Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
On the eighteenth. If he is sentenced, there will be
jail time if this January sixth case goes forward. If
any of these cases go forward, he'll be convicted. The
election becomes existential. If he doesn't win the presidency, he
goes to jail. Welcome to Fire and Fury the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm Michael Wolf and I'm James Truman. Good morning, Michael James.
So here we are the dog days of August. The
Trump campaign seems to be further in the doldrums every
day for the last ten days. What's going on.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
August is a particular time for Trump. For one thing,
he really is annoyed to be doing anything else but
playing golf. No, that's actually true year round, but particularly
something about August. He wants to be on the golf course.
That may be responsible for August always being an inflection
(01:07):
moment in Trump campaigns. In twenty sixteen, that was the
moment in which he threw it all over and gave
it to Steve Bannon and Kelly and Conway. That was,
as we sit here in the Hampton's doing this. That
had a Hampton's theme because he flew out to a
fundraiser at Woody Johnson's house in Southampton, and so he
(01:32):
came out there to the fundraiser and there was no
one there. Literally nobody showed up. So he went into
a fury. Of course, that was the point at which
the mercers kind of descended upon him and said, we'll
give you. I can't remember. I think maybe it was
five million dollars if you throw out everybody and put
in Bannon and Kelly Ann. That was the moment really,
(01:56):
which probably won the campaign. So there's an interesting purpose
in this August inflection. And then in twenty and twenty,
the inflection happened in July, but then the campaign in
August was solidified around this new campaign manager, Bill Stapion,
because Brad Parscal was thrown out and subsequently the police
(02:20):
would be called because he was waving a gun at
his Florida home. But August in Florida, I guess.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It was very hot time.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
But that also was a moment that this campaign in
terrible shape down two hundred million dollars that's never happened
for an incumbent, got this new person, Bill Stapion, a
legitimate Republican operative in every way, stabilized the campaign and
brought it close in fact, to victory. How do you
(02:51):
deal with a totally reconfigured campaign? And he doesn't know,
and everybody within the campaign is afraid for their jobs.
There's a sense that something will happen. Now he's brought in.
Corey Lewandowski came in about ten days ago and has
been traveling with him constantly. So the campaign leadership is
(03:14):
in West Palm Beach and Corey is now next to
him on the plane. So what that means, Well, I
would not want to be the people in Palm Beach.
It's curious because Corey is kind of the last person
one might expect to rehab your campaign.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Because if his it in dark history.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, I mean, just to recap, you know, he got
thrown out of the twenty sixteen campaign first because he
had an affair with Hope Picks, Trump's favorite, and then
they had a screaming public fight in the street. And
more recently he's been persona on grata in the Trump
campaign because he had quite a public affair with Christy Nome.
(03:57):
She was a kind of a real comer in the
Trump world, and that pretty much sidelined her.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Even before before the dead dog. She shot the dog.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
It doesn't matter any typical Trump fashion. No matter how
much you have become an issue, you're invited back if
he suddenly believes that you can send some kind of
message that he wants to send.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Talking of dead dogs shifting to dead bears and dead whales.
What's the methodology or what's the thought of bringing RFK
into Trump world? I mean, the five percent he had
isn't probably going to transfer to Trump.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Well, I actually think it will. I think it's a
math decision. In the Trump campaigns reading of this, the
anti Biden voters that RFK had gotten have now gone
back to common So all RFK was left with were
Trump voters. Therefore, the idea that this would be evenly
split was no longer true, and they had to re
(04:56):
embrace these voters back. The complicated thing is that Trump
was impressed by the Kennedy name. He goes around saying
Trump Kennedy.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
But he's about to devour him. I mean that we
know this is not going to end well, I mean,
he's crazy. Trump is crazy, consumes people, spits them out.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Trump himself has been promising RFK Junior all kinds.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Of jobs, like real cabinet jobs, you.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Know, and healthcare. RFK Junior could become the new Fauci anyway.
Trump promises these jobs and then the campaign that people
around him are always taking them back. I mean, I
think the chances are that RFK Junior ends up with nothing.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
And the people.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Around Trump, to my knowledge, are fairly clear eyed about
RFK Junior.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I e.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
He's fucking crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
So why did Trump give him the transition team? Is
that a dud job? Yeah, that's a dud job.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
But Trump doesn't really believe in transition teams.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, I remember from the books that was the issue.
There was no transition team.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, on these transitions, and even the government, if you win,
the government gives you money to do this, but Trump
disregards all of that. Chris Christy led the transition team
in twenty sixteen, and whatever work they had done was
immediately discarded.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Right. Speaking of money, we know that Kamala has raised
nearly half a billion dollars in the last few weeks.
What's going on with Trump's campaign financing?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
There was an interesting piece in the Times this week
by my friend Juliana Glover, who's super Washington insider knows
everything in longtime Republican and now has become a one
of I mean, since twenty sixteen, one of the more
articulate anti Trump Republicans, so much so that she actually
(06:39):
quite seems to me to be a Democrat at this point.
But the piece that she wrote was basically, where is
the Trump money going? They raise all this money and
it's extraordinarily opague, which is true. But I would take
in actually a different argument, which is to say, Trump
people have a lot of money. Money is not their
(07:00):
problem this time. It was in twenty twenty it was
a serious problem. And you know, it was not only
that outsiders couldn't tell where the money was going, but
people inside the campaign, which is somewhat more serious, had
no idea where the money was going. But I would
also say that one of the things about political campaigns
(07:24):
is that they're all a dark, closed room on where
that money goes. And the structure of campaign money that
the senior people in the campaign all who seem to
run outside companies which then book much of the media spend.
So you're always in a situation of where you want
to raise more and spend more, because then you get
(07:49):
in kind of an old fashioned cut of the advertising
of the media buy So one of the structural reasons
why we have campaigns that run basically for two years
and costs billions of dollars is because the whole political
infrastructure makes their money off of this.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So this is a legitimate kickback that's woven into campaign financing.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, exactly. I mean I would say, you know, why
aren't we doing this except that you have to say
in terrible hotels and eat that terrible food, right right.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So all we hear among the people we hang out
with is well, people I hang out with things are
bad for Trump.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
But but it's not true. Democrats again smoking something here.
I think that there's no way that you look at
this race in any other context but a fifty to
fifty context.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
But the idea that Harris is a juggernaut and Trump
is finished is completely not true. I was speaking to
some people in the campaign last week who we're acknowledging
if the vote were today, she would have probably a
greater than fifty percent chance of winning. Fifty five percent
chance that will tight up as it always does. She's
(09:02):
not far enough ahead at this point for that not
to come to revert to fifty to fifty and there's
a very good chance that Trump takes all of the
sun Belt states and the swing states. You know, the
Democrats will get Wisconsin and Michigan, and then it will
come down to Pennsylvania. If she doesn't win, the recrimination
(09:23):
will be about why they didn't take Shapiro.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So to look at the media, all we're hearing about
is what are the issues. Trump seems to have finessed
this quite well. He will talk about the issues for
thirty seconds, which is, let's deport one hundred thousand illegals,
and then he'll wander off and talk about whatever is
on his mind, whereas Kamala gets punished for not doing
those interviews. Do you think people actually care or is
(09:48):
this the media puffing itself up and wanting to feel
important and feeling disrespected by Kamala.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, I think he's He's obviously made that an issue.
You know, she's announced an interview with she and Walls
are doing on CNN with Dana Bash. That's sort of,
I guess, the first formal campaign interview out of the box.
I'm sure she'll be fine on this. On the other hand,
they will be looking at this incredibly closely and she
(10:16):
has a whole set from their point of view of
problematic positions, this is where she could be vulnerable. And
I think from a media point of view, yeah, this
is what the media does. I mean, give us our time,
and if you don't, that's going to get you into trouble.
On the other hand, she's clearly made this purposeful and
(10:36):
no doubt correct calculation that she has much more to lose.
You're just trying to pull ahead, increase your margin, sustain
that bounce, and you're trying to avoid anything that will
compromise that we'll be back right after the break.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
It's astonishing to me how if an issue seems to
be polling well, the other side just takes it as well.
I mean, like Kamala took Trump's idea of a no
tax on restaurant workers' tips well totally.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
And it was as though last Friday morning, it was
literally as though Trump woke up and said, Okay, we're
pro choice now, and that will be I mean, this is, like,
I mean, the most significant issue in the Republican Party
and he's basically in the process of just wiping it away.
(11:32):
I mean, Trump, you can say, okay, you know, we
really do understand what his views about abortion probably are
a New York person that I knew, but before the
Trump political life began, that when abortion became legal in
New York in nineteen seventy two, I think before Roe V. Wade,
(11:54):
Trump said that should be called the Trump Law for
obvious reasons, so we know what his real position on
this would appropriately be. But Vance seems legitimately I suppose
a you know, he's a Roman Catholic convert. He seems
serious in his, you know, rather draconian position about abortion.
(12:18):
But when he had to do meet the press this weekend.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So Trump sent him out to convey the new pro bowls.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, I'm sure that he was booked before that. And
then I'm sure when Trump started a post on Friday
about a woman's reproductive rights, I can imagine Vance panic
and said what do I what do I do here?
And I can imagine they said something like, well, you've
got to deal with it. We're pro choice. And then
(12:46):
he went out and said that Trump would veto a
national abortion band.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Mm hmmmm hmm. In terms of the strategy for the
next two months, does Trump have anything other than these
personal attacks on the Kamala.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Well, I think, I think, I'm not sure that's the
way to look at it. For his entire political career,
he's had nothing but personal attacks. I mean, that's what
he does. That's his talent, his gift, that's what works.
So the question is, in this short period of time,
he has two lines of attack. Here, she's a radical
(13:21):
liberal and she's an incompetent bitch. I mean, it was
really those two things. I mean, there was a funny
thing in the Times where somebody on the Trump campaign
kind of formally denied that he calls her a bitch.
I mean, there are a number of people that I
spoke to last week in the Orbit and they were like, well, yeah,
at least one hundred times this week. And anyway, those
(13:43):
are the things. So how do you take those two definitions?
Too radical, too incompetent. Too radical means she's too left.
Incompetent means I suppose she's black. And how do you
make that stick? Yes is the word I mean? I mean,
so how do you put that into people's minds so
(14:05):
that they begin that surfaces for them when they think
about her. One of the ways you do that, if
you're Donald Trump, you just repeat it and repeated and
repeat it and repeat it. The question is does he
have enough time? So what you're really looking for is
her to do something, say something, or take some action
(14:25):
which then can be matched with radical liberal or incompetent
bitch and put those two together and then you literally
will make an instant commercial and pound it home. But
that's what this is going to be about for the
next whatever we're at now, sixty nine days to the election.
Can he do that or can't? And that will probably
(14:46):
be he probably wins or loses on exactly that, and
clearly the debate, that's what he'll be looking for, you know,
And he's waffled on this. I'm not going to do
the debate. How do I get out of the debate?
Everybody talks to should I do the I don't think
I should do the debate? How do I get out
of this debate? I got to get out of this debate.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
This is like the loop.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But he seems now to have decided, yes, okay, I'm
going to do this debate, and in fact he needs it.
He needs to be able to find something. He's got
to draw her out.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
But to remember the Clinton debate when her loyally legal
skills were so far beyond Trump's skills, and everyone said
she easily won the debate, but in fact she put
more people off, I think than she converted enough.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
You never know on these things. I mean, since there
is so little that actually happens, except if you're Joe
Biden and you collapse, then it's exclusively a matter of perception.
On one level, there's the media perception, but the media
also is often wrong.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, let's talk about the pressures on Trump. I mean,
he's expected to win, and also internally winning is how
he is guaranteed to stay out of jailer.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah, no, and that's suddenly back in play. You know,
there's now a superseding indictment on the January sixth federal case,
meant to address all of the Supreme Court issues and
meant to push this case along. Plus he's due to
be sentenced for his New York convictions in three weeks
(16:20):
or so. I would say the chances of him going
to jail if he loses this election are pretty certain at.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
This point, like an actual custodial sentence.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
In actual custodial sentence.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
It's a strange parallel with Netanyahu, right, I mean, they
both need to stay in office for the same reason.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I think that's part of this whole law fair term,
which at some level is certainly accurate. We're going to
get you one way or the other unless we don't.
And this is the thesis I think for this entire campaign.
The system gets him or he breaks the system, and
then we're coming down to the finish line on that.
(17:04):
The curious question is does he know this?
Speaker 2 (17:07):
And what do you think?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I spoke to a couple of people last week who
he spoke to, you know, I mean there's this thing
that he calls up people and then they call other
people this. You know, the conversations. I know of three
conversations he had with people last week and it was
I'm ten points ahead.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
So he decides what the reality is and then somehow
with such determination and will and reality denying fortitude makes
it so.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Determination and will they're not terms we've been using about
him recently.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Well and perhaps incorrectly, It has been his determination and
will to push forward on this campaign in the way
he sees fit right. Yes, and everybody, you know, the
adults in the room, in more logical minds are saying no,
it's the border it's the economy, let's concentrate there. And
(18:03):
he's no, No, it's she's a radical liberal and incompetent bitch.
He clearly is just going to go after her. It's
not about the economy, it's not about the border, it's
about her.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
And you think he can win with that strategy? Still,
I do? I do.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I mean, he could lose with it too, but he
could win. And I think that's mostly how in the
end people respond to these elections. Do I like this
person or not? Do I trust this person or not?
Does this person give me the creeps? Does this person
turn my stomach?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Thank you, Michael, thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That's all the time we have for today, and we'll
be back next week.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Fire and Fury.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
The podcast is hosted and executive produced by Michael Wolfe
and James Truman. The producers are Adam Wuller and Emily Maronov.
Executive producer US for Kaleidoscope, Mangesh had to get A
and Os Valasian executive producers for iHeart On, Nikki Etoo
and Katrina Norvell
Speaker 2 (19:14):
MHM