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The Daily Beast Podcast

Why Desperate Trump Is Scrambling to Save His Base

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

News

4.6 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles unpack a chaotic week inside the White House, from the Iran war’s growing political danger and fears of a midterm wipeout to the bizarre rise of “competitive Christianity” as rival factions weaponize faith for power. Wolff reveals how Trump’s erratic grip on reality is shaping the conflict abroad while aides scramble to contain fallout at home, even as tensions over Israel split his base and immigration crackdowns backfire. Meanwhile, in a surreal twist, Trump’s obsession with building a grand White House ballroom emerges as a defining fixation amid the crisis, and Wolff teases his explosive new Epstein series drawn from firsthand encounters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Everybody is beginning to say to try to find the political formula in which, you know,

0:06.8

Donald Trump and MAGA and this whole enterprise can be saved and beginning to worry that

0:13.6

there is not such a formula. Turnout is going to be the key in terms of, of any chance, and there probably is no chance at this point, of holding

0:25.6

the House. But it also may well affect the Senate, and if the Senate goes, then Donald Trump goes.

0:33.6

So the war itself, beyond the energy crisis, that sense that he has betrayed his movement is, I think, real and going to bite him in the ass.

0:50.6

Michael.

0:52.2

Once more, Joanna.

1:01.0

We have so much to get through. I want to hear about your new Epstein series.

1:09.8

We have competitive Christianity with people trying to out-compete their prayers. We've got obviously the ongoing wall. We've got Cuba. We've got the ballroom

1:13.8

to discuss, which I know you have some info on. We've got the ice mea culpa from Trump and

1:21.0

the realization this is not going to be good for them. And we have John Thune, who I'm going to

1:27.1

admit, is a bit of a new crush for me.

1:29.9

That granite drawer is so much more presidential than Donald Trump's kind of moldy hay hair.

1:37.6

And we have the Save America bill.

1:40.4

The Save America Bill.

1:41.7

Is it going to save America?

1:42.8

So where do we begin? And we should ask people to sign up if they haven't done to the podcast so that we can try and reach a million subscribers. We're almost 600,000. But our goal is a million. So if you haven't subscribed, please do. You get tons of extra content.

2:06.2

And we're going to be rolling out extra, extra benefits. A membership with benefits. I assume our goal is not just a million. What? I assume our goal is not just a million.

2:11.3

No, no, of course it's not just a million. But a million is very good on YouTube. And

2:16.1

we love our YouTube partners and all the other partners, Apple, Spotify, wherever else you get your podcast.

2:24.5

So where do you want to begin, Michael?

2:28.7

You know, I have a theory. I'm going to try out a theory here, which is, did I just see a cat?

...

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