Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Everything this past week actually can play as farce, from
the second assassination attempt to more Cory Lewandowski shenanigans, to
Laura Lumer, to Trump's continued insistence that this was the
best debate performance in history. And I've asked the people
in the campaign about this, who clearly know it was
(00:25):
a catastrophe, and I've said, you know, he really hasn't
broken character about seeing this as hands down the best
debate in history. And this also seems farcical that Trump
really has not suffered in the polls because of this debate.
I mean, we're still in this absolutely locked in race.
(00:46):
And you would think that the world would see this
debate and say, okay, in fact not. Welcome to Fire
and Fury the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'm Michael Wolf and I'm James Truman. Good morning, Michael.
It was another week of either dark news or absurd news.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I think this week brought home to me essentially what
I've been living for the past eight years, in which
people have been saying it's so dark and the end
of democracy. And I'm always going basically pushaw the idea
that Donald Trump could end democracy, the idea that anyone
should take Donald Trump seriously, the idea that this exists
(01:36):
in any context other than some logic has broken. The
entire perceptual world has been turned on its ear. I mean,
this week seems very much again and again and again
to reflect that. And I think the true author of
our political times is probably Armando Ianucci and in deep
(02:01):
and the thick of it. And it kind of brings
us to this question, is farce less farcical because it
has real world implications? Or does taking it as seriously
as we do make it even more of a farce
even when we can't see. So a story broke today
(02:22):
about Trump starting a crypto business. Now, all of these
businesses that Trump starts, well, nobody knows how to regard them.
They are farcical, They're this combination of kind of farce
and griff at the same time. But the Times had
a story about this crypto business this morning, and I
(02:44):
just want to read through paragraphs from the Times story.
And this is about Trump's partners in this business. Won
by the name of Hero or the apparently occasionally he
renders it as Hero. Mister Harrow is a relatively obscure
figure in the crypto world. As a young man, he
(03:07):
was a habitual drug offender and was imprisoned, but later
turned his life around and became rich. In twenty twenty two,
he appeared at a crypto seminar hosted by Jordan Belfour,
who inspired the twenty thirteen movie The Wolf of Wall Street.
At the event, mister Harrow described stable coins as the
(03:27):
biggest innovation since slice bread and said his favorite of
the coins was vivacious and insane in almost borderline a
Ponzi scheme. Over the years, mister Harrow has worked with
mister Falkman, the other partner, who founded a company called
Date Hotter Girls, which offered seminars on attracting, dating, and
(03:50):
keeping women of beauty and quality. Now let's just pay
attention to how The Times has rendered this in perfect
straight man fashion, and I think that that goes absolutely
to the heart of the Trump issued that there is
no language to express this. Yes, I mean you have
to continue to take this seriously. Why Because I think
(04:13):
this has real world implications, Because he could very clearly
become the president of the United States again. Therefore, this
can't be farce. It has to be the end of democracy.
And yet at the same time, by all the evidence,
it is farce.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, I mean, we have every reason to assume that
Trump knows absolutely nothing about cryptocurrency.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Absolutely nothing, and he was actually until relatively recently, he
was against crypto. But the crypto guys have come out
in full support of Trump and have basically said we'll
come up with any money you need. And Trump goes
around now say I don't have to meet with donors
because I got the crypto guys. They'll give me end.
(04:57):
But also Baron Trump suddenly has now gotten a role
in this. He's a high executive.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
As the young person who might know what crypto is.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Theoretically, yes, Trump as goes around says he knows everything
about crypto.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Let's talk about the assassination for a second. It was
the strangest, like one news cycle story possibly too if
it goes into the secret services and competence, how does
it happen?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, I mean the first assassination attempt was also a
really truncated news cycle on that suddenly it was there
and that was all anyone was speaking of, and then
suddenly it was gone. And Trump himself has been quite
pissed off about this. Yeah, they've stolen my assassination. They've
taken that away from me. They tried to shoot me.
(05:47):
I was shot. Why isn't anyone talking about this?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So now this second attempt, you know, first tragedy, second
time forrest. It happened, and almost immediately, I mean like
within an hour, this became a central promotional event of
the Trump campaign. They're raising money off of it. He's
accusing everyone, the Democrats, of causing this, overshadowing these other headlines,
(06:17):
the Laura Lumer, who we will get to. And it
has become this incredibly useful thing in the Trump theater,
to such an extent that it is as though they
are cheering this on the best thing that's ever happened
to us.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
There was something George Conway that is Kelly Anzex said
about the assassination I thought kind of nailed it. Just
it's very short. It's difficult not to get the feeling
that there are many people out there who are not
so much upset at the attack on Trump as they
are excited about it because it gives them something to
be upset about.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I think that also works the other way from the
Trump standpoint, so the Trump people get to be excited
about this. I mean, this works on sides. Yeah, yeah,
I hear you, but especially on the Trump side. I mean,
we just saw them go into the second assassination attempt business,
(07:10):
which will now run its course until they don't get
any more money. But let's go back to the beginning
of the week before the assassination attempt. When the assassination
attempt happened. I was on the phone with a Trump person.
We're just talking at gossiping and getting the whole week's picture,
and then this person said, oh what, another assassination attempt
(07:33):
got a run.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Up.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Until that point, Laura Lumer was the principal star of
the Trump week. This Laura Lumer character, again, how do
you even explain this in logical terms? She represents I
think you can safely say the furthest extremes of right
wing conspiracy views. You can't get on the other side
(08:01):
of her. In terms of those views, well.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, I think when you have Marjorie Taylor Green saying
she's mentally unstable in a documented liar, we sort of
positioning her at the very far extreme of how this
can go totally.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And she's kind of ferocious about this. I mean, one
Trump person said to me, I'd rather have cancer than
have Laura Lumer angry with me. Trump likes her because
she's thirty one years old. He likes the way she looks.
She's full of flattery toward Trump. So she may be
grief to everybody else, but for Trump, she's an acolyte.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
So she's been around this campaign really from the beginning,
and the tension has been that the campaign people try
to keep her out, and she has the remarkable ability
to come back in, and she's befriended some people in
the campaign retinue who let her back, and then Trump
often says, you know, where's Laura, And so suddenly she's
(09:05):
back in. But they've done a fairly good job of
keeping this out of the news, out of a central
place in the news. Now, this week she showed up
with Trump at the nine to eleven memorial Indeed, now,
in terms of right wing conspiracy, she is a nine
to eleven truther. She doesn't believe nine to eleven happened,
(09:27):
or she believes that its agents are the United States government. Therefore,
it is a little odd that she showed up at
the nine to eleven memorials. Again, how could this possibly
have happened? How could anyone have thought This was a
good idea, but you can see people asking kind of
the logical question. We'll be back right after the break.
(09:58):
So let's shift to another other area of this. Corey Lewandowski, who.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
You'd spoken about last week, is having kind of interrupted
the smooth running of the campaign.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yes, so Corey is this other farcical figure in Trump world.
He comes in, he gets thrown out. He comes in,
he gets thrown out. He pinches this person's bottom and
that person's bottom, and he gets thrown out. And everybody
hates Corey, and nobody can work with Corey, and he's
a megalomaniac. In a world of leakers, he surpasses everyone.
(10:35):
So since the middle of August, there has been this
incredible tussle on the campaign between Lewandowski and Susie Wiles
and Chris Lasovita, the two pillars of actually running this
campaign and relatively speaking, running this campaign very well. And
the whole place has been paralyzed, you know. So this
(10:56):
is described to me as literally as civil war. Finally
have to deal with this. Apparently Trump tried to rain
Corey in, and that was I think on Wednesday or Thursday,
on Friday, and this is really when Laura Lumer began
(11:19):
to break wide. There's a huge story in the Daily
Mail which is all about Laura Lumer, but also blaming
Laura Lumer on Susie Wiles and Chris Lasavina, and then
going further has no relationship to Laura Lumer. Blaming everything
bad that has happened in the campaign on these two.
(11:41):
I mean a kind of devastating thing. Unsourced. You know,
the Daily Mail's sources say that these two don't want
to win, that really whatever they're doing is about the
corporate jobs and the corporate contracts that they're going to
get after they lose. So virtually everyone in the campaign
(12:02):
assumes that this is a Lewandowski hit job.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Of course, yea.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
As much as Laura Lumer becomes a problem, and the
Daily Mail headline was she was going to bring down
the whole campaign, means I think that Lewandowski is or
let's put it this way, that Wiles and las a
Veda are going to get the blame for this, and
that if the campaign is faltering, if the press is bad,
(12:32):
and the Laura Lumor press is pretty bad, they're going
to get blamed.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
It's the first time we've talked about fast as a
way of understanding this. I mean, looking back, was twenty
sixteen a fascicle campaign. I mean his presence was fascical
because of who he was. He was failed real estate developer.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
From now, I think, of course it was you know,
grab them by the pussy and you know, and John
McCain is a coward because he got caught. Caught. That
was an instance of people hearing things which they had
never heard before in a political context.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Which was thrilling in its time. It feels kind of
tired now.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No, well, I don't know. I mean, I think that's
what the liberal point of view is. How far can
this go? It must come to an end, and maybe
it will. But right now that's not clear.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
You speaking as though the fascical quotient was something strategic,
as though it was something that figured out might work.
I think about that day he woke up with the
text I hate Taylor Swift. A few hours later someone
was hiding in the bushes about to shoot him. That
is fascical, but it's not a fascicle plot that he wrote.
(13:43):
It's an unveiling of fascical elements.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
But even if you start so I hate Taylor Swift,
who could have thought that was a good idea. I
mean that becomes incredible stupidity, which becomes farce. Yeah, I
mean this person does with potentially commanding a significant constituency,
and then he decides to get up in the morning
(14:07):
and reinforce that by saying I hate her. I mean
I hate her.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, It's not a small statement.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
It's like a matter of fact. So I'm on the
phone this is in the same conversation the Trump person
that I'm speaking to, and this person sees that, yeah,
and says to me, oh boy, are.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
We letting him off the hook by talking about this
is theater as fast?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, I think that's the kind of question I'm actually
sort of wrestling with on a frequent basis. Is it
less farce because it has real world implications? Or does
the New York Times talking about it in this dead
pan way make it even more farcical.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
We are all suddenly put in the position of having
to take things seriously that you can't on any logical
basis take seriously. I mean, mister Harrow and mister Folkman
on his dating strategies. But one thing I want to
come back to on the Lewandowski thing. I want to
hit the Times again because I'd like to do that
(15:21):
as often as possible. So they had a Lewandowski story
today and it was that classic newspaper thing of well,
we really know a lot that's going on here, but
we can only say the following. And so their story
about Lewandowski was essentially he was an odd bird in
the campaign, come into the campaign without any power, and
(15:44):
that's not true. I mean, the story is actually quite wrong.
I mean, he's been incredibly disruptive, has gained himself enormous
amount of power. Again, coming back to it's a civil
war in the campaign. Yeah, and clearly the Times no that,
because that's why they would write this story. But clearly
they decided they couldn't quite say that. So, yeah, you
(16:06):
have heard it here. Instead of asking me where to
handicap this, what's your handicap on what will happen forty
eight forty nine days from now?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I would give the edge to Kamala Harris while at
the same time having a deep knot in my stomach
that says it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Got it? Got it?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
And you I don't know?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
No, I mean every day pendulum every day.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Every day. Yeah, So, staying with our theme of face,
Ruper Murdock showed up at his trial to try and
disarm his sons this week. What do you make of that?
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I actually know something about this?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
What?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So you have a trust? He created this trust in
nineteen ninety eight. It is an unbreakable trust. This is
the nature of this kind of trust. Once you put
it together, that's it. You can never ever change it.
He is ninety three year old Rupert Murdoch in court
in his dark blue suit and old man sneakers, and
(17:13):
he is trying to now change this trust.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Now.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
The nature of this trust is, in order to get
divorced from his second wife, he had to agree to
lock up all his assets for the benefit of his
four children at the time, and then those children, upon
his death would each have a equal vote in what
(17:37):
happened to the Murdoch fortune and empire. He had already
left his second wife for Wendy Dang, a young woman,
and this was all to guard against him having children
with her and them somehow having a claim on the
right on the trust. So in fact he did have
(17:58):
children with her. He had two more children, and those
children were functionally paupers. So almost immediately from when he
set up this trust, it began to cause him incredible grief,
and it almost came to the dissolution of the marriage
with Wendy, which would later come to its natural end,
(18:21):
but it almost came to an early end because of this,
and he had to go hat in hand to the
four members of the trust. The trust could be changed
with a majority agreement of the beneficiaries majority yes, And
he sat down with them and he said, listen, this
(18:42):
is the children. They're paupers. And then he said to
his four older children, I will give you money now.
And curiously, they didn't really have money. All of their
fortune was tied up in this trust, and the trust
was in the shares of the company, so they weren't liquid.
And he said, I will give I'll give you each
(19:03):
fifty million if you let your half siblings into this trust.
And they said, yeah, for fifty million, okay, but we'll
give them an economic participation, but not a political participation,
so that they won't have a vote. The vote would
stay with the four children. And so he brought his
(19:24):
sons back into the business. They couldn't get along with
each other. And then in twoy and eighteen. Because they
couldn't get along with each other, most of the business
was sold to Disney's Disney, resulting in the fact that
each of the children, by the terms of this trust,
(19:45):
got a disbursement, and the disbursement to each of the
children was two billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Right was that to when this children?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, six children and each of them got two billion dollars,
which will provide for a lot of a lot of everything.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
But a lot of acquisitions, a lot of lawyers at
any rate.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
This also took on a political cast because of Donald Trump,
and that became such an embarrassment to James and his
sisters and Fox News and what it was doing, so
from their point of view, such a pernicious influence in
American politics that the riff became even stronger. After the
(20:29):
sale of most of the assets, which Lachlan opposed, Lachlan
was given the kind of consolation job of running what
was left of the assets, including Fox News.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yes, so what to do?
Speaker 1 (20:44):
And there is nothing to do except change the terms
of this trust, which cannot be changed now there is
in trust law if the members of the trusts are
doing something to damage the trust, the value of the trust,
(21:06):
then there may well be an opportunity to recast the
terms of this trust. And so Rupert Murdoch and his
son Lachlan have gone into court to argue that if
they change Fox from a conservative network to a more
moderate network, that would compromise the value of the trust.
(21:30):
Well it might, but it's so much more complicated than that.
You could also say, from the three siblings point of view,
the problem here is that we own cable television, right,
and that we should just get out of cable television.
The problem with the Murdoch the father and son argument
is that you don't know what's going to happen. No
one is flagrantly wasting money here. It's just a different
(21:52):
business strategy. So what's the likelihood of the court saying, oh, yeah,
we agree and clearly we can see the future. The
likelihood is small. However, when you have a situation that
you don't like, that seems immutable, that you seem not
to have any other recourse, what do you do. Well,
(22:14):
if you can afford endless amounts of lawyers, you sue.
So you go into a level of litigation that a
and this is in a way trumpion. It delays everything.
There can be no decisions and no step forward because
you're in litigation without end and also because litigation tires
(22:37):
people out. Sure, And that's also an interesting thing. Is
it father and son or is it just son doing
his hail Mary pass of? I want to keep my job?
What do I do? And it could very well be
he's going to tire people out and they're going to say, Okay,
let's come to a settlement, give us money, or we
all agree to sell Fox and you get to invest
(23:01):
that money. Because there's reason to believe that Lachlan doesn't
want really to run Fox, that he wants the money
to invest in the gaming gambling business. So that's what's
happening in this courtroom in Reno, Nevada.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Thank you very much, Thanks James, what was a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
That's all the time we have for today, and we'll
be back next week. Would you like us to try
to answer your questions? I frankly have reservations about that.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
But they might be good questions.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
They might be good questions, But you can email us
at Fire and Fury Pod at gmail dot com, Fire
and Fury Pod at gmail dot com and we might
even try to actually answer those questions.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Well, I think we should, and perhaps we can share
the enormous amount of money that we get paid to
do this and send them a dollar.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
A dollar that would be a big part of that.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Maybe too large a percentage, yes.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
But actually that would be interesting. I'd love to.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Hear from likewise.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, Yeah, Fire and Fury.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
The podcast is hosted and executive produced by Michael Wolfe
and James Truman. The producers are Adam Waller and Emily Marinov,
executive producers for Kaleidoscope. Mangesh had to get a an
Os Valoshan, executive
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Producers for iHeart On, Nikki Ito and Katrina Novel