October 3, 2024 • 19 mins
In this week's episode, Michael and James debrief on Tuesday’s VP debate and break down the final stretch of the 2024 election. With just over 30 days to go, they explore Trump's closing strategy, comparing it to his surprise 2016 victory and discuss whether his campaign can once again capitalize on his reputation as a "strong closer." Will Trump’s unconventional tactics prove effective in 2024, or has the political landscape shifted beyond his control? Have a question or want to share your thoughts? Email us at fireandfurypod@gmail.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
There was a moment in twenty sixteen when he turned
his phone over to Jared. Yeah, hold my phone, so
he wouldn't tweet anymore because understanding that these tweets were
always an instance of him shooting himself in the foot.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Trump understood himself that his tweets were shooting.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
He did, and we know this because he gave the
phone to Jared hold my phone until after the election,
and in twenty twenty it was a terrible campaign, but
he came awfully close, much closer than anyone would have thought. Well,
his view is that he actually, of course did win,
but his view is also that he would have won
(00:45):
in an absolutely onslide if he only had another week.
So you can reinterpret that and say, if he had
another week, he actually would have won. So that's the question. Now,
are we back in that space? Can he close strong?
(01:09):
Welcome to Fire and Fury the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm Michael Wolf and I'm James Truman. Good morning, Michael, James.
I think we're both still in the after glow of
last night's Vice Presdidential debate. What's your first response?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I confess that there was a moment, not the first
time I've felt this, but that cold chill came over me,
and I thought he's gonna win. Yeah, it passed then,
but nevertheless that has started to come with greater and
greater frequency. But I mean I found vance really interesting.
He clearly was in this prison of all these contradictions
(01:47):
he has to deal with, yes, and didn't seem to care.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I thought, Okay, I get this. This is the Tucker
Carlson thing, which is to say, this is all about
performance and sophistry and how I'm going to make my
name and career. At this point in time, I see
the landscape, I can deal with it, I can function
within it. I can actually master it completely. Of everything
(02:12):
from you know, I called him hitler, but yeah, now
he's a nice guy. To global warming, Well that's really
about we want clean water. To abortion, Well let's talk
about family benefits, which we're not going to give you anyway,
and not talk at all about the right to abortion.
And then January sixth, what can I say? That was
(02:32):
like okay, But in fact that was then the only
moment at which Walls pushed back. So Walls had all
of these other opportunities which were easy, I mean layups.
All he had to do was turn and define the issue,
and he obviously couldn't do it. So Walls was clearly
(02:54):
what he is, this guy plucked from obscurity with no
facility at all to do this. I'm kind of left
thinking we should go into politics. Everybody should go into
politics because the talent pool is so lame. If only
they paid more money.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I mean, the debate was allegedly what we all wanted
for our own good. It was civil, it was substantive,
it stuck to the issues, but it was the most
tedious ninety minutes of television I recall seeing. I mean,
what if Trump has just forever changed our expectations.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I was going to say, all debates are like this,
except the debates with Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, there were these moments when Vans and Waltz agreed,
they had camaraderie, and the moments were just strangely cringe
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Well, neither of them have a genuine bone in their bodies.
This is what I am supposed to do, This is
what I have to do. This has nothing to do
with what I believe or feel, or more importantly, am
truly able to express.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Mm hmm yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So I mean that's Finally, at the end this paucity
of expression.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, I got so bored. At some points I started
thinking about the fact that they were both doing job
interviews basically, and that if I was hiring, what kind
of jobs would I hire each of them for? I'm
eager to hear this advance. You would immediately give a
job to run regional sales. But you would give him
regional sales, probably in Australia because you had anywhere near you.
(04:26):
He would spend his whole day trying to undermine you
and take your job. And then you think about wals
be some kind of cooked up pre retirement job, maybe
sort of dual reporting to the exec team in HR.
He'd be kind of the feel good mascot of the
company and probably expected to play Santa Claus at the
Christmas party. But you keep him away from all business decisions.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
You know, which gets us to the real point which
almost everyone has made. Nevertheless, we still have these vice
presidential debates that they make no difference, that by two
news cycles later we will never speak of them or
remember them again.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Let me just argue with that, if the cloud hanging
over Kamala Harris's a lack of political experience. Giving the
VP job to Waltz seems to compound that, didn't You
start thinking about how Josh Shapiro would have managed the
debate last night.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, and that can bring us, of course, back to Pennsylvania,
which hinges in the balance. On the other hand, I
have no idea how Josh Shapiro would have handled this debate.
I mean, he seems as manufactured a figure as anybody
in politics, So I don't think it makes any difference
who was in each of these seats. It's a non event,
(05:35):
except if a fly lands on your head.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, that was the last great moment to miss that.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
But the interesting thing about this debate is that it
is the last debate, or theoretically, unless something happens, the
last debate, which is odd and confusing in terms of
where we are right now, because we are in this
closing moment. This is the close and usually the dramatic
(06:05):
arc here leads to a final debate relatively near election day,
and we're without that. Each of these candidates finally has
nothing to aim at, no way to structure the payoff.
You know, this past week, it's been interesting. There are
a couple of indications, you know, I thought the Trump
(06:27):
Zolensky meeting was telling and clever.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And he just equivocated on whether he was going to
support Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, usually what happens, you know, and He's complained about
this to many people when he has had meetings with Zelensky.
Then Zelensky comes and tells everybody that they're in absolute agreement.
So instead he came out and the Fox cameras were there,
and he pulled Zelensky over and says, let's have a
news conference. So there was five foot four Zelenski against
(06:56):
six foot three Trump, and Trump basically say what he's
always said, if I were the president, this would never
have happened, and we have to have peace. As you know,
Zelenski is trying to get more weapons for more war.
But the larger point was that there looked like two presidents.
So if he can step away from his going after
(07:18):
her in this kind of gutter way, then maybe yes.
And there's another thing that I've noticed that Fox has
been going live to his speeches, carrying the entire speech,
the entire wayward thing gets broadcast. Now Fox isn't doing
that out of the goodness of its heart or even
(07:39):
out of its deep belief in right wing certitude. I
can only assume it is doing this because the ratings
are good.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I'm an aside from his dud performance in Wisconsin last night,
and you have to say he handles Hurricane Helene so
much better than the Democrats. What do Democrats not understand?
The basic unit of pr is optics? How do things look?
I mean, they screwed up and he's Palestine with the
rail derailment. Trump got there first, They learned a lesson,
(08:10):
I thought. And suddenly Trump is in North Carolina Kamala
picture of her on the phone from a private plane
talking to FEMA. The comparisons were just astonishing of capability
and blindness.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I can add a note here that he has this
guy justin Copperrell, who's completely brilliant.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Huh. I mean what does he do?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I mean he stages everything. So the look and feel
is all due to this guy. And early on in
this campaign his mandate was clear, make it look in
every instance like Trump is still the president of the
United States. Yeah, and that's what he has done with
incredible success and flair. Now partly because he has such
(08:55):
a demanding boss. Trump himself is very good at this.
He walks on the set and immediately knows the details.
Too many flags, flags should be here, and if it's not,
then he goes into a rage. But Justin Carporeal has
adapted to this and has been incredibly good at giving
Trump exactly what he wants and creating that look. Matter
(09:17):
of fact, in Trump's things, I want to look better
than being president.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, it's essentially plotting a hero's path through current events,
with Trump in the hero.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Again. It's like that Zelensky thing to continue to look
and that's really what he has done if you go
through back through this whole campaign. He's running incumban's campaign.
And he's done that not just by the mere fact
that he was once the president, but hey, he has
continued to make everything look like he is still the president,
(09:49):
from mar A Lago news conferences or Trump Tower news
conferences to the plane that wherever he is Trump Force one.
He's re he jigged the presidential seal to avoid copyright infringement.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But it looks very similar. I mean, the latest thing
he did was he started to gofund me for the
victims of the hurricane, to which he has contributed not
a dime, and actually in the small print, it appears
he's only obligated to give three percent of the proceeds
to the victims. And it already appears to be a
(10:28):
boondoggle because he's been getting half a million dollar donations
from his supporters had already reached their limits of what
they could donate, So this is another opportunity for them
to put money into Trump's coffers under this guise of
Saint Teresa Hood.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I think the campaign was really launched with the East
Palestine visit Ahu. I mean, that was the moment in
which he was back again, the moment in which he
was the president.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I had been speaking then after that to one of
the Trump people when there was the big fire in Maui,
and I said, well, why doesn't he go to Maui?
And they said, oh, too far at any rate. So
the idea that this is the pivot moment, this is
the moment in which he is going to close, and
(11:17):
this would be the moment in which he is going
to win or he's not going to win. And it
goes back to that Steve Bannon formulation. In these very
close races, the only thing that matters is what happens
in the last two weeks. Yes, so we're really heading
on a fast train toward that moment to see whether
he can do this. I mean, and I thought in
(11:40):
the last week, you know, that series of speeches which
were balanced by issues immigration, economy, you know, and then
he would go off the deep end, but there was
the balance. But then this weekend when he was, frankly
to me, back to being mad Trump again with slandering
(12:02):
her in every possible way, obsessively. Yes, I mean I
got a note from one of the Trump people which
was he can't help himself.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Is that how they self soothed? Do you think?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
But it then also prompts the question where is she? Yeah,
do you know where she is?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
No idea, Ida you know.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I think she's doing her campaign appearances. She's showing up.
I'm sure she's working very hard, but she fails to register.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, it's like she's losing national stature every week since
that high point of the Democrat convention, and she can't
seem to find a way to get it back to
Project Lodgia.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Or just as you know, in the Trumpian way to
own the news cycle. If you win the news cycle,
you win, which is the yes, you know, the Trump,
the essential Trump strategic thesis will be back right after
the break. Just in the last twenty four hours the
(13:09):
race in Wisconsin and Michigan, the races are tightening up.
It's incredibly precarious moments and it has been, but gets
more precarious.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, I mean, in some sense, Trump has to just
continue what he's doing, but Kamala has to find another gear,
which is a bigger challenge. I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
One of the things about being Donald Trump and being
willing to say anything and inoculated against the downside of
saying literally anything is that you can always make a headline,
whereas Kamala Harris is in a position that she is
frightened of saying anything. So therefore the risk that she
(13:51):
would have to take to make a headline is a
risk that she is not going to take.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
That's such a good point, which stacks the odds kind
of very punishingly against her at this point.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, I know. I mean I was talking about this
to a Trump person who was expressing certain puzzlement at
the fact that she was absent or not prosecuting this
case more aggressively mm hm. And the only way that
they could explain this because it seems such an obvious
flaw was to say, well, the Democrats must not be worried,
(14:24):
they must feel confident enough in their position.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Interesting, do you think that's the case.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
The point of view of this Trump person is that
the Democrats they must know what they're doing. They must
be looking at their numbers. Yeah, they must have a
measure of confidence that they are ahead enough where they
have to be ahead not to want to risk that.
We'll find out if that's true extremely soon. We have
(14:49):
a question a listener question, who do you think will
work in the Trump administration? Will Trump have problems with
recruiting and filling positions? And this is from Arnie. Let's
take the second part of that. For some reason, somebody
always wants to work in the White House. So the
(15:10):
idea of working for Donald Trump is a horrifying idea.
It will end unhappily. You will be humiliated and disgraced
and you know, possibly indicted. And yet there will be
a long line of people who want to go and
work in the White House. In Trump's White House? Are
(15:31):
they lesser than the last people? Now, they're probably pretty
much the same. Who will that be? I think that
that's actually an interesting question, and I think that there's
a real fight brewing about this issue. And on one
side there's the campaign people, and that would principally be
Susie Wiles and Chris las Avita. Feel that they are
(15:54):
rightfully destined if they win to the main White House,
the main West wing jobs like chief of Stuff, Susie
Wiles as the chief of staff, Chris Losovita probably as
that old Bannon's chief strategist role, and it would seem
if he wins again, it will be due to them,
(16:16):
and that would seem incredibly logical that they get those jobs.
And these two are both Wiles and las a Veta
are pretty non Trumpian figures, pretty mainstream Republican types. They
are certainly not the MAGA heart.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
What is the general temperature in the campaign because a
few weeks ago, with Corey Lewandowski coming on it, it
seemed very fragmented and fractured.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
It's still fragmented and fractured, and Corey is clearly trying
to position himself to go in and I think Corey
probably is a stalking horse for the Heritage Foundation that
ilk in the MAGA universe. It is fractured, it probably
will continue to be fractured. And I would say the
(17:05):
exception to that is that Trump really does need these people.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yes, Wiles and las A Vita.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Even he must know that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, who got the job of escorting Laura Lumer off
the plane? There you go, that would be Corey's job, right.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I think within the campaign they certainly believe that Lewandowski
was actually the leak, the Laura Lumer leak. So he
escorted her on and then escorted her off, so to speak. James,
we have a favorite get. I think you call them gets,
now right.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
It's a get. Yeah, I think we have a get
next week. Actually, someone we've both known for many decades.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
So Barry Diller is going to come on next week.
Barry is one of well, let's put it this way.
I usually have lunch with Barry twice a year, and
these lunches last fifty minutes. It's always always at the
end of fifty minutes, he stands up and he says,
you know, stay as long as you want, to have
as much as you are, but gotta go. And in
(18:06):
each of these lunches, I begin the countdown as soon
as they start. Yeah, I know that the end is coming,
and that will be very painful, because it's always a
great lunch. Yes, So Barry will be with.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Us next week. Yeah, and I think you'll be able
to shed great light on where we stand in the
media now, where the Democratic Party stands, and maybe also
about how this campaign has been so shadowed by these
reclusive billionaires or not so reclusive billionaires, that money has
gone to work to shore up Trump. And that's something
that interests me very much.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Fire and Fury the podcast is hosted and executive produced
by Michael Wolfe and James Truman.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
The producers are Adam Waller and Emily Maronov, executive producers
for
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Kaleidoscope, Mangesh Had to get A and Os Valoscian executive
producers for iHeart On, Nikki Eitour and Katrina Novel
There was a moment in twenty sixteen when he turned
his phone over to Jared. Yeah, hold my phone, so
he wouldn't tweet anymore because understanding that these tweets were
always an instance of him shooting himself in the foot.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Trump understood himself that his tweets were shooting.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
He did, and we know this because he gave the
phone to Jared hold my phone until after the election,
and in twenty twenty it was a terrible campaign, but
he came awfully close, much closer than anyone would have thought. Well,
his view is that he actually, of course did win,
but his view is also that he would have won
(00:45):
in an absolutely onslide if he only had another week.
So you can reinterpret that and say, if he had
another week, he actually would have won. So that's the question. Now,
are we back in that space? Can he close strong?
(01:09):
Welcome to Fire and Fury the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm Michael Wolf and I'm James Truman. Good morning, Michael, James.
I think we're both still in the after glow of
last night's Vice Presdidential debate. What's your first response?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I confess that there was a moment, not the first
time I've felt this, but that cold chill came over me,
and I thought he's gonna win. Yeah, it passed then,
but nevertheless that has started to come with greater and
greater frequency. But I mean I found vance really interesting.
He clearly was in this prison of all these contradictions
(01:47):
he has to deal with, yes, and didn't seem to care.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I thought, Okay, I get this. This is the Tucker
Carlson thing, which is to say, this is all about
performance and sophistry and how I'm going to make my
name and career. At this point in time, I see
the landscape, I can deal with it, I can function
within it. I can actually master it completely. Of everything
(02:12):
from you know, I called him hitler, but yeah, now
he's a nice guy. To global warming, Well that's really
about we want clean water. To abortion, Well let's talk
about family benefits, which we're not going to give you anyway,
and not talk at all about the right to abortion.
And then January sixth, what can I say? That was
(02:32):
like okay, But in fact that was then the only
moment at which Walls pushed back. So Walls had all
of these other opportunities which were easy, I mean layups.
All he had to do was turn and define the issue,
and he obviously couldn't do it. So Walls was clearly
(02:54):
what he is, this guy plucked from obscurity with no
facility at all to do this. I'm kind of left
thinking we should go into politics. Everybody should go into
politics because the talent pool is so lame. If only
they paid more money.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I mean, the debate was allegedly what we all wanted
for our own good. It was civil, it was substantive,
it stuck to the issues, but it was the most
tedious ninety minutes of television I recall seeing. I mean,
what if Trump has just forever changed our expectations.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I was going to say, all debates are like this,
except the debates with Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, there were these moments when Vans and Waltz agreed,
they had camaraderie, and the moments were just strangely cringe
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Well, neither of them have a genuine bone in their bodies.
This is what I am supposed to do, This is
what I have to do. This has nothing to do
with what I believe or feel, or more importantly, am
truly able to express.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Mm hmm yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So I mean that's Finally, at the end this paucity
of expression.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, I got so bored. At some points I started
thinking about the fact that they were both doing job
interviews basically, and that if I was hiring, what kind
of jobs would I hire each of them for? I'm
eager to hear this advance. You would immediately give a
job to run regional sales. But you would give him
regional sales, probably in Australia because you had anywhere near you.
(04:26):
He would spend his whole day trying to undermine you
and take your job. And then you think about wals
be some kind of cooked up pre retirement job, maybe
sort of dual reporting to the exec team in HR.
He'd be kind of the feel good mascot of the
company and probably expected to play Santa Claus at the
Christmas party. But you keep him away from all business decisions.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
You know, which gets us to the real point which
almost everyone has made. Nevertheless, we still have these vice
presidential debates that they make no difference, that by two
news cycles later we will never speak of them or
remember them again.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Let me just argue with that, if the cloud hanging
over Kamala Harris's a lack of political experience. Giving the
VP job to Waltz seems to compound that, didn't You
start thinking about how Josh Shapiro would have managed the
debate last night.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, and that can bring us, of course, back to Pennsylvania,
which hinges in the balance. On the other hand, I
have no idea how Josh Shapiro would have handled this debate.
I mean, he seems as manufactured a figure as anybody
in politics, So I don't think it makes any difference
who was in each of these seats. It's a non event,
(05:35):
except if a fly lands on your head.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, that was the last great moment to miss that.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
But the interesting thing about this debate is that it
is the last debate, or theoretically, unless something happens, the
last debate, which is odd and confusing in terms of
where we are right now, because we are in this
closing moment. This is the close and usually the dramatic
(06:05):
arc here leads to a final debate relatively near election day,
and we're without that. Each of these candidates finally has
nothing to aim at, no way to structure the payoff.
You know, this past week, it's been interesting. There are
a couple of indications, you know, I thought the Trump
(06:27):
Zolensky meeting was telling and clever.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And he just equivocated on whether he was going to
support Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, usually what happens, you know, and He's complained about
this to many people when he has had meetings with Zelensky.
Then Zelensky comes and tells everybody that they're in absolute agreement.
So instead he came out and the Fox cameras were there,
and he pulled Zelensky over and says, let's have a
news conference. So there was five foot four Zelenski against
(06:56):
six foot three Trump, and Trump basically say what he's
always said, if I were the president, this would never
have happened, and we have to have peace. As you know,
Zelenski is trying to get more weapons for more war.
But the larger point was that there looked like two presidents.
So if he can step away from his going after
(07:18):
her in this kind of gutter way, then maybe yes.
And there's another thing that I've noticed that Fox has
been going live to his speeches, carrying the entire speech,
the entire wayward thing gets broadcast. Now Fox isn't doing
that out of the goodness of its heart or even
(07:39):
out of its deep belief in right wing certitude. I
can only assume it is doing this because the ratings
are good.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I'm an aside from his dud performance in Wisconsin last night,
and you have to say he handles Hurricane Helene so
much better than the Democrats. What do Democrats not understand?
The basic unit of pr is optics? How do things look?
I mean, they screwed up and he's Palestine with the
rail derailment. Trump got there first, They learned a lesson,
(08:10):
I thought. And suddenly Trump is in North Carolina Kamala
picture of her on the phone from a private plane
talking to FEMA. The comparisons were just astonishing of capability
and blindness.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I can add a note here that he has this
guy justin Copperrell, who's completely brilliant.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Huh. I mean what does he do?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I mean he stages everything. So the look and feel
is all due to this guy. And early on in
this campaign his mandate was clear, make it look in
every instance like Trump is still the president of the
United States. Yeah, and that's what he has done with
incredible success and flair. Now partly because he has such
(08:55):
a demanding boss. Trump himself is very good at this.
He walks on the set and immediately knows the details.
Too many flags, flags should be here, and if it's not,
then he goes into a rage. But Justin Carporeal has
adapted to this and has been incredibly good at giving
Trump exactly what he wants and creating that look. Matter
(09:17):
of fact, in Trump's things, I want to look better
than being president.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, it's essentially plotting a hero's path through current events,
with Trump in the hero.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Again. It's like that Zelensky thing to continue to look
and that's really what he has done if you go
through back through this whole campaign. He's running incumban's campaign.
And he's done that not just by the mere fact
that he was once the president, but hey, he has
continued to make everything look like he is still the president,
(09:49):
from mar A Lago news conferences or Trump Tower news
conferences to the plane that wherever he is Trump Force one.
He's re he jigged the presidential seal to avoid copyright infringement.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But it looks very similar. I mean, the latest thing
he did was he started to gofund me for the
victims of the hurricane, to which he has contributed not
a dime, and actually in the small print, it appears
he's only obligated to give three percent of the proceeds
to the victims. And it already appears to be a
(10:28):
boondoggle because he's been getting half a million dollar donations
from his supporters had already reached their limits of what
they could donate, So this is another opportunity for them
to put money into Trump's coffers under this guise of
Saint Teresa Hood.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I think the campaign was really launched with the East
Palestine visit Ahu. I mean, that was the moment in
which he was back again, the moment in which he
was the president.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I had been speaking then after that to one of
the Trump people when there was the big fire in Maui,
and I said, well, why doesn't he go to Maui?
And they said, oh, too far at any rate. So
the idea that this is the pivot moment, this is
the moment in which he is going to close, and
(11:17):
this would be the moment in which he is going
to win or he's not going to win. And it
goes back to that Steve Bannon formulation. In these very
close races, the only thing that matters is what happens
in the last two weeks. Yes, so we're really heading
on a fast train toward that moment to see whether
he can do this. I mean, and I thought in
(11:40):
the last week, you know, that series of speeches which
were balanced by issues immigration, economy, you know, and then
he would go off the deep end, but there was
the balance. But then this weekend when he was, frankly
to me, back to being mad Trump again with slandering
(12:02):
her in every possible way, obsessively. Yes, I mean I
got a note from one of the Trump people which
was he can't help himself.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Is that how they self soothed? Do you think?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
But it then also prompts the question where is she? Yeah,
do you know where she is?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
No idea, Ida you know.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I think she's doing her campaign appearances. She's showing up.
I'm sure she's working very hard, but she fails to register.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, it's like she's losing national stature every week since
that high point of the Democrat convention, and she can't
seem to find a way to get it back to
Project Lodgia.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Or just as you know, in the Trumpian way to
own the news cycle. If you win the news cycle,
you win, which is the yes, you know, the Trump,
the essential Trump strategic thesis will be back right after
the break. Just in the last twenty four hours the
(13:09):
race in Wisconsin and Michigan, the races are tightening up.
It's incredibly precarious moments and it has been, but gets
more precarious.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, I mean, in some sense, Trump has to just
continue what he's doing, but Kamala has to find another gear,
which is a bigger challenge. I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
One of the things about being Donald Trump and being
willing to say anything and inoculated against the downside of
saying literally anything is that you can always make a headline,
whereas Kamala Harris is in a position that she is
frightened of saying anything. So therefore the risk that she
(13:51):
would have to take to make a headline is a
risk that she is not going to take.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
That's such a good point, which stacks the odds kind
of very punishingly against her at this point.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, I know. I mean I was talking about this
to a Trump person who was expressing certain puzzlement at
the fact that she was absent or not prosecuting this
case more aggressively mm hm. And the only way that
they could explain this because it seems such an obvious
flaw was to say, well, the Democrats must not be worried,
(14:24):
they must feel confident enough in their position.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Interesting, do you think that's the case.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
The point of view of this Trump person is that
the Democrats they must know what they're doing. They must
be looking at their numbers. Yeah, they must have a
measure of confidence that they are ahead enough where they
have to be ahead not to want to risk that.
We'll find out if that's true extremely soon. We have
(14:49):
a question a listener question, who do you think will
work in the Trump administration? Will Trump have problems with
recruiting and filling positions? And this is from Arnie. Let's
take the second part of that. For some reason, somebody
always wants to work in the White House. So the
(15:10):
idea of working for Donald Trump is a horrifying idea.
It will end unhappily. You will be humiliated and disgraced
and you know, possibly indicted. And yet there will be
a long line of people who want to go and
work in the White House. In Trump's White House? Are
(15:31):
they lesser than the last people? Now, they're probably pretty
much the same. Who will that be? I think that
that's actually an interesting question, and I think that there's
a real fight brewing about this issue. And on one
side there's the campaign people, and that would principally be
Susie Wiles and Chris las Avita. Feel that they are
(15:54):
rightfully destined if they win to the main White House,
the main West wing jobs like chief of Stuff, Susie
Wiles as the chief of staff, Chris Losovita probably as
that old Bannon's chief strategist role, and it would seem
if he wins again, it will be due to them,
(16:16):
and that would seem incredibly logical that they get those jobs.
And these two are both Wiles and las a Veta
are pretty non Trumpian figures, pretty mainstream Republican types. They
are certainly not the MAGA heart.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
What is the general temperature in the campaign because a
few weeks ago, with Corey Lewandowski coming on it, it
seemed very fragmented and fractured.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
It's still fragmented and fractured, and Corey is clearly trying
to position himself to go in and I think Corey
probably is a stalking horse for the Heritage Foundation that
ilk in the MAGA universe. It is fractured, it probably
will continue to be fractured. And I would say the
(17:05):
exception to that is that Trump really does need these people.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yes, Wiles and las A Vita.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Even he must know that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, who got the job of escorting Laura Lumer off
the plane? There you go, that would be Corey's job, right.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I think within the campaign they certainly believe that Lewandowski
was actually the leak, the Laura Lumer leak. So he
escorted her on and then escorted her off, so to speak. James,
we have a favorite get. I think you call them gets,
now right.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
It's a get. Yeah, I think we have a get
next week. Actually, someone we've both known for many decades.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
So Barry Diller is going to come on next week.
Barry is one of well, let's put it this way.
I usually have lunch with Barry twice a year, and
these lunches last fifty minutes. It's always always at the
end of fifty minutes, he stands up and he says,
you know, stay as long as you want, to have
as much as you are, but gotta go. And in
(18:06):
each of these lunches, I begin the countdown as soon
as they start. Yeah, I know that the end is coming,
and that will be very painful, because it's always a
great lunch. Yes, So Barry will be with.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Us next week. Yeah, and I think you'll be able
to shed great light on where we stand in the
media now, where the Democratic Party stands, and maybe also
about how this campaign has been so shadowed by these
reclusive billionaires or not so reclusive billionaires, that money has
gone to work to shore up Trump. And that's something
that interests me very much.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Fire and Fury the podcast is hosted and executive produced
by Michael Wolfe and James Truman.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
The producers are Adam Waller and Emily Maronov, executive producers
for
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Kaleidoscope, Mangesh Had to get A and Os Valoscian executive
producers for iHeart On, Nikki Eitour and Katrina Novel
Hosts And Creators
James Truman
Michael Wolff
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