Why the White House Is Spiraling Over Trump’s War | Inside Trump's Head

One of the things that's now happening in the white House. is that on almost on a moment by moment basis, people are calling out the price of oil because that has become. one of the significant political measures of the moment. Again, it is just caught in this vice. of not looking forward, of not seeing what might happen. They don't know what to do about this. They literally do not know what to do. They don't know how to. They don't know how to get us out of the war.

And they don't know how to manage this on a political. basis. Hi, I'm. Michael Wolff and I am not here with Joanna Coles, who is in Yorkshire in England, tending to her mother who is ill. And, and we had some technical difficulties today. So we have drafted Nico Hynes, who has a title at the Daily Beast,

a very high title, a very complicated title. But but Nico coordinates most of the international news at the. at the beast, so he has been drafted to sit in for Joanna. So we're going to. add lib much of this this show. But actually we're always at libbing much of the show. But Nico, thank you for doing this. Absolute pleasure. We are all rallying around to help Joanna best we can,

so we welcome your patience for doing the same. Let's. let's actually begin with. Rudy Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani is apparently at death's door. And let me say the obligatory. We hope. We hope he will recover. We hope he will be back in. Except we don't really know where Rudy has been recently, because he's been run out of New York and run out of almost.

every other venue that he's recently been in. But I think it's interesting to start there, because Rudy is really. one of the cautionary tales of the, of the, of the, of the Trump administration of, of two Trump's administration, the cautionary tales of becoming associated with Donald Trump. There is nobody who has been more loyal. or tried to be more loyal than Rudy Giuliani.

That has resulted in his bankruptcy, his his the the ruining of his reputation. America's mayor and and also. a complete betrayal by Donald Trump, who refused to support. him, refused to support him in his in his legal terrible legal. situation, refused to pay his bills, leaving Rudy out there alone.

Now, I don't want you to think that. I don't think Rudy should have been left out there alone, because what Rudy did, and this is really what Donald Trump. requires of everyone, was disgraceful. I mean, he he abandoned any, any pretense of. being the Rudy Giuliani that we once knew in New York. And he was a total figure in this city. Right. And in some ways, that's a similarity with Trump.

He's he's been a kind of figure in the life of New York for decades. Well, yeah. No. And actually, it's interesting and. and because I've been a reporter in New York for a very long time now, I mean, I have seen the entirety of the Rudy story, which was. which was a great story, a very, a very New York kind of kind of story. And then, of course, with 911 a, a in international story. and a story that that Rudy thought would in fact make him the president.

of the United States when it did not, in a kind of desperation, moved. He signed on with Donald Trump. But I remember in the in the old days, Rudy was one of those people, one of those people in New York who looked down on Donald Trump. Donald Trump was a joke. And. and Rudy saw that, saw that joke. I mean, he took he took tickets to sporting events.

from Donald Trump in, in Atlantic City. But beyond that, Donald Trump had little use for Rudy. And only when Rudy got to that point in his life he was an elected. president in. I mean, he ran for president in 2008. That was that came a cropper, to say the least. He got in, got himself into a horrible marriage. And then in 2016 saw the possibility.

of of latching onto to Donald Trump. And I must say he was in seeing this. And, you know, and I remember there's a there was a kind of kind of great scene. which Steve Bannon described to me of, of Rudy Giuliani and Roger Ailes. going out to the Trump's Bedminster. golf course to, to talk.

campaign strategy in 2016. And as Bannon Bannon described it, all they did was sit around. these three guys, quaff hot dogs and talk about war stories. from, from past campaigns in and but there were a few people. who've got a worse track record in presidential campaigns than Rudy Giuliani. Yeah. No, no. Well, then, I mean, in obviously in 2016, Donald Trump got elected.

and then Rudy and then actually even because everybody within the Trump, the Trump campaign, it was always trying to push Rudy out. And but Rudy was always coming back in. And then Rudy took over the defense. a Trump's defense during during during one of the impeachments, the first impeachment and which was a clear sign if ever there. was one, that this had become a kind of joke legal defense, right.

When you were relying on Rudy rather than a proper professional lawyer? Absolutely. But just to say that didn't really matter. I mean, I mean, Rudy so the Rudy's virtue and that is the virtue. that Trump always seeks was absolute loyalty. Rudy was willing to say the most ridiculous things. And then, of course, in. in 2020, after the election. and the steel, Rudy stepped in and took everything over.

It became it became the Rudy show, the Rudy show in defense of Donald Trump. And this is the moment which basically bankrupted Rudy, disgraced Rudy and put Rudy out to. hardly even out to pasture, just out. at the curb. And we can't forget Four Seasons Total Landscaping, right? We we cannot know. I mean, that was that became this.

I mean, this is one of the interesting things that became this incredible joke. I mean, everything about that was a joke. And yet somehow remember Rudy. with the with the hair die. So at every, every moment a joke. And yet somehow Donald Trump, not Rudy Giuliani, but Donald Trump. rose like the Phoenix out of that, which Rudy again kicked to the curb. And they got rid of Rudy almost immediately.

It was they when when Trump returned to Mar-A-Lago. and he got a new cell phone number, one of the rules was don't give it to Rudy. So at any rate, Rudy. also just a crucial thing, just to remind ourselves. that when he was America's mayor, he was genuinely impressive. He genuinely did become this kind of unifying figure that. certainly in New York was very popular, was was popular across the United States.

He did seem like a very smart, very well together, put together guy. And I think it's just it's also a telltale sign of. how your brain can go as you move through the decades. Right? Which potentially is something else we're seeing with Trump. Well, I don't want to go too far in in in praising Rudy. I mean, Rudy was always Rudy. Remember the marriages. Remember? Remember calling a news conference to say. he was divorcing his wife before he told her.

Rudy was Rudy? But nevertheless, yes, he managed to do these two things to somehow be Rudy and somehow. be a mayor of New York who engendered, you know, relatively good feelings. I mean, certainly, certainly in hindsight, there are many people who continue to think that that Rudy was a good mayor. He was the person who pulled the city back from,

from, from it's it's. for those terrible crime decades. and set the city on some kind of financial. relative financial equilibrium. Again, let's not get carried away here but. and then and then this this yes. Things. His life, his career happened, his career went on. He did get older. He did start to drink more and more and more bad marriages and then Donald Trump.

But I think the, the, the thing to remember and the thing to. really always keep in mind is that he is a historical, significant. example of what happens. when you get too close to Donald Trump. There was also. the Sacha Baron Cohen hotel room incident. I mean, it has been.

I mean, Rudy, is it I mean, it's a kind of a tragic story, tragic comic. But yes. And and in the end, you know, Trump had no use for him. So always all of these people. And again, it's one of those things I can't, can't quite. fathom is the people who continue to go to work for Donald Trump, who do not see. Rudy Giuliani as as the cautionary model for a Trump career.

And we've got a whole cabinet full of them right now. A few of them have already been thrown overboard, but the others must be starting to look over their shoulders. Right? Yeah. No, no, each of them, and I wonder if they do think I could end up like Rudy Giuliani, but any anyway. Anyway, Rudy Giuliani may is. is appears to be on death's door. He is he is in critical condition. He.

And we wish him a speedy recovery. We do. So let's I think we have to go. dive into the Strait of Hormuz. So Trump's. bully boy tactics with Iran don't seem to be paying off. They're not backing down. Well, I mean, it's it's he has gotten himself. into into a situation which he cannot get out of. I mean, that's, that's I don't know, other.

than other than other than to retreat. He's kind of screwed at this point. Now, I was speaking to someone, someone over the weekend in the white House. And one of the things that's now happening in the white House is that on almost. on a moment by moment basis, people are calling out the price of oil, the, the, the. Brant crude barrel price, because that has become.

one of the significant political measures. of the moment that this all is going. I mean, it's, you know, at a $114 a barrel the yesterday, maybe it's. 113 today, there's expectations that it will go over that, that if this goes on, if the standoff in the Strait. of Hormuz goes on for another couple of weeks, which everyone expects it to do, it could go to 120.

It could ultimately go to 160. It is the the administration and this administration. And certainly the midterms is in a way, there's one number. and that's that's the number, the price of Brant crude. And let's not forget that the higher it goes, the more it benefits the people that were supposedly on the other side. Right. So the Russians want to see the price go up. Saudis like to see the price go up. The Iranians themselves like to see the price go up. No, the people who don't. are the American people, especially those who are filling their tanks with gas.

Right? Again, it is just caught in this vise of not looking forward, of not seeing what might happen, of the kind of the kind of hubris that. so often accompanies foreign adventures and the, you know, of, of. of what happens when you get snookered by, by Bibi Netanyahu. There was a good a very good piece in the times,

I think the the other day by by Scott Anderson. Now Scott Anderson wrote this past year one of my one of my favorite books, King of Kings, it's about about our. Iran when when the Shah was deposed. So, so 1979, in extraordinary book, An extraordinary story, which he tells.

you an edge of the seat, telling, telling of, of this, of this story again, one of those situations where nobody, no, certainly nobody in the Carter. administration had any idea what was happening, any idea when it happened, what to do, and found themselves in a screwed. I mean, actually, and Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter's reputation. has not recovered to this day from the oil shock of 1979.

He lost the presidency because because of of the. their failure to anticipate what was happening. in Iran, the failure to. to to appreciate the forces that were ready. to come apart in Iran and their reliance on on the Shah. But but so Anderson had a piece in the time. so and I just want to read a piece of it because I think it's.

I think it really gets to exactly what's going on on here. There are now only two outcomes to the conflict. Either the kind of wholesale destruction of Iran that Mr. Trump posited, or a settlement that will leave the government. intact and empowered, and a blustering president humiliated. The first option is increasingly remote by publicly. threatening the commission of war crimes on an enormous scale.

Mr. Trump has given both his domestic and foreign opponents. time to marshal resistance as the latter and more likely outcome. This was predictable if only the president and his administration. had bothered to take note of a new feature of modern warfare, a feature that can be boiled down to a single word drones. Now, this is also interesting, too, because it goes to another.

blind side of Donald Trump, which is Ukraine. So the lesson that everyone should have been learning. if they paid attention to Ukraine, which Donald Trump was not doing, was not interested in doing, rather stubbornly refused to do, is that the nature of warfare was changing and it wasn't even new in Ukraine. I mean, Ukrainians have been facing this barrage of Shaheen.

drones built by the Iranians, which are being deployed by the Russians. But previous conflicts have also seen that same thing over the last few years. We had the Karabakh conflagration, and that even that small. dispute between two, two small nations. But still it was the drones that were becoming. the primary kind of focus of the warfare. No, it's not impossible that we will, that Donald Trump will become the footnote.

to this time and drones will become the main story. But suddenly and suddenly he's found himself. I mean, the Russians are. The Russians are stymied. by by by the Ukraine, the Ukrainians. I mean, they're they're they're they're. literally stuck in place. It's like it's like World War One. And equally in the Strait of Hormuz,

the Americans are stuck in place because the the Iranians, with drones, cheap drones have been able to hold, hold us and Donald Trump hostage. And I think if you look at the economics of the drones, I mean, the drones are very important in that they change. the way that there's a battlefield in balance, but it costs millions of dollars to fire a missile to shoot down a drone.

Right. So, so a $10,000 drone, you're spending millions of dollars. to to to neutralize $10,000. So a smaller nation can just be sucking funds and military. power from a larger nation in a very, very easy and cheap way. So what does what does he do? It was about a month ago that he stood up in the white House. and he said, oh, the Strait of Hormuz isn't my problem.

The Europeans can figure it out now. Well, I think he's at least realized that that's not going to happen. I don't know if in the white House they've realized. that they need to come up with a solution. I know well, well, that's one of the problems. One of the interesting things in my most recent discussions. with, with white House people that there there's an acknowledgment. this is a problem, but that he's in denial about it. So you can't. And he gave, I think, a speech yesterday in.

which it was, you know, again, pay no attention. The price of oil is going to come down. I mean, we have one. I mean, all of these kinds of things. So he's taken taken a position on the on the war that he has. He is certainly right. The American military has certainly done its job and succeeded. And paint don't pay no attention to the to the price of price of oil. And matter of fact, his he seems to have a position.

That is it. It could have been much worse. So thank me. So I think everybody within the within the white House. and within the Trump political, the political team is that this is they don't know what to do about this. They literally do not know what to do. They don't know how to. They don't know how to get us out of the war. And they don't know how to manage this on a political basis. I think you saw the change in attitude.

Look, Trump, we're trying to go inside Trump's head. Trump's head is is a mysterious place. But if you look at the reaction from, say, the Pentagon. So we're recording this on Tuesday morning. Pete Hegseth has given one of his 8 a.m. briefings this morning. And the tone is just completely different to what he was. Remember the first press conference he did, and he was basically Yahoo. and waving his cowboy hat? And what was he doing? I didn't see the conference this morning.

He the tone was, this is a very serious situation. We're taking this seriously. We're looking at solutions. And you could tell from what he was saying that the smart guys at the Pentagon, of which let's not forget, there are lots of smart. guys at the Pentagon, have been saying he would not be among them. No, but they have been telling him we're in a big. we've got a big, big problem here and we don't know how to get out of it. But they're probably saying to him, you're going to have to go and convince. the president that he's going to have to make a tough decision here,

and you wouldn't want to be in that position. having to go into the white House to try and persuade Trump to reverse course. Well, he's not going to reverse course. What he's going to do is. continue to pretend that. that he has won, but winning will be a retreat. I mean, he will he will have left the regime in place. All of their, their, their nuclear material will be in place.

and they will have effective control of the Strait of Hormuz. That is what this will will have been. America's 25 billion will have bought. And there was new intelligence leaking out this morning that suggested. that US intelligence doesn't think that Iran's ability to build. a nuclear weapon has been dimmed at all by the events of the last year. No.

So the interesting thing is to see if Trump reality, which is the denial of reality, can eclipse the actual reality. I mean, that's what. from a political standpoint, that's what they, they, they hope will happen. And it has often happened with Donald Trump. And that's what. And that's the only move that they have. So let's let's go. go from the opposite of, of war.

and the opposite of war I think would be the, the Met Ball. And yet and yet they are both. both things that I think. you have you have two sides of Donald Trump in both of those those things. I mean, Donald Trump is the presence in both situations. So the the Met Ball, which of course, of course the the.

the Sanchez Bezos. took over. They are the, the the primary presence and they are have become. also among the key Trump bootleggers and. and the entire met ball which. which many people have boycotted for this reason. But it has now it it it has come to stand for a kind of.

I mean it's a Trumpian symbol. Yeah. And probably the leading. millennial or younger Hollywood star at the moment of the moment. Zendaya refused to go this year, snubbed them at ball, which was once the hottest ticket in New York. And there is a real backlash. Well, and the mayor of New York, Danny, said he wasn't going. There is a backlash and that does now stand as I mean,

a kind of vivid Trumpian moment. And all of these, I mean, all of these tech guys. Bezos. Zuckerman was, was, was there crept in. in a in a kind of don't. notice me but I I'm, I'm here fashion. because I suppose I want to be here. But all of these people who became. Trumpian figures, you know, I mean the Bezos.

Sanchez are virtually Trumpian avatars at this, this point. And, and Sanchez is one of those people who looks like she should be in the marble. Lago orbit. She looks like a a long time member of that beach club. No. And I think a beach club. That's a nice way to put it. Did I make it sound romantic? Yeah. You made it sound kind of a Hamish, you know. But. But.

Absolutely. And I think all of these people become symbols. And these are not positive symbols for for Donald Trump. And as the. And as we go into this, into this midterm six months. This is once again, one more, one more indication, one more kind of glaring. kind of kind of this is Trump. This is what you are proving of if you approve of Trump. Why?

To understand about Bezos in particular, this is I mean it varies from day to day. But basically, the world's richest man who bought the Washington Post. in order to add some credibility and some sort of patina. to his portfolio, he was already in charge of most sales on Earth right through Amazon, but he wanted to own The Washington Post because that gives him stature and status. And then he felt so quickly he started bowing and scraping once Trump.

was reelected, which okay, for short term political gain, that makes perfect sense. But how did he not see the next ten, 15, 20 years? But his reputation is going to be destroyed by this man? Well, you know, I mean, I think I think part of the answer is, is, is that I mean, I mean, these are tech guys, you know, I mean, we've because they have so much money and so much influence, we've we tend to believe that they know something and they,

they, they know something, but that's something. is very circumscribed. So the idea of thinking beyond this, of thinking that of having any idea, any sense that Trump was not only temporary, but in probably an aberration and certainly that that Trump, very likely, as he has done so many times in the past,

would shoot himself in the foot, would self-destruct. So why, at that moment. they decided we're going to go all in for Donald Trump. You know, I mean, as I said, I think I think because they got it wrong, they just. they're just in, in in the end, not that smart. Not that smart in a, in a in in the broader. sense of smart not emotionally intelligent.

But I also think they're greedy. And that was a moment they thought, we can take this guy in. This guy will give us what we want. So now they're here. How do they I don't know how they get out of this. You said many times that not only does. is Trump likely to shoot himself in the foot. He'll he'll shoot people around him. He takes people down with him. Right? This is one of the defining characteristics. It was interesting to see Bertrand, who's one of the other richest men in the world.

Last week, he started distancing himself from Trump, started questioning some of his policies. And he was another of these billionaires. who was at the inauguration sucking up to Trump. He's finally realized which way the wind is blowing. and is now trying to open up a little gap between. Doesn't seem to have noticed. Yeah, I mean, all of the Europeans, I mean the Europeans. And then we saw this, this. a Canada. this, this this week bonding with the Europeans.

I mean, it's one of the other things Trump has created this. It's this absolute fissure in the Western world. It's so all of this, the unification, the unity of the Western world, which has protected the peace and and ensured the, you know, this the astounding economic growth. of the last of the last 70 years has a.

broken apart under Donald Trump. And of course, he has made repeated threats. to, for example, quit NATO. But he never quite does it, does he? He's never quite broken these kind of alliances. in the way that he's threatened to do. We think now that now that he's got after these midterms, will he will. he start doing those things or. I don't think he'll know, but what what the what the other.

the other side of the equation now understands that they have to do this. You can't exist with this kind of unpredictability. You can't exist with trying to please someone who can never really be pleased. You can't exist trying to deal with someone who is. You know, I mean, who doesn't read the briefings, I mean, who doesn't really know what's going on, which I think does. give us a little insight into what Bezos and Zuckerberg and those people were.

thinking, which is that, oh, we can persuade this guy. He's not really that smart. We can we can persuade him to do what we want. And I'm sure they have had some win. Some of these tech rows of, you know, they've liberalized AI laws, for example. Right. Which is obviously one of the things. that they were super keen to force through super. But but that actually that was interesting this week. that, that there's a, there's a hurry up and and. oh we got to do something about AI within the white House.

And we're going to try to bring that in and we're going to try to, to exert. some, some supervision over that which will. invariably not happen. But that was that was the the political spin of this week. Okay. So if Bezos hasn't realized that it's time to abandon Trump yet, the opinion polls are giving us extremely glaring evidence. that America has had enough and that the midterms.

is going to be a bloodbath for the Republicans. So the Washington Post ABC news poll puts Trump's approval. at 37%, which is striking. I mean, number one, you can't win the midterms on 37%. At 37%. You certainly lose the House. And you know, it's now more and more reasonable. The contest is in is in the Senate. So again, and this is I mean, one of the themes that.

that we've been talking about, about here for the past couple of. couple of months is, is that this is coming apart, that that the run that Trump. had in the first in the for most of the first year of this, this administration has now come strikingly to an end. So the economy ice, the war.

tariffs the. the the the clowns in the administration. that surround him, nothing is going well for them. Literally nothing. I cannot think of any point now within this administration where things are, we're looking good, where things are sellable. So now and again, we're. at this countdown point.

We are looking toward the midterms. It is all coming together. The. The, the issues, the issues that the administration has to defend, plus the war that it can't get out of. Plus this. Plus, you know, this. just general sinking sensation.

And I think the Iran war we're talking about a historically unpopular war. There was a poll this week that suggested the Iran war was as unpopular. as the Vietnam War at its lowest point. So Trump has managed a historical feat, almost. always as a rallying around the flag when a war begins. And then over time, the popularity diminishes. Trump has managed to hit record unpopularity for the Iran war. in only a matter of weeks.

Extraordinary. And things don't look any better with the economy. Things like look any better. I think what's really fascinating to me, and what's really worrying. for the Republican strategists is if you look underneath the top line. figures on the latest polling and you look at the intensity of support, Republicans are way down on certainty to vote. And they're also, for the first time in the entirety of the two Trump. terms, less than half of Republicans. now say they have strong approval of the president.

So even when he was at his least popular top line figures just after Jan sixth, something like 70 or 80% of Republican voters still strongly approved. Of course, the independents had abandoned him, but the Republicans were still strongly approving. It's now less than 50% of even Republicans strongly approved. There's no even for the people who haven't yet. flipped and said, oh, I'm going to vote for the Democrats. That kind of what seemed undefeatable. passion for Trump within his grassroots seems to be having a way as well.

So were I to write a fifth book about Donald Trump, it would be called downfall. I think you should. We will be back on Thursday. I trust and hope Joanna will be back. on Thursday, meanwhile. Thank you Ryan, Heather, Rachel, Devin and Neil.

And actually, this is Devin's last podcast. He moves on to to a greater, more lucrative things. But but we really appreciate it. Devin has been with us from the very first. Devin thank you. Really we we literally. could not have on a on an. on a virtually. daily basis done this without you.

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 Pace, Heather Passaro, Neil Rosenhaus.