Why Trump's Tactics Have Stopped Working: Rothkopf | The Daily Beast Podcast

The story of the remainder of 2026 is going to be the story. of how Donald Trump reacts to all of his party, and all of Washington start to distance themselves from him. Nothing he's doing is working all his old tricks. I'm going to bs my way out of it. Nope, that's not going to work. I'm going to distract them with something else. Nope, that's not going to work. I'm going to charm my way out of this. Nope, that's not going to work. He doesn't know what to do. And on top of it all, he's dying. He is old. He is infirm.

He doesn't have what he used to. It would be poignant if the guy wasn't the world's biggest motherf-. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. How much worse can it get? Who knows? And who better to discuss it with than David Rothkopf, who's. been talking to people in the intelligence communities, in the State Department. and in the Pentagon to find out what they think. about what's happening with the war. And, of course, he's been talking to people about Trump's health.

Do we think he's dying? Well, let's get into it. But before we get into it, just a reminder. to smash the subscription button wherever you get these podcasts. And a reminder if you didn't hear her last week, Carolyn Levitt, she talked about being with her children. because when she was with her children, who cares what the daily Beast thinks? Well, we know that you care, Caroline, and we know that our viewers. and our listeners care. We're independent media. We appreciate your support. Now, let's get into it with David Rothkopf.

David Rothkopf, you like me like the rest of the world, woke up yesterday. morning to Easter Sunday. Let us not forget. Open the fucking street, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Thoughts and thoughts, David. Any thoughts at all? You know, here's this guy who periodically evangelical. Christians come into his office and they do the laying on of hands.

and they say this is the most Christ like man on earth. And here he is on Easter morning, dropping F-bombs, threatening to drop other bombs. The bombs he's threatening to drop would be war crimes. It's like, you know, of all the things that's, like, newsworthy about this. this social media post, you know, the the language, making fun of the religion. of a billion people with his, you know, praise be to our at the end,

the perhaps the most interesting thing is the evidence he's. providing the International Criminal Court with. It's like as of Tuesday at 8 p.m., I will start committing more war crimes. You know, please use this post when you prosecute me, right? I mean, is this a sign that he feels cornered? I mean, we you know, the other thing is that this morning. we woke up, and so we're recording this Monday morning.

We woke up this morning with him. Truth social. It's too bad that the Supreme Court can't watch and study. the Mark Levin Show tonight on the birthright citizenship scam. And then he just goes into them and says they should use their powers. of common sense for the good of our country. And attacks the tariff decision and what looks like to be their decision. on birthright citizenship, which is to keep the 14th amendment. Not get rid of it. So he seems to be a man isolated in his tower,

sending out crazy missives. Yeah, kind of. But I think it's worse than that for him. Literally everything that he's got going on now is going wrong. And I don't think he knows what to do with it. I think he's losing it because look at last week, like the Supreme Court, hearing on birth rights, it not going to go his way. By the way, not because of common sense. Because the law is against it, right? Right. Nothing to do with common sense, right?

You know, not, you know, not to diminish Marc Levin's. huge qualifications as a legal scholar, of course. Which are zero. But. So the Supreme Court's Supreme Court's going against him. His war in Iran is a catastrophe there. It not only is he achieving none of the goals. that he wanted to achieve, everything he does makes it worse. The U.S. economy is a catastrophe. They used to be his strong suit. The US economy is a mess. He is so underwater he is hitting new levels.

of being underwater in polling there. So that ties to the fact that politically, he's failing. and he's going to get creamed in the elections. And if he gets creamed in the elections semi, he allows us to have elections. He is going to start being investigated 100 ways. to Sunday on his deals, on his crimes, on his, you know, violations of, the law across the board. And on top of that, you know, he he is.

thinking that, you know, this team that he's put together. is going to protect him, and they're not. So he's starting to fire them serially. Pam Bondi gets fired. Kristi Noem gets fired. Now we hear maybe he's going to fire his labor secretary. Meanwhile, over at the defense Department, where he's got his guy, Pete, in charge, there's a mutiny going on. Pete's given orders to people blow up those boats. And the commander of South Camp says no.

Pete fires him. He's saying, don't promote these women and these black people. The chief of staff, the army says no. He fires him. He is firing person after person. In fact, the the the brilliant. Iranian social media machine, which has actually proven to be quite. adept and funny in the middle of this war, is putting out posts in which they talk. about regime change in the United States.

instead of regime change in Iran. But but, you know, so what do you have? Literally everywhere Trump looks, his cabinet, his Supreme Court, the Congress, the polls, Iran. allies, the media everywhere. Steven Epstein. Said. And and we haven't even mentioned. It's everywhere he looks. There are, you know, rabid hyenas. He's cornered, and nothing he's doing is working all his old tricks.

I'm going to bullshit my way out of it. Nope, that's not going to work. I'm going to distract them with something else. Nope, that's not going to work. I'm going to charm my way out of this. Nope, that's not going to work. I'm going to have some billionaire pay for something to get me out of this. Nope. That's not. He doesn't know what to do. And on top of it all, he's dying. He is old. He is infirm. He disappears for three days at a time.

He doesn't have what he used to. And it's just, you know, it's kind of. It would be poignant if the guy wasn't the world's biggest motherfucker. Wow. Well, that's quite a way to start a Monday, David. I mean, and I hate to call them truth tellers, but. But one of the interesting things about history, and I was at a very interesting Easter dinner last night. where we all had to go around the table and cite our favorite play, and it was incredible how much Shakespeare came up.

Alex James. But like, who's going to cite Neil Simon? Right. You're at a you're at a dinner. Nobody's going to cite some dopey play. They're going to say, oh no. Well, I think King Lear. Well, well, no, no, I was just thinking about. how often in plays it's the fool who's telling the truth, and you've suddenly got Alex Jones, the appalling denier of,

of Sandy hook and the. terrible murders that took place of the children, at Sandy Hook School. And Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know, an egregiously MAGA congresswoman. But suddenly, the two of them are saying what a lot of people have been saying. and acting as the canaries in the MAGA coal mine. that he has lost his mind, that this is a catastrophe. and that someone needs to move on the 25th amendment,

where you can remove a president for not being of sound mind. And it's impossible to think of Alex Jones, who calls himself a trickster. But of course, he's been an utter liar over Sandy hook. And yet, in this particular moment, it's. the fool that appears to be saying the Emperor has no clothes. Yeah. Well, first of all, I don't know that that's terribly fair to the fools, although you got to give me some credit for having mentioned King Lear,

where that in fact, it is the fool who is out there on the heath with him, trying to give him, you know, a little perspective anyway. I, you know, I yes, they're canaries in the coal mine. They're also kind of feathers in the wind. You know, they're like, oh, they want to go in the direction. the wind is blowing, and they at least have the honesty. to admit it's blowing away from Trump, that they trump you know, they. they got behind Trump because they thought it would help them in the case of Alex.

Jones, make money in the case of Marjorie Taylor Greene, make money in the case. of a bunch of these other people who supported Trump, you know, get them power or whatever. And, and they realize it's not going that way. And you have Thomas Massie and you have Thom Tillis, you have John. Thune telling Trump to go and take a walk on the Save act. You've got, people at Fox News. periodically being critical of Trump. They're beginning that these are cracks.

And each one of them, we should track them. But each one of these are cracks at what you might call. not the glass ceiling, but the MAGA floor. And the more cracks, the sooner it is that he falls through the bottom. Spring is upon us. And if you've been putting off cleaning up the messier parts of your business, now's the time. Streamlining your communications is one of the quickest upgrades. you can make, and I know I have to make it.

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especially because she'd had, control over the party. for as long as Trump has had an and is spending too much time. thinking about Europe is in Europe when when one of her lieutenants. comes up behind her and like a smiler with a knife, plunges it into her back. and he's not the guy that eventually takes over. from her, but he's the guy that starts the bleeding. And I wondered what it would take for someone in the cabinet to do that.

And to say, listen, we are all going to be taken down by this guy. Our party is going to disappear at the midterms. We may even lose the Senate as well as the House. I'm too young to be taken down by this guy, and I wonder. what is the process for the 25th amendment? I think you have to do you have to get two thirds of the cabinet. Yeah, I think that something like that. And he literally put his cabinet together.

in such a way that it will never get to the 25th amendment. And I know people like to talk about it. And so forth. It's not going to happen. The real thing to watch is how Republicans start. to distance themselves from him, how the system starts to go against him. And you already have John Thune saying, no, I'm not going to be bullied. We're going to put the Senate ahead of the president. You already have people on the Supreme Court who he had put there. who are saying, no, we're going to actually follow the law.

You've got a few voices on the Republican side. And again, they're fringy voices, but you've got Rand Paul. and Thom Tillis and, and and Massie, and, and a number of other of these voices speaking out. But you've got some other things going in Washington. You know, when I talk to people, on Capitol Hill, for. example, who who, you know, are Republicans. who are talking to Republicans behind the scenes. that the fear of of Trump's meltdown,

the fear that he's lost, it is rampant. It's it's I would say, you know, it's. the majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill right now. fear that Trump is going to take them down, and that he may do something crazy on the way there, that if Trump thinks that he has got this, you he may have some loyal MAGA. followers who are out there across America who show up wearing.

Trump t shirts and buy Trump trinkets and all this kind of thing. But but in Washington, these people didn't get to where they are, by being loyal to one person, they got to where they are by reading the room. and they are all reading the room, and the room is going against Trump. And so you have one level where people are saying things, but. underneath it not, you know, the, the, 9/10 of the iceberg. We don't see that's crumbling for Trump.

But you've also got big chunks of the bureaucracy, like at the, at the, at the DoD, the discontent with Donald Trump. within the building at the Pentagon is enormous. They hate Hegseth. That's why people are speaking out, but they hate the fact. If there's one thing the people in the military value, it's the idea that there is integrity. and that you behave with a certain degree of integrity.

You respect the institutions, you respect the Constitution. And right now there is no sense of that. Quite the contrary. They see Hegseth as a Trumpian lackey. who's trying to turn the military into a white supremacist tool. And so, you know, I don't know how far we are from a mutiny. where you start getting more and more generals,

more and more admirals, leaking to the press. That'll be the first sign, in fact, in Washington, the first sign that things are turning from Trump. will be more whistleblowers, more leaks to the press from the Pentagon, more leaks to the press from Capitol Hill, because people aren't that courageous. And so that's kind of like, you know, that's the way you. if you look at the, the the pictures of Trump and you see the room. filling with leaks from different institutions around Washington,

that's how you know that he is going to be underwater soon. And frankly, I think we're there. I think the the we are seeing the beginning. of the end of Trump and now will he react desperately crazily? Of course, we seeing it, you know, with his tweets and his unnecessary wars. and, and is lashing out at people and is firing Pam Bondi, who you could not. have had a more loyal attorney general, but she's not getting rid of Epstein.

She's not getting rid of his opponents. So let's get a bigger lackey in there. Let's find an even worse attorney general. Let's do something even worse at each one of these agencies. So he he did the story of the remainder of 2026. is going to be the. story of how Donald Trump reacts. to all of his party, and all of Washington. start to distance themselves from him.

It's it's it's, you know, it is kind of like Shakespeare. because it's, you know, I mean, King Lear is out there and he's on the heath. And what is he worried about? His daughters have turned on him, and he's an old man, and he's dying and he's losing his power. And that's that's that's where Donald Trump is. He's out there on the heath. He's screaming at the heavens. He's losing it, and he knows there is no turning back from that. Well, so the other thing, David, you said, you know, what?

If he does something crazy, but in a sense he's already done something crazy. He's gone. He's gone into Iran, which the five. previous presidents had all weighed up and decided against. But oh, no, he's Donald Trump. He knows more than everybody else. In theory. He went in because he. he said he was anxious about them acquiring nuclear weapons. But actually what he's done in his bombing campaign. is he's actually enabled them to own and now close the Strait of Hormuz,

which turns out to be much more effective in that it. it stops 20% of the world's oil. and gas from getting to its destination. So. he's already begun the crazy. Well, he said, you know, it's a combination of things. because there's a lot of ignorance that comes for for the crazy. He doesn't know that Iranian civilization is 5000 years old. He doesn't know how deep seeded,

you know, are deeply embedded. The, bureaucracy is in Iran. or the extremists, the hard liners are in Iran. He doesn't understand even U.S history. I mean, think about it. America's a superpower, right? We should be able to go and impose. our will anywhere based on the amount we spend on our military. So how's that gone for us? How did that go in Vietnam? How did that go in Iraq? How did that go in Afghanistan? Having a great military is important, particularly.

when you're defending yourself. But it's it's not that useful. if you don't also change the hearts and minds of the people in the country. you're going for. And if you're not willing to stay forever. and most of the times when we go into these countries, they say, well, we're here, you're not you're going to leave. as soon as political will cuts the other way, you're going to leave. We can ride this out. And in time after time after time, that's what happened. It's what happened to Russia.

In Ukraine, being a superpower isn't all it's cracked up to. Be, particularly if you're Donald Trump and you refuse to try. and understand the culture that you are invading. You know, he seems utterly surprised that the Iranians decided. to bomb their neighbors. He's got no understanding of the asymmetrical commitment. that people are now talking about where, you know, if you put an American soldier and an Iranian soldier. together, the American doesn't know what he's fighting for.

The Iranians have a strong sense of what they're fighting for. And it's the oldest story in the book, right? It's the story of Vietnam. It's the story in Iraq. It's the story in Afghanistan. It's the story of, of Russians in Ukraine. But but he's he's ignorant. He's impetuous. He thinks he's right. He surrounds himself with people who think he's right. The little coterie of people around him who are like, giving him advice. on this stuff, don't contain military people.

He ignores, you know, they've wargame this out. They knew how this was going to go with the Strait of Hormuz. And, you know, there are other things, by the way, that you haven't mentioned. that are happening that are really big deal. The Chinese are helping the Iranians rebuild their missiles. Right. And the Russians, The Russians and the Pakistanis are all helping them. So, you know, this notion that while we've eliminated.

all their military capabilities, we're obviously not. because they're shooting down planes, they're shooting down helicopters. But they've got more missiles coming. They've got more drones coming. They've got weapons buried and embedded all throughout the country. They still control the nuclear fissile materials. They still have the nuclear scientists. If they want to get a boost, they can, you know, the North Koreans provided them with centrifuges. The Pakistanis provided them with centrifuges.

They're all using the same kind of centrifuges. So everything that he has wanted. to achieve in Iran, he can't. And every outcome that has happened in Iran was predicted. And so that's a form of, insanity. You're right. But honestly, the same could be said about tariffs. We knew that wasn't going to work. And, you know, there are. other forms of insanity out there because, you know,

I think to some extent, I think one of the big problems we have. is a failure of imagination here in the US in terms of imagining. just how bad Donald Trump can get, how corrupt can he be, how inept can he be, how violent can he be? How can you know? How much will he do in order to undermine the rule of law?

If that advances our is he willing to blow up democracy? Is he willing to blow up this? And every time he does something crazy, we go, oh my God, he went there. He always goes there. And I think it's really time we wake up. Because he is cornered. He is surrounded by rabid hyenas. His party is deserting him. He knows that once they go, he is going to be in legal jeopardy again. He is in personal jeopardy.

His reputation is destroyed, so what does he have to lose? And to me, one of the scariest things that I can imagine. is Donald Trump with nothing left to lose, all or nothing. I mean, and in a sense, that's what happened to him. in his four years at Mar-A-Lago when he was sitting it out to run again. Right. Well, because it. but because at Mar-A-Lago, there was this thing happening that we underestimate. And I think when you look at him, it scarred him way more deeply than we think.

And that is he thought there was a chance he was going to go to jail. But there is, he thought, and there was a chance. Had Merrick Garland had a little more oomph in his step, had, you know, had certain courts proceeded with a little more, aggression on this, had Supreme Court not taken his side in that fight? Donald Trump would be in jail. Now, we would be having these conversations. And the.

reality is, I think this terrified him. because I think for his whole life, he's not only is a fraudster and a liar. And so when you have imposter syndrome, you think, when's when when is the final reckoning going to come? When are they going to finally get to me? I think he's having those thoughts again. Because I wonder if it's like, do you remember when the FBI knocked. on Bernie Madoff's door that the guy that had the biggest.

Ponzi scheme ever, they knocked on the door. and he looked at them and he said, I've been waiting for you. I've thought every single day you were going to arrive. And I do think you're right that Donald Trump knows that he. he can't quite believe that he is where he is. And so he's waiting for it all to come crumbling down. It's almost as if everything he's doing is provoking. the Jenga tower to come falling down around. Yeah, yeah.

But I think there's something else going on here, which was, I think a bunch of people around him, Stephen Miller. and a bunch of other sort of nefarious people said, we can rig this this time so it doesn't happen. because Don the courts on your side, they gave you immunity. They will still back you when it needs to and will own DOJ. and the court has said you can make DOJ do whatever you want. And so you will be able to do that. You will.

People will not be able to come at you with your past, crimes like they did. And we're going to take over the media. And so we're going to control. the national conversation, and we're going to control the Congress. And so this stuff isn't going to come get you. And so he comes back in, he follows the prescription. Okay, let's take over here. Let's get rid of these people. Let's purge the deep state and all this other stuff. And there's still existing. Right. And it doesn't go his way. And all of a sudden the Supreme Court doesn't take his side.

on everything, and the Congress doesn't take his side. And it looks like he's going to lose the election. And holy shit, no matter what he is doing, all those demons are coming back. They're coming out of the woodwork. And that's what drives a guy nuts in the middle of the night, so that he's. you know, the here's Donald Trump at one in the morning. tweeting about the Supreme Court and Mark Levin, it isn't because he's sleeping well, folks.

You know and I know it's I, I said to Michael Wolff on Inside. Trump's Head on Saturday, I think the reason that he's brought back. the idea of Alcatraz is that he is projecting. that Alcatraz was the dominant jail when he was growing up. It was this sort of horrifying place. And, of course, Donald Trump would think that he would be able to escape and swim. across to San Francisco, despite the fact that no one else will be able to do that. But I think the reason that he's talking about reopening it is.

because in some weird Freudian way, it's where he thinks he belongs. But the absolutely right, absolutely right. And he's seen people, you know, Martha, Martha Stewart went to jail for goodness sakes, for tax evasion. He's been evading taxes his whole life. He's been stealing shit his whole life, and he has gotten away with it. 40 million people have died because he shut down USAID. A million Americans died from Covid, of hundreds. of thousands of them because of his idiotic policies.

He has done. I mean, in his own mind, even though he's delusional, these things enter in. And that's why I think, you know, this is Shakespearean, the president of the United States as all lives and his marbles. and his losing his support. and everything is going against him all at once. And that's why, you know, one of the most popular.

memes out there is from the great movie downfall. about Hitler in the bunker in the last days. And people are doing some kind of a, you know, amusing stuff about his generals. going, I'm sorry, you know, mein Führer, but we are going to lose this war. And of them being afraid to say but that that's, you know, I. we have to think of Trump in the bunker. He's building the fucking bunker. I mean, he's building the fucking bunker under the white House,

the hoods, this whole thing that he's interested in. with the the, the, the, the ball room is the bunker. Well, and that's also going wrong. Right. Because the, the, Judge Leon has said, no, hold on. This needs congressional authority. You can't pick up a bulldozer again. until you've got congressional authority to to do this to the white House. So even that has been stalled. His efforts to build his own bunker.

The only thing I'm going to push back on is I'm going to say, if you're Donald Trump. and you're surrounded by people who are, yes, men. and they're all telling you you're marvelous, you're absolutely marvelous. And apparently the only person who who still says. he's marvelous but has a warning hand on his shoulder is Susie Wiles. And Susie Wiles is distracted because she's having treatment for breast cancer. His life is still very much, you know, he sits in the Oval Office, he calls people.

He goes down to Mar a Lago. People are fawning all over him. It's not like it. And then he was doing that weird drive on Easter. He didn't go to church, but he drove around. where he thinks he wants to put the arch up to celebrate himself. until some judge says, well, wait a minute, you can't do that until you get more authority. So that will also get stalled. Well, there's a lawsuit on that now. I mean, one of the things I keep hearing from everybody. I talk to both at home and abroad, is how is it possible that one man,

one man, can have this impact on the world right now? I mean, it's remarkable the ripple effect that his actions are having globally. You mentioned China, Russia, what's going on in Ukraine. It's sort of extraordinary how he's impacting it. And it's one man. And does he think from his point of view? I have my weekends at Mar-A-Lago. I fly around on Air Force One. Everybody does what I ask them to do or what I tell them to do.

I'm surrounded by people who agree with me. I've got the world's biggest military at my fingertips. I can do what I want. The last five presidents were so stupid they didn't go after Iran. Of course we're going to win there. Is that what he's thinking? What if he doesn't understand it's all going wrong? Or does he only understand it's all going wrong at three in the morning, when he sends out his frantic, panic stricken sounding. truth socials on a platform that we know has nobody following it. except that the media has to follow it and amplify it.

I think that's the way most people work, right, is that. they they've tried to put themselves in a comfortable place. They try to support the narratives that are at the core of their lives. They try to, you know, get through their days. thinking things are going to work out and that they're going to live forever. And then in the middle of the night, it gets dark and they go, oh shit, I'm not. And oh my God, this is going to come and get me now, whether it's. the middle of the night or he's, you know, you know, alone in the Oval Office. at some point or you know, he gets some disturbing piece of news,

like his wife's documentary is the lowest rated documentary ever and IMDb, and and and all of a sudden he's like, oh, my God, this isn't working. What if this doesn't work? What if we end up in the bad place? And I think, you know that the the the the worms enter his brain. like they entered the brain of RFK junior, and they start eating away. And I think that's what we're seeing here.

And, you know, there are moments where there are people around him. going, you are Jesus or you are never wrong or literally. they say, you know, they've Trump is always right. And he goes, oh yeah, that's comforting. And oh, you know, or I'm a billion, I'm a billionaire. I don't even live on the same planet with these people. Oh yeah, that's comforting. But but, but what's, what's what's happening is every day. he's also seeing evidence that it's not working.

It's not on the economy. It's not on the polls. It's not understanding within his party. It's not internationally, not with the allies, not with the enemies. You know, he's he's like, I'm I I'll do a deal with the Chinese. And all of a sudden. the Chinese are like, yeah, well, if you want to try, go ahead and try. But we're not going to be bullied by you. And by the way, if you attack Iran, we're going to help Iran, you know, and, the same is true. Well, I could cut a deal with Putin. Here's my buddy. And Putin's like, you've got this relationship backwards, friend.

But never. Telling you what to do. Not the other way around. So you want a solution in Ukraine yet, right? And so all of a sudden, you know, the evidence is there, and that is he's failing. not just in a few areas, but you probably could handle. every single thing. he touches is failing right now. So King Charles the Third is coming over for an emotional support visit.

What do we think about, is that a good thing or a bad thing? He arrives in three weeks. Who cares about King Charles the Third? Well, well, I think I think I think Donald Trump does. I think kid Rock is of more cultural significance, and he is of no cultural significance than King Charles the Third, who is a remnant of a system that should have been erased 200 years ago. But I think Donald Trump thinks highly of King Charles, right?

Apparently he writes to him every single week. He it does. Apparently. I was told this, on good authority over the weekend. by someone who's seen the notes that he sends him a card. every single week in his big, sprawling handwriting. Oh, my God, I you know, I I've got to tell you, you know, I'm in the middle of Washington. I talk to people on Capitol Hill, I talk to people. in the administration and in the D.

In the Pentagon and the intelligence community, in the media. And literally nobody talks about this. Trump may. think it's going to give him a PR boost because he's the king, you know? But the reality of this thing is, that that in I mean, you're, you know, from that part of the world, I mean, nobody. and I mean the UK that they would care about having a cake anymore. Are we sort of over that? I think in the UK they do.

And what's become so interesting is, you know, it's become even more so proper. because of Andrew, formerly known as Prince, and that phenomenal picture of him. looking stricken. in the back of the Range Rover is he's led away from the police station. after being questioned for 11 hours on his 66th birthday about Epstein. and the King is now being heckled about Epstein. So and I I'm assuming that Trump wants him over here. because he likes the adjacency of a king and then the two kings together.

But but tell me a little bit more about, what you're. hearing from inside the Pentagon. I mean, you mentioned that you think there could be a mutiny. and that we're beginning to see far more leaks. And of course, there have been leaks over the people that headset has been firing. And then there was this idea that, his advisor Berea had said to him, you, you've got to get rid of this black woman, because Trump is not going. to want to stand next to a black woman,

during official ceremonies to honor. soldiers. So. is is there a way that there could be. some kind of mutiny against Texas? Well, the mutiny will come in the form of leaks. It'll come in the form of retired generals and admirals speaking out more. The heat will get turned up. And frankly, the heat is getting turned up because we've already seen, you know, the chief of staff of the Army and the the commanding general of South Com,

a commanding admiral of South. Comm, right. Both of whom were just. Fired, both of whom were fired. But we've also seen, loads and loads of other generals and admirals, who have been, either passed over or marginalized. And, and that builds up, and, and I honestly, I, you know, people in the military take a lot of pride in what they do.

They sacrifice an enormous amount. They're not making money. They're serving their country. They're putting their lives on the line. And they do this, you know, for a variety of reasons, of course. But most of the people I know, particularly those who've been in for 20, 30, 40 years, they're doing this out of a sense of duty, and a sense of respect for the institution. And so the worst thing that you can do is degrade the institution. The worst thing you can do is,

compromise the values of the institution. and set who's trying to turn it into a white supremacist, Trumpian army. to protect Trump is ignoring the fact that 30% of the people. in the United States military, 35%. are not Christians. And of the Christians, a bunch of them are Catholics. I was, sir, what is it?

20, 20% of the military are women. and and and and he is essentially turfed all of these people out. We're not going to study you. We're not going to, self-promote heroes. We're not going to promote you. So. So, you know, I mean, from a from a, you know, purely arithmetic point of view. He is alienated half of the United States military and is systematically.

alienating a big chunk, a big chunk of its leadership. And, and. I, I hear nobody, by the way, I, I and all the people I talk to, I hear not one single person defending himself. I've heard I've heard 1 or 2 people. from Capitol Hill say, we were at a briefing with Hegseth, and he surprised me because he knew some of the details of what's going on.

I've heard that a couple of times, but nobody is defending his behavior within the building on these issues. of the culture of the military, which which he has identified as his issue. Right. I'm the guy behind lethality. I want to create a warrior culture. And the reality is there is a big cultural war. within the Pentagon, and it is absolutely guaranteed. Pete Hegseth is on the losing side. of the culture war within the Pentagon. And since we've last spoken, the Ft.

He came out with a story saying that he had two days before the war, or the bombing raids on Iran were went ahead. His broker said, I want you to invest in an ETF. which, you know, invests in defense contractors. Look, you know, this. I mean, it's disgusting. It's completely plausible. Washington is profoundly corrupt. You and I have talked about it many times. You know, you have people on Capitol Hill who are doing insider trading.

You have people, in the administration doing insider trading. You have, you know, Whitcomb traveling around in his kids and the lobby. doing a deal and traveling around and his kids in the lobby doing a deal. We have reports just now, just today, that not only as Trump increased his wealth by 1. or $2 billion since he took office, but Eric Trump.

has increased his wealth tenfold, Donald Trump tenfold. Barron Trump, age 20, is now worth, what, $150 million? They are cashing in big time. And I think ultimately, and and again, I as I, we talked about a couple of weeks ago that Democrats on the Hill are starting. to plan what our oversight investigations going to be. And I am absolutely certain that a lot of it's going to focus on corruption.

And I think it's an area of special vulnerability for Trump. and everyone around him, because there is no way to get immunity. and doing something that is overtly. criminal and far outside the realm of what's official. And but by the way, I. just I want to throw this in, you know, we talked about all the rabid hyenas. Another one came last week with this lawsuit, with which a court has said can go forward, that says no,

Donald Trump can be held liable for what happened on January 6th. He thought all that was behind him. It's not behind him. And I think that's, you know, this is a guy who's spent his whole life. paying lawyers to keep him out of trouble with the law. And I think if you look at things like that Ft story, you look at things like, the corruption story. surrounding the administration, that that's where I think a lot of his late night worries come from.

Well, I can only believe his late night worries are going to get worse, David. And you and I will be here every Monday. to dissect them, to dissect his truth. Social posts, and to figure out, we hope, what this means for the rest of us. And who knows, between now and next Monday, what's on earth will happen? Well, we certainly don't. That's what makes this period in our history so weird. We literally cannot predict from one minute to the end.

And that's. because this guy who's got the job of the most powerful job in the world, the most powerful guy in the world for now, it's, you know, out of out of his mind, his office rocker and and and literally anything could happen. Anything could happen. Well, David, I will take that to mean that good things could happen. to perhaps one of his own cabinet could wrestle him to the floor, tie him up in a straitjacket and drag him out.

Anyway, it's always good to talk to you. Keep talking to your friends in the intelligence community. and the Pentagon and come back and tell us what they're saying. Next week. And, of course, we're now 35 days into the bombing of Iran. Who knows where we'll be 42 days, but you will be here to tell us. what people are saying. David Rothkopf, always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for joining us. Always a pleasure.

So if you have been thank you for joining us. Who knows what we'll be talking about this time. next week, except that we will be talking about it with David. Rothkopf, who lives in the center of all this drama. I don't know how he keeps sane. Once again, a reminder to subscribe. And don't forget whatever else you're doing as our first lady would have us be. 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.

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