Proof Trump, 79, Has Lost Grip on Reality: Wolff

In the State of the Union, I thought was especially addressed to his fan base. That was his hour and 47 minutes presentation. Look at me. Look at me. Constantly reminding people that this is his reality, insisting on his own fabulousness. The country is not in good shape. So it's as though there's an acknowledgement that the movie is a stinker. But you're going to go see it anyway because Donald Trump is the star. Michael. Joanna. I forgot your name for a second. I literally forgot your name. Literally. That is not a great way to start the podcast. I was going to start with a word cloud and we can choose a word out of the cloud. Iran, Epstein, Bill Gates, the Clintons, State of the Union, J.D. Vance, Minneapolis, Medicare. I could go on. I like the idea, and I would like to get to the word shame and ashamed, which I know something about where that word has now slipped into Trump's rather frequent usage. so let's let's go to that word at some point okay well we could start with that word because it's not a word traditionally associated with trump because people around him and in fact we see it um as his audience or fan base i say fan base in inverted commas um no that he is a man that doesn't have any shame in inverted comments uh in inverted i think it is a genuine fan base well we're not part of the fan base is all i'm saying but but i've always thought that that is he is speaking to in the state of the union i thought was especially addressed to his fan base and by fan base it's it's there's a subtle distinction between a political base this is a fan base in which they just want to see trump and i think that's what that was his his 100 in his hour and 47 minutes presentation look at me look at me um that's why you're here um constantly reminding people that that this is his reality the um you know he was he was insisting on his at every sentence his own fabulousness which is obviously a um a kind of a fan ingredient you don't really care what i do what i say it's just my presence and um and so he could go on at an enormous length saying things that were failing to really address anybody's concerns and hoping that just his 147 minutes of or an hour and 47 minutes of donald trump would uh would suffice yeah and and you could see how much he was enjoying himself i mean that that's the thing too he's got everything he wants he's at the center of the world he's got an audience looking at him no matter that the Republican members of Congress are all on the edge of their seats about whether or not they can pull off a victory in the midterms. And you just saw him. I mean, there was a moment where he turns his head. Well, there were several moments where he turns his head to the side. And it may be that he's trying to look at the teleprompter. But what you see is this bird-like ability to listen to what's going on, to listen to the room, to feel the energy, and then to know where to take it next. And I've never seen it quite so visible. And it was a remarkable performance for a guy who's 79, who, you know, many people have diagnosed as on the verge of dementia, or if not, demonstrating symptoms of dementia. He seemed frail and that he was clutching the edge of the podium. And I wondered if he was wearing sort of intimate male hosiery, like Manx holding that body together, because at one point he looked like he might be sinking but it was a pretty bravura performance i hope i don't ever have to do an ad read for manx well i think on that on that basis you've thrown down the gauntlet and i think performance is that is the note to hit here because it was as though you know the the country is the country is not in good shape. So it's as though there's an acknowledgement that the movie is a stinker, but you're going to go see it anyway, because Donald Trump is the star. Right. But you made the point last week when we were talking about the banners being unfurled in the government buildings in DC. And it really is a sight to behold, especially outside the DOJ, these enormous German type banners in a way. I mean, I don't even know what to call them. I know they are. They are. I mean, they don't exist in America. They don't exist in America. Well, the only place we've really seen them is is sort of is Germany. You know, is Germany. But but I thought your point that actually this is more what you're likely to see outside a concert hall when Taylor Swift is playing was a better observation. And I was thinking about the time he the enormous amount of time he spent in Hollywood where those posters are everywhere. And if you haven't been to Hollywood, it's hard to appreciate the size and the impact of those posters of people's faces, especially slapped on the side of studios. So when you go down on Sunset Boulevard and that's that's a kind of funny part of the economics of of moviemaking, because these are totally irrelevant to the success of a movie. But they are done by the studios to please the stars. Right. Which is similar to what's going on now. Trump's banners are put on these buildings, not really for any other reason except to please Donald Trump. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they have no impact whatsoever. And well, we assume they have no impact. But that's what it feels like. And this sense of him as a performer. And as you also pointed out last week, he's always better when his back is against the wall. So the polls are dreadful. There is nothing going on right now that a normal president would feel bullish about. And yet that's when Donald Trump manages to reach down into whatever that wrinkled little walnut of a heart he has and pull out some energy. yeah no no i mean he is obviously obviously always in the best position when he has clear enemies um and he is the interesting thing though about this particular moment of trump being down is his is that i don't think he has yet identified that that enemy i mean it was the supreme court Then clearly during the during the speech, it was the Democrats. And actually, I can come back to the to this word ashamed, because last week when the court decided against against his his assumption of great power with regard to the tariffs, Trump said said in particularly the conservative justices should be ashamed of themselves. They should be ashamed in front of their families. And then during the speech, he said to the Democrats who were not standing up during to praise his policies, they should be ashamed of themselves. Well, I think we have a clip of that. Why don't we play it? Isn't that ashamed? You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself. So this this word ashamed came in within days of two uses within days of each other. Now, Trump's word choice is is always pertinent because there are so few of them. I mean, he doesn't have I mean, he has he has an incredibly limited vocabulary. um and um and it's and and this is helpful to him because it's often hard to know what he means because he uses he uses the same word constantly um and it's it's um you know something is beautiful all of these things are beautiful or something tremendous something's tremendous um and um um and the the interesting thing so i i know how his speechwriters work and i use speechwriters kind of loosely the term, because Trump actually writes most of his own speeches. Well, writes, I use that word loosely, too. There is an extemporaneous delivery here of these speeches. But one of his chief speechwriters is this really put-upon guy by the name of Ross Worthington and has been with Trump since the first administration. And and he has to work, you know, he's an intelligent guy, but has to work within this incredibly limited range of Trump's words. So just imagine this. You're a speechwriter and you have to write speeches with with with. You have to write speeches in which you can only use this limited collection of words. and you get in trouble if you expand beyond that first thing because trump doesn't know how to use the words he doesn't know what the words exactly mean then he starts to use them in the entirely wrong context and everybody goes crazy what is what is he you know i mean he's aids what is he saying what what and then ross worthington gets blamed you gave him this word how could you have done that um um and but sometimes they try to expand the word usage and i i um and so this word ashamed um crept in and this was a it was a consciously new word put in front of of trump um well do we think you know do we think he knows what ashamed means you know why would that why would possibly the what is even the context of which Supreme Court justices would be ashamed of a decision that they have made that they have agonized over for quite a number of months here. You know, shame is to be caught. You're ashamed when you get caught in the headlights, when you get caught out on something, something that that that you thought was was was was going to be secret um and obviously this is a public act it was obviously a public act for the democrats not to stand up but they should be ashamed and it's one of those kind of things everybody goes huh what does he mean i should feel ashamed do i feel ashamed what is the um what is he trying to say and it's one of those things that he doesn't quite know how to use the word but it has slipped in and now we will hear it again and again and again and it will always be used somewhat improperly. And if you were a psychologist, you would say he's projecting that he's feeling shame over his very low polls and the fact that his policies are not working so far. Actually, I would say that differently. It is for him a contrast because he feels no shame. He is shameless. That is his advantage and in some way he may even appreciate that that all people feel some level of shame except for donald trump that that is his singular singular among all other attributes um that may be his leading advantage he feels no shame i'm thinking of poor ross worthington it's a bit like saying to picasso or perhaps we shouldn't elevate it that much but the idea of saying, well, you can paint a picture, here's your palette, but there's no yellow, there's no red, there's no green, and there's no blue. And so he's sort of poking around with brown. Actually there was a strangely eccentric English poet called William Barnes who refused to use Latin words And he would only use English words on the grounds that English words were the most expressive And for some reason I can just remember this from school that instead of using the term manual labor, he would use the word handwork instead, which he argued was equally expressive. Anyway, a piece of irrelevant flotsam, except that Donald Trump is not the only person to use a limited number of words. But he's not a poet. OK, silence from Michael Wolff. An oblique British poet. All right. So we've got, as we're talking, we've got Hillary Clinton in Chappaqua. or how did I hear the BBC pronounce it today? Chepakwa, which reminds me of how difficult some of those words are to pronounce, giving evidence to the Oversight Committee about her relationship with Epstein, which appears to have been somewhat like Melinda Gates's, very minimal. I'd like to ask actually a factual question, which I'm not up to date on that. she had asked for this testimony to be public do we know what happened that that was the committee turned her down on her desire to testify in public session is that what happened i think well what's happened is they're they're filming it in the i think the public arts center in chapikwa and i think then it's going to be released it's slightly unclear actually i was checking with our news desk It's not live. It's not live and it's not televised in front of Congress. Yeah, it's sorry. It's not live and televised. It's being filmed and they are going to release the testimony. My understanding is this afternoon, Thursday afternoon, we're recording this Thursday morning. And the people who are going to be there, I think, are James Comer, Ro Khanna, Robert Garcia, who's the leading Democrat on the Oversight Committee. Obviously, James Comer is the chair of the committee. Thomas Massey, who was enormously important with Roe Conner in getting the release of the Epstein files. And Nancy Mace, Nancy Mace. um you know the and here's a slight digression um that there is now a resistance of on the part of almost everybody either side to testify in front of congress because con which which used to be a regarded as a reasonable investigative body and now all testimony is filtered through a political lens. It is always there to serve someone's agenda. It will always be leaked and leaked in ways that are advantageous to whosoever agenda it is. So the hearing, this is on the part of, I mean, I've spoken to many lawyers about this who regularly deal with this kind of thing, is that nobody wants to testify it comes off nobody gets a fair break it is to nobody's advantage who uh no no no witnesses advantage well and that's where obvious obviously the clintons went into this knowing that um um that they were being used for a particular agenda and in this case the agenda on both on both i mean the republicans agenda but also the the um the left agenda too. Well, and I think these hearings are also being used to pump the social media accounts of Congress people, right? So, I mean, you think of AOC, you think of Jasmine Crockett, that this is all about the politician grandstanding, and it's stuff they can put out immediately on social media to make it look like they're tough or smart or aggressive with the people who are coming in front of them. And also, even the older members of the committee have young staffers who are anxious to prove their worth by growing a social media following. So it's had an enormous impact. And as you say, it used to be a really useful tool for investigation. And now it's become showmanship, it's become grandstanding, it's become social media fodder. Nobody wants to testify in front of Congress. So anyway, but nevertheless, sometimes people are hauled before Congress and the Clintons, Hillary and Bill are examples of that. They are there unwillingly. And well, and also they I mean, you said it's political, it's obviously political. they had written an eight-page letter to the committee outlining, they say, everything they knew, that they'd answered the questions that the committee wanted to know. Lots of people the committee have approached have said, here's what I know, and that's been fine for the committee. But obviously, these are two high-profile witnesses. They're trophies for the oversight committee to bag, and that's what's going on. That said, I'm completely riveted to know what bill clinton in particular is going to say because we've seen the pictures of him so how is he going to explain those well he's he's i i assume he's going to say that he was on um jeffrey epstein's airplane four times i believe and jeffrey epstein transported him to the following places and he did not go to jeffrey epstein's island although you certainly would not know that from from virtually every report across the breadth of social media but he did not go to this to this to this island and and outside of that had relatively little to do with Jeffrey Epstein I assume that is what he is going to say because my understanding is that that is the truth but I think it'll be interesting well I think perhaps more complicated for him is his relationship with gillen maxwell various emails suggesting the two of them had gone off on brief vacations together so i'm assuming he'll be asked about that too and then of course there are the pictures of him in pools um which i think hillary has dealt with by saying these were relaxation breaks on long trips when we were staying in hotels which may all be true but the other thing And let's let's not ignore the overriding point that the one person who this is good for is the president of the United States, the current president of the United States to have the former president of the United States hoisted like this, that this is that Bill Clinton has always been an incredibly effective foil for Donald Trump. And the reason is that they are these, you know, they are in their in their ways actually quite similar. And well, they seem to be similar in their approach to to women and their quest for sex. That was my point. Yeah, I know it was your point, but I'm just making it for you anyway. And also we should point out it's the first it's the first time a president, a former president being called to give evidence. That's part of, you know, the Donald Trump playbook is always repeated things. If it works, do it again. And clearly, Bill Clinton was one of the ways that he manages managed to circumnavigate, let us say, the grab them, grab them by the pussy gate. and now this will obviously be helpful to Donald Trump as are all of the other people who have been hoisted in the Epstein affair. And it's the first time that a former president has given evidence like this which may mean that they can summon Donald Trump too and of course there's now this very interesting story going around that there's 53 pages missing from the files, which relate to a woman who came forward, I think, in 2019, and who said that she had been abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump when she was 13. And there's some confusion as to why she was interviewed four times by the FBI. but only one of those times is mentioned in the files that have been released in the files and there are three interviews which appear to be missing. May I footnote this to say that the issue here there are two issues the first issue is is why was this material not included in the release of materials which was responsive to a law that said all 100% of whatever you have we don't know what you have, but we want all of it. So therefore, there's almost little rationale. The only slight rationale is this part of an ongoing investigation, which perhaps the White House or the Justice Department will claim it is. But that's one issue. But the other issue is that the claim here is that this abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump took place in 1983. Now, I am as close to sure as I can possibly be that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein did not know each other in 1983, which would therefore mean that this is a lie. Have we had the conversation of where they met and when they met? i i don't i'm sure we've had since we've had many conversations one with neither of us can remember any of them but i don't i don't precisely know that i i can i put them together the first time i know that they were that they were together occurs in in 1988 i believe um and um and i know this because they approached someone in a restaurant together um actually they approached a man by the name of herbert allen who had founded the investment bank allen and company and at any rate they went up to um herbert allen and um um uh trump had i i believe had known allen through roy cohen so we we understand the level of people we're dealing with here right um but anyway he went up to um uh alan um said said hello and then said said um um and i'd like you to meet my associate um jeffy epstein um so jeffy that's that's the first moment i actually put them together and i actually think that maybe they had they had known that it was a new relationship of theirs six months old something something like that okay all right well that would uh then undermine the story of the victim but the fact that she was interviewed four times by the fbi uh presumably about the same thing is is pretty interesting anyway there's now a search on for those papers um and of course the epstein story has now gone global i mean uh the norwegian police have opened an investigation into the former prime minister of Norway, who was a former head of the Council of Europe, I think. And he, as we mentioned before, was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein by Ter Rod Larsson, who is the diplomat that, you know, they wrote the play Oslo about, the head of the World Economic Forum, Davos, always at the center of things, has had to step back because of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Larry Summers has resigned from Harvard over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein Larry Summers always seems to be resigning He resigning he stepping back who knows what he doing He doing a lot of fancy footwork there Yeah and remember long ago he was the president of Harvard and had to resign from being the president of Harvard out of an issue unrelated to Epstein. Well, sort of tangentially related to Epstein, because he suggested that women weren't as good at science as men were. And then we've had a Nobel Prize winning professor. So that's only related to Epstein in terms of the fact that that was about women and Epstein is about women. Other than that, there is no connection. No, I'm just thinking about their opinion about women and that women were somehow used to be decorative objects and for sex, but didn't have any kind of back slightly on the idea that everything connects to Jeffrey Epstein. But now at this point, we certainly believe everything is connected. Yeah, well, what started as a conspiracy and everybody thought was ridiculous turns out to be taking all sorts of people down with it, including a Nobel Prize winning scientist at Columbia this week who resigned from Columbia. So it's been another week of ripple effects. And we're still at the beginning of plowing through these three million files. And we've got another three million to come. So I thought it was very notable at the State of the Union, actually, that Kash Patel didn't get a shout out. Just talking about the FBI and Pam Bondi, Pam Bondi got a shout out. I think she got a shout out, but RFK Jr. didn't get a shout out. And Kash Patel very clearly didn't get a shout out. J.D. Vance did. And then the biggest applause in the room was for Marco Rubio. You know, the interesting thing, and I know a little about this, how the shout outs are positioned in in his speeches, and that's specifically he doesn't like them to be on the teleprompter because he feels that that looks that that looks phony. um phony is a is a trump word um and and he likes to be i like to be spontaneous i like to i like to um i like to call out the person i think um uh who comes to my mind at that at that time because that's the guy um i i don't know what that's the guy who um that's the guy who the crowd wants to here. That's the guy I'm feeling. But it's a particular thing and a thing that he is very aware of, the act of calling out someone in the crowd. But it also means that people are always expecting to be called out. And then he doesn't call them out because he decides to punish them or in nobody knows this he forgets so it's a it's a it's a kind of thing and people within the white house circle try to read this often what does this mean um am i being punished um or did he forget um and then sometimes to confuse things he says to people aren't you you know weren't you um uh um You know, weren't you happy that I called you out, that I gave you an acknowledgement when he did not. So he has he has not only forgotten to call someone out, but he then forgets that he didn't call them out in the speech and thinks that he has. Well, that must be very confusing to deal with. I mean, I mean, it was really remarkable seeing his cabinet sitting there clapping. David Rothkopf in a column just said they're clapping like seals, that sort of. And then standing up, standing up, standing up. I mean, it really was like the State of the Union workout. I don't know how many times we should count how many times people stood up and clapped. But Pete Hegseth in particular looked so sort of adoring of Trump and didn't, as far as I can remember, get a personal shout out. The one that was clearly the most vivid was Marco Rubio because Trump spent some time on him. And Marco looked both thrilled and embarrassed. He did that thing he does where he looks off in the middle distance and you can see the remainder of what's left of his soul leaving his body. And then right after that, he was on camera looking at his cell phone. Which tells you a lot. that he was bored and probably on instagram looking yeah no and somebody had texted him who texted him i i'm i'm this is some another name i'm forgetting someone had texted him about being called out oh and that's what he was looking at well those poor people having to sit there i mean at least i could get up and walk around my living room have several cups of tea i mean it was so long and even if it did summon up all his vaudevillian energy it just went on and on and on the longest the longest state of the union longer than than bill clinton's no no the last longest one was also his and he just went beyond the world it's just it's on it's incredible anyway look his own record look you know peace in the world hangs on a thread here we've got steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner, as we speak, having a quick break from the talks about Iran, from the Iran talks, where the US is trying to figure out what to do with the last three main nuclear sites in Iran, and they want them dismantled, and they want the US to get the contents. And this is interesting, too, in the context of what they will do next, because as you might recall when we last bombed them trump pronounced them obliterated exactly so so these sites that have been obliterated now need to be more obliterated more obliterated they need to be dismantled and brought to uh anything left over but we're at this point and we and we should i mean this is i mean this is an incredibly critical point what does trump do with having amassed all of this firepower, what does he do with it? And it's a kind of existential decision. Do you do as little as possible and hope to, and you do as little as possible, declare victory, get out, and don't pay any price for it? Or do you go forward? Do you use this this all of this firepower to actually make a difference, to actually do something, to destabilize the regime, decapitate the regime, free the Iranian people? I'm sure Trump would say and come what may, which is to say you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know how the the Iranian regime is going to respond. And there are indications by Trump's own generals that the response might be fierce and in some in some ways potentially apocalyptic. Yeah, John Bolton was on NPR this morning, just I think with PTSD from his days as Trump's national security advisor during Trump one, just saying that Trump will have no idea. He was just trying to remember what it was like briefing him. And as you pointed out, many times on this podcast, you know, inability to focus on any of the information determined to argue with any analysis that's presented if he can pay attention, and he will have no sense of what regime change is. could be it's just he approaches everything as is there a deal to be made here and what is the deal if so and of course that's why steve whitkoff and jared kushner are there steve whitkoff his golfing buddy who's a who's a manhattan real estate guy no and and there's another there's a kind of kind of i suppose silver lining here um in which traditionally and this is through the administration and through this administration, because he doesn't want to concentrate on the details of going to war, the vast details, doesn't want to, isn't capable of, is just too bored, is that we don't and we have not gotten into the situation, a George Bush situation in Iraq. All he wants to do. So and this is the I mean, I mean, if you think about it, I mean, performative war is really shameful. But nevertheless, performative war is is does not get you, at least so far for Donald Trump, bogged down in endless war situations that you can never hope to come out with in any kind of successful way. Right. And of course, the blueprint he's got, I think, in his head is the Venezuela situation where they went in, extracted Maduro. And in fact, we saw the leading helicopter pilot get an award at the State of the Union address where Donald Trump sort of stole some of his valor, I think. And actually, it was the first time we'd heard that anybody had been injured. He had apparently had one of his legs shredded and he was there on a walker. That was the first time I think we'd heard of any injury whatsoever. We were told it was just a flawless, a flawless operation, but much harder to do that in Iran. Well, I think I said the other day that in the in the situation room when they had their kind of come to Jesus meeting, what are we going to do here? in which and that was the meaning in which General Cain apparently outlined the difficulties in in an attack on on Iran and which then Trump Trump reinterpreted as as it was all all easy beasy and no problem. And then General Cain had to clarify that was not what he meant. But also within that meeting, then Trump kept repeating, I want to do it like we did in Venezuela. And everybody was like, well, it's clearly not Venezuela. Right. By the time this podcast goes out, the talks will be over and we'll have some sense of whether or not Iran has said, as Trump keeps referring to it, the secret words, which are that they're going to give up all nuclear ambitions and stop enriching uranium. And we should repeat this. We should note this, that they repeatedly say this. Right. Right. But there's no logic to the way these things proceed. All right. So we've got also an apology from Bill Gates, just going back to Epstein for a moment. I realized I didn't include him in the men that have gone down this week for saying that he had two affairs, one with a Russian bridge player and one with a Russian nuclear physicist. So at least at least these were intelligent women. What can I say? And then he says that Melinda is now ex-wife had warned him about Epstein. And he said, you know, I've got to admit Melinda was right. And he's he's apologized to his foundation staff. I mean, everything is the same here. Everything is to script. Everybody is on script here. So, I mean, there's certainly no insight that Bill Gates is providing here. Right. No, I think it's just saying what they are told to say by their by their lawyers, communications people and their lawyers. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So it's enormously, it is as opaque as it has ever been. Yeah, that's for sure. And of course, one of the most fascinating elements of the State of the Union is watching the two people behind Donald Trump So no one can forget that moment where Nancy Pelosi rips up the agenda I assume it was And that was a big moment Very interesting watching Mike Johnson leader of the House and the Vice President, J.D. Vance. And J.D. Vance looks in a state of permanent confusion and incredulity that he's there. He's got this sort of furrowed brow and he's looking at the back of Trump's head. And you're wondering, is he thinking what's inside Trump's head? He looks inscrutable. He looks incredulous. And he's also being vindictive to the people of Minnesota. Well, I actually I think I think that that this may be an instance of of not him being not primarily him being vindictive to the people of Minnesota, but of Trump being vindictive to J.D. Vance. So he's just given J.D. Vance the job of telling the people of Minnesota that the federal government is going to withhold $250 million in Medicare funding. In Medicaid funding. Medicaid funding. Thank you. And this is, of course, against the backdrop of what's happened in Minneapolis. So they are being punished for that. And J.D. Vance is being the guy sent out to do this. So what happened in Minneapolis is hugely unpopular, incredibly unpopular, maybe one of the things that will result in the midterm election route, possibly in both houses, in both the House of Representatives and the Senate against this government. Could not be, I mean, could not be less popular. And here, J.D. Vance is given the job of being now the face of the punishment of the people of Minneapolis and Minnesota. So he can't be happy about that. Well, and of course, they're using the fraud in Minnesota, which actually has been addressed. I mean, there are, I think, 47 people in jail over a fraud that was about a children's nutrition program that largely took place during COVID when government funds came flooding in and people siphoned it off utterly illegally. The attorney general in Minneapolis was on it. they rounded up people who were guilty and they put them in jail but it's become this festering wound that trump keeps going back well i i would say in a in a different way it's more indicative of the dumb assness of the of the trump white house because they had a bona fide issue there that was an issue that they had uncovered this issue they had highlighted this issue It was genuine. It already it has already meant that the that the that the sitting governor is not going to run again. And then they sent in the troops to Minneapolis and and and basically lost their own issue there. That became I mean, it was the Trump White House's and ISIS misdeeds in Minneapolis became the story instead of the corruption in Minneapolis and these programs being the story. So could could no one think in a political straight line there? Apparently not. Apparently not. And Kristi Noem, who, as we know, is the head of Homeland Security, has been elbowed out of the way. Tom Homan has gone in to sort of calm the situation, has pulled a lot of the ICE troops, as it were, out. And the situation appears to be calming down, except now it feels re-inflamed. Again, another Trump home goal by J.D. Vance saying we're pulling out a quarter of a billion dollars. There are really, it's as though pay attention to the fact that we've killed these people in Minneapolis and let's go back to the corruption. I mean, that was a subtext of the State of the Union. And another indicative aspect of the State of the Union, let's see the world the way we want to see it, even though everybody else sees it differently and knows that it is differently. So, again, the State of the Union was Trump reality, which was largely, by the way, the State of the Union is utterly perfect. And true reality, which is reflected in – well, it's reflected everywhere, but specifically in recent polls, which are devastating to Trump. I mean, and I think I mean, I think it's a totally fascinating moment because it is potentially that inflection moment. He can't get anything right. And he can't find he can't even find the rhetoric now to create a kind of a kind of consistent opposition to to to all of these things that are going wrong in an in a on a palpable basis for most Americans. Which is why the Iran moment is so interesting. But even the Iranian moment, that is also an interesting because he doesn't know what to do here. If he goes in, in all likelihood, unless we do this cosmetic obliteration of what has already been obliterated, he's going to create a situation which is going to be offering nothing but blowback. Americans are going to get killed. no resolution is going to be achieved. MAGA is going to be furious because he will have done what he expressly pledged not to do, never-ending wars. He would have begun one himself. Well, don't forget he's ended 42 wars. Well, all right. He says he's ended eight wars, possibly nine. Certainly not ended the Ukraine war with Russia, which continues to hang over Europe, the fourth anniversary of the start of the war this week. A devastating report on CNN, I caught with Clarissa Ward following a train that was bringing back bodies that had been found on the front lines. Just a terrible, terrible ongoing situation that is yet to be resolved. Well, yet to be resolved. No, I mean, I think of all the things in the in the world of everything that is going on, you might not you might reasonably say Ukraine is the center of the world. I mean, this is what happens there determines the future. And not to mention, and I think the scale of what's going on, we, certainly we in the U.S., don't entirely appreciate that we're talking about casualties which are running almost to 2 million at this point. And I mean, that's on both on both sides of this. I mean, to devastating effect. And and and also the devastation of not only Ukraine, but but also in a ways that we don't appreciate the devastate the devastation of of of Russia itself. Russia is is two at a at a potential tipping point. I mean, we have this situation that is not sustainable for either side. And and yet it goes it goes on. And where does what with the existential possibilities of both for toward the greater Europe and toward Russia and Putin himself. Right. And remember that he went in and everybody assumed that this would be a very short war, that it would be a takeover and that the Ukrainians would fold very quickly and four years on. Putin is hanging on. Zelensky is hanging on. And it's unclear what Trump is doing, despite his boast that he would have been able to solve it the first day. He obviously didn't do that. And now he's relying on the fact that had he been president, the war would never have happened. And I have actually, actually, I was speaking to a White House person who was chordling about this and saying Trump does not like it if you bring up Ukraine. So, Michael, we have a limerick from a new writer this week. This is from Cy Campion 4001. I'm going to read it out. It's based on our last podcast where we were talking about Prince Andrew or the Andrew formerly known as Prince. the royals are mystical beasts like centaurs and catholic priests they live in glass homes and should never throw stones as the stones might awaken police that is almost perfect as a limerick i think rhythmically it's perfect no that was great sigh is that his name sigh campion might be a woman might be might be or like william barnes the oblique british poet they might never use Roman words, Greek words, Latin words, Latin words. Anyway, we'll be back on Saturday to discuss Hillary and Bill Clinton's evidence to the oversight committee. And we may or may not be at war with Iran. Iran may already be under regime change. We don't know. Donald Trump doesn't know. And nobody else knows either. As William Goldman said, first words of his brilliant memoir, Nobody knows anything. But I know that I'm launching a substack. You've got one. And so I decided I want one, Michael. Please sign up for it if you're interested in even more Joanna Coles. Just go to beast.pub forward slash scream. It's called Primal Scream. And it's beast.pub forward slash scream. And Michael's substack is called Howl, based on the poem by Alan Ginsberg. Alan Ginsberg being a poet from New Jersey. I'm telling you that because otherwise Michael will. Do you want to thank people, Michael? I'm considering. Do we want to thank them? Have you had coffee today? Yeah, I have. I have. Not enough. I just want to point out. Can't we just run a thing, the thanks? No, it's important to say it every time. And I would like to point out that when you come into the studio, you normally drink. We have always have a cappuccino waiting for you, but then you go through another large couple of cups of espresso. So I probably around eight espressos, I would say. No, that's just because you gave instructions to prepare it improperly. Oh, well, then why didn't you tell me that? I have. Everyone else knows this now and has has has blamed the situation on you. Oh, OK, fair. Well, how many coffees do you have? But then how many coffees do you have? Long, long, long. Long coffees. Long goes. OK, and I would like to shout out. I've been trying to respond to as many comments as I have been able over the last couple of weeks, a comment from someone called Sarah McPhee, who said that she loved my messy hair, that messy hair was in. It wasn't supposed to be messy. And someone else called Dee, who said, cut your bangs. They're bloody annoying. That was a brusque email I felt to read first thing in the morning. I'm assuming that D, because of the use of the word bloody, is perhaps in London or in England somewhere. Anyway, I'm on my way to the hairdressers at some point this weekend, all being well. So am I. See you on Saturday. So the good news is we have so many B-beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support. support. Thanks to our production team, Devon Rogerino, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro, Neil Rosenhaus.