Trump's Twisted Move to Distract from Epstein

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

News

4.6 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to the premiere of 'Inside Trump’s Head', a new twice-weekly deep dive from The Daily Beast into the most unpredictable, unsettling, and endlessly fascinating mind in modern politics. Host Joanna Coles teams up with best-selling Trump biographer Michael Wolff to explore what’s really driving Donald Trump. In this inaugural episode, Wolff shares exclusive White House conversations suggesting Trump may be ready to give up large parts of Ukraine in a high-stakes meeting with Vladimir Putin — all to distract from the ceaseless Jeffrey Epstein scandal threatening his grip on the MAGA base. From the hidden hand of Jared Kushner to Steve Bannon’s private doubts, from Putin’s possible kompromat to the Epstein “drumbeat” that won’t fade, Coles and Wolff go spelunking into the dark, dank cavern where all of Trump’s decisions begin. 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	Welcome to the inaugural episode of Inside Trump's Head.
0:04.2	It's a dark and strange place.
0:05.9	We're going to be spulunking there twice a week, but we have our guide, Michael Wolf,
0:10.5	to ensure we don't get so lost we can't find our way back.
0:14.1	And today we'll be focusing on Michael's exclusive conversations with people in the White
0:18.4	House who believe that on Friday, Donald Trump will get
0:21.8	ready to give away chunks of Ukraine just to move the narrative away from the Jeffrey Epstein
0:28.6	story, which is beginning to really drag on his presidency and have the MAGA base turn against him.
0:39.5	All right, I'm Joanna Coles from The Daily Beast.
0:42.3	I'm Michael Wolfe.
0:43.8	And what are we doing here?
0:45.5	We're going inside a fearful place, Donald Trump's head.
0:50.7	Donald Trump's head. And the reason we're doing it is because we know that there are
0:55.2	hundreds of journalists covering the Trump administration, and they're covering it very well.
1:00.2	But I have always... I think they're covering it poorly, but...
1:04.1	Okay, well, I want to say that because I know it's hard to cover this stuff. But the reason
1:08.8	that I love talking to you about Donald Trump
1:11.8	is because I think you have a completely different perspective and you cover it from the
1:17.1	point of him not being a politician, not behaving by the rules, and you're not lamenting
1:23.0	the fact he's not behaving by the rules. You're just leaning into who he is, which is ultimately a performer,
1:30.1	a television producer, and someone who is craving, who is desperate for attention, and will do
1:37.3	anything to get it. You know, it's also a different, and I have tried to make this case
	...

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