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The Daily Beast Podcast

Trump Aides Are Secretly Prepping for His Downfall

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

News & Politics

4.6 • 7.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to tackle the question Washington won’t confront: what happens when a president’s cognitive decline is visible but systematically rationalized by those around him. Wolff describes how Trump’s inner circle shields alarming behavior as “Trump being Trump,” even as voters recognize familiar warning signs from their own families. He also explains the significance of Susie Wiles’ long-standing relationship with Marco Rubio, and why her influence still shows in his disciplined, professional posture as Trump spirals. As Trump’s grandiosity accelerates—from galloping speeches to branding national institutions—Coles asks why no one is willing to take the keys away, and what that silence means for the country.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Marjorie Taylor Green, the Congresswoman from Georgia, warned that more women were going to leave Congress.

0:06.3

Is this going to be a stampede because they're all thinking, I'm not going to get any further under Donald Trump's party.

0:14.6

The people who are squabbling for the future of Maga are very unappealing.

0:19.4

And there is money to be made. Look at Tucker Carlson.

0:23.5

Look at the women on the view. Maybe I can go to Fox News.

0:27.6

It's also this thing that happens with anyone in a relationship with Donald Trump.

0:33.0

It all comes a cropper. A hundred percent of the time time no one comes out of a relationship with

0:39.3

Donald Trump and saying great that great guy Joanna Michael you've changed you've

0:49.7

changed our order we like to change it up Michael, chronicler of four books on Donald Trump,

0:56.6

two books on Rupert Murdoch, and an assortment of other books. And I think this is episode 50,

1:03.4

possibly, of inside Trump's head. Why don't you remind people why we started it? You know,

1:10.1

I don't like the way the media covers Trump.

1:12.9

I think it's always been off. It's off because it treats him as political reporters treat all presidents,

1:24.4

that he is a politician. His issue is politics. He comes out of politics. Politics is the

1:31.8

process of cause and effect. And that's the way they approach Donald Trump. Even though for all

1:38.8

of them, this has turned out to be unsuccessful. And I think they would largely agree that it's unsuccessful.

1:47.6

Or that it certainly does not explain Donald Trump.

1:50.9

And I think the issue is that they look from the outside instead of trying to see this from the inside,

1:59.5

trying to see this utterly the inside, trying to see this from this utterly unique person who has, for

2:05.2

reasons, inexplicable reasons, become the President of the United States. It is a government

2:12.7

of one, a government which entirely depends on what Trump is thinking or feeling when he gets up

2:22.1

in the morning.

...

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