These Are the 10 Things that Terrify Trump Most

0:00Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Your job, your kids, where it's going. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at clod.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's clod.ai slash Spotify. Where some see heroes and others see egos, Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. A fad to some, the future of money to others. We see crypto's trillion dollar swings. The end of jobs or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds fueling the AI hype. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's premium wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer

1:02one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introverts dream. Give it a try at Mint Mobile.com slash switch. Up from payment of $45 for three month plan, $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer for three months only then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile.com. Top of his list, top of the things that plague sin is being seen as stupid for one reason because he is stupid. And I think that he probably does have some learning disability. That is one of the roots of his major insecurities. You don't think someone's been elected to president of the United States. I mean, they can be many things, but you don't think that they're an idiot. Someone who knows nothing about nothing. And that really is Trump. He's not as other president. He's not like other people.

2:03Michael. We must remind people we will be at the Tehragram Ballroom in LA October the 20th at I guess 7 p.m. Pacific time of the if you would like to come and join us and see Michael completely unplugged no holds barred unedited by Moire. He will be in full form. And you can buy tickets at B-stop pub slash ITH live. That's B-stop pub slash ITH live. Or you can go to ticket master and just tap in inside Trump's head. You're looking forward to it. I am. Good. I am also looking forward to it. And very much looking forward to meeting people. There are some meat and greets which I'm very excited about because there's nothing more fun than talking to people who've actually listened to us. Pressing the flesh. Pressing the flesh. Running for president. Oh, you are running for president. Michael wants to run. I guess

3:04this is an independent right. That's a writer. That's a writer. The first writer candidate. Well, they all go and monetize their writing afterwards with J.R. Murringo, whoever. Who co-wrote Obama's memoir? Did he write to himself? He probably did write to himself. Did he two volumes? Yeah, no, I think he did probably the any person who did. He claims to. Yes. All right. So today we have a special. They still have a lot of people around them. What's this? Well, the people they call out. I have no one around me. I write. I write. But these people have, oh, what's it get you? Can you get me the thing? And remember what I said about that? Get me that. So it's a different writing experience. Different writing experience. Fair. And don't forget, please subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast. We are going to have I hope a conversation I've really been looking forward to having for some time actually, we're really going to go deep, deep into Trump's head where we go three times a week to try and

4:08explain a president who really rules with no regard for anybody else. Is that fair? Just to remind people why we do this journey every week. No regard to anyone. Anyone else, no regard to anything that has ever been done before, no regard to what will be done in the future, no regard to literally anything. It is just one, one man who exists in his own bubble and fantasy world, which which somehow has become power world. All our world. All our world. So we were, I mean, obviously Michael and I have endless conversations when we don't have microphones in front of us. And we try and pair everything down when we do have actual podcast conversations. So we leave out the dull bits. But one conversation we've been having is about what is Trump actually afraid of? Is there anything he's afraid of? He behaves as if he's not remotely afraid of anything, including

5:09a dropping at the midterm elections. And so Michael made a list of the 10 things that he thought Donald Trump was actually afraid of? Well, and I made this this this list counter to the list that you made. And the list that Joanna made was the list of things that most people would be afraid of. Right. Including death. Including including looking. I wondered if you looked at Mitch McConnell and thought, Oh, that could be me. And and the thing that I that I try to say. Well, that I try to say, and this list and things that I try to say all of the time is that Donald Trump is not like you nor I nor anyone we know or have ever known. Yeah, you sent me back at text saying, stop trying to normalize him. Of course, he's not afraid of any of these things that I listed. Instead, you came up with a much more interesting list. And then we thought, well, we should we should do this as a

6:12special episode of the podcast because what he's afraid of. Well, it illuminates so much about him. Okay. So the first thing you say about him is, well, the first thing is that you have to let's because our printer doesn't work. So we can still doesn't work. Our printer still doesn't work. So I'm going to show it to you on my iPad. But he is I mean, I think top of his list, top of the things that that that that that plagues him is being seen as stupid. For one reason, because he is stupid. And we should say that the point of going through these fears is to understand why he is as he is because actually he's a man that's been created through his fears. And his all of his things, you know, of declaring himself a genius of declaring a very stable genius. And he declared

7:17himself a stable he's that he said that after my book, Fire and Fury came out, obviously, a kind of suggesting that he was less than a genius much, much, much less than a genius. And as a matter of fact, there was there was a moment. I was trying to think at which point this was that Steve Bannon and I were talking about about what Putin might have on Trump. And and and Bannon went through all the things dismissing them, you know, the p tapes on that if that came out that really wouldn't bother him because Trump would just say that that's not me. Even if you saw a Trump in the picture, peeing on the mattress, he would just say, not it's not me. And and or or what there there was financial stuff, financial stuff doesn't bother him. All of those kinds of things. But

8:19then Bannon got to the thing got to the point. He said, what I think Trump has on him are his college transcripts. And his college transcripts, which would be from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. And in fact, during the campaign during the 2016 campaign, there was a fear that those transcripts were going to come out. And then they came down very hard on the University of Pennsylvania and basically said, you know, we will we will we will take every action against you if those transcripts are not buried. So always that kind of thing to be revealed as as a as a person as a as a dummy and because he is a dummy because he doesn't mean he has throughout his school years, we're always a complete catastrophe. I mean his you know, and I think that he probably does have some what some learning disability, which I think is very um um you know,

9:23uncomfortable for him. I mean, he is he is that is one of the roots of his major insecurities. If you've ever landed in another country and immediately started desperately searching for airport Wi-Fi or realized you now have to figure out how to get a local SIM, there's a much easier way. It's called Saley, the E SIM solution from the security pros behind Nord VPN. You can get affordable data in more than 200 destinations and setting it up is incredibly simple. You download the Saley app, pick a plan, install the E SIM and it activates when you arrive. There are plans for pretty much every kind of traveler from a few gigabytes to unlimited data. Saley goes beyond just getting you online, it can block malicious sites, trackers and annoying ads and you can track your remaining data right from your phone. You can also earn Saley credits when you

10:25buy a plan or a fur a friend, which you can put towards future travel. Download Saley in the App Store by scanning the QR code now on screen. Use code Beaster checkout to get 15% off your first purchase. That's 15%. The details are in the podcast episode description box. Why hasn't Fordham, his first university released the transcripts? Do you think anybody's asked Fordham because he went to Fordham first and then he transferred into the undergraduate program at Walton, right? I think because he's Donald Trump, he threatens you. It's he tie up anybody in litigation. I'm sure that he has already gone and secured these transcripts at both Fordham and the University of Pennsylvania. He doesn't, we haven't seen his tax returns either. He's pretty good at this. It's incredible how we haven't seen his tax returns.

11:28We haven't seen his high school transcripts. We haven't seen either of his college transcripts. They have been so successful in locking that stuff down and you know if they were good, he would have floated them out there and meet it. Well, you know that they're not good. Right. Well, can you also tell the anecdote of the guy that when you're at the beginning of writing Fire and Fury and you're wrestling trying to understand as many people have done, what actually is going on inside Donald Trump's head? And someone says to you, oh, you don't get it. Tell that story. Okay, so one of the one of the one of the Trump Trump people, a guy named Sam Nunberg and Sam Nunberg was really one of Trump's first political hires. Sam used to work for Roger Stone and that's how he came into the into the Trump orbit. And he became really Trump's first political operative. And and then they ultimately in in

12:332016 or maybe late 2015 had a had a falling out and Sam got fired. But for many years, Sam remained the go to person people in Trump world who are trying to understand what is going on with this guy would call Sam because he was regarded as having as being the guy really inside Trump's head. And and when I was first getting into this first trying to understand and when I started to report on Trump trying to started to write Fire and Fury, I and was in the White House. And I had no no preconceptions. I actually thought well, Trump could be a very interesting president. You know, disruptor rule breaker. I mean, that turned out to have very bad consequences, but it could have had actually positive consequences. Who knew how this was going to go. But in those first months in the White House, where everybody was confused about what Trump was doing

13:34and what kind of guy he was and what was the goal here. And and I went to Sam Nunberg and I sat down with him and and I said just I and I was trying to work this out out loud. Was he good? Was it bad? Was this did he know what was I you just couldn't tell. And then Sam looked at me like I was I mean L like he was incredulous. And he said to me, he said, you don't get it. And I said, what? And then he said, Sam said, he's an idiot. And it suddenly, you know, it suddenly came clear. And you don't think someone's been elected to president of the United States. You I mean, they can be many things, but you don't think that they're an idiot, someone who knows nothing about nothing. And that really is Trump. Okay. So number two, the thing that he's afraid of, it is completely counterintuitive again

14:43for a president of the United States. Information and that that was also from from a Steve Bannon perception that he said that Trump was an information fob. And this is related to being stupid in that he can't he can't process this when people give him information. And in the early days in the in the in the White House. And again, the people in the first administration, Trump had no political contact contacts. We're only really two politicians that he that he personally knew, Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey. So he arrives in Washington and everybody who fills the White House, they don't know who he is either everybody is kind of getting getting to know each other on the job. And that's totally unusual. Remember because most people run for run for president and and over a long period of time, they have long political careers. And

15:50they're surrounded by people who have worked for them for a long period of time. I mean, even Steve Bannon, who was essentially the number, the number two or the or the in the White House had only really known Trump since the previous August. So there everybody's in the White House and they're trying to figure out this figure out this guy. And I remember one of the things and everybody is asking everybody else. And then one of the observations, they would say, but you know, he doesn't read. I mean, this is so so so difficult to get him information. You would put it into you know, you would try to give it a format bullet points or or one paragraph, but all of this, he would just he would do this gesture just kind of wave it away. So so you couldn't put something in front of him. And and then they would say, you know, so that's a that's a that's a problem. They said, but then

16:51that's compounded by the fact that he doesn't listen. So there is just no way you could get any information to him because there's lots of speculation that he can't read that he a lot of discussion was he actually illiterate. Right. Was he semi literate or could be dyslexic? Was he dyslexic? One of those things, but there was obviously a dysfunction when it came to two words on the page. Right. So and yet he does seem to be able to read from a teleprompter. Yeah. Even that you remember, often those speeches, he's always he always deviates from the teleprompter. Right. And and that that that again, it's very uncomfortable for him. I mean, in a sense in a sense, he understands he's he's he's better. He is more Trump when he's all script when he's gone off. So that's partly because he has learned to do that. So this is all a kind of a kind of way

17:55of compensating for the things that other people do rather naturally and and rather, you know, and that keeps them out of trouble. And he's in I mean, in a sense, he invites that he's come to invite that trouble as a form as a way of compensating. Right. So these are his coping mechanisms, which in a normal or in a person who's not president of the United States, wouldn't necessarily matter. I mean, it's incredibly high. I think it's something like 23% of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 have dyslexia and compensate by like Ari Emmanuel does making 300 calls a day and then having an incredible memory as opposed to having things written down everywhere. Yeah, but that's not what we mean. I mean, that can be I mean, I think that can be part of it too. But I think, you know, there's there's gradations of this. And I mean, one of the things Jeffrey Epstein used to used to point out

19:02that Trump and remember Trump, the the myth of Donald Trump is as the greatest businessman in America, he couldn't read a balance sheet. Right. Because on top of everything else, he's enumerate. This is one of the reasons numbers, you know, the numbers become, you know, you know, there are 60,000 people at a rally or 40,000 people at a rally. And that and that becomes for Trump hundreds of thousands. Because the numbers don't mean anything. I mean, he can't envision them. He can't conceptualize them. They're they're they're just it's just a random expression of a lot of people. If a genie gave me three wishes, I would use all my wishes to wish for my cats. This one is waffles to live forever. But since genies don't exist, I feed my cats smalls. Smalls is fresh human grade cat food that does so much more than just feed your cat. It helps them to live a full healthy

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21:10information. He can't absorb it. What is the? Anything that's written down. There's a terror and you can see when you give him something, when you hand him something of something written in front of them. I mean, something happens in his face. He doesn't want to see it. Right. He passed it away. Yeah. I feel a bit like that when I have to look at my bank account. Just panic, panic. Get it away from here. Get it away from here. Okay. So what's the third thing that you think is important in his in his fears, which you would think would disqualify him to be president? He doesn't want to have a conversation. He can't have a conversation. He's afraid of having a conversation. He's afraid of having a conversation. I mean, he's afraid of having a conversation because he can't actually think in the he can't respond in the moment. If you say something to him, he will he can't he can't address in a conversation, which is I say something and then you say

22:12something related to that. He can't do that. So he'll talk over you or talk parallel to you or not let you talk at all. So there is no discussion. I mean, let's let's I mean, think about this. You know, when when you're the answers come out of the sharing of information of of of of of having of parsing things with someone else who might know something of everything being being additive of people thinking out loud and having their thinking clarified against what any what someone else is saying. So this doesn't happen with Trump. Can't happen with Trump. He doesn't let it happen. It's all I mean, that's why it's all broadcasts for him. I'm talking, I'm going to continue to talk. I'm not going to give anyone the opportunity to get a word in

23:14edgewise. Why? Well, partly because I'm the dominant person. Right. I I'm I don't want to listen. Why should I listen to anyone else? But that is also compensation for the fact that I can't I can't absorb what someone else is saying. So he must be terrified of being found out the whole time that he can't really read. He can't absorb information. He can't have a regular conversation because he can't really understand what you're saying. You know, I don't I don't know. I mean, a normal person that would be that would be true. And at some level, that's true. But he is so successful at these things that that's become that everybody else is a weakling because they're because they're reading stuff or talking to people or getting good grades. And he has somehow superseded all of that transcended the need for these things. Okay. So fourth.

24:19Fourth is being excluded. I mean, he here is a guy and I used to see this in in in New York that he would always be everywhere. So, you know, fear of missing out was was top of mind for Donald Trump. He had to be he didn't exist unless he existed in every situation. So and so if they're and this is partly a status thing that any party, any gathering of people that he felt he should rightly attend, he had to be there and he would force his way in and get crashing. Yes, he was. But but where was he trying to get what what would his ideal invite be that he wasn't receiving all that he was terrified he wasn't receiving. Well, we will just think yeah, we're just yeah, but just just think in New York all of I mean, he's out every night. Right. Every night. And and so you

25:26you would you would be over the years you can begin to see that there's no why there's no there there. There's no there's no there's no inner being there because he's out of it's all external. And the fear the constant of having to overcome rejection. I mean, any possibility of rejection. I mean, I remember Jeffrey Epstein told told the story of one night they showed up at at a restaurant. This was would be in the 80s a restaurant called Mortimer's which was the you know, the the restaurant of of of that time and he was turned away and ended it and it just threw him into up, you know, panic. I'm in it was an extension. Humiliation right humiliation. So social humiliation just terrifying. But also it's not just social humiliation. It's this underst, I mean, he's a social climber. I mean, let's let's understand that. Didn't everybody in New York a social

26:28you're a social climber. I'm not a social climber. And I've seen you socially climb Michael. Well, I've seen I'm sometimes you're forced into this position of having to do this, but but I have always hated it. And and and I hope most often rejected it. But there are many people in New York I a whole layer of people who live just to do this. That is their justification in life that they can social climb. And Donald Trump is the ultimate expression of of of that. I mean, his release was social climbed his way to the presidency. Yeah. That's not bad. Yeah, but even that, you know, I mean, that's that Well, it's compensator. I think, I think, yeah, well, I think that I mean, social climbing to the presidency for Donald Trump makes that seem like it was somehow logical when in fact, it was completely illogical. But he has gone on and you know, Donald Trump has been has been

27:37kind of cast out so many times. So he's always clawing his way back. Well, it's also his rage, I think, isn't it? That what he's done is he's gal he's been galvanized by the rage of exclusion. Yeah. And I mean, he's just cockroach like too, you know, that he comes comes back. And you know, there are there are those moments, you know, there was that moment in New York, sort of the late 90s moment when when he had just become a joke. I mean, the bankruptcy is the Atlantic city, a joke. And then he clawed his way back into through reality television. Right. And even that was not something, you know, they went to many people, you know, on that on the apprentice, you know, he was not the first choice. He was down the list. And and he got himself in there. And then of course, made a, you know, just a completely unexpected

28:43success of that. Okay. So he's afraid of information of conversation of being excluded. And being alone, but but even here, this is a different a different kind of thing. I think most people are afraid of being alone. And they get a mate on, you know, they get a they get a husband or a wife or um, and then they're afraid of a friend or a friend of being trapped or a private, but he doesn't his idea of of of not being alone is just surrounded by people who just listen to him. So the Oval Office, let me get this is this is I've never seen anything. Well, I've never imagined anything could be like this. I mean, the Oval Office, we have all have an idea of the Oval Office, which is not an inaccurate idea. It's the president of the United States. You get to go in the Oval Office at at moments of of in in which in which the president is using the full

29:51weight of his office to to impress you or to um, yeah, I mean to I it's it's really a thing. I am I want you to know that I am the president. I speak in the name of this office. And so when when I was in in the White House in those first six or seven seven months, you would sort of peek into the Oval Office and it would be filled with people like a like a like a people waiting for a bus. I mean, just rows of chairs, he would be sitting behind the desk going blah, blah, blah, blah. You would about God knows what and people would be sitting there. Um, you know, sitting on the side with your little notebook out sort of writing down, we were taping things. What were were you so that you were observing but not being over observed yourself? Yeah, sometimes you would just so you would just try not to be not to be noticed. I mean, my whole

30:53thing was was for for I tried to avoid people asking, what's that guy doing here? And which which no one did because everybody assumed that if you're there, you were right. You could have reason to be that you're supposed to be there. And you could have said that for anyone else sitting in the room and there will always be 20 people in the room, 25 people in the room. What are they doing here? Who are they? And they were just the audience. And Trump would, you know, the interns, it's how Trump would say, come on, come on, sit down. And then he would go blah, blah, blah. And it would go on forever. And so that's his idea. The idea of not being alone is not to connect with someone. Right. Just to essentially have an audience. So have an audience. To have an audience is the whole thing. So the presidency is his ultimate,

31:57it's the ultimate kind of, well, it's a pulpit to the ultimate audience. Well, it just, yeah. And it's just the ultimate buffer to his loneliness is having this vast audience. You know, so when I first asked him, why do you want to be president? And this was in in the spring of 2016. And he said to be the most famous man in the world, that's really about in a sense, about not being alone. And yet at the same time, you say another of his fears is not wanting human contact. I know. I mean, this is a crazy guy. I mean, I mean, the Marlem Aples said they had the best sex ever. What am I to make of that? Well, I'm just wondering if it's what kind of contact he has? I mean, I don't know what kind of sex Marlem Aples likes. Fair, fair, fair answer. And also, we think in fact that he said that to page six or whatever,

33:02right? We have no idea if Marlem Aples said that. And in fact, for someone who is having the best sex of her life, she left him or they split up pretty quickly. And Melania clearly doesn't want to hold his hands. She may be similar that she may not want any human contact either. But the point is that he doesn't like shaking hands, right? Despite the fact that they say his hands are so bruised because he shakes so many hands. But will that be a jam of fire? That is before. Yeah, no, no. I mean, always up until I mean, I think he's had to learn how to shake hands or have to become willing to do that. But but long ago, and I remember him in New New York, when you would run into him at night at some event. And actually, when you went to any event in New York for a period in the 1990s, there would be Donald Trump. Right. But when you saw and then I would say, and you know, what you just kind of instinctively put out your hand and he never, never took your hand. What did what did you just withdrew it? Did he pat you on the arm?

34:04Did he grab your shoulder? Did he give you a hug? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, shake, butons. No, it was always that kind of there was always standoff. And you know, it's always you know, that big overcoat. Very, I mean, a very armored guy. Okay. So it doesn't like human contact. And frightened, you say of being mocked, fearful of being mocked. Yeah. I mean, he's, it's interesting because he actually has a kind of a sense of humor. So he's very good at, well, put it this way, he's very good at mocking other people. And that can be very funny. So when you're with him, he'll say things about other other people. And you'll think, oh, this guy is kind of kind of great. Until you, you realize the kind of cruelty there. And also that he's going to say terrible things about you as soon as you,

35:05as soon as you leave the room. But he is also cannot, you can't say things about him. I mean, that's why, you know, this venom to the press is really about it mocking him. It's not really about a political issue that they're, the press is opposing him. It's about being mocked. You know, and you can go back to that, to that, you know, famous 2011 White House correspondence dinner when, which some people say is the, you know, is a motivation for his presidential ambitions because Obama from the stage mocked him. Well, they actually showed a mocked white, a mocked up version of the White House with Trump on the top of it, didn't they? I mean, the most sort of weirdly pressient mockery you could have imagined. Yeah, no, I mean, this is a thing he can't, he is incredibly thin skinned. I mean, he'd obviously actually been thinking of running for president

36:08way before then. I mean, Ivana in her memoir talks about telling the checkers of Ackim police when she was being debriefed that she'd married Donald Trump that he had political ambitions. But it certainly feels like the Obama mockery. I think that's, I actually think that's part of the thing. I think that's bullshit. I don't think I think saying president is like me saying, and anyone saying they're going to be president. I mean, I mean, this is just part of the performance of, of me, me, me. I'm going to put my name on a building, but the idea of him becoming, becoming president was, I don't think ever actually in his mind until the moment he became president, it was a performative up until that point. It was, I'm going to, you know, this is a way to get more famous. And then suddenly he's president. I mean, this is one of the, you know, that historic

37:08a turn in history, a breach in history that I think years and years from now people will go back to this is something that should not have happened. Right. Well, for sure. Okay. Another point that you say is related to his older brother who died of. Oh, I think it's related to, I don't think it's related to just his older brother. I think his father was an alcoholic and I think his mother was an alcoholic. I think the whole everybody in the family was an alcoholic. So in that is a thing. That's a kind of a major thing. I cannot have a drink. It's not just I don't drink. I can't have a drink. Right. So it's that away from me. Right. And Susie Wiles famously said in an interview, something which you say Donald Trump says about himself, which is that he's got an alcoholic's personality. He says this all the time. I mean, that, that becomes a kind of weird excuse while I have an alcoholics personality, but I don't drink. Therefore, I can't be blamed for

38:11anything here. And then I've, and though I've also been around him trying to get a drink. And it's very hard. Apart from the diet coke. Yeah. I mean, I've been at, you know, had dinner at Marilago with Trump and Melania and they say, would you like a drink? Yeah. And then it never comes. Does Melania drink? I can't tell. I don't know. Should have observed that. Yeah. That will be interesting to know if she, she doesn't look as if she drinks particularly, but who knows? This idea of him not being, of being forgotten, of not being included. And one of the first things. So I kind of got to know Donald Trump, the extent that one can know Donald Trump. When I was at New York Magazine and I wrote the media columns. So somehow he connected me, media, and would call me up. And it was all about, I mean, most people when they called you said,

39:20oh, you wrote this about me and that was wrong. And you know, blah, blah. He would call up and say, why didn't you write about me? Right. Because he wants to be the center of attention. Right. So you wrote this article, which, which as I recall in many instances had nothing to do with Donald Trump. You should have called me. I could have told you whatever. And, and then you would say, yeah, yeah, I'll call you again the next time. And then, and then you would get a call from some, someone else in his, in his office and says, and they would say, uh, uh, Mr. Trump says you want to interview him. And you would say no. I know. No, you know, I said, sometime I'll, oh, yeah. And then they would say, yeah, I wish you would. Um, so it's always that kind of, that kind of thing. And then famously, of course, he, he, he invented a, his own PR person who was him. John Baron. Yes. Right. Um, and in the White House, they still, they joke about that when there's a leak.

40:24And everybody says, where did that come from? They say, probably John Baron. John Baron, I, the president himself. So is his, do you think his, his biggest fear is just not having attention? Like what's going to happen to him? We know when he lost the 2020 election, he went back to Mara Laga, he regroups. What happens when he leaves the White House knowing he can't come back? Well, he's never going to leave. I mean, he's never going to leave in that way. I mean, I, well, you said you're going to go to Mara Laga. Is going to happen? Yeah, I can do this. Actually, this is completely clear to me. Um, I mean, a Democrat will win. He will not let a Republican win in 2028. He will return to Mara Laga with billions of dollars that he's extorted from, from corporate America, with which to set up a alternative White House. I mean, so there will be

41:25and we will have the feeling often that there are two presidents or two competing, two competing centers of attention in the United States. But is his fear that he will at some point not be the most famous person in the room, not be the most powerful person in the room? No, because he's good at this. He will continue to do this. He will do this. You know, he's, he knows how to do this. Nobody else knows how to do this, like he does. Why is he Donald Trump now? Because every day, there's new conflict. Every day, there's, there's, there's, there's new drama. Um, every day, Trump is at the center of some other story. Now, um, he will have a democratic president to compete with. But, you know, an ordinary competing with normal people. Let's assume the next president, the next democratic president is at least a semi normal person, a person who sees their job as essentially and ultimately an administrative and bureaucratic

42:31function and, um, and trying to maintain some, some idea of respectability and some idea of, of what the presidency traditionally represents. Um, and they, and they will then be encountered to that will be this guy who's making a commotion every day, um, issuing statements, issuing insults, um, um, and who is much more interesting, much more, at least much more eye catching. Right. You can't take your eyes off of him. He's the train wreck that everybody stops to rub a neck out when you're going along the honey and he recognizes that attention is dominance. So he's afraid of losing attention? He would, I, I think he would, he would die without it. Yes. I mean, he's afraid also of not being a winner. Um, so he can never be a, he can never be a loser

43:36because that he would not exist then. And to be a winner is to be the dominant, the dominant personality, the dominant voice. I mean, the person who, you know, and he will, he will create a situation that the Republican Party is, is, um, is, remains beholden to him. So is he just circling back to the first thing that I assumed he was afraid of death? Is he afraid of death because he will cease to, well, he'll cease to be, obviously. I mean, he's actually afraid of death. Oh, I don't think he, I don't, I don't think I just won't be around. I think you know, you know, to, you know, to be afraid of death, you have to have some level of self-awareness and he's gave, gave that up a long time ago. As I said, he's an empty person inside. It's all external. It's all exterior. Um, so does he, does he think about death? Does he think about tomorrow? Does he think about anything other than what he's thinking about right at this

44:40moment? Um, does he think about anything other than his, then the attention he is getting at this very moment? No. He's not as other presidents. He's not as other presidents. He's not like other people. Right. Right. I mean, there is something so phenomenally broken here. And that's a whole other discussion. How this happened? The alcoholic parents, the, um, you know, the, the cruelty. I, uh, well, I'm sure all of all of that, um, I was just watching that Lizzie Borton show on Netflix. You know, I actually had to stop watching it because it's a terrible, um, you know, it's just, obviously she was going to kill her parents. Um, but I think I, when I was watching, I thought Donald Trump probably had his, some, some, just a terrible, terrible, um, you know, when he grew up, it was probably terrible. The terrible, horrible father, horrible mother. And anyway, here he is now,

45:46horrible Donald Trump. Well, I, I found that one of our most interesting conversations to get to his, his fears. Well, we'll be back on Tuesday with more inside Trump's head. What are your thoughts on that conversation? What are you afraid of? Possibly Donald Trump remaining in power? Um, what are you afraid of? I'm afraid of everything. You name it. I'm afraid of it. It's not true. It is true. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast, wherever you get your podcast and a big shout out to our production team, Ran Murray, John Romero, Rachel Pasaheadepassaro, and Neil Rosenhouse. So the good news is we have so many bee-beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support. LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot stop your new clients from emailing you at 3 a.m. We can help you sell, market, and hire in one place. We cannot

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