The Secret Sign Trump's People Know He's Not Fit

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

News & Politics

4.6 • 7.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Symone Sanders Townsend joins Joanna Coles to break down the moment Donald Trump struggled to stay awake for twenty minutes in the Oval Office, and why the fact that no one around him reacted is the real story. Sanders, co-host of “The Weeknight,” on MSNBC soon to be MS NOW starting on November 15th, outlines the mystery of who’s really running the White House to the gold “Oval Office” signage, the secretive East Wing demolition, and the advisers suddenly speaking in “I” and “we,” Symone exposes a presidency drifting without leadership. In the end, Symone leaves us with the fundamental question: If Trump can fall asleep on camera and his deputies shrug, who’s actually in charge?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The president of the United States seemed to be sleep in a event in the Oval Office for about 20 minutes
0:07.6	the other day. Where are the questions about that? Who is actually in charge here? Because that can't
0:12.8	be the first time the president fell asleep. You know how I know? Because they didn't bat an eye.
0:17.3	They didn't think that. That is that is not the first time the president fell asleep.
0:25.3	So when that happens, who is making the decisions?
0:28.3	I'm Joanna Coles.
0:30.2	This is The Daily Beast podcast.
0:36.8	And my guest today has been inside more political warrooms than any of us could ever dream of. Simone Sanders Townsend worked for Bernie,
0:40.7	Biden and Carmelah, a trifecta that gives her a front row seat to the theatre, the tantrums,
0:47.2	and the tactics of American politics. She's now co-host of the weeknight on MSNBC,
0:53.5	or MS Now, as they're about to call themselves,
0:56.1	where she brings the same sharp instincts she once used behind the podium to the screen.
1:02.5	Simone, welcome.
1:04.3	We could not have a better person to discuss what the hell is going on in the Democratic Party.
1:10.1	You were national press secretary for
1:11.8	Bernie Sanders. You were a senior advisor to Joe Biden. And then you were press secretary for
1:18.1	Kamala or head of Congress. I was a senior advisor and her chief spokesperson for the vice president.
1:23.6	And I was a deputy assistant to the president. So I've seen it all. You've seen it all.
1:28.9	And we find ourselves in the most, I think, surprising moment.
1:34.2	I was not anticipating that eight Democrats would vote with the Republicans to, at least in the Senate, to move on with the shutdown, to close the shutdown.
1:45.6	I mean, we've got other Democrats calling them defectors.
1:49.3	What the hell is going on?
	...

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