This Is Why Trump’s Dark Fantasies are Crumbling

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

News

4.6 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2026

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Rothkopf and Joanna Coles dive into a week of chaos surrounding Donald Trump, from a weekend barrage of Truth Social posts and increasingly bizarre self-mythologizing to mounting questions about his health, judgment, and grip on reality. Rothkopf argues that Trump’s latest behavior reveals a president trapped by crises of his own making—from Iran and a crumbling political coalition to what he describes as a dangerous fantasy world where everyone else plays the victim. The pair also unpack the growing signs of Republican unease, the political fallout heading into the midterms, and why a larger generational reckoning may be reshaping global leadership. As the conversation builds toward a chilling conclusion about power, aging, and the risks of desperation, Rothkopf delivers one of his starkest assessments yet of the man occupying the Oval Office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You don't get cognitive tests unless the doctor thinks you've got a problem with your cognition,
0:06.0	okay? We've got that as evidence, but we've also got evidence of the behavior. You're talking
0:10.4	about 52 truth, social posts over the weekend. He is a disturbed, sick lunatic who holds the most
0:18.0	powerful job in the world and is at a stage of his existence where
0:22.6	because he's a narcissist, the only thing he cares about himself and if every single one of
0:28.4	us cease to exist, he wouldn't care because the world is him. This guy's got some dark fantasies.
0:38.2	I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast.
0:40.9	Who else do we talk to on a Monday?
0:42.9	But David Rothkoff, and what a lot.
0:45.2	We have to talk about Trump's manic posting spree over the weekend.
0:50.7	What's happening in Iran?
0:52.0	He says we're about to have a deal.
0:53.5	The Iranians are saying,
0:54.6	not so fast. No, we're not. Is he having to take his name off the Trump Kennedy Center? Yes or no.
1:01.1	The court says yes. His interior secretary says, not so fast. What's going on? So much Greg Bevino,
1:09.1	remember him running ice operations in Minneapolis, then he was
1:13.2	dispatched to California, and now he's popped up in Portugal, where he's attacking Susie
1:18.8	Wiles, Donald Trump's chief of staff, and asking for his old job back with his new boss
1:25.0	who's running the Department of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen.
1:29.6	Does it get any madder? Maybe because there's the triumphal arch going up and the reflecting
1:34.7	pool, which is reflecting nothing but the chaos of Trump's America. So press the subscription
1:42.0	button where independent media, we appreciate your support and that's how you display it for us. Thank you. And let's get straight into it with the all-knowing, the all-wise, David Rothkopf.
	...

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