This Is How We Know Trump Is A Sociopath: Author

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

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4.6 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Rothkopf joins Joanna Coles to unpack a presidency stripped of empathy after Trump’s disturbing Truth Social post responding to the murder of filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife. Rothkopf, the founder of Deep State Radio and former editor of Foreign Policy magazine, argues that this moment exposes Trump’s defining pathology: an inability to respond to tragedy without cruelty, self-obsession, and grievance. From mass shootings to corruption, donors, and a cabinet quietly hedging its bets, they trace how Trump’s personal brokenness has become national policy—and ask the defining question: How long can a political system function when it’s built around one man’s pathology? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	All of this is convoluted and the corruption is connected to the closeness to our enemies,
0:07.0	is connected to Trump's lack of character, is connected to his failure to rise to critical challenges
0:15.9	like trying to end the war in Ukraine or address the problems of the United States.
0:21.9	And all of it comes back to the fact that the president of the United States is a sociopath.
0:30.4	And we don't talk about that enough.
0:35.0	I'm Joanna Coles. This is The Daily Beast podcast. And we are starting the week afresh after what feels like a terrible weekend.
0:43.3	The Bondi Beach murders, the Brown murders, and then the terrible news about Rob Reiner.
0:49.5	Who better to unpack this with than the all-talented, all-thinking, David Rothkopf, the founder of Deep State Radio,
0:58.2	a former official in the Clinton Commerce Department and the former editor of foreign policy.
1:05.7	He knows about everything.
1:08.2	And David, let's unpack what on earth is going on in the world.
1:15.1	David Rothkopf is in the house. David, it's very good to see you on what feels like a very gloomy
1:22.6	Monday morning. I'm in a fantastically bad mood. And I don't know if it's because the news over
1:27.1	the weekend was just appalling or if it's because I've had too much coffee and I'm going to have
1:31.8	some more. So by the end of the podcast, I may have exploded. Great. Well, I really look forward to
1:38.4	talking to you too, Joanna. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's such upsetting news. My son went to Brown University, so I feel, I know the campus well, and I feel particularly moved by that one. But then this morning, Donald Trump's truth social on Rob Reiner is beyond the pale. I don't know if you've seen it, but for those who haven't, perhaps I should read it.
2:03.2	Please.
2:04.0	And this is obviously, and I know you knew Rob Reiner, and I want to come on to that.
2:09.7	But this is how our president responded to the fact that Rob Reiner, one of, foremost cultural figures of the last 40 or 50 years,
2:22.3	was found murdered in his home last night, along with his wife who died in the ambulance on the
2:29.3	way to the hospital. And here's what our president said. A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood.
2:36.6	Rob Reiner are tortured and struggling,
	...

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