The Daily Beast Podcast

David Rothkopf joins Joanna Coles to argue that Donald Trump’s Iran war reveals a president who believes he governs like a king, not a constitutional commander in chief. Rothkopf, The Daily Beast’s unmissable columnist and Founder of the DSR Network, lays out the case that this is an illegal war launched without congressional approval, with just 21 percent public support, no coherent National Security Council process, and early casualties already compounding the chaos. He connects Trump’s impulsive strike to Benjamin Netanyahu’s political incentives, the risk of regional escalation, oil shocks ahead of the midterms, and the dangerous fantasy that regime change will somehow yield democracy in Tehran. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Rothkopf joins Joanna Coles to argue that the Epstein scandal is Donald Trump’s defining crisis, connecting global power, income inequality, corruption, and impunity. Rothkopf, The Daily Beast’s unmissable columnist and Founder of the DSR Network, explains how Epstein ensnared a network of elites like Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Peter Mandelson, and Wall Street titans, while raising deeper questions about obstruction, missing evidence, and intelligence entanglements. They also discuss how key players actively covered up wrongdoing to protect themselves and their allies, showing a world where privilege shields crime and the full truth may never see the light of day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a limited time, get 50% off for life, free shipping, and 3 free gifts at Mars Men at MenGoToMars.com. #ad Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles go deep inside the black hole of Trump’s sudden pivot to attack Iran, dissecting the airstrikes, the regime-change rhetoric, and the president’s instinctive need to declare victory fast. From the surreal whiplash of launching a Board of Peace days before bombs fall, to the gamble of shock-and-awe without boots on the ground, they trace how foreign policy becomes personal survival strategy in a “government of one.” Is this a calculated move, a headline reset, or simply Trump following his gut in the fog of war? Along the way, they unravel the politics of his speech to Iranians, the MAGA base’s unease with another Middle East conflict, and the looming midterms that may be shaping every decision. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to dissect the now tangible proof that Trump has lost touch with political reality. Beginning with a marathon State of the Union that was less a governing document than a 1-hour-and-47-minute exercise in self-mythology, aimed at his fan base, where reality was declared perfect even as polls told a different story. That disconnect between performance and public mood becomes sharper in Minneapolis, where a legitimate COVID-era fraud case that led to dozens of convictions was transformed by the ICE killings, tragedies so unpopular that it could cost Trump an easy political win. Now, JD Vance is dispatched to sell the punishment and absorb the blowback. Abroad, the stakes escalate: brinkmanship with Iran risks blowback Trump once vowed to avoid, while the grinding war in Ukraine—which he promised to end in a day—remains unresolved and increasingly perilous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joanna Coles sits down with Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey for a bracing conversation that moves from Trump’s State of the Union theatrics to what she calls a calculated effort to normalize chaos ahead of 2026. Gov. Healey unloads on the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files, slams RFK Jr.’s vaccine rollbacks, and details how she’s battling ICE crackdowns, slashed federal funding, and what she warns could be attempts to “federalize” elections and intimidate voters with troops and manufactured fraud claims. As Democrats wrestle with generational change, leadership, and how to win back voters battered by affordability crises, Healey argues the real fight isn’t 2028—it’s protecting the ballot and delivering tangible results right now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles with a new window into the volatility inside the West Wing, describing what he says was a secret Situation Room tantrum by Donald Trump, a moment when military briefers could not give him the absolute guarantees he demanded, and the meeting spiraled. Wolff connects that flash of anger to the broader pattern he’s reported for years: a president who hates paper trails, avoids email, and warns aides never to “leave a record,” an instinct that now looms large as the Epstein Files fallout engulfs figures like Prince Andrew and Peter Mandelson. Why, Wolff asks, do so many powerful men have receipts—while Trump seems not to? From the chaos-as-cover strategy to the Iran briefings where strength is performative, and doubt is intolerable, this is a portrait of a leader who equates uncertainty with humiliation and reacts accordingly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Liz Oyer joins Joanna Coles to expose what she calls Donald Trump’s “pardon economy”—a system that has transformed presidential mercy into something transactional and lucrative. Oyer, the former pardon attorney under Joe Biden, walks through the eye-popping cases: reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley freed after serving just 18 months; crypto titan Changpeng “CZ” Zhao pardoned after brokering billions into the Trump family’s crypto venture; electric truck founder Trevor Milton absolved before paying back investors; and even former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández released despite a 45-year sentence for massive cocaine trafficking. Along the way, they examine the erased restitution—over a billion dollars owed to victims—golf-course clemency pitches, surprise NFL pardons, and the political fallout inside Trump’s own Justice Department. If pardons are, as one scholar puts it, an X-ray into a president’s soul, what does this one reveal about Trump’s second term—and who benefits next? Sign up for Joanna's new Substack here: https://beast.pub/scream Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. John Gartner joins Joanna Coles for a bracing deep dive into what he argues are the accelerating signs of cognitive and behavioral decline in Donald Trump—from garbled words and meandering stories to grandiosity, paranoia, and the spectacle of falling asleep at his newly formed Board of Peace. As they dissect Trump’s escalator conspiracy tale, obsession with looks, fixation on naming landmarks after himself, and late-night social media tirades, the conversation widens to the real stakes: nuclear codes, Middle East brinkmanship, the midterms, and what Dr. Gartner calls the dangerous mix of narcissistic injury and unchecked power. With references to Greenland, Gaza, Iran, the Justice Department, and even the shadow of the Epstein files, Coles presses on whether any institutional guardrails still hold—or whether impulse now drives policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles climb back inside Donald Trump’s mind at the very moment the Supreme Court humiliates him on tariffs—and he responds not with retreat, but with theatrical fury. From calling his own justices “fools” to turning a legal defeat into prime-time spectacle, they unpack how Trump transforms setbacks into legend, why the State of the Union could become a live-wire showdown with Chief Justice John Roberts, and what those colossal presidential banners draped across Washington really signal about dominance and power. Along the way, they dive into the bro-coded videos of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth, the strange silence from Kash Patel on Epstein, and the unsettling mystery of a disappearance gripping the country—asking whether Trump governs as a president, a performer, or something closer to a monarch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles untangle a week where chaos seems to be the point, including the stunning arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in the widening Jeffrey Epstein fallout. Meanwhile in Washington, Trump gathers his Board of Peace to bankroll his grand vision for Gaza while facing a far more combustible reality: a potential military showdown with Iran that he may neither want nor be able to control. As European partners keep their distance and troop buildups raise the stakes, Wolff and Coles probe whether Trump is orchestrating strategic distraction—or simply caught between looking weak and starting a war. With scandals colliding and global order wobbling, is this all part of a master play, or are we watching events slip beyond Trump’s grasp? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Rothkopf joins Joanna Coles to break down the Trump administration’s strategy to protect itself ahead of the midterms. From the surreal RFK Jr. and Kid Rock government video spectacle to Donald Trump’s grip on evangelicals, Rothkopf, The Daily Beast’s unmissable columnist, explains why Trump’s obsession with election legitimacy is less about confidence and more about self-preservation. With foreign allies unsettled and domestic chaos mounting, he lays out how both parties are quietly planning for life after Trump—and what the fallout could mean for American politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

INCOGNI Deal: To get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan, go to https://incogni.com/beast Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to examine why Donald Trump’s very public irritation may reveal more than any document dump. As the Epstein files unleash a rolling wave of headlines, Wolff argues the real story is not what’s newly uncovered but how the sprawling release has diffused attention away from Trump and onto a widening cast of peripheral figures—a dynamic he says Trump has repeatedly relied on to survive past crises. Drawing on Wolff’s firsthand encounters with Jeffrey Epstein and his introduction of Steve Bannon into Epstein’s orbit after Bannon’s White House exit, the conversation traces how resentment, rivalry, and obsession with Trump bound those men together, even as Trump now casts himself as the victim of a conspiracy involving journalists and old adversaries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tom Sykes, The Daily Beast’s unmissable Royals columnist, joins Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty to examine how the fallout from Jeffrey Epstein has reignited a crisis around Prince Andrew that now threatens to engulf the wider monarchy. As new scrutiny revisits Andrew’s relationship with Virginia Giuffre and raises questions about what the Palace knew, Sykes argues that King Charles III is confronting a scandal no longer containable by tradition or silence—one already straining relations with heir Prince William and forcing a reckoning over accountability, reputation, and whether the royal family can still rely on deference in an era demanding transparency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tina Brown tells all about her shocking experience being named in the newly unsealed Jeffrey Epstein case files, revealing how Jeffrey Epstein and his allies frantically tried to “neutralize” her and shut down The Daily Beast after her explosive reporting with Conchita Sarnoff blew open his web of abuse. In a gripping conversation with Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty, Brown recounts the panic inside Epstein’s circle, the chilling legal threats from powerhouse firms, the duplicity of social fixer Peggy Siegal, and the moral rot of an elite “club” that protected its own even after the truth was in plain sight. She reflects on the pre-#MeToo culture that dismissed victims, the powerful names orbiting Epstein—from Bill Clinton to Ehud Barak—and the industrial scale of exploitation enabled by Ghislaine Maxwell and recruiter Jean-Luc Brunel. It’s a bracing defense of investigative journalism, a warning about the corrosive power of extreme wealth, and a behind-the-scenes look at how close this story came to being buried—so what else is still hidden in the millions of unreleased files? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles unpack the spiraling fallout from the Epstein files, Ghislaine Maxwell’s calculated silence, and the widening circle of elites caught in the “Epstein class,” before turning to something even more alarming: the Trump administration’s brazen willingness to lie in plain sight. From the El Paso airspace shutdown and the balloon-versus-drone fiasco to Fox News alumni now running Cabinet departments at odds with one another, they examine whether the chaos is incompetence—or a deliberate governing strategy built on fear, loyalty tests, and all-or-nothing stakes. As prosecutions stall, investigations fizzle, and reality itself seems negotiable, Wolff argues that the disorder may be the point—and that the risks are existential. Is this simply dysfunction, or is there a dangerous method behind the madness that we’re only just beginning to see? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Wolff steps inside the chaos swirling around Trump World—from Wolff’s bombshell federal lawsuit against Melania Trump, which he says could finally force sworn answers about the Trump–Epstein relationship, to the extraordinary legal fight over where the First Lady actually lives. As Wolff argues that anti-SLAPP laws may become a frontline weapon against what he calls the White House’s assault on free speech, he and Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty dissect the implications of Melania’s alleged full-time life in New York, her separate Trump Tower apartment, and the branding empire she’s quietly building. The conversation then widens to what Wolff portrays as a second administration defined by loyalty over competence: election denier Kurt Olsen rising to oversee election security, Pam Bondi’s combative Hill performance, and the bizarre El Paso airspace shutdown involving secret lasers, drone claims, and bureaucratic bedlam. Is this a White House tightening its grip—or a government spinning into incompetence so profound it can no longer explain itself? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Daily Beast’s Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty speaks with Professor Scott Galloway about his provocative new campaign, “Resist and Unsubscribe,” a call for consumers to hit what he calls the “soft tissue” of the Trump era—Big Tech’s revenue growth. Galloway argues that the only force Trump truly listens to is the market, and that even small acts—canceling Amazon Prime, downgrading ChatGPT, ditching Uber—can send outsized signals to CEOs and shareholders if done collectively. In a wide-ranging, fiery conversation, he explains why he’s selling his Apple stock, confronting corporate leaders he says privately agree with him, and betting that 10 companies controlling 40 percent of the S&P represent an Achilles’ heel for political power. From ICE protests to crypto grift, AI-fueled layoffs to the “manosphere” wobbling on Trump, Galloway lays out a theory of economic activism designed to rattle boardrooms before it rattles Washington—so can unsubscribing from a few tech platforms really shake the most powerful men in America? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to focus on one of Donald Trump’s most revealing tools: the telephone. Drawing on decades of firsthand experience—from Trump’s landline calls to New York Magazine in the 1990s to rambling, unsolicited calls as president—Wolff explains why Trump is almost never off the phone, why he hates email and paper trails, and how calling isn’t about exchanging information so much as asserting dominance, rehearsing grievances, and never being alone. It’s a portrait of a man who governs, leaks, vents, and connects almost entirely by voice—using the phone as both comfort object and command center—and a revealing look at how Trump’s constant talking shapes his politics, his relationships, and his presidency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joanna Coles speaks with Rep. Maxwell Frost about the hate crime assault he was a victim of at the Sundance Film Festival—and why he says it’s part of a much darker national pattern tied to political rhetoric, emboldened extremists, and a collapse of accountability in Washington. Rep. Frost describes how GOP lawmakers acquiesce to Trump and remain silent out of terror of primaries, retaliation, or being singled out by the president. He argues that this spinelessness has real-world consequences, linking escalating political violence, authoritarian instincts, and a system increasingly warped by greed and profiteering. As Frost warns that democracy itself is under threat, the question lingers: will Republicans ever find the backbone to stand up to Trump—and what happens if they don’t? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steve Schmidt (political strategist and founder of The Warning) joins Joanna Coles and dives into Donald Trump’s monomaniacal urge to name the nation after himself, and pin down the long reckoning Schmidt says is coming for Trump’s cabinet, enablers, and allies. Schmidt, political strategist and co-founder of the Save America Movement, argues Trumpism will be scraped from the walls of American life, predicts collapsing approval numbers, and warns that the real danger isn’t Trump’s lies but the media and political class selling helplessness as destiny. From the Epstein files metastasizing across multiple countries to Tulsi Gabbard’s alleged election meddling to a startling ultimatum aimed at King Charles to legitimize Trump, Schmidt frames this moment as a constitutional emergency—and an awakening. Is Trump’s grip already slipping, or is the bill for a decade of depravity only just coming due? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.