How Trump’s War Exposes His Lost Grip on Reality

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It's not just it's un-un-presidential, it's incoherent, it's the language of an ignoramus.

He doesn't know what he's talking about, it's just, it comes out of his mouth and on,

either out of his mouth or onto the page in a rush of self-justification, of need, of

fear, of aggression.

We don't know what's going on, but we can't acknowledge that we don't know what's going

on.

We can't, the world is spinning out of control because Donald Trump, because it's run

by an ignoramus who lives in his own movie.

Michael, we are one week in.

You mean we're one week into the war in Iran, we are many more weeks into whatever this,

whatever we call this, what do we call this?

The Trump era, the second Trump era, the era where we have all been sucked like some

enormous vacuum tube inside Trump's head, which is where we go three times a week.

And I thought I might start by reading Donald J. Trump's Truth Social Post this morning,

which he fired off at 6.11.

And as you're always pointing out, he is the only person on Truth Social.

So it's surprising how little response it gets on Truth Social, but of course it gets

picked up by the media and spread everywhere else, but it just gives you a clue as to who

is writing his script.

Obviously, he's writing his script, but it gives you a clue as to what kind of movie

he thinks he's in.

Let me, before you do that, because I think that's a point that we should keep coming

back to this Truth Social thing, because this too is a bit of grift.

Nobody else is on this, but him.

And he uses the power of the presidency to maintain the value of Truth Social.

So that's these posts, which no one reads, because no one is on Truth Social, yet establish

its multi-billion dollar value.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

So here's this post that he fired off at 6.11 this morning, Iran, which is being beat

to hell, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors and promised that

it will not shoot at them anymore.

I mean, what is he in, is he in a Western movie where people are shooting at each other,

which is being beat to hell?

I mean, what kind of language is that, especially for the president?

And then he says, it is the first time that Iran has ever lost in thousands of years to

surrounding Middle Eastern countries.

And they have said, thank you, President Trump.

I have said, you're welcome.

Iran is no longer the bully of the Middle East.

They are, instead, the loser of the Middle East.

I mean, this is literally like a child.

Do you remember in those exercises in history or geography, and they would say, imagine

you are the president of a country or at war, how are you going to communicate with people,

let's all write an essay expressing that.

I never had that assignment, but well, we have that assignment in history in England.

Probably because of Churchill.

No, I think it was because of the Royal Family.

So we were always being asked to imagine letters written from King Charles I before he was about

to be executed, that kind of thing.

But I think that this is what you see there, first thing, there are two things.

He must have woken up with some paroxysm of doubt and concern, and probably a sense

that his heroic role has been, that no one is quite appreciating it.

But also, this is to convince himself.

That is what is going on there, and he seized on this kind of, there was a strange reach

out from the Iranians to their neighbor, Arab states, and saying, you know, we're bombing

you.

And actually, they didn't say, they didn't really apologize, and they didn't really

say, we're going to stop.

I mean, they, their actual rationale was very clear, where it's unfortunate that we have

to bomb you, but because you are a staging ground to bomb us, we are going to continue

to bomb you.

So he is, he is reinterpreting this as, again, his, his victory.

Well, and there was the billionaire in Dubai who came out and said, what are you doing?

Why did, to Trump, challenging Trump, and we've now seen, you know, the Spanish leader

has challenged Trump, Britain wouldn't let him use UK air bases.

So this sense in which Trump, this is not, you know, he didn't bother to build an axis

of allies.

He went in, obviously, under pressure from Israel.

But this idea that they have said, thank you, Mr. President, I have said, you're welcome,

as if it's some kind of ordinary transaction.

It's just, it's, it's, well, he keeps, he keeps, he keeps, he keeps, he keeps, he keeps,

he keeps having to ramp up the rhetorical language here.

So, so yesterday we got to this, which echoed around the world, this call for unconditional

surrender with virtually everybody pausing and blanking and saying, well, what does that

possibly mean?

And of course, in, in a, in a world where you're going to be defeated at the, at the gas

pumps before they run out of bombs, there is no unconditional surrender.

In fact, unconditional surrender has there been an unconditional surrender since Germany

and Japan in the second world war.

So he's in, he very much is in a war movie.

It's a war movie.

He's the hero of this, of this movie.

He's kind of echoing language from war movies.

I mean, I can't, I mean, I can't, which is, I think probably where his, all his references

come from, because we know he hasn't read a book on, on war.

He's not someone who's sitting down and reading the histories, he's not studying the histories,

he won't take the information from advisors.

Maybe he's watched the movie.

He's saved the least.

Yes.

I mean, he has what, and just let me, I mean, this is one of my favorite Trump moments.

I'm sitting with, with Trump, and I'm asking him the question that all, and this is

what, while he was campaigning in 2016, that all presidential aspirants are asked at

some point, what's your favorite book?

And when I asked this, I could see it in his face, okay, you got me.

A look at panic.

Well, not so much panic, it was like, okay, you, you got me.

And usually the answer to that, the default answer to that is the Bible.

And I'm sure that didn't cross his mind because, as he ever even, you know, looked at

a Bible.

A Trump Bible, he may have looked at a Trump Bible to check that the paper was cheap enough

and the drawings were good.

No, yes.

The illustrations.

Someone did, but I'm sure not him.

But at that point, there was a few beats, and then he said it came from somewhere in

him.

He said, all quiet on the Western front.

Really?

Yes.

I'm sure that that was a, you know, that was on his high school reading list, which he

probably didn't read, but he remembered the title.

But it is interesting that that was a war book, and he, you know, he is in that generation,

which frankly, alas, I am not too far from, of having grown up in the aftermath of the

second world war, of having all culture basically shaped by that.

So here we are back, back to that unconditional surrender, and which the world, I mean, one

of the interesting things is the world has to react to that.

I mean, there is no mechanism for not taking him seriously, except everybody, of course,

knows that this does not mean anything other than the scramble to interpret it, which no

one seems successful to have successfully done.

What does this mean?

Unconditional surrender.

I mean, the mullies are going to line up and hand him their swords or whatever the appropriate

metaphor would be here.

No, and that's not related to reality.

It's only related to the language that he uses.

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Yeah, and I think related to the way that he's trying to play the movie out for other people

even though we can see it's not going quite as he says it is.

I just wanted to read you one other line from his truth social.

Today Iran will be hit very hard under serious consideration.

I really want to do it in his voice actually, which is which I can't really do.

But again, to your point about the language and taking it seriously, you want to read

it in his voice because in his voice it has a different sort of timbre and a different

kind of meaning.

And when you read it in an ordinary voice, it sounds, well, it sounds odd.

Anyway, today Iran will be hit very hard under serious consideration for complete destruction

and certain death because of Iran's bad behavior or areas and groups of people that were

not considered for targeting up until this moment in time.

Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.

Because of Iran's bad behavior, again, language that just seems unremittingly, voraciously

unpresidential.

Well, I know it's not just it's unpresidential, it's incoherent, and I mean, it's the language

of an ignoramus.

So I think we're so far from being removed from presidential.

I mean, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

It's just it comes out of his mouth and on either out of his mouth or onto the page in

a rush of self-justification, of need, of fear, of aggression, you know, nothing, nothing

is actually really related to meaning.

It's all related to what he is feeling.

So I mean, that's a big dichotomy there.

Well, and you say he's doing this sort of as a self-soothing mechanism.

But he woke up in a paroxysm of anxiety about this.

And another tell for that is that he's been calling journalists to talk about the war.

So he called, I think Jonathan Carl from ABC three times, including one 20-minute call

in the middle of the afternoon, where really he wanted Jonathan to tell him how impressive

the war was.

He called Dana Bash from CNN to discuss it.

Just a sense of needing reassurance from people that he's doing the right thing and not

having any panel of advisors around him to give him that.

Yeah.

I mean, the other thing is, which is, oh, and this is not just in this instance, but in

so many instances, that nobody else, I mean, he doesn't have the language to express what

the policies and the strategies that he wants carried out, because he has no policies and

he has no strategies.

But equally, the rest of the world does not have the language to characterize this strangeness,

this lack of meaning functionally.

So everybody is caught in a vacuum.

I mean, every news outlet today or yesterday and today is analyzing the nature of unconditional

surrender, even though everyone knows unconditional surrender uttered by Donald Trump is meaningless.

Right.

So the gap here between him, his inability to express any plans and actual, any real meaningful

point of view, and everybody else's inability to characterize that lack of ability to, to

meaningfully express himself, has gotten sort of everybody, it creates this sort of paralysis.

We don't know what's going on, but we can't acknowledge that we don't know what's going

on.

We can't, the world is spinning out of control because Donald Trump, because it's run by,

by an ignoramus who lives in his own movie, but we can't really say that.

Well, and he's supported by people who are trying to live in that movie with him, although

I will say every now and then you catch sight of Dan Kane, who's running the military operations.

His face, I thought, at the press conference he gave with Pete Hegseth earlier this week,

had sort of crumpled in on itself.

Hegseth himself, you know, with his arms flapping because they don't quite close against his

side.

I mean, seemed to be delivering a sort of high school gym coach, ra ra speech before

you take on a team that you think might be a bit more complicated to beat than you planned

for.

And now you've got Trump saying that he doesn't have the yips, a strange expression.

In expression that he uses all the time, and apparently I've had to, I've had to try

to interpret this, it's a golf expression.

Oh, it's a golf expression, right, because I was like, what on earth does this mean?

But what he doesn't have apparently is the yips about boots on the ground, which suggests

he's mulling the idea of sending American troops to Iran, something he vowed not to do,

something that we know will be very bad with his mega base because he promised America

first.

No, he's not going to do that.

This is just him.

This is just more posturing on his part.

The yips, I remember there was a, what does the yips mean during his trial in New York?

There was a moment in which he dressed down Todd Blanche and the number two in the Justice

Department than his personal lawyer by saying, by saying, you know, when you go out there,

you got the yips.

You can't have the yips.

I don't want you to have the yips out there.

I must have repeated the word yips 20 times in the course of 90 seconds.

I'm just looking it up now, the yips.

It's a strange sporting condition where an athlete suddenly loses the ability to perform

a routine skill.

Exactly.

Something Donald Trump is very familiar with, I suspect.

He relates it to the pot when you do the, when you're on the green and, and, and you're

far enough from the, from the whole to have to pay attention, to have to focus.

And then you get nervous and you miss the pot.

Well, of course he brings in a golfing expression for sending in American troops.

So the other thing that wasn't going well for him as we know is Minneapolis.

I mean, nobody's talking about it anymore except that it has ended up claiming the scalp

of Christy Nome, the secretary for Homeland Security this week, who on Thursday was fired

as she was just about to go out and speak to a police conference.

You know, but it's, no, she did go out and speak speak.

I mean, that was the funny thing that he fired her without enough warning.

So, um, so actually she was speaking on, I think she may have not have known that she

was fired as she spoke.

I think that she got the course she was fired just before she went out on stage and she

went out on stage anyway, because the show must go on for Christy Nome, the show must

go on.

You know, but the interesting thing is that she was not hoisted for Minneapolis.

I know.

You're right.

I knew you were going to say that.

Yeah.

Which would have been interesting because that would have been a way to, an interesting

way for him to have communicated, yeah, okay, that's a problem.

And somebody has to take responsibility for that.

And he didn't do that because again, he doesn't want someone to take responsibility.

He doesn't want any acknowledgement that anything has actually happened that shouldn't have

happened.

Anything under his watch is, um, is an error that never happens.

So he fired her instead really because, because I mean, I think, I think the, the consensus

is because she blamed him for $200 million, $200 million ad spend, which glorified Christy

Nome instead of, I assumed Donald Trump.

Yeah.

I mean, this is Christy Nome riding on a horse with a cowboy hat on across the, well, across

the prairies of South Dakota, where she was once governor.

I think it was cumulative, right?

So there's been many, many grumblings about her.

Obviously, there was the two terrible deaths, the shootings in Minneapolis of Alex Petty

and Renee Nicole Good.

Uh, there's been the language and the determination to put herself central, so her filming videos

of herself against prisoners against, uh, well, you know, with the Coast Guard constantly

cost dressing for the, um, agencies that she's in charge of.

There was the affair with Corey Lewandowski, which was Washington's biggest open secret.

We had a story in the Daily Beast of Corey taking the trash out from her apartment.

Wait.

I'd like to go to that for a minute, too, because I think that that's, that's, that's,

um, one of those media moments that's indicative of a lot about the Trump administration of,

these things that everyone knows.

I mean, these glaring, uh, uh, stupifying things that are going on, and yet they are kind

of cast, we, the media, not me, but the media, uh, cast them in a, um, uh, and in, uh, always

in a somewhat, somewhat ambiguous light when they're not ambiguous at all.

Well, I think you have to do that for legal reasons because you don't have to do that for

legal reasons.

That's totally ridiculous.

Um, well, Kristi Nome has denied that she's having an affair with Corey Lewandowski.

Because in that, everybody knew she's having an affair, and it is now open, open season

on, on this, but it took a damn long time for this to come out and for everyone to be

willing to say this in a, um, in a declaratory way.

Well, what's interesting about it is it's an unusual situation.

They're both married, um, they're both still married, uh, they're both denied they were

having an affair.

Brian Sput with a Y, B-R-Y-O-N, um, Nome, Kristi's husband, Mr. Nome, Mr. Nome, Mr. Nome,

unfortunate name, Mr. Nome, um, is sitting behind her at the committee, uh, at the Judiciary

Oversight Committee hearing, um, exits the room when there is a scene which I have never

seen before, actually, where a female congresswoman, um, had why I pronounce her name, Carm Lager

Dover from California asks Kristi Nome, another woman, did you have sexual relations with Corey

Lewandowski?

I have never seen that before.

A woman congresswoman asking a woman secretary, did she have sex with, uh, an employee?

I mean, that's a new glass ceiling smashed, thanks.

Let's not complicate that with the employee because it's actually much more egregious.

I mean, first thing Corey Lewandowski is not an employee.

He's a, he's a consultant to her.

But more to the point, he's a significant power player in the Trump orbit.

One of the most significant power players.

So you have, I mean, the truth is she probably has that job because of Corey Lewandowski.

Well, don't we think that he lobbied for her to have that job?

Well, that's why I'm saying she has that job because of, because of him because he got,

he, he is managing her, um, you know, he's not the employee actually in some way.

She's the, she's the employee or the client or what, what, whatever.

But, but clearly there is a host of conflicts of interest within the Trump orbit contained

within this relationship.

And, um, you know, and, and the fact that this has been couched in such a, you know,

only in terms of rumors, which are then discounted, formally discounted, seems,

seems like just, just another, well, certainly another way to bury the lead.

But also another point of, of, I, I might say irresponsible discretion on the part of the media.

Hmm, interesting.

Well, Mr. Known was sitting behind his wife during the hearings.

He slips out for the moment, uh, where she's asked about sex.

So who knows if, uh, he got a tip off that that question was coming and just didn't want

to be there for that.

But some of his relatives talked to the New York Post and said that the reason he stayed

with her, they acknowledged the affair.

The reason that he stayed with her is because he realized 20 years ago and I can barely

say this with a straight face, um, that he had a calling from God to support Christy

in whatever she chose to do, which is why he support her, uh, supported her as she became

governor and then supported her in this somewhat loose lifestyle, shall we say, with Corey

Lohandowski.

Anyway, who knows if he'll continue supporting her, um, perhaps he will.

He's a believer in marriage.

Who knows if Corey Lohandowski will continue to support her.

Well, he may move on to, to pass just new and he has moved on through many, many women

in the, in the Trump orbit.

Yes, he has.

And he may think that Christy has now outlived her usefulness now that she no longer has

a cabinet position.

Though she does have some sort of trumped up new job.

Can you remember what it is about the superhero?

This field.

I never heard something about a shield.

It's, um, it's a shield for the Western hemisphere and they're having their first meeting

today in Florida.

Uh, it's really a grouping of the Latin American, uh, countries.

So of course, Uruguay, Paraguay are there, you know, Ecuador's there.

They've all, you know, they've all turned up to support President Trump in this new initiative,

which is also giving a job to Christy known.

But of course, the two biggest economies aren't there, Brazil and Mexico.

So echoes of the board of peace where smaller countries turn up and the bigger countries

decide that this is yet again of vain, glorious moment for Donald Trump.

The board of peace, which we, which we think will never meet again.

Yeah, he's collected $5 billion for the entry fees for the founding members.

We will never hear from it again.

And they've all been bombed since they came.

That's the most extraordinary thing they come, they pay their dues.

And then this week's surprise, they get bombed by Iran.

That was not part of the board of peace.

So the larger question that I'd like to keep in mind is, is Christy known the first domino?

In other words, in other words, he has, nobody has been fired.

We're, we're, you know, more than a year into this administration.

The last time around, it was a, it was a revolving door almost from the second week.

But, but this, everybody has held in place every, every nincompoop.

It doesn't matter what they do, however foolish they look, however, however,

however they have displayed their incompetence doesn't matter.

He's overlooked it and seems happy to overlook, look at not irritated at all by his,

I'm, I'm trying to advocate to call this the moronocracy.

And he's presided over it in a very kind of genial way.

But now this first one goes.

And, and in my experience, when he starts to do something, he continues to do something.

So who would be, who would you expect to be the next domino if, indeed, your theory's right?

Pam Bondy, probably, I think, you know, you know, the Epstein thing is.

Totally mishandled the Epstein files.

But again, he doesn't do this.

He never fire, he's not going to fire someone for the, for the error that they have made.

He'll fire, he'll fire them for something, something else.

But I think there's, and I think, you know, I think RFK Jr. is on thin ice here.

I mean, I think that they've, that they've, that they've really tested this internally

and found out that the Vax, the anti-Vax stuff just doesn't play.

It's going to kill them.

And, and so he's been, they're starting to push out the most extreme of the anti-vaxxers

who RFK has hired.

And he's been told concentrate on food.

Food is your, is your message.

No more anti-vaxx.

Whenever I see RFK Jr. there's always standing behind him, Dr. Mehmet Oz,

he of the wonderful line that the problem with people in Pennsylvania was they just didn't eat.

Enough Cruder Day.

I mean, it's such a great line.

He could have just said vegetables, but now he insisted on saying Cruder Day.

Because those are the vegetables that Dr. Oz eats.

And you know they're beautifully sliced and served.

Anyway, with his magnificent head of hair and I suspect a little bit of GLP1 use,

I think he could easily replace RFK Jr.

He's good on television.

He's an actual doctor.

If you had a heart problem at one point, you would have wanted him to operate on you.

And he's hanging around, even though he knows a lot of what RFK Jr. is saying is nonsense.

So that would be my prediction if they get rid of him.

What about Tulsi Gabbard?

We have predicted for some time now that Tulsi Gabbard might be the first to die.

Well, she's done what you have to do.

Put her head down.

We hardly hear from her anymore.

You know, in the first half of the first year, she was out there to make a very clearly

to make a name for herself.

And now, Tulsi who?

He said that she did pop up in Fulton County, organizing the raid in Georgia on the election.

Of course, he sent her down there.

What's his favorite topic?

Of all topics, literally of all topics.

He won 2020.

The election is going to be cheated in November.

And also the coming midterms, you know, that is of all the crises before him.

This is the biggest crisis.

And the midterm elections and the only hope he has of prevailing and it is a fast fading

hope is to put his thumb on the scale.

Right.

And he addressed Republicans on Tuesday saying that they really needed to win the midterms

because he was confident he would be impeached.

And then Mike Pence giving an interview to Katelyn Collins this week said that he thought

that Trump would be impeached too.

So he probably doesn't want to be impeached three times because that would be a record

that Mike sticking his head.

But why not?

Why not?

Why not?

Not only why not, but it would be the Democrats have made this mistake so many times.

Let them make it again.

Yeah.

Well, we'll see.

I mean, that's the only thing.

That's what we have to look forward to.

We can address this down the line, but what we have to look forward to in the midterms

is the Democrats winning and fucking up again.

Deep breath.

I'm taking a very deep breath.

So Marjorie Taylor Greene is looking beyond the midterms to 2028 and she has put her thumb

on the scale for the candidate she wants.

Who is?

You know, I'm someone who's career and political aspirations.

I have been a front of a front seat watching, which is Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson, who has really made it clear that he is against this war, he thinks it's

a terrible mistake.

Trump has said that that's because Tucker doesn't really understand the war.

He's not bright enough to understand the war, but they appear to be at log-a-heads over

this one.

You know, and I think that they will continue to be.

I mean, also Tucker has moved very much to the right, and I would say to the anti-Semitic

right in blaming all of the world's problems on Israel.

I mean, he's become, I would say, the leading isolationist voice and the leading anti-Israel

voice.

Well, I think she said it.

I got the sense that Marjorie Taylor Greene would like to be his vice president.

Well, I think Marjorie Taylor Greene would like a job, probably, of any kind.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I mean, she's, I mean, suddenly, Marjorie Taylor Greene has become,

become for many Democrats and liberals, they have an amount of sympathy for her, but

which is crazy, because she's crazy toxic, you know, the, I mean, she may have broken

with Trump, but frankly, I think she makes, she makes Trump look much better than he deserves

to look.

No, she makes him look slightly more normal.

But the Tucker thing, I think the Tucker thing is a variable that we should keep our

eye on, that everybody should keep their eye on.

I mean, he has wanted to, you know, before 2024, I mean, I sat with him, I mean, often,

in disgust his political ambitions and they were clearly there.

I mean, clearly, he was, he was in the 2024 race, configuring where his opportunity might

be, and, and if it had been a dissentist thing, he might, he might actually have, have

stepped in.

I mean, he detested dissentists.

And only because, you know, that, in that, in that shift that suddenly, Trump who looked

weak going after the, after the 2022 midterm suddenly bounced back to life and then, and

Tucker realized that that wasn't going to happen.

But, but very much, this is very much on his mind.

Right.

That's, that's incredibly interesting to think about as the mega base splits over the

war.

And also as prices go up at the pumps, as we've talked about, and we had a jobs report

this week that showed America had lost 92,000 jobs and unemployment is now hovering around

four percent.

And that was unexpected.

I mean, everybody went, you know, they're, they're, we were actually supposed to add the

expectation was that jobs would be, would have been added.

So this is, this is more, more bad news.

And I think we are at this, in a broader sense, at what we should start to, at least, at

least begin to think maybe could be an inflection point.

And I hesitate here because I cannot tell you how many inflection points against Donald

Trump.

I have, I have, I have thought we had arrived at.

So, but eventually the broken clock is going to be right.

And, and I think this could be one of those things.

I can't think actually at this point of anything that is going well for Donald Trump.

I mean, the polls, the polls are terrible, terrible.

I mean, I mean, I mean, a real indication that not only could they lose, not only will

they lose the house, but they could lose the Senate.

Right.

And he's not looking well.

We've discussed before that nasty rash he's got on the back of the neck, which really

does look unpleasant and is clearly rubbing against his, his shirt collar, his swollen legs,

his chronic venous insufficiency, which needs to, the cancels.

I wonder if a rash has ever taken down a, a political figure.

Very possibly.

I mean, it's, it's deeply unsightly.

I mean, as we know, he doesn't care that he looks odd because he knows that it's how

people remember him.

And his hair also, someone different is doing his hair at the moment because at one point

he stopped coloring it.

This is the stuff I obsess about.

He stopped coloring it and it went sort of almost translucent.

It went a sort of very light shade of gray.

Then it went a slight shade of purple, which suggests that he was using some kind of

navy shampoo on it, which those of us with blonde hair or silver hair do.

And now I noticed there was the golden tint back to it.

So I'm not quite sure who's paying attention to his hair.

It may be a collection of people, maybe Melania used to do it.

It isn't a collection of people.

I mean, he's, he's traditionally very protective about that.

Sometimes a person will, will be admitted into his cosmetic circle, but, but, but that person

has to be highly trusted.

This is not a committee thing because you're not allowed to talk about it really.

His appearance is his appearance.

And in a matter of fact, the only record I know of him talking about his appearance to

anyone is a conversation he had with Stormy Daniels.

What, and what, what, can you remind us of the conversation?

Yeah, no, it was, it was, it was great.

He actually seemed kind of un, both self-aware and unself-conscious about it, which is to

say he said, you know, I, I look this way because, because, you know, I always, I always

had good hair.

And then, and then I started to get older and, you know, I wanted to keep it.

And then it started to look, you know, maybe, maybe a little funny, but then people remembered

me for it.

And that was how I stuck out in the crowd.

Well, our beast contributor and very good columnist, Nelskavel and I swapped daily photos

of his hair and disgust, which shampoo we think he's using.

And we spend a lot of time analyzing the color.

Well, when I say a lot of time, let's keep this in perspective, but, but it's definitely

gone from translucent to faintly purple to gray to orange over the last, over the last

few weeks.

So something's going on there, nasty rash.

And I'm concerned that they tried to apply makeup to a rash, which you really shouldn't

do when it's flaking and when there's an open sore on it like that, because that could

lead to impatigo, which could definitely bring him down.

A neck of impatigo is not what you want if you're a wartime president.

Dr. Calls.

Dr. Calls is in the house.

And then the other thing that I think people are not paying nearly enough attention to

and it's super boring, but actually it's incredibly important for small and large businesses

alike.

It's the tariffs, the tariffs, which put a lot of small businesses basically out of

business.

And large businesses are trying to figure out, do we file for a refund?

Is this going to take three years?

Is there any point?

Will it just take up legal fees?

This is a real issue for people.

And as we know, the Supreme Court knocked back Donald Trump's decision to apply tariffs

when and where he wanted, but they didn't sort out the tariffs that have already been

paid.

No, well, there'll be a lot.

I mean, Donald Trump has basically said I'm not giving the money back, so that's going

to mean litigation for years to come.

But I do think, I mean, I don't think it is boring.

And I think it is one of those kind of seminal things that many people have internalized

and understand that this was a catastrophe.

It was a catastrophe that didn't have to happen.

Again, it was one of those things that has no meaning.

What does he mean?

There's an unconditional surrender in this somewhere too.

We're going to tariff nations we don't like back into the Stone Age.

And then the day later, we're going to reverse all of that.

So I think that this is the tariff policy, of course, the first year of this administration,

culminating in the Supreme Court's rejection of it, is going to be one of those things

that he's going into the midterm with.

And the word tariff is not going to rebound to his credit.

No, it's not.

And it's a real thing that real businesses across the country are having to deal with big

and small.

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Your friend Barack Obama, who you chided for not saying enough about this, received an

enormous cheer when he stood up to speak at the memorial for Jesse Jackson.

And in fact, once he got into the booklet.

Pretty easy audience.

No, very easy audience.

And of course, he was sitting between the Clintons and the Biden's, though, again, without

Michelle.

So he looked weirdly, weirdly lonely.

And it's odd to me how much you want to talk about that marriage.

No.

Well, let's talk about that marriage.

What do you know about that marriage?

I know nothing about that marriage except that increasingly you see them not together.

OK.

Well, interestingly, she wasn't at the memorial service for Jesse Jackson.

So Obama gets up to speak and everybody starts chanting four more years, four more years.

And he silences them by saying, actually, I believe in the Constitution.

So that's not going to happen.

More laws, more cheers.

And then I was going to read out a little bit of what he said because you're just reminded

of a president who's slightly more eloquent than the current president.

And he says every day, wake up to things you just didn't think were possible.

Each day we're told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other

and that some Americans count more than others and that some don't even count at all everywhere.

We see greed and bigotry being celebrated and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength.

We see science and expertise denigrated while ignorance, dishonesty and cruelty and corruption

are reaping untold rewards.

He had to wait for someone to die to say this.

Come on, come on, man.

You know, I mean, you are the, you remain the titular head of the Democratic Party,

whether you want to be or not.

You are, you are the only voice.

What are you doing with it going a few enrolls?

You know, yeah, great.

But, you know, there's every day out here.

We're out here every day or three to three times a week.

We are, we are out here every day.

We are out here every day.

Well, that was your point.

As we're old, where is he?

I mean, I find this, I find this incredibly cowardly, irrespective of that.

Too little too late.

Well, it was the point you made about Tom Tillis, too, who's retiring, which is why he was after hit,

which is why he was able in the hearing to go after Christy,

you know, frankly, as effectively as he did.

Yeah, I just, you know, now is the time.

Come on.

I mean...

Well, maybe they're saving it all for the midterms.

Well, the midterms are now.

Midterms are now.

Fair.

Fair, and I did think John Kennedy from Louisiana.

I think on Thursday, I said he was from Tennessee and I was wrong.

You're your boyfriend.

My boyfriend, because I love his voice.

Led Christy Nome, very skillfully, to drink a poison that she didn't realize she was drinking

when he said did the president approve this $220 million ad campaign, and she was forced

to say yes, and that was the moment that her fate was sealed.

Mr. Kennedy, I salute you.

Such an incredible boob.

I mean, you just, I mean, she stumbles through everything she says.

She really has no, no rationalization for what she's doing or what she's done.

She has no reason for being in effect, except a $200 million advertising campaign, which

she is the star of.

It really is a breathtaking amount of money.

I mean, if it was a $20 million campaign, that would still feel a lot.

But a quarter of a billion dollars on an ad campaign, which is basically her riding

on a horse, looking fabulous, and then someone leaked some behind the scenes pictures where

she's bending down from the horse and having her makeup touched up and everything, a quarter

of a billion dollars on an ad campaign, largely for herself.

No wonder she's lost her job.

It's an astonishing sum.

But again, just to remind people, a quarter of a billion dollars.

I mean, remember, Carmela Harris got in trouble for spending $1.3 billion for her entire

presidential campaign.

And this is a quarter of a billion dollars.

And of course, we know that Trump hates it.

He hates it when anyone makes money of him.

Well, she got it.

But just to point out, she got in trouble for spending that money and losing.

Well, that's true.

She had more money.

That's true.

But my point is about the scale of the advertising campaign that Christy Nome, who was already

in the job, I mean, to spend a fifth of what Carmela spent is my point.

Yeah, no.

I mean, and I know that the rationalization for this, the Corey Lewandowski rationalization,

is that this is the way you were going to keep immigrants out of the country and to create

this kind of publicly inhospitable environment, which really it was, was, you know, Christy

Nome threatening immigrants.

Well, Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana knew what was going on, called her on it, and

she got fired the next day.

So progress of a sort, and is it the first dominoe, who knows, we'll be back on Tuesday

to discuss.

In fact, we should discuss on Tuesday, Laurie Chavez, Demet de Hermé, I think that's

how you pronounce her name.

Well, we would have to, yes, we would have to practice.

We would have to practice Laurie Chavez, DeRoumere, who's the secretary of labour, who's

also caught up in her own torrid machinations at the Labour Department.

And I think she was the first to unfurl an enormous portrait of Trump on the outside of

the building, but it may, may not yet safer.

You didn't mention her in the dominoes that might fall, but she might also be a dominoe.

That's because I couldn't pronounce the name.

Well, I haven't got the name down right either.

I'm sure we'll hear from lots of people who somewhat depressingly are commentators,

who have been saying that your books, which are Higgledy Piggledy, are because you

read them.

Whereas my books are gimmick books, and not real books, and actually that's not true.

They are real books.

And I would just like to point out, if you have to say it, I don't know, I'm just pointing

out that these books, actually, this is my book Love Rules, which was out in English,

then I've got the Japanese version, then I've got the Polish version, and then I think

I've got, I've got another language in there.

That's what those books are, so I'm just pointing that out.

They are actually real books, real books, what I have written myself, Governor.

Sort of.

Yes, yes I have.

And then the other books that I read, I did have a very good ghost writer called Liz Welch,

who was fantastic.

Liz, if you're listening, big thank you, very, very good, very good, very helpful ghost

writer.

Fantastic.

Never the less.

Never the less.

Never the less.

What else are we doing on Tuesday?

Oh, because the Labor Secretary has a romantic issue, right?

Well, she has, I'm not sure if romance is the right word, but she's developed close relations

with a member of her body team.

You know, I mean, it's a kind of interesting thing that across the Trump orbit, you have

these kinds of issues which go largely unremarked on.

I mean, should we go to RFK, Jr., and his toured cyber affair?

Well, we could do though, that's had a lot of attention, but it's interesting that the

two women say, it has a lot of attention, but no effect.

Everybody gets away with it.

I mean, until they don't, until they don't get away with it, I mean, Kristi Names not

gotten away with it because ultimately Corey was her puppet master and he pulled the strings

too hard.

Yeah, but she's not faulted for having an affair with, which represents a complicated conflict

of interest.

That's not what she did here.

She's not being hoisted for that at all.

No, it is what she did, but she's not being hoisted for it.

Yeah, and what's interesting is that, you know, in the era of times up, there was this

great dream that when women finally got to these places in government and finally had cabinet

positions, they would be more risk-averse than men.

They would be more responsible that they would not do things like this, and it turns out

that.

Yeah, they'd be kind of gentler.

They'd be best, in fact, just to pinch the first lady's statement.

They would be best in these roles, and it turns out that actually equality is a bit more

complicated than we've realised.

Where that politics is more complicated, politics makes horrifying people, men or women.

Well, and we know where politics is very complicated at the moment, and that is in the UK, which

is where you're about to go.

I am, and I will be on Tuesday, I will speak to you from London.

Will you be speaking from the posh hotel you always stay at?

I will be speaking from the posh hotel, I stay at.

Well, I hope that you get a chance to talk to some politicians while you're there and

get the view from across the pond.

You can count on it.

Okay, it sounds like someone's come in to pull you away.

I'm expecting a shepherd's crook to come around your neck and pull you out of there.

I have to go like this, you know.

Okay.

All right, well, before we do, would you like to remind people to join the Beebeast

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