Jonathan Swan: We Only Know 5%

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1:02It's been way too long. White House reporter for the New York Times, Kowathra, a regime change. You might have heard of it. Inside the Imperial presidency, it was number one for what, like, 19 weeks. I've got my trusty copy right here. Nine weeks. It's Jonathan Swan. You know, maybe 19 weeks. Nine weeks, eventually. You might be back up this week. I don't know. We got so long while you're competing again. We'll learn tomorrow. But who knows? You might, you might maugher in the New York Times rankings. We'll see. Andrew, you have a child now. It's a big couple of nights. I have three actually, but yeah, I have a new one. Yeah. The third is when things go really downhill. I hear. That's what it feels like so far. Oh, yeah. Well, you're looking fresh. So that's good. Praise for me, Caesar. Oh, it's expecting, you know, I don't know, wrinkles, you know, bags, nothing. Well, I've seen your commentary about various men as their skin care routines. So I, um, I did a glow up. I'm doing a service to straight men. Yeah. I'm trying to offer a service to straight men. You can moisturize too. That's all. And I feel like sometimes I do that via positive feedback and occasionally negative feedback.

2:04I'm only seeing you when they deserve it all. I'll take your word for it. It's positive. I want to start here. There's a story about JD Vance, another one of my favorites this week, the vice president, another like anonymous sources saying that he had skepticism about the Iran war. I know you're not going to talk about the sourcing, right? I don't, I don't, I shouldn't ask you whether JD is calling the New York Times. I sort of find the reaction to that kind of amusing slash fascicle because we reported in April, Maggie and I, we did a big takeout for the York Times. I was next track from our book, which was a big piece on the probably the most deeply reported piece, immodestly on the lead up to the Iran war, which opened with that scene of Netanyahu coming down to the situation room and pitching Trump on the war. And in that piece, we reported in detail about how Vance was really the only one in the inner circle to argue against the war in those meetings in front of the other aids. Now as far as I'm aware, every significant outlet who's done any reporting on the war

3:10and what happened in the lead up to it and behind the scenes has confirmed that reporting and supported. And for that is it's true. And we've heard it from people who hate JD, don't mind him, like him, support him, it just happened. It's just a fact. And the other part of that, I would say, like, you know, we're obviously limited in what we can say about sourcing, but the other part of that that I find like odd is do people actually think that he's incentivized right now to be on the wrong side of Donald Trump when his single goal between now and January of 2028 is to have Donald Trump's endorsement, which Donald Trump has quite theatrically declined to give so far. Like when he when he opposed the war early on, it did not endear him to Donald Trump. Trump was complaining about him as we've reported. He was pissed off about it. This was not like some wonderful experience that that played out really well. It actually empowered some of his opponents, both on the outside and on the inside.

4:14So yeah, I mean, this is kind of an interesting question though about how to deal with that. Because yeah, let's look for it because I don't I don't like talking about people behind their back on Fridays podcast. You're a busy guy. You don't listen to every board daily podcast. Most of them not all of them, but we've medied a tease you a little bit about this line from that article where it said Mr. Vance, who opposed the war from the outset. And like this is like the challenging part of that, which is, okay, that could be true. Like I don't have any reason to doubt your reporting. You've had the best reporting on this. But then simultaneously to that, like publicly, he's talked about how Trump is not going to allow us to get into a multi-year war. Right. Trump's a smart president, not a dumb president in July. He said Trump has been successful. He said we created economic diplomatic and military leverage. Let's use that leverage to go accomplish an even bigger win for the American people. It's not over yet so far, so good. And he said so far, so good in July. And so it's kind of hard to, you know, how do you grapple with that? Like on the one hand saying that he's opposed the war on the other hand publicly.

5:14He's like so far, so good. Yeah. The way we grapple with it is in the same story. I, who did you say was saying this about the outset? Whatever I presume they read the story because in the subhead of the story and in the body of the story, we say that he's been saying one thing privately and a different thing publicly. The Vance has been out there endorsing the war, supporting it, defending it, whereas privately, as we've reported, as the Atlantic's reported, as the Wall Street Jones reported, as the Washington Post's reported, presumably, I don't know if you guys have reported on it, but if you have, I assume you've found the same thing. The sourcing for the war inside the White House is pretty shaky at these days. It is what it is. I mean, like that's the fact. But like, I didn't know how much more prominent you can have than, you know, the subhead of the story and in the body of the story. Yeah, I guess it's kind of like the question is that's like a tough thing for people to navigate. Right? At some level. Why is that tough for people to navigate? Yeah, because you can just read it, right? Well, well, because it's like, is that true though? Like, I mean, is it true in the sense that is this game has been shipped from him, right?

6:19You know, it's hard to, you know, divide. You're trying to say, well, we should trust what's like that there's the behind the scenes, the privately he's criticized it, but like publicly, all people see is from supporting it, you know? Yeah, which we say in the story. Right. But like, again, what I'm saying is these meetings happened. I mean, we reported on them. They were in front of multiple people and anyone who's done any reporting on it has verified the same thing. So I know you could not like that. How did that happen? I mean, how do you think he's like, it wasn't like, it wasn't like we're reporting on like secret one-on-one conversations between J. Vance and Trump. These were meetings with the court in a circle team in the White House situation room in the Oval Office, just as we've reported on a whole bunch of it. And then you two guys have tea having teaps on the meeting. I mean, I'm saying is like, like, it used to have had a good taste. People could say, people on the could say, well, how do you know that Netanyahu meeting happened? Well, we know it happened because we reported it. We did our work, we verified it and we reported it. You could trust the reporting or not, but you don't have to trust our reporting.

7:22You have to then question the Atlantic's reporting, the Wall Street Journal's reporting. Nobody's not trusting the reporting. What sounds like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it doesn't. I'm sorry. It sounds like that. I don't want it to sound like that. I believe what JD is saying is privately is what you're reporting. The question is that like, you have this situation that is very unique to this administration for the bank, which is very often like they will call you guys and say something on background or I'm not saying the JD call you, but whatever. There's reporting, they're talking to people, they're trying to spin things on background. And then publicly they say the opposite and they call you fake news and then they call you a liar. So it's like tough to know like who is like who is getting plat, you know what I mean? I'll just say in this situation, two things happened and we described both of them in the story. One is in meetings with the Trump court team and Trump in front of other aides, which include people who are big fans of Vance and people who are less so, Vance made an argument against the war. It pissed off Trump.

8:22Trump complained about it to people. This happened on multiple occasions. That's a thing that happened. That's a true thing that happened. So at the same time, he has been publicly saying that he supports the president supports the war defending the war on television. That's also something that's happened. And we wrote that like in the story that he's saying one thing, but I don't know. I mean, no. And is that working? Do you think for him like internal? In one sense? No, I mean, it has a perspective. What's Trump? Yeah. I just say, as we say in the story, it cost him a try. This is not something that's helpful to him. Like the existence of this story, this is why I find it so absurd. It's like, Jenny Vance has one job between now and January of 2028 in terms of his political future. It is to get Donald Trump's blessing and endorsement. The notion that he would be thrilled or excited about stories that drive a wedge between him and Donald Trump is like, interesting to me that people think that, but you know, I'm limited in how I think this is right. I mean, I think this is right. No, I mean, this is why it's so interesting to think about like the way the political machinations of him, the way he's trying to manipulate things because he's trying to

9:23do both actually. Right. I mean, like I understand what you're saying, that the number one thing is number one priority is for Trump to give him the blessing. But it's like number two priority is to be the most America first person. But team, do you? He's trying to do both. Well, anyway, I got it. And is that not true? You don't think he's trying to do both of those things? I think right now, I think right now. Let's talk about this, Sean. Then give us speech just last week, right? At the mid-term convention, with the only time that he brought up the Iran War, was he created the straw man where the ghost of Charlie Kirk had he been alive would have opposed the Iran War, but still voted for Republicans. And so like that was publicly, that wasn't private. That's not him kind of navigating things behind the scenes. Like in his speech at the so-called convention, he basically tried to ally by like it's okay to be against the war and also for Republicans, right? Do you think it's possible that he just is against, like was against this war and that what everyone has reported is accurate? Well, sure. He was dead against this war and he's been trying to walk this awkward, excruciating

10:24type, tightrope in public and that it may not be the most exciting thing for him to have stories that are elevating a division between him and Donald Trump at the same time that he's trying to. I think that's possible, but I also think it's possible that he wants to do both. Again, like, okay, if that was not exciting for him, I don't understand why that would be his strategy for the mid-term convention. Like his, like Trump has ears, like he was able to watch the mid-term convention speech and what he talked about, how Charlie Kirk would have opposed the war. I think that's a slightly different thing. That's, that's, to me, he talks to people internally that they are trying to use him, whether it'll be effective or not. I'm skeptical as an emissary to that disaffected alienated, younger part of the coalition that has been filled with trade. So this is a different thing then, which is kind of like maybe it's okay with Trump. That's what I'm saying. I'm trying to figure out what. I don't think, but Tim, but Tim, let's be clear. Like I don't think the piece that we did most recently in the New York Times serves that purpose. It's already on the public record in our reporting, in the Atlantic's reporting, in the

11:27Washington Post report, in the Washington Post report, the JD fans opposed the war. What does Jonathan, I'm trying to say you're serving JD's purpose. I'm not saying he's a killer person. I'm not. No, I mean, I think that it's interesting that JD, it seems to me that he wants to try to have both. But maybe you're saying he doesn't. And that's interesting. And also in itself, I don't think it's obvious that he doesn't want those stories out. I think that he's trying to keep in Trump's good graces while also positioning himself as like kind of winking and nodding at people and saying, I'm more with you guys on this. I think he's trying to do both. What do I know? Yeah. Maybe. I didn't realize that you were going to feel that strongly that the article was out contraed JD events. No, I just saw these. I just saw all this. I just, it's like it's a weird experience as a reporter when you write a story and

12:29you know how the stories you write come about. Well, you want to see all these people comment on it. And then you also know that in the same story that people like, well, how could you say that this one, he's saying this public, it's like, yeah, bro, it's in the, it's in the subhead and the main body of the story. Like is this like a literacy problem? Yeah. Well, though, like this is, we reported it in April. To me, this is just Javanka all over again, though. So you can separate yourself out for that because you weren't doing that, you know, you're in a different role then. But like, at least we lived this, right? Like is that not true? Like Jared was trying to stay in the father and those good graces. And also he was like leaking about how he was a little bit concerned about things before. Like is this not just the same thing that this is? I don't think it's the same thing, but at all. Yeah. In fact, couldn't really be further from it. But in what way? It was further, do you think? Because what I just told you is true, which is that privately, you're worried. You think JD's worried. You don't, I mean, I guess privately, I think Jared and Avanka didn't like some of the stuff from the first term, but, you know, they're trying to do. You know, what I'm saying is the vast stories, the reason everyone's reported that he's

13:33against the war is because there were meetings where he argued against it aggressively to Trump. That happened. I understand if people don't like that or whatever, but it's just a fact. We reported it. And the Javanka stuff was more as far as I'm aware. It wasn't actually me. I mean, I covered it. It wasn't there was this big meeting in the sit room in the obo. And we're, Jared and Avanka said, you know, dad, don't do this. And then all these other aids were like in the room. It was always Avanka went off privately with her father and said, like, I don't recall a big scene. And that's what I'm saying. And there's like Jared, her fans, and there are some of them. Well, that was true. I'm jealous in a war against that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, things can be true. I guess, I guess, I'm sorry, I don't know if I'll leave it at the point. But what I'm trying to say is that things can be true and also political, strategic, and machinations, right? Like you can choose to oppose Trump and try to keep it as quiet as possible and say things to him behind the scenes.

14:34Or you can try to do it and then also kind of signal to Tucker, your friend Tucker, like you're still on side. And like, I think he's trying to signal to both people that he's still inside. But maybe that's wrong. That's right. I don't, maybe that, I'm open to big wrong. I can't be in JD. The challenge I am is we just don't talk about sourcing. So I can't say to you, Tim, that's wrong. Actually, the way we got this story is XYZ. Yeah, sure. But, you know, I'm telling you, I'm telling you you might be wrong. That's what I'm telling you. I might be wrong. I might be wrong. Yeah. He's mad at you. Hold, hold, hold, open the possibility in your mind. Jay, I do. Jonathan, what do you think about the origin of this story might be in fact, the exact origin of this story. No, Jonathan, I look, I'm wrong all the time. So I am holding up in the possibility. Yeah. I also, I also watch Jay, I guess I just, I keep going back to, I watch JD's speech last week. So I put it your story aside. Like, I don't need to, like, you know, like the sources could be the generals that call you. I don't care.

15:34I could, the sources are my point is that JD is trying to have it both ways because he wants to stay in Trump's good graces. As is, and he wants to be the nationalist. And I think that tension is probably the big tension over the next two years. I think that's right. I think that's right. But I do think that he's not trying to, in those speeches, drive a wedge between him and Trump. He's trying to keep open. I was trying to go. I was trying to jump in the dead Charlie. Put down, put down all of branch, those people who feel betrayed by them. I'm skeptical. It will work. But I think that's what he was trying to do. You know those pieces in your closet, you find yourself wearing on repeat. The shirt, for example, this purple white pipe shirt. I've been loving it lately. The sweater that goes with everything, the perk pair of pants, the tea that you somehow always reach for first, those are the pieces that making getting dressed easy. And that's what quince does best. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% muggle and cashmere organic cotton, marina wool. These styles are timeless, versatile and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach

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17:37I look down. I was like indeed I am. I'm on brad. Find your next follow favorites at quince down to the quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash the bulwark. Get free shipping on your order in 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. That's q-i-n-c-e dot com slash the bulwark. On the other around the world stuff, you have some other sourcing issues. You know people are very interested in your sources, including the president. You reported about the weapons depletion. You guys were the first on this NBC is now out this week and others with the inspector general's report like basically confirming your reporting. You also reported there's polygraph testing after 50 members of the US military's joint staff had to take a lie detector about whether they're telling people yourself in particular that we're running low on weapons. Take a little bit behind that. Like what's the level of alarm? Well, we started reporting on this in the spring. And to be fair to the Trump administration is not a problem that suddenly came out of

18:41nowhere that there were problems with the weapon supply before the Iran war, but it has gotten dramatically worse. And it's gotten worse in two key areas. One is long range missiles and the other is air defenses. And we started to learn pretty early on in the war that they were raiding the supplies of U-Com, European command stocks, and also Indo-Paycom, the Pacific command stocks. So basically weapons that would be potentially used to deter Russia and China were being pulled into sent-com to fight the Iran war. And they were running very, very low on all kinds of low range weapons, including attackums, precision strike missiles, Tomahawks, the Patriot supply is low. And of course, our defense industrial base is not up to speed. So you keep hearing these projections from the defense companies saying we're going to produce these huge numbers.

19:42It's not actually the case. So you're seeing some instances where they're using a month supply of patriots in terms of the production in a day or two of heavy fighting. It's really bad. It's of great, great concern within the military and the national security community. And the president is, and pretty much every member of his administration, publicly, is pretending that this is not an issue. But it's a very serious issue, and it could have really serious strategic and tactical implications. And what's the degree do you think of the relationship between that and Driscoll resignation? And I guess this ties us back to Vance a little bit since he has Vance's friends. Some are some a little bit more. I think it's a small part of it. I think the larger part of it was that Pete Higgseth and Driscoll were in a Cold War, maybe not even a Cold War, maybe just a shooting or maybe just like, you know, goal for one. And Pete Higgseth came out victorious.

20:44Maybe. For now. And it's interesting that Pete's, it's only when I was reading the book. Trump does this thing, and this is nothing that's hard for us to kind of interpret from the outside, right? Where he likes to pick on people inside, right? Like he picks on cash, he picks on Pete from time to time. And yet like Pete's still there. Like that's interesting that Pete won that internal war, right? Because he's kind of losing the public war. Like what do you make of why that is? Well, when you say losing the public war, yes, he's getting a lot of critical coverage in the mainstream press. But I don't know that that would be considered, you know, in Trump's sort of way of thinking about Higgseth. I think he definitely was lowest on Higgseth in our reporting after signal gate. And he did this appearance on the White House law, which looked very erratic at the time. And Trump was very low on him.

21:46But since then we haven't had any reporting. He was in lots of rumors kind of being floated, you know, Higgseth's next to go and what have you. I've never verified any of that. And he survived through, you know, months and months and months. Cash Patel kind of the same. Last summer was a real low point for him. I thought as the New Year was approaching that he potentially was going to be one of the people that Trump replaced. And he ended up surviving. So the short answer is, I don't know what to say beyond the obvious, which is that these are two men who ostentatiously flatter Trump publicly, privately do what he wants. I mean, Trump has in Pete Higgseth the defense secretary that he really wanted in term one. If he had a version of his term one defense secretaries, there would have been objections raised when he said, you know what? I'm deciding in my mind that these people who are riding on fishing boats with cocaine are actually enemy combatants.

22:46Instead of it being a law enforcement issue, instead of sending the coast guard to interdict them, we're just going to kill them. And there's no appeals process. You were just going to kill them. Higgseth enthusiastically supported that people like Espo would not have. So the other thing that Higgseth has in his corner is he's got a really strong ally in Stephen Miller. They are very, very close. And Miller has seen Higgseth as a key ally in using the defense department to help with immigration enforcement and some of these operations. So again, another issue where another area where people like Mattis and Espa threw up road blocks and wouldn't have gone along with it. That's interesting. I mean, so in that sense, is it too simple to say that, like, Driscoll was trying to like raise concerns about the way that the war is being prosecuted and like Higgseth is just telling Trump what he wants to hear.

23:49Is that too simple, do you think, about why Higgseth was? I don't know the extent to which Driscoll ever raised any concerns to Trump. But once on our reporting, he certainly was concerned about the munitions stockpiles and various other things. So that could have been part of it. And I'm sure some of that filtered back to Trump. But I also think part of it was where there was a period of time where there were lots of media stories coming out that Driscoll is going to be the next sector and all of this. And I suspect that that may have had an effect as well on the way that Higgseth viewed him. And it tells the JD thing and like, man, they still have two and a half years left. And who knows? And I think that you've reported others that Trump would love for this war to be magically over. But like Iran has a vote in that and you go through a period next year where you have, JD has expected some concerns of the inside. Driscoll is now out. Things are going badly. That's a challenging thing that they're going to have to navigate ahead. Huge. Huge.

24:50And the public is heavily against this war. They can see a linkage between the war and their own lives and the cost of goods gas in particular. And it doesn't seem to be any way of spinning that Trump has tried pretty much every method of spinning that. And the public just isn't buying it. The polygraph thing is kind of crazy. And it sort of reminds me of meet the fuckers a little bit where you have, you know, a year-old giving Ben Stiller the polygraph. It feels like you're losing control of the situation when you've resorted to that. I don't know. I was talking to someone. I was talking to someone. I'm not aware of a single example of a leka being caught and prosecuted based on a polygraph. It's possible that it's happened, but I'm not aware of it. And they're famously, you can game them. Certainly, people we've spoken to who have been polygraphed and have expecting to be polygraphed, view it as a tool of intimidation. Yeah. At the beginning of the term, I mean, there is a lot of reporting, his accept has been

25:53using this from the start, the polygraph technique. And this seems like the most expansive version on a specific story. But like, that caused blowback. And it like, he's at loss, like one of his good friends who like quit early. And he does seem, you know, while he might be not doing so well in the war in Iran, he seems to have clamped down on that a little bit internally. I don't know. What do you make? I can't explain what you mean. Clamped down on like the pushback. I don't know, you know, like there was a moment at the beginning of the administration where it felt like people like, this is clownish. Like this is not serious. The way he's handling this, there's some, there's some resignations. But like, I mean, it seems like he's kind of on that battle. No, yeah, exactly. I mean, again, this most recent polygraph, mass polygraph, and that we were pulling around 50 members of the joint staff and others, by the way, other senior people in the Panagon, we're not aware of any precedent in modern history for this scale, in modern US history of this scale of polygraphing. There's, I'm not aware of anything. And we've spoken to people who are serving the military and serving this area,

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29:00Please support our show and tell them we sent you. I've found the AI stuff, which is like really hot in the news right now, and you guys covered this in the book. I think maybe on the first round of the book tour, we weren't in AI Doomsday mode, so probably weren't asked about it as much, but you have this kind of remarkable scene. And it's in Vegas, I'm going to go from memory. I think it's in Vegas where Greg Brockman from OpenAI goes and briefs Trump about Chatsy PT. Just regain all the listeners with that if they haven't made it to that part of the book. Yeah. You know, there's actually been, I think, relatively little reporting on this area in terms of Trump's own interaction with AI, compared to the importance of the topic. I mean, when we look back on the Trump administration, this may end up being one of the most consequential things that he did. His policy of basically go for it, essentially. Unleash the growth of these AI companies, and I'm going to put myself firmly on the side of the AI accelerationists.

30:01The interesting thing about that story, which we get into in the book, is that Trump is, I would say, the most extreme version of a tech later doctor. He only began text messaging in 2022. I mean, that's like, you know, 20 some years after most of us began text messaging. And he really knew nothing about AI, and really hadn't ever interacted with it to any meaningful extent until the 2024 campaign. And what we describe in regime change is this scene in Vegas, where the open AI executives meet with Trump in this hotel. And he's with his team, and they give him this demo of Chatsy PT. And he's like, he's really tired. It's the end of the days like we campaign, he's kind of exhausted. And they put it up on the screen, and he's eyes kind of like, he's like, you know, this is sort of magic. Yeah, yeah. And they start putting in prompts.

31:03And from memory, one of them was like, they got the Chatsy PT. Remember, this is 2024. Chatsy PT was not that great in 2024. They get Chatsy PT to turn an executive order on AI into poetry, into a poem. Yeah. And Trump says, he goes, man, this is beautiful. It's like he's reading the, because the poet, these words, they're so beautiful. Like the row. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was just thunder struck. It was like, he was reading Wordsworth or something. And he turns to one of his a's, he's like, you know, this is going to take your job. And he went from being uninterested, tired, whatever, to immediately asking, you know, it was like for zero to a hundred. He immediately started asking these executives, what do we need to do? What are the obstacles to you guys growing? How much energy do you need? What regulations can we get rid of? He went from sort of extremely skeptical, asking them questions about, well, what happens if there's a deep fake of me declaring nuclear war? You know, he was all worried about that. It was all on the risk side and skeptical, whatever.

32:06To full on David Sacks, Jensen Huang. How can we put this thing on turbocharge? And that is the posture that he has continued into this administration. I think what's really interesting about it is Trump won both times as a populist. And he is squarely on the side of the wealthiest, most powerful tech elites. And against the coalition that you see with Bernie Sanders and others saying no data centers, you know, against public opinion. You've got a lot of... I sat on this in the book that really struck me. He started to be interested in Operation Warp Speed for data centers. To set a funny thing to think about that that's where his head was in 2024 versus where we are now. Just this week, he called Jensen Huang while he was on stage at the All-In Podcast. Jensen's like, I'm here with the besties, Mr. President. So I mean, he is just both feet in.

33:07Both feet in. One thing we also write in the book, which we'd heard from several people around Trump, is that if you think back to the first term, his whole promise was, I'm going to bring back sort of Norman Rockwell America and these old, heavy industries. I'm going to bring back the coal mining jobs. I'm going to see an industrial revolution in America. Obviously that didn't happen. And he obviously pretended it happened, but it didn't happen. And he knows on some level it's not going to happen. So what we had been hearing from people around him is that when he started to hear these investment figures from people like Zuckerberg and these others, I'm going to invest a trillion dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars. In his mind, this became the way to create a new golden age in America. And each time he would look at the valuation of Nvidia, it seemed to have gained a new trillion.

34:09And Trump himself is a shareholder, by the way, Nvidia. So he became seduced by these figures, Jensen Huang, who had never really had much of a Washington presence, realized Trump is a personalist leader. You need to engage directly. He started to call him. He started to drop in at Mar-a-Lago. Zuckerberg is on the phone with him. So they all played the game. And you're seeing that the effects of that now. I have to now, but do you have any sense that JD disagrees with them on any of this? I mean, JD seems pretty aligned with this world too. It's interesting just from that populist framework that you talked about because you are seeing this. As we're taping right now, Bannon is having a press conference with Bernie Sanders against this. Is there any sense that there's dissension inside the administration on this? I think it's going to be a really challenging area for Vance in 2028 because in some of his public statements, he has indicated that he's not entirely comfortable with the flourishing of AI.

35:10You know, he described it in one of his interviews, elements of AI, it's certain uses of it as satanic, which is very much Bannon-esque, Tucker-esque language. At the same time, he's told the line with Trump in terms of we need to stay ahead of China. You know, he hasn't broken with Trump in any meaningful way on this issue. And his biggest donors are probably going to be people like Elon Musk, David Sachs, Silicon Valley. Yeah. Right. So I don't expect that it's going to be feasible for him to run as a pure populist on this issue. You glossed over it. Do you have any reporting on Trump's personal AI use? I see doing the meat and the salt. She don't. It kind of sometimes it seems like he might see. I don't know. In the book, you talk about how he was with Doug Bergham and they asked it to do an image of his wife on a horse or whatever. And you see some of these, I don't know, Trump is Jesus. Obviously, he's taking a lot of them from just random people on Trist Social.

36:13Okay. We'll try to do some reporting on that. If you're inspired by his Trist Social's feed, I would say you have to give a lot of credit to Bill Poulty. Right. Because yeah, he, so on the weekends these days, Trump is essentially unstaffed. I mean, he really, the main, most of his staff are not with him at the golf clubs. Well, Natalie. Natalie's there often, but Bill Poulty is usually there and he brings these phone boards. And often what you see, Trump truth out on the weekends originated as a Bill Poulty phone board. Just so people know, you're like, I'm sure you're listening to a familiar Bill Poulty. Of course. Yeah. Okay. Fine. You guys are hardcore. But I just talk about Bill Poulty's office. I got good. Well, no, but Poulty would bring in these boards that would have, you know, the fraudster in all caps and it would have this like photo of Lisa Cook's face blown up and and, you know, diagrams of how frauds are supposedly committed. That's the kind of stuff that he's serving up for Trump and often it turns into, I mean, I personally don't trust. To prominence like during COVID over meme stocks and like doing that, you know, like game stock

37:16and all that. So, right. He knows how to. I can't really manipulate the internet. He's good at the meme economy. Right. TBD on the rest. Things are great in the interest rate department. Right now at Subway, try the 499 sub of the day. Get a different six inch sub every day for just 499 each, like meatball marinara on Mondays, tuna on Tuesdays, and the BMT on Saturdays. It's a different six inch sub every day packed with protein and your choice of chop veggies for just 499 each or make it a meal with chips and a drink for just $2 more. But hurry, it's only for a limited time and only its subway. Affarcticipating restaurants, prices higher in Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii and on third party delivery, add on taxes and fees for delivery additional. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead,

38:19with brands like Loric Eller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. I want to talk about the library. There's another thing that I feel like just people miss and kind of you know, everybody realizes that there's kind of a lot of a lot of money sloshing around in Trump world. But like just how kind of direct is it oversteated to say quid pro quo, do you think? And some of these donations, I mean, it's one half step short of it, if not. I don't know how would you describe it? If you are a company in America, a major company in America, you understand that when a request comes in from the Trump team for money, and they come in very directly, you either have to play ball or risk Donald Trump using the government to punish you, or not to reward you. And he's made very clear that he's willing to do that. We've seen it. I mean, when you do things like demand the resignation, the firing of the head of Intel, and then he comes

39:25in and flashes you and tells you his life story. And then you say at the end, well, very nice. I don't think you're a Chinese spy anymore, but I'm going to need a cut of your company. And then he gives you the cut. Yeah, 10%. That was one of the things in the book. They said that they said that Trump now says privately to people he should have asked for more of Intel. 100%. I think Dick Cheney used to have a phrase, the educational use of power, the instructive use of power, something like that. This is Trump's version of that. And we have reporting in the book that his fundraiser, Meredith, would sit with him with a list of companies or individuals. And Trump would literally write next to them the dollar figure that he wants. It just comes out of his head, whatever he feels, you know, 20 million, whatever he's feeling, 5 million. This is what I think is pushing. And the asks come in. It's created this cycle whereby the companies are afraid, they give money to Trump entities. The Trump entities are mass huge war chests. And then they

40:25use that money to intimidate and defeat Republicans who step out of line, people like Thomas Massey, Bill Cassidy and others. And so it's this cycle, really. It's fear to raise, fear to spend, fear creates fear, fear begets fear. It's a cycle with the library. I think this is another area, just because there's been so much of this money sloshing around Trump family entities, Trump political entities, you can lose sight of different elements of it. But the library, we had two parts in the book that we thought were very interesting. One was the Trumps have been soliciting from the golf Arabs for the library, including the Saudis. And the other is that at a moment when Trump was complaining about Howard Lutnik and his sons making money, Lutnik gave $25 million to the Trump library. This is the commerce secretary. And Trump in meetings in front of Lutnik and others would say, you know, the only reason I'm putting up with Howard's bullshit is because he gave me $25

41:28million. You know, he'd also say how great is Howard, you know, I asked him for the money, he gave it straight away, what have you. But I'm not aware of a cabinet secretary doing something like that. Maybe it's been done before, but, um, or maybe after. But in the middle of the, yeah. In the middle of the administration. And the most, the most telling thing to me about that anecdote is, is like Trump acknowledges basically that the Lutnik family is grifting off the administration. Right? I mean, kind of, he's like, hey, why don't you throw some money at my library? And, you know, I'll look the other way at this, at these problems that you're causing me. I mean, it's very mafia-esque. Trump doesn't like to hear about other people making money, obviously. And during the interregnum period, I was talking to a source and they were with Trump. And Trump was complaining about Brook Rollins, who is now his agriculture secretary. And he's like, you know, she's got this group. It's called America first policy. He goes, you know, they do policy stuff,

42:34like very dismissive, he goes, and people think, you know, I tell you the truth, they think they're giving to me, but they're not giving to me. They're giving to this group. And he goes, you know, I think she, she, she, she owes me like, she should give me like half. And he thought she had like 50 million sitting in this account, which of course was a true. So he, he had this idea that she was basically, you know, taking money that rightfully belonged to him. And that's the mindset, I think, across all of these areas. Can I ask you a question from the Trump arrangements syndrome crowd on all this? Sure. Here are these stories. And it does make you wonder, I can you afford to give this up when you think about like this succession plan? I mean, like the degree and the scale of the, of the grift is, it's hard to even wrap your head around. And it's hard, you know, usually people don't give that away. I guess would be one way to put it. It's just a library. Well, I mean, the kids are making a lot of money. Right. Trump's personally making money.

43:36Like the idea that he would pass, like this kind of good again goes back to the JD. The idea that he would pass on to a successor that would not be, you know, in on the game, if you will, is a little hard to imagine. Or I don't know, or maybe not. Maybe he sees this as a sprint for, you know, him to cement his legacy. As you guys talked about your interview as the next until of the hunt. And his kids make as much money as they can in the next two years. And then it's over. But I don't know. That doesn't really seem like him. I mean, if a Trump ally, like JD Vance is the next president, would the Trump kids, you know, how much would their money making diminish? I don't know. They've made so much money during this term that they're obviously set for life. I mean, that enough money that they can fund their own second wedding, I guess. They're I think the sense I have from people around Trump is that he feels the 2024 was his big victory. And since then, he's essentially untouchable. Yes, he doesn't want to lose the house. He doesn't want to get impeached again. But ultimately, it's not the greatest fear for him.

44:40We have reporting the book that he said he's going to pardon anyone who came within 250 feet of the overlovers. His family is wealthier than it's ever been by orders of magnitude. He's building monuments to himself. He has sweeping immunity conferred by the Supreme Court. I mean, what does he have to worry about? The lights turning off. Same thing everybody has to worry about who's in the public sphere. I mean, he's been yeah, I think that's the big thing. I think the lack of attention is actually. Yeah, I think that when that drug goes away, I think that's probably going to be the biggest loss. I'm sorry to keep tying everything back to JD, but I think that's another worry that you have over the next year is like somebody asked him yesterday that he gets asked this about who the neck, you know, whether he's going to endorse a successor, he gets annoyed like he gets visibly annoyed at the question. That's my point. That was my whole point to the start is that Vance is not in the secure. It's not like he's like cruising in cruise control right now. He needs Trump's blessing and Trump is very ostentatiously holding that back. And we have a lot of reporting

45:41in our book. I mean, we have a scene in our book where Rupert Murdoch comes to dinner at the White House in the blue room and Vance and Rubio are at the table and Trump essentially does a beauty pageant with Murdoch. Do you like JD? Do you like Marco? Who do you like more? So, you know, Vance has one job. Yeah, I mean, this is kind of interesting though, because Marco, just you don't hear Marco talking about the war that much. And he's the national security advisor. Very sure. So very interesting point. So Marco Rubio, even though his secretary of state and national security advisor, has actually not been that engaged on two of the biggest foreign politicians around and Russia, Ukraine. And on Iran, you've had you've had Whitcoff and Vance and Kushner lead the negotiations, not Rubio. And then on Russia, Ukraine, you've had Whitcoff and Kushner. And again, Rubio stepping back, he is much more focused on Western hemisphere, Cuba in particular as the next one, obviously, Venezuela. So that's an absolutely accurate

46:46observation. Again, I don't know that it's so much political. I don't have any sense that Rubio's preparing for a 2028 campaign. In fact, I don't think he is, but he has certainly been willing and happy apparently to let others step into that void. Yeah. And you're reporting, I talked to this about with Tomagi when she was on about in Rubio. I think people have a misunderstanding of what Rubio is doing and what he cares about in the administration. And you guys had that he was the point person for the Sakat negotiation with Buchelle. I mean, he was like the foreign gulag deal like Rubio was the person that made that deal. He he's the reason that Oz Turk, the tough student is jailed. He is on board with the bombing of the boats. You mentioned the Caribbean. I've been covering this week, there's a Iranian family that's been in six months in the Dilly Detention Center. They did nothing. He took their green card away because they had a family member who was part of the hostage checkers in the 70s. So I grew up. It's funny. There's this perception

47:48that he is not on board with some elements of the mega part of the agenda. But it's like he is fully bought in and the point man on a lot of the immigration stuff. And if nothing else, neutral are on board with the rest of the foreign policy agenda. Be that green lender on Russia. Besides PTAX, there may be no cabinet secretary who was closer to Stephen Miller than Marco Rubio. Now, which is incredibly interesting given that Stephen Miller was his arch enemy, as you know, very well Tim during the gang of eight immigration era when Stephen Miller worked for Jeff Sessions, he was trying to kill that bill. And Rubio was at the center of it. We reported in a book that in an email to a bribe art reporter, and I think it was 2015, Stephen Miller referred to Rubio as pathological. So that relationship is now extremely close. They work very closely together. Miller's told people that Rubio has been a great ally. People like it when you bend the knee to them like Marco did to Stephen Miller.

48:54It's not like they met in the middle on their big fight from the gang of eight. Marco basically looked at the Stephen Miller wing and said, I'm on board. No, Stephen's vision prevailed and it has become the prevailing vision of the Republican Party. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering something new every day. Start with today's special value. Then explore exciting finds across the brands and categories you love from beauty and fashion to home culinary and outdoor living. Shop now at QVC.com. Andy and Anna here from your new favorite podcast. No such thing as a fish. Yes, we are two of the four hosts of the podcast that stuffs fascinating, amazing, weird, mad facts into your ears on a weekly

49:56basis. You got any good facts, Andy? Yes, how about this one? Antietas have evolved on 12 separate occasions. Wow. Mysterious, wonderful. The world really wants them to exist. What about this one? When a Ronald Reagan left office, he left a note on the White House lawn for the squirrels, warning them to be aware of George Bush's dogs. So there you go. If you like fascinating facts and much more besides, we are no such thing as a fish. I'm not going to go without asking about Natalie just a little bit. I mean, the mash notes, the love notes, Maggie did have, Maggie did duck the question that I had about whether Trump is in for you or not. No, I just do you have, do you have any reporting on that? We'll say that again. I have to mention. For the longest time, I've been trying to. When is how it's done? What is this? I think it's noteworthy that Trump spent his whole career sexually assaulting people for like 30 years. He has like dozens of women of accused homosexual assaults and now none. But now he's not going to be writing the love notes.

50:57I'm not expecting you to speculate. I was wondering if you were going to report it. I certainly did have any reporting. So then what do you think's happening? What do you think's happening with Natalie? I kind of think it's weird. This is my point. It's weirder than that. Other, more prudent thing, I think. It's more like a. I think it's the story of a young woman who is completely devoted and obsessed. Have you done any reporting on whether her story is real like the backstory? You mean about her health and stuff? I haven't got any reporting to contradict her version of it. When you had those mash notes, you had that had to tickle you during the reporting. Was that the part of the reporting that made you do your Aussie laugh the most when you when you go? I mean, it's always good really have something on paper. It makes it harder to deny that something happened. And so yes, it was very good to have these documents because if people tried to claim that they weren't true, we had them. We have to. It could be Howard Stern. Why'd you say

52:02that negatively? Howard Stern is a huge success. Was a huge success at a great program? No, he is. He just does a particular thing. I didn't realize that was your thing. I try to touch all a good podcast for me, Jonathan. Yes. Laughter, crying, anger. You know, you try to touch all the whole kind of emotional color wheel. And we've been doing that, I think. We certainly have. Yeah, we certainly have. He's really mean to be. Do you think I've been overly emotional at times in this podcast? I don't know. You don't? No, do you feel like you have? I don't know. I just I felt like you got a little. Maybe I probably got a little a little on my high horse. Okay, we're pals. This happened with Maggie too. Well, let's just to break the fourth wall. Let's just break the fourth wall for a second. I love you in Maggie. And we talk a lot. And like all of the comments in the Maggie section, I would, you know, sometimes you don't know your audience as well as you think. I thought the comments were going to be mean to her like access journalism. You do see this sometimes. Not our audience. Our audience is great. Audience was mad at me. So like, why were you so mean to Maggie?

53:02Why are you so mean to me? You're a little rude to our audience. And I was like, great. How mean Maggie should talk? Like, that's fine. That's how we show love. You know, so anyway, we're good, right? You're not. You're not. Oh, do we? We're totally good. I just worry about a little defensive. It's okay. You're doing real fucking reporting out there. The government is calling this man. The president is calling your co-author ugly and a maggot. People are trying to go out that they're targeting. You're reporting. They're targeting alleged. It's people they think are sources, I guess. Like suing them. That's a high stress environment. It's also challenge. I mean, I didn't do, I didn't go on TV for a really long time because when you're doing this type of reporting, you have to be so careful about the way you talk about anything to do with sourcing because everything we do, almost every story that involves anything to do with munitions or national security results in a leak hunt. Some of my colleagues have the FBI show up at their front door,

54:03subpoenas are going out, they're suing the, you know, all this stuff. And so you're sort of powerless. You sit there watching a public conversation about your story. You know exactly how the story came about, but you can't actually, so it's like it's sort of damned if you do damned if you don't, and you just have to like take the hit. It's like, you know, that's what you want. And it's a little different than last. I mean, then the first term, right? How is it different? Oh, unrecognizable, completely different. Just from a sourcing standpoint. Completely, completely. Because they were leaking to you and shit talking to each other. This was my, this is kind of why it's tough. And it is beyond. And this one I was trying to get to at the start, and say this is the nicest way. Like how they do business is just different. And it's like, how do you adapt to it? How do you do? And you and Maggie have adapted as well as anybody. But like, you know, when I, I would spin you guys when I was in that world for job, like I would sometimes tell you things that weren't fully true. But I would never like give you something, I would never like give you a story about Marco or whatever. And have you report it? And then go on Twitter and be like, Jonathan Swan is an ugly prick. And this is fake news, right? Like that is, like it's,

55:07it's, it's a different animal. Like the way they do business is, is different. And now it's kind of more of the first term way. And now this time, I feel like they, you know, just bully, right? I was saying, I can't remember who I said this to the first time, like kind of looks like the Eisenhower administration at this point. Yeah, it's just I can't even draw any type of comparison. So this takes me to find a question for you, which is like, I felt in the first term we kind of knew everything. I mean, there are like some secrets, but like, there was so much fighting, right? That things just like leaked out. And like eventually, and sometimes you had to kind of navigate, like what was true was not because sometimes they lied and leaks like they lie about each other, right? Like for the most part, like, shit got out. What is your sense for that this time? Like, I don't know, like the one story that comes to mind is you mentioned like the Gulf States, unlike the amount of business that Eric is doing and Jared is doing. And there's a great Dexter Philke story in the New Yorker this week, but I was reading it. I'm like, there's more than this.

56:08I just I'm reading this story and I'm just like, how much more do you think there is? I think we know very little. I think we know 5%. I think I think that it's going to take a lot of reporting and digging over probably years, not months to get to the bone. I mean, I think we just know so. Like in what area do I think in almost every area, but in particular, national security and anything to do with money making and self-dealing? I think in those two areas and also probably in the way what's going on actually going on at the DOJ and investigations that we're probably not aware of and other things like that, you know. Like I don't think when you started this administration, you wouldn't have thought that the book would be like the big excerpt would be about deliberations about the Iran War, right? I mean, that was unexpected. I mean, so like what projecting out like, do you have sense for like what the next big one would be? Well, I also didn't think that the other big excerpt would be his top team, including his attorney general sitting in the White House

57:09situation room talking about the Jeffrey Epstein Firefox and how to spin them. I have no idea what the next big story is. I still think the Iran War is right now a huge story. I personally want to do a lot more reporting on AI because I feel like there's a confluence of financial interests and and a government that is not really prepared to wrap its arms around this technology and very real concerns about national security, public safety, jobs. It's such an enormous issue and I just think I've been quite deficient in my reporting on it. So that's an area I really want to dig into. I think everybody's feeling that way right now. And especially with Trump, I mean, just like that I was saying that in the nice way, I feel deficient in it as well. The idea that Trump would end up being the biggest cheerleader for it, even in this moment is to me, there's the money there too. That ties to the money store, right? Because it's like operation warp speed and this at the operation

58:12warp speed for AI. Those are the two times that he has been the most out of step with the base, I guess, an Epstein. Yeah, COVID vaccine. Yeah, that's true. That's true. An Iran. An Iran. Although to be fair on Iran, I think it's more complicated. I think it is a part of the base that's against it. And I think that it had been like Venezuela or had been like Soleimani or had been like last year, it would have been fine. And he just got in over his head. All right, Jonathan, anything. Do you want to attack? Make fun of me. Do you have any critiques? Anything about my look that you don't like right now? I should look great. You look great. Joe, come down to visit me sometime. Can we hang out? Sure. Three children. Do you have a lot of free time for that? You do a lot of vacations. I'm always going away. Yeah, it's great. It's one big vacation is my life. Well, I loved your wife. Thanks for comparing me to Howard Stern, Hi, praise. And I'll be back to you again soon, all right? Give your wife a mega-ass squeeze for me. All right, we'll see everybody else back here tomorrow. See you. Peace. See you. Bye.

59:14I can't see you sleeping. No time to apologize for the things you do. Go into Ferrari and sing the blues. Believe that Clapton was the second comment. Fogs apart, we all got a word to do. She's leaving. She's leaving.

1:00:15The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of Lead Producer Katie Cooper, Associate Producer Anzali Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and Audio Engineering and editing by Jason Brown. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering something new every day. Start with today's special value. Then explore exciting finds across the brands and categories you love. From beauty and fashion to home, culinary and outdoor living. Shop now at QVC.com. Andy and Anna here from your new favourite podcast, no such thing as a fish.

1:01:15Yes, we are two of the four hosts of the podcast that stuffs fascinating, amazing, weird, mad facts into your ears on a weekly basis. You got any good facts, Andy? Yes, how about this one? Antietas have evolved on 12 separate occasions. Wow. Mysterious, wonderful. The world really wants them to exist. What about this one? When a Ronald Reagan left office, he left a note on the White House lawn for the squirrels warning them to be aware of George Bush's dogs. So there you go, if you like fascinating facts and much more besides, we are no such thing as a fish.