He fucking eats roadkill off of the street. And, you know, take saunas with his jeans on. And is says that he had a brain worm eat half his brain. But that's ideal for Trump. Trump has a bowl. full of nuts in his cabinet because then he's not threatened, right? He makes the decisions there. He's got a bowl full of brain worms and is out. and is like, you want to be in my cabinet here, hold this up here. You're, Because otherwise, how do you do?

You know you have a secretary of education who thinks I as. a kind of steak sauce, who is trying to destroy this. Are you referring to Linda McMahon? Referring to I as a one? Yes. That is exactly right. Of course we have the late lamented Kristi Noem, who's like, flying around. in a waterbed on her plane with Corey Lewandowski is like cutting deals for her. While she is producing $100 million videos of her doing cosplay. 200 200 David.

It was quarter of $1 billion, an ad campaign, and who knows where the commission went, right? And meanwhile, you know JD Vance. Ridiculous. You know, Marco Rubio, the sane one is giant clown shoes is going around. saying to our allies over the weekend, well, you know, we may not get control of the stretch for moves, but I mean, he went to Europe. and he said we may have to be. used to the idea that we don't control the Strait of Hormuz. Think about what it every day, 120 ships would go through the Strait of Hormuz.

It was. a vital waterway, 20% of the world's oil supply. And we are now saying, well, sorry, guys, but we may fuck this up so bad. that the Iranians henceforth run it like a tollbooth. And Trump, meanwhile, is celebrating. Well, you know, the Iranians gave me a gift. Oh, what was the gift on? Well, and he asked Metcalf, can I tell him? Metcalf says, you can do anything you want, Mr. President, during his last cabinet meeting. And then Trump says, well, they've let us let eight ships through.

and you're like, wait, that's the benefit. That's the big the case that we had 120 ships going through, and now we have 9% of that going through. And you're considering that a big win. I mean, literally there are idiots everywhere you look. And and we're not even talking to the secretary of transportation, the secretary of Energy, that, you know, the idiots over at EPA who are literally attacking the envi,

they think their job, Lee Zeldin at the Environmental Protection. Agency thinks that he works for the Environmental Destruction Agency. And everywhere you look, they're, they're idiots as far as the eye can see. But you know, you know who, who aren't idiots and who I was very moved by last week. I was traveling and I had to go through Newark Airport, and then I had to come back via Bozeman Airport and the TSA staff working. without pay, who've been working for months.

without pay, could not have been more polite. And I said to all of them, thank you so much for working. I know you're not getting paid. I'm sorry. The government's so dysfunctional by a man and by a woman. They were all like, thank you so much. Please don't worry. We will eventually get paid. It's it's not your fault. They were unfailingly polite. I had a ten minute wait. Knew it not, thank God, the sort of scenes that you see, Atlanta. or Houston, and I have no way to tool it. Bozeman. There's no snow in Bozeman.

So I think it's been a it's been a slow season for them. But you know, in out there in the country, there are people dealing. with the real consequences of this extraordinarily incompetent government. Is my first of all. I mean, you're absolutely right. And that's a nice point to make. But yet, the way you did that inside this, I am an oligarch. flex of saying you were in Bozeman because who goes to Bozeman, Montana, except people who are out there in that part of the world. hanging out with oligarchs, doing skiing, leading a Joanna calls kind of like.

and the fact that you sort of wove that in there. while the rest of us are like in shithole airports across America. David Rothkopf, can I tell people what car you drive? Can I tell people what you once did a podcast? I was like, where are you, David? You're like, I'm at my auto dealers. And I'm like, you're at your auto dealers. You weren't a Porsche dealer. Enough with the Joanna Coles lifestyle. I can hear people switching off. We sound horrifying, but only point was there are really good people out there.

working hard and not being paid for it because of the dysfunction. of this government. Well, that's right, but you know, the dysfunction of this government. was revealed when last week when the Congress couldn't come to a deal, even though all the Republicans in the Senate. had signed on to this deal, which would have essentially said, let's fund the department, let's fund TSA, we'll deal with Ice later, Trump. calls up his little elf in the house, Mike Johnson, and says, no, kill the deal.

And so they kill the deal. Then they leave town for Easter, Passover break, or whatever they're on. And the country is dealing with these hours long lines. and many of these airports. I'm sure the line in Bozeman Airport was out right out to all the Rolls Royce. Are you know that. I don't have an oligarch lifestyle, David, because I was flying commercial. I was flying commercial. My friend the crocodile tears that will show up in. the comments do this because you have to fly commercial anyway.

The the the. point is that then when it was all going awry, what did Trump do? Trump said, I'm going to sign, an executive order ordering them to be paid, Because he knows it's bad. But why didn't you do it six weeks ago? Don, if you could do that now, he he probably can't do it right. It's probably as illegal as many of his other executive orders. But if he thought he could do it, if he cared about the travelers,

if he cared about the TSA workers, he could have at least tried to do it. when this thing started. But he didn't. He realizes right now it's a political liability. Because look at the country, look at look around. us, said, you know, Oliver, all joking aside and everybody's life, whatever kind of car you have, you're pulling the gas station down the street. from me, and it's $5 and something a gallon. The price of everything is going up. If you are a farmer out there in Bozeman, Montana,

the price of fertilizer has doubled, which means the price of food is going up. The Congress can't pass anything. The, a budget deficit is exploding. There's a story today about how, governments. around the world have stopped buying U.S. treasuries, and it looks like they may start selling U.S. treasuries, which will hammer the dollar. But it also hammers one of the main levers of American power in the world.

Our allies are out there warning. right now that, you know, the United States, if we don't get the weapons to Ukraine, is going to lose the war in Ukraine, that the war in the Middle East. could go on for months or years or more. And the countries that are closest. to us are saying, please get a diplomatic solution. Let's stop this thing. Wherever you look. And this is an extension of their idiots as far as the eye can see,

wherever you look, economics, politics, national security, health services, environmental services, the functioning of the government, there's a story, the tens of thousands of scientists and the US government have quit. because this is an anti-science government. We don't do research and development. I heard a I heard a Jensen Wang interview over the weekend. The head of Nvidia saying.

nine of the ten best AI schools in the world are in China. The majority of the best AI scientists in the world now are in China, where the cutting edge of the next state of development. of the United States of the world economy is coming, is coming out of China. And so, you know, you know, I we joke and and so forth. But we're in a moment of real dire straits for the United States. because Trump is seriously.

destroying the sources of our strength in ways. that help our adversaries and hurt average American people. And he's doing it because he still has the approval of a bunch of billionaires. around him who are saying, well, you give me my tax cut, you take away the regulations, I'm going to make more money. And because I'm a billionaire and I live in a billionaire bubble, and I don't even know what you mean. by flying commercial, I will never be touched by this stuff.

They live on another planet. Trump's base, his core audience, does not live on the planet Earth. And that is a huge calamity for all the rest of us who are forced to. Well, his his own MAGA base may now have the opportunity to reassess. that he's gone against one of the most important parts of MAGA. American, first by starting a war. But but let me just take you to to, I think.

perhaps a final point for the day, which is the metaphor. It's both a metaphor and obviously a real thing. The East wing, the east wing, which he's planning to. it will be three times the size of the existing white House. Donald Trump's. obsession with size, with having his name on things, with gold, with this colonnaded ballroom. And the New York Times yesterday did a piece which triggered.

the white House in the beast. We had a very good, report that Carolyn leave it had sort of lost. her mind over this and was just exploding. What are your thoughts on this? And also the fact that. Trump then said what had been exposed was something they've been trying to hide, which was a sort of military bunker underneath the new East Wing, which, of course, you know, Melania has been pushed out.

We know Melania wasn't there anyway, but there's no bigger signal. She's really been pushed out. than they literally demolished the space she was supposed to sit in. I had no place for me now. I moved back to New York. I moved to New York, back to Trump Tower for no place me West. East wing. What wing? I'm not that. That's just how she was processing it. Look. But let's, you know, again, break this down. First of all, as you're describing all this, I think. how much nicer did his mother and father have to be with him, that we wouldn't.

have to deal with him compensating for it for the rest of his life? Or I thought, how much bigger should certain of his body parts. have been that we didn't have to deal with it, compensating for it? Like, I mean, what is it, an inch or two inches? We wouldn't have had to deal with this crap. It's 90,000ft. The new ballroom, 90,000. That's the perfect size does matter to this guy. But no matter what the size of it, you know, you read the New York Times article about this, and it it's clear. that the East Wing is in many respects the least wig.

because the architectural design behind this, which reveals, according to Trump and Caroline Leavitt, his genius. Is it it's it's it is a metaphor for Trump. Right. There are a there's a grand stairway at the front of it. that leads to nothing. No, because the entrance is on the side of the building. You know, there are multiple stairways.

that the nowhere there's, you know, all sorts of design flaws in this entire thing. because it hasn't been reviewed by anybody with any sense of judgment. I mean, Trump is famously a guy with the worst taste in America. He doesn't know it, but it is being manifest. And this is becoming a monument to bad taste, excessive spending. And they think they're off the hook when they say it didn't cost the tax.

It's been privately funded. by all these companies that you talk about that are headed by billionaires, right. Which you know it. That's a double edged sword. That doesn't help us. Either way. It cuts because on the one hand, what are the billionaires. who are funding this thing, doing that for patriotism? Or are they doing it to get regulatory outcomes that they want? Sweetheart deals with the US government. So David, out of interest, do you think if there is a new,

president in 2028 and it's a Democrat, that they will demolish it, would you do. That? I no, I personally if it's built, if it is up, I, I think that the cost of. demolishing it would be, an obstacle to doing that. Will they repurpose it? Will they make it? Not a big gilded ballroom for billionaires? Will they try to make it a place where actual work can get done. that supports the white House, supports the government, supports the people,

maybe from which, vital social services functions are performed? I would think so. Certainly a Democrat in office would, would do that. Will there be a big, huge party in Washington come on down. The day that Trump ceases to be president of the United States, where the building is torn out of the Oval Office, the word Trump is torn. off of the Kennedy Center. The word Trump is torn up for the US instead of peace.

The words Trump and the the the defacing that's gone on in the white House and the, you know, the the the colonnade along the side of the white House. where all that stuff is torn down and thrown into a nice big bonfire. of Trump garbage to a racist name every place he's put it. Yeah, it's going to be a fantastic party. And one of the weirdest things. about living in the moment that we live in right now is if you talk to anybody. and I, every listener, go out and talk to your friends,

every single one of them has fantasized about what they will do the day. Trump goes, whether it's a party, they go to Washington, whether they're in the street, whether they're sending off fireworks. This I mean, America is waiting for this event, and in Washington, it's going to involve a lot of revision because he is like, he is the world's best funded graffiti artist, where he is trying to tag everything with the name Trump before,

you know, his cankles or his swollen hand. or whatever it is that ultimately gets him, gets it. But but but he is. there is no graffiti artist in America. who is doing more to face this country than the president of the United States. Okay. Well, I think we should invite listeners and viewers to go on, comments. and tell us what they're going to do when that day comes. What how will you celebrate the moving.

of Donald Trump, either, legitimately or. Well, well, who knows when he or how he leaves the white House. But but this is a good moment for people to tell us how they plan. to how they plan to note that moment. David, as always, extremely provocative talking to you. And I wanted to give a shout out to actually, we have someone called Beth. We know she's a viewer and, a listener from Australia. Her husband reworded a famous Bob Dylan song.

Hey, mister Tangerine man, don't play your games for me. I'm not sleepy. And to your places, I'm not going to. Hey, mister Tangerine man, don't play your games for me. In the mumble jumble of your mind. I'm not following you I thought that was actually a pretty good. attempt at harnessing an old favorite, Bob Dylan, and attaching it to the crazy orange man in the white House. I think it's good.

And the other thing that I would add, when people write in the comments, we read them real closely. We we we yeah, we do. And I will tell people, I called David the first time we did this together. I called David and I said, you need to read the comments. And he was like, I'm never going to read the comments. Why would I do that? I'm not subjecting myself to such hatred. But in fact, we love the comments that they're not hatred at all. And we we swap them back and forth and they're highly intelligent. I mentioned the guy at YouTube told us they were among the most intelligent,

articulate, engaged comments that anybody has. Because, you know, we all care about this stuff. It's important. And as you say, quoting Timothy Snyder, the historian, democracy is and. it's not a noun, it's a verb. And everybody is beginning to practice it. Honestly, if I can compliment you here, one of the great things you're doing. Stop, stop. You can't compliment me. You've already insulted me. This this book. Well, I. Okay, well, it'll balance out. But one of the great things that you're doing here is you're building.

not just, you know, a good platform or good content. You're building a community. And I get the vibe when I do this podcast and I hear from people and stuff, this is a community and it's really engaged, and all these issues really matter to them. And fortunately. and weirdly and and wonderfully, they haven't lost their sense of humor about it all yet. So I and I'm definitely here for that, you know, this, this big growing daily based community built.

Well, I should say that we've decided to do this. regularly on a Monday now, because your conversations are so popular, you bring such energy and anger, I think, to what's going on, but through. a filter of humor, because otherwise, what else is there? And, and for regular listeners, they should know that David. Rothkopf is, well, for new listeners, I should say, people should know that David Rothkopf is our global affairs columnist. He writes biting. analysis of what's going on right now from a place of great experience.

So, David, thank you. I will see you back here, God willing, next Monday. and onwards to who knows what what holds. The war could have accelerated by next week, or it could be over and they've the Iranians have admitted. unconditional surrender, which is what Donald Trump told us. they would do before they started bombing their other neighbors. Don't hold your breath, but I'll be here. I'll be good. All right, David, I will see you next Monday.

People, don't forget to leave us a comment if you have been. Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast. Also, we're independent media, so we appreciate your support. So the good news is we have so many beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support. Thanks to our production team Devin, Roger Reno, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passa, Heather Pizarro, Neil Rosen.

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